I climb aboard the #17 at Uptown Station. We’re sitting there stopped because the bus is running early and as we wait, a man in his twenties climbs aboard, does that thing where he starts going through all his pockets looking for money.
“Hey! Hey! Someone got fifty cents? I need fifty cents!”
Finally, someone in the back offers him the fifty cents. He pays, gets a transfer, and sits in the seat across the aisle from me. The bus starts rolling up Hennepin and I can feel him looking at me.
“Hey! Hey, blind guy! Hey, blind guy. Hey, blind guy, what you got in your backpack, blind guy?”
Now, I don’t want to conjecture that this gentleman had nefarious intentions. Perhaps he was just curious. Perhaps. But I doubt it.
“Hey, blind guy, what you got in your backpack?”
So I turn to him and say, “A laptop that stopped working in 2004, four rolls of pennies, a bag of dirty socks, the severed mummified head of Jimmy Hoffa, and one very angry weasel.”
Long, long pause.
“You’re shitting me, man.”
“The weasel’s name is Tim.”
“You’re a crazy man! You’re crazy!”
And he moved to the back of the bus and I never heard from or saw him again.