The friendly skies

I just got back from a trip home to the east coast and was struck by how much of a difference it makes to be surrounded by talkative people. Case in point: on my way to the airport, I was sitting on Air BART (the bus that takes you from the train to the airport) and an older woman sat down next to me. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that she then started trying to chat me up. "So, where are you headed?" she asked, clutching her purse to her lap. I told her New  York and feigned intense interest in the Oakland Coliseum, but she would not be dissuaded. "Oh, New York City," she said. "I'm from Reno." She then launched into a discussion of her career as a lower school librarian in Reno, her love of David McCullough, and her interest in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. She actually was quite sweet and by the end I was encouraging her to come visit New York ("You'd love it -- it's fun to just people watch") -- but still, I didn't really understand the whole small-talk-on-the-Air-BART phenomenon. Who does that? 

Then on the plane itself I was seated next to an older woman and a young teenage guy in a sleeveless shirt. the woman couldn't figure out how to use the television/air vents/seatbelt, etc, and the young man -- whose name I quickly surmised was Frankie Jr -- helped her. The two of them bantered the entire plane ride, him adjusting her air conditioning, her offering him handfuls of her Doritos Munchie Mix that she had kept from the previous plane ride ("Take some!" she said, grabbing his hand. "Take more! You need to eat!"). During the landing, he and I both got pieces of gum; she kept referring to him as her buddy, and was thrilled to discover that he was the legacy of a famous bakery in New York, apparently known for its fantastic selection of Black and White cookies. 

Fast forward to the cab line outside JFK. I was standing there, thinking about all these friendly chatty people I had just interacted with, when I noticed a man standing behind me. Six-foot-five, built like a bouncer, he was talking loudly with someone on a cell phone. On his chest dangled two necklaces: one was a rhinestone-crusted "R," the other held two skeletons, one silver, one gold. His belt buckle was a gigantic, three-dimensional skull, about the size of a lemon, also encrusted in rhinestones and glittering as he moved forward in line. To top it off, he had a foot-long scar running down his forearm that was covered up in part by a large red tattoo that said "death." I took all this in, realized that the man could probably crush my skull with his bare hands (and then turn it into an ornamental belt buckle) -- and yet was so inspired by the experience with Frankie Junior that I barely stopped myself from asking him what the R stood for. Luckily, he was busy complaining about a guy in a wheelchair who had just been rolled to the front of the line ("What the fuck is up with that? ") and so I refrained. Next time.