You see me, I don't see you 1.1

Late tonight, in my neighborhood Safeway, a friendly guy in front of me had only one item, a large bottle of beer. I only had a half dozen items myself, principally a new spotlight for my back porch that will hopefully light up the backyard for my daughter's engagement party this coming Friday night.

We were behind several slow-moving groups of people, which is a pretty good indicator that they were poor. (Middle-class people like him and me want to move through these lines as fast as we can, because we're quite sure we have somewhere better to be, and we might well be right. It's quite possible that standing in line at Safeway in an inner-city neighborhood is as good as it gets, (sorry Jack Nicholson, and sorry, therapy waiting rooms); but it's equally likely that it is not.

Anyway, my impatient stranger, a line inhabitant like me, no doubt somebody I'll never meet again, was a younger, handsome, African-American man with an appealing smile and a habit of talking out loud, sort of to himself and (since I was responsive) also to me. He said he was just off work, after another long day on what must be an afternoon shift somewhere, and he couldn't wait to buy his beer, get home, and "chill."

The problem was that he started expressing his frustration that the Asian man running the cash register, who is also one of the store managers, was moving too slowly for his taste. I noticed the Asian man look sharply in our direction, taking the two of us in -- a black man and a white man, both apparently successful in their ways, both impatient to get through his line and out of that place to wherever we were going with the things we were buying there.

When the black man in front of me reached his turn at the front of the line, the Asian man let him have it. "You think it is easy to be here at the end of eight hours, never having even a break? Of course I move slower now." His eyes flashed with anger; he was twice as old and probably half the size of the black customer he was confronting.

I noted to myself, "This is not a very good way for a store manager to treat a customer." But I dropped my eyes in embarrassment -- for all concerned.

To his credit, the black guy kept his cool, said nothing, paid for his beer, and left.

As he rang up my order, the Asian man asked, "How are you, Mister Wei?" (Many Chinese people drop the "r" from my last name and pronounce it in the form of a common Chinese name, Wei.

"I'm fine," I assured him. "But I hope you get a good rest." As I exited, I heard him explaining his earlier outburst to the next customer in line: "That guy, he comes in here every night and he only buys beer!"

***

Earlier this evening, I had a lovely dinner with a new friend who is a visiting journalist. I asked her to explain her interviewing style. She said, "I am very shy. So I try to ask general questions and keep them very short. And then I listen carefully to the answers."

So, I asked her to interview me. Her questions were indeed short and direct. And they triggered responses from me that were long, rambling and revealing.

I felt like she could see me.

The best journalists are often shy, curious, and persistent.

***

The familiar chill returned to San Francisco tonight, as the fog settled softly over our beautiful city at sunset. But the wind was gentle; my companion after dark simply tucked her hands up into the arms of her sweater to stay warm (see earlier posts about women's extremities), and didn't need my arm around her this time to ward off the cold.

But, back home in the Mission, I've reopened the windows, started the fans, put ice in my glass, and pondered what it may mean that I now seem to live in a place with a strangely hot summer climate. It ain't the tropics, but I'll take it just the same.