The air was cool and crisp. The sun had not yet risen from the horizon. Like every morning for the last two years, Albert Campbell sat at the bus stop. The first bus would not arrive for several hours, and Albert would not get on.
Albert woke before sunrise each day, showered for exactly seven minutes, shaved, and dressed in his only navy blue suit. He had a different tie for each weekday. On Monday, he wore the pre-tied blue silk one with dark blue polka dots. He looked like someone important.
Each day, Albert walked briskly to the bus stop. Slightly portly, he considered this his daily exercise. He sat on the bench with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap. He preferred the tranquility of the bus stop at this hour, before hordes of people oblivious of others crowded around him. The bench bore carvings of the initials of couples whose frivolous and naïve relationships, Albert assumed, had long ended. Chewed gum covered the underside of the bench. Spray-painted designs and gang symbols littered the Plexiglas sides of the bus stop. Though it had a roof, the front was open. When it was windy and rainy, Albert got wet. It rained a lot.
The trees in the large, green park behind Albert shaded the bus stop and curbed the chaos of the city. A stark office building loomed across the street. Tall and harsh, it battled the treed oasis and defeated the city’s character. In a few hours, serious people in business suits would file into their offices. A forest of tall apartment buildings was adjacent. Albert’s apartment was near the edge.
Albert Campbell waited all day. Ants crawled through the cracks in the sidewalk. Elderly couples helped each other amble across the street. Executives passed in a rush as they talked on their cellphones. The traffic stopped and went. Albert watched and he waited. He did not go to work, or to the grocery store, or the cafe down the street. Albert never got on the bus even though he sat through thirty stops a day. He waited with intense focus.
At home, Albert only had to endure the Sunday visits from the grocery man. After he heard the doorbell, Albert smoothed the small tuft of tangled hair on the back of his head, and put on his white terry cloth robe. He had tucked away his navy suit the night before. It was one of few articles on the right side of the closet. Pencil skirts, flowery tops, and shoe boxes packed the other half. The closet door had come loose from its track, resisting to slide away from her belongings. After many years of nuisance, Albert still hadn’t fixed it. Last week’s button down shirts and white briefs lay wrinkled on the floor. One of his shoes sat on a pile of dirty clothes, while the other, was upside down, several feet away. Groggy, he stumbled over the mess to answer the front door.
“Frozen pizza and hot dogs, just as you ordered,” the kid said as he rolled his eyes. The zit-faced grocer wore the same smirk every week as he peered over Albert’s shoulder. Trash concentrated around a leather love seat, where a pillow, blanket, and old laptop paused on Roman Holiday sat waiting for Albert to return. The boy handed Albert several bags, clicking his tongue and tapping his foot. Albert never looked him in the eye. He was lucky to get a tip at all.
Albert removed the Hot Pockets, and placed the paper bags in the refrigerator without unloading them. The microwave hummed as it heated his packaged dinner. Albert sat on the couch and stared at the pictures that decorated a once homey apartment. A woman with long brown hair beamed as Albert knelt, his hands shaking with a silver ring. They shared a perfect picnic in the park, complete with wine, sharp cheddar, and summer sausage lying across a floral blanket. Albert and the woman danced in the rain, her dress flaring as he spun her. They stood before their store, waving their first dollar earned. The room was dark and the microwave continued to hum. There was a stubborn smoke odor that Albert tried to ignore. He was alone.
He closed his eyes and remembered how excited she was when the bank approved a loan allowing them to open the bookstore. They had grand plans of a story time every afternoon, and live concerts on Saturday nights. She would order the books and help customers find what they wanted, and he would manage the finances.
“This is a dream come true.” She beamed as her blue eyes filled with tears. She wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder, if for no other reason than to hide her silly tears, but he knew she couldn’t contain herself. He held her tight. He felt strong and proud.
The microwave beeped, and he turned from their distant smiling faces.
At the often-crowded bus stop, people kept their distance from Albert. No one ever spoke to him, and certainly, no one looked in Albert’s direction. Albert watched them, frowning. He studied each person, noticing the slightest changes. He knew when each person should arrive, what bus they took, and when they would return. He knew when they were late and when they tried a different route. He could tell where they were going by what they wore. He knew the regulars and those who used the bus infrequently. People were habitual. It was rare for anyone to deviate from routine, even rarer for someone new to appear.
On this Monday morning, eleven people wore wedding rings. Albert admired them all: the sparkling diamonds and the tattered silver bands. Staring at a middle-aged businessman’s gold ring, Albert felt his own. The man waited, he was tall, wore a trendy suit, and held a leather briefcase. He looked successful, important. He had somewhere to be. His ring shimmered. Albert thought that perhaps he should start bringing a leather briefcase to the bus stop. Perhaps then, she would return to him.
A tall, skinny woman approached him. She had never taken the bus before, but Albert knew her. He would not look her in the eye and he tried to ignore the smell of smoke that lingered in her hair. She looked at her watch and forced a smile at the other people waiting.
“Do you have a light?” She wore stiletto heels, a tight pencil skirt, a low cut blouse, and an unbuttoned red wool coat. She held a Dunhill between her long, slender fingers, and her large diamond sparkled.
“I…uh…the first bus doesn’t come for another half hour.”
“I take that as a ‘No,’” the woman said as she sat next to Albert. She crossed her legs and pulled a stick of gum from her purse. A cold wind blew her long, dark hair from her face. “Why are you here so early?”
“I…I’ve been here since five.”
She had thin red lips with wrinkles all around. Albert did not like her. The woman bounced her foot.
She looked at him, her brow furrowed, and after some time, with a stiffness that could only be attributed to the cold weather and her tight clothes, the woman left. Her hips swayed back and forth as she walked away.
