Elvis Presley’s naval

This guy with a cowboy hat and connect the dot overly dramatic freckles asked me where the nearest bus stop was and I told him, "Half past Elvis Presley's naval," and not too surprisingly he knew exactly where to go without further ado. When you live in or visit an artsy-fartsy town like mine, mostly every Joe Schmo bopping down any alternate side of the block knows the legal and illegal graffiti better than a street sign spelled Main, or Banks, or Riverdale.

"Going my way?" Seemed quite unnecessary to say for this guy as much as it did for me, because he ran from me at the "l" in naval like I stunk or had the plague. Anyway, I am not in the habit of making friends on my way to work, nor on the way home, and also between the hours of 12:00 o'clock p.m to 11:59 a.m. if you catch my drift. Who needs friends when you've got a paintbrush, a canvas and an eye?

The bus driver, Hank, (and I only know his name because he has a sign on his windshield visor that says "Hi. I'm Hank") knows me better than I know him because he's the type of guy that loves what he does; a people person, it's obvious, because it shows in his crow's feet and loose limbs and the way he never fails to personably greet every Tom, Dick and Jane. He doesn't know my real name but that didn't stop him from gratuitously assigning me one. He calls me Michelangelo. And he sorta sings it when he addresses me, Pavarotti style and I sorta like it, like I like potato chips. Michelangelo. Not to be confused with Ninja Turtle Michelangelo, as in the High Renaissance Michelangelo, at least that's what I assume he believes by the way he eyes the paint stains under my fingers when I pay for my fare.

But on this particular day Hank looked at me fearfully when I went to pay my fare and he didn't bellow my name operatically, but rather cleared his throat in the same way my grandmother would at the dinner table when my father had too much to drink, and tilted his head back and to the side as if to warn me of something supernatural, something evil, and it was when I looked away from him towards my seat that I knew. Joe Schmo was sitting in my seat, and everyone that rides the "B" picked up at my stop knows, especially Hank, that the window seat, second row on the left belongs to Michelangelo.

"I tried to tell him and he didn't listen," said Hank so low that I thought perhaps he had laryngitis.

Like white on rice I converged on this asshole also named Whodoeshethinkheis with my fists in the air and one knee up making me wonder for a split second in the midst of my rage if Hank had meant the other Michelangelo all along.

Apparently, Whodoeshethinkheis a.k.a. Joe Schmo was groovin' intently to whatever the hell he was listening to on his earbuds and lucky for him he must have seen me approaching out of his peripheral just before he got clocked in the kisser with my right Doc Marten by ducking and then jumping up firmly, erected, coinfidentantly and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up your friggin horses buddy! What's your problem? Where I come from bus drivers don't hold seats for people. If this damn seat means so much to you, then take it damn it!"

And he gallantly pushed past me, animated, looking like a badass cowboy in a black and white Spaghetti Western.

And I took it. My seat. And I sat, instantly forgetting I had ever laid eyes upon Joe Schmo, and even Hank for that matter, adjusting my butt cheeks comfortably right where they belong against the grain of the worn pleather, just in time to see Elvis' naval fading from my view.