Sainte-Catherine and Guy

The bus is late. We're at Sainte-Cath and Guy with the wind coming off the concourse, which is its own weather system, and it smells like bus exhaust and the rain that hasn't started.

He has his hands in his pockets and he's looking at a point past the light at Guy. He's been looking at it four minutes.

I could say something about the bus. That's the available move — everyone knows it, everyone's allowed it. Complaining about the 165 is a public utility.

I don't.

He shifts his weight right to left. Adjusts the strap on his bag. Takes the phone out and puts it back without unlocking it.

The thing is I have an apparatus for this. I spend my days inside other people's arguments, taking them apart, finding the seam. I cannot produce one sentence at a bus stop.

Headlights come around the corner. He gets on ahead of me and takes a seat and I take one four rows back and neither of us looks up.

He gets off at Atwater. He doesn't nod.

I ride two stops past mine.