Like Real Stahs

I sat on the bench in front of this picture the other day waiting for a train. A man walked toward me, staring at the picture behind my head.

"Oh, wow! That's Davis Square! I nevah noticed that before. That's the old Somerville theater!"

"Yep," I replied.
"The train used to go right by there. And it musta been Christmas time! Look how they did those lights - they made 'em look like real stahs! How do they do that? Musta been a drive-by."
"Ha, maybe, yeah..." I decided not to point out that the people in the picture were wearing T-Shirts and that the twinkle lights were actually up year-round.

"We used to see movies there for five cents! Now, it's unbelievable. I went to the cinema in Boston a few weeks ago. They musta chahged us like 12 or 15 bucks to see a movie! They're just robbin' us now."
"Yeah. It's $9 now, and that's even cheap for a theater!" I love commiserating about the prices at movie theaters.

"I remembah when I was in boot camp down in New Jersey - a packa cigarettes used to cost thirty-seven cents." He looked like he'd smoked his whole life. His skin was weathered and his cheeks were dark and hollow.

"Wow! And what is it now?" I asked as the train pulled up.

"Nine bucks. I still smoke, and I shoulda quit a long time ago for that price." We both headed into the train. He went left and sat down. For some reason, it seemed too intimate to sit right next to him. I started to go right, but then I realized there were no other seats. So I thought, 'what the hell,' and we continued our conversation side by side.

"Maybe that's the idea," I offered.

"Nah, they don't want cha ta quit. They just raise it little by little, so ya stay addicted, and then they just rob ya." He looked down at the lettering on my Ski Big Sky shirt.

"You from Montana then?" he asked.

"Nope, just went there a lot when I was younger."

"I went to Montana for work corps when I was a teenager. They used to tell us about the black bears in the mountains to keep us from runnin' off! Hah, I tell ya, I prefer the army to that place any day." I laughed. "So where ya from?"

"North Dakota."

"Wow! What brought ya out here?"

"School."

"Oh yeah? Ya in college?"

"Not anymore. Just finished, actually," I replied.

"What? You must be what, like, 20 years old?"

"Nope, 24."

"No way! You got a baby face, miss. Well, this is my stop. You take care. Be careful," he said.

"Okay," I replied. "Nice talking to you."

Be careful, baby face. Because sitting down with a stranger out of genuine curiosity is what we teach children not to do.