a transaction

Tuesday night on the 16 bus home, the long way to enjoy the view of everyone out enjoying the sunset. In the back are me and a few others, including an older white man, jolly stature and complexion, white hair and a trimmed beard, talking it up--incredibly, from my POV--with a young Black woman, two Afro puffs off her head, glasses, dark skin, dressed scantily in a tied shirt baring a huge midriff and high-cut shorts.

They're both from Florida, they learn. He regales her with tales of seeing Redd Foxx perform. She has a bright laugh; they're enjoying themselves. Almost a bit too much, it seems. And then suddenly he gets heavy with nostalgia and loneliness, and says, "You know, it's been years since I've been with a woman."

My jaw invisibly drops at this. I expect the conversation to end. But she says,

"Well, I think I can take care of that for you." Jaw drops further.

"Oh, yeah?" He's not ruffled; he's intrigued and enjoying this.

"Yeah, but it'll cost you," she says, equally unruffled and enjoying this.

At this point, everyone within earshot of this conversation perks up. My eyes remain riveted on the outside scenery but my arm muscles tense. We know, those of us who are listening, that whatever we were doing previously or thinking about, and whether it's our business or not, we will be a party to this transaction and we will not be able to focus on anything else.

She discusses prices. He says he doesn't really have the money on him, and she says, "Don't you worry, just call me and we'll work it out the first time around. You got a pen?" He says he's off line. She writes down her number and says, "You can call me any time" in a voice sumptuous enough to knock me over. He asks for her name; he finds out it's Peaches. He likes the name. He asks if she's dating anyone; she isn't and hasn't for a while. "I only date older guys"--as she says this the young men nearby visibly drop their shoulders--"because people my age or younger, they're less responsible." She doesn't mind being single, although there are some things she does miss. "Like what?" "Cock." A man wearing earbuds stands up and finds a seat closer to the front of the bus. The rest of us pretend we're not listening. "I miss sucking cock. I really enjoy it." "Yeah? What else do you miss?" She tells him. He muses about how good she must be; she echoes his assumptions. He describes when he was younger and in his free love days; "I was a real hippie, I have miles of ponytails I've saved back home." She asks about drugs. "There's this one kind of marijuana called salbia (sp?), the Mexicans call it the 'lunchtime trip.'" They both laugh. They're enjoying themselves. They know what they're doing.

As I depart the bus I remove my right hand from the left crook of my elbow where it was resting and I notice the white imprint of three fingertips on my skin. I do not understand my tension. Just someone doing their job; a sex worker adding to her clientele. And it occurs to me as I walk home is how afraid I was for her, for him; how that fear transformed into dread and shame and confusion; how I held to an expectation that this is work constantly under threat of violence, and yet what I remember most, what I still remember, is the bright, easy laughter as they arrived at a deal.