The next day, Albert wore a red and white striped tie. His wife had once told him red silk made him look rich and important. For breakfast, he microwaved a couple frozen hot dogs and ate them plain before taking his daily walk. He was eager to get to the bus stop, each day there was something to watch, and before dawn every Tuesday, a light shone on the third floor of the almost vacant office building. It was strange for someone to be up as early as he was. Maybe he was trying to impress the boss, get a big promotion, maybe he wanted to clock overtime hours, or maybe he had nowhere else to go. Albert watched him through the window, sitting alone at his desk. Albert sat tall with his hands folded in his lap, three hours before the first bus would pick up the first load of commuters.
The woman appeared again. She wore a pair of polka dot stilettos, a nice pair of trousers, a low-cut blouse, and her red coat. She sat next to Albert, crossed her legs, and held out her cigarette.
“Do you have a light?” She said with a challenging smile.
He examined her French-manicured fingernails with disgust; their yellow tinge bled through the shiny polish. Unbridled spontaneity hit him—he grabbed the cigarette from her slender fingers and crushed it between his own. Bits of tobacco fell through his hand onto the moist pavement. The cigarette paper slowly changed color as water saturated it.
“Why are you always here?” She asked.
“I’m waiting,” he mumbled.
“She’s gone, Albert.”
He glared at her, and wrinkled his forehead.
“I’m still pissed at you for abandoning us.” She balanced her unlit cigarette between her fingers and studied the clouds. “We needed you. This has been hard on all of us.”
A man checked his watch. It was large and silver with a flawless leather band. He wore it only once a week, and Albert prefered this watch to his others, which were more ostentatious.
The woman cleared her throat. “I’m leaving my husband. He’s a real asshole,” she said. “I think all this time, I’ve been waiting for him to change. I just can’t imagine being alone.”
The bus stop was crowded and Albert felt buried in a mass of people. Like a school of fish, they moved to let a man in a tight shirt jog pass them, his beads of sweat mingled with the rain droplets on his forehead. She would step off the next bus, and everything would be okay.
The woman remained on the bench for another hour and a half with her legs crossed and her lips pursed. The bus came and went. A pair of dog walkers laughed in the park as their dogs tugged on their leashes. The woman watched Albert until she left without a word.
After the city grew dark, and the last bus dropped off a small group of people, Albert held his head in his hands for a brief moment, and then ran his fingers through his thin hair. She did not come today. He walked home, and just as it was in the morning, the city was quiet.
The next morning, Albert microwaved a personal pepperoni pizza. The molten cheese burned the roof of his mouth. Outside, the rain pounded the streets and the wind howled. Albert wore a solid green tie and a wool suit that did not shield the weather well. He was cold but did not let it show. He walked to the bus stop in the same manner as the executives, with sorrowful purpose. The moon was large and its brightness bled through the clouds. The bench was soggy, yet Albert sat without hesitation, his back straight, and hands folded in his lap. The city streets and the park were still empty. Albert turned and watched the wind blow the leaves off the trees. There was always something to see.
The woman came back again. Today she had a newspaper, which she folded and placed on the bench before sitting upon it. She reached into her purse, pulled out a lighter, and lit her cigarette. She took a puff with immense satisfaction, and then blew it in Albert’s face.
“That’s bad for you.” He coughed.
“There are a lot of things that are bad for me.” She continued to blow smoke in his face.
“No smoking at this bus stop.” Albert started to fidget. He admired her red suede stilettos.
“I still can’t believe she’s gone. She would have told me what to do about my dick husband.” She ashed her cigarette. “Everything would have been okay.”
The cars became more frequent and office lights flickered on. A leaf collected rainwater like a basin. A sea of black umbrellas flooded into the building. People accumulated at the bus stop, though no one sat down, and no one looked at him or the woman.
“Fuck. It’s still like it happened yesterday.” She bounced her foot as she sat with her legs crossed. She pursed her lips and blew smoke in Albert’s face again.
Albert shuffled his feet and coughed. The light on the third floor remained on.
“I never liked you. She could have done much better. She could have married one of those wealthy executives like I did, but she insisted you were something special,” said the woman. “If only she knew you wouldn’t even go to her funeral. But what do I know--my husband’s racking up the overtime with his sexy new secretary.”
It began to rain harder, and the woman shielded her face from the wet wind with her hand. “I’ve seen you out here. I figured you’d lost it. Good riddance I said.” She paused and said, “But my husband wouldn’t even notice if I was gone. He’d never go crazy for me. He’d celebrate.”
Albert looked at her for a moment. He bit his lip and focused on the sharp pain as it overwhelmed his thoughts.
“I don’t think I ever knew what it was to be lonely,” she said.
She placed her hand on his leg, her bony fingers the only physical contact he’d had in several years. His leg felt numb and he tasted iron from the self-inflicted wound in his mouth, and told himself to take deep breaths. He covered her hand with his and a tear escaped from his eye.
He looked into the woman’s blue eyes and remembered her laughing with his wife. Two sisters, their legs crossed, a flute of champagne. The sister’s smoke leaving a smelly haze in the living room. He smiled and closed his eyes. He saw the sister’s sadness for the first time. Albert coughed as the smoke penetrated his lungs and knew that she wasn’t coming back.
“Albert?” His sister-in-law said. Albert’s face cringed and and his hand held hers tight. His breath was fast and labored, and a painful golf ball grew in his throat. The woman shook him.
She held him as he tried to slow his breath. “Can I keep you company here for a while?”
The woman tossed her cigarette to the ground and she held Albert’s hand. Her cigarette rested on the wet pavement, a gentle string of smoke climbing upward, curling and dissipating into nothing.