King County Metro, by Geffrey Davis In Seattle, in 1982, my mother beholds this man boarding the bus, the one she’s already turning into my father. His style (if you can call it that): disarming disregard—a loud Hawaiian-print shirt and knee-high tube socks that reach up the deep tone of his legs, toward the dizzying orange of running shorts. Outside, the gray city blocks lurch past wet windows, as he starts his shy sway down the aisle. Months will pass before he shatters his ankle during a Navy drill, the service discharging him back into the everyday teeth of the world. Two of four kids will arrive before he meets the friend who teaches him the art of rooing and, soon after, the crack pipe— the attention it takes to manage either without destroying the hands. The air brakes gasp as he approaches my mother’s row, each failed rehab and jail sentence still decades off in the distance. So much waits in the fabulous folds of tomorrow. And my mother, who will take twenty years to burn out her love for him, hesitates a moment before making room beside her—the striking brown face, poised above her head, smiling. My mother will blame all that happens, both good and bad, on this smile, which glows now, ready to consume half of everything it gives. Share this:EmailPrintFacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrRedditPocketLike this:Like Loading...