Crack
Erin Douglass
This evening on the ride home from work, a guy with a ruddy complexion and a mess of white hair boarded at Vermont.
This guy wasn't just red-faced. He was bright pink, like salmon. Next to his white hair, light-gray shirt and white jeans, he looked even pinker than he probably was.
After lowering himself onto a front, side bench, he leaned a cane that he'd been using against his legs. Then he disappeared from view behind the line of standing passengers on our suddenly crowded bus.
Stops blurred by. I tried to play Scrabble on my Palm Pilot, but I got too tired and had to put it away.
Someone pulled the stop cord. I looked up and watched as the salmon man struggled to his feet. When he'd found his balance, he turned to face the front, giving me and the rest of the bus's back 40 the view of a lifetime — or at least of the evening.
A good inch and a half of butt crack poked from the top of his jeans.
I don't know how these jeans were able to sag. He wore a belt cinched so tight that the flesh above pillowed out like a cupcake over its wrapper.
But by whatever fluke of physics, there he was with sagging jeans and there we were with gaping view.
The amazing thing about such exposure is the cluelessness of the exposer. Doesn't one feel a draft? Wonder at the jacaranda bloom or tire iron that may have suddenly fallen into yonder crevice?
The bus bumped to a stop and the man picked his way down the steps. Once on the sidewalk, he heaved up his jeans, adjusted his belt and limped away.
Shaking my head, I turned my gaze back to the bus and noticed a couple in front — a guy on one side bench and a young woman across from him on the other — smiling, as if in on a private joke.
I bet I know what they're smirking at, I thought.
Both guy and gal were pale, ample people, with pleasant expressions behind large, round glasses. She wore a busy print shirt and had her hair in a bun. He sported what looked to be a faded Charlie Brown shirt and was balding.
The woman, still smiling, asked her friend a question.
The guy, straightening slightly, said, "The Shins…and Franz Ferdinand."
I perked up. These are two bands I happen to like. In fact, I'm going to a Shins concert in a few days.
She said something else I couldn't understand, gesturing and grinning. Then she laughed.
Her friend nodded and smiled. Then he suddenly stood and, pivoting on one foot, swung forward to ask the driver a question.
Staring back at me was an even larger cleft/gap/rift than the one I'd seen moments earlier.
I was stunned. What was going on? Was this Butt-Crack Viewing Day on the MTA? I watched the woman to gauge her reaction. She was staring straight out the window. Surely, she'd seen as well. Was she stifling a laugh? Embarrassed for her friend? Would she say something?
The man sat down. The couple rode in silence for several blocks.
Meanwhile, rows back, I squirmed in my seat. Why the horror when X-rated body parts come into view? Is it because of the violation of individual and social code? Or is it because of the resentment one feels at having been given the opportunity to do the violating?
"Stop requested!" sang the electronic voice. I snapped to and watched as La Brea whooshed by and the couple prepared for departure.
The bus slowed. The guy stood first. I held my breath. Maybe he'd rearranged self within pants during those few seated blocks?
Twasn't so. Two healthy inches of posterior cranny were again revealed. In fact, the entire top of his round, white meringue of a bottom was on proud display above his drooping waistband.
In the words of one friend's gruff, cable company co-worker, "Gotta get that man some spackle."
As the man before me fixed his backpack and prepared to de-bus, his T-shirt fell and the view was obscured. I glanced around to see if anyone else had witnessed the rift. The blank stares of the passengers around me suggested they hadn't.
Then the woman stood.
Worried that bad things may indeed happen in threes, I winced. But as she turned and, veering slightly, walked toward the steps, all I could see was a Class-A wedgie up an otherwise covered derriere.
Thank heaven for small favors.