the familiarity of a nameplate

       “Edward. I’m afraid we have to let you go.”

So there I was, half an hour later, all my things packed in a soggy old cardboard box, sitting on the bus, not sure what would happen next. It was winter in London, and the sideways rain pounded against the windows. People climbed onto the bus, drenched from the rain, trying to find an empty seat to plop down into. As I looked around, I noticed the bus was nearly full. Latecomers stood in the aisle waiting for someone to get off so they could secure a warm dry seat for their long ride ahead.

As I glanced around the stuffy bus, I forgot about everything that had happened that day and began to notice things I usually didn’t. I started playing a game I used to play as a child when I rode the bus to school. I would pick some people out of the crowd and make up a story about why they were on the bus, what they were doing and where they were going.

I started at the back of the bus, where a mother and her child sat, the girl in her school uniform, her curly blonde pigtails drooping and dripping from the rain; her wet pink backpack slouched on the ground between her feet. “Mummy, when will we be home? I’m tired,” she said, as she rested her head on her mum’s shoulder. “A while longer, Honey. We’re not going straight home; we have to stop along the way.” I could tell the girl had just been picked up from school, and they were probably stopping for dinner supplies on the way home, but in my head, in my story, they weren’t going home. The young girl’s father had just left them, and they were leaving to find a better life, maybe abroad in France or Spain or somewhere warm where the curly haired blond girl would make new friends and enjoy the rest of her childhood, while her mum would never forget the past. By the time I finished my mental story, I could see that the girl had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap.

       Next to them, along the windows, were two kids. Well, kids from a middle-aged man’s perspective, but they were probably twenty or so. The girl had her hand in his, and you could feel the chemistry between them. They were both black, or whatever the politically correct way of saying that is, and by the look of their clothes, you could tell they weren’t from a posh neighborhood like Chelsea. I looked at the couple intently, occasionally glancing away so as not to appear to be staring, and I began to create their story. They were soulmates, so in love, so inseparable. The girl had just gotten pregnant, and her parents weren’t happy, which led them to kick her out of the house. She had moved in with her lover, but they weren’t doing well financially. Nonetheless, they were on their way home from a sonogram appointment where they had just found out the baby was a girl. They had joy spread across their faces. I could hear them chatting softly, so I pictured them talking about baby names. “Hmm… how about Alice? Or Ashley? Or no, no, no, no, how ‘bout Alicia?” Apparently the girl was set on “A” names, or perhaps she was just starting at the beginning of the alphabet. “I like Alicia, I have a friend from school called that. What about Charlotte? Charlie for short?” She smiled back at him. “I like that.” And like the daughter to her mother, she put her head on his shoulder while he turned his head to kiss the top of hers.

       Before I could finish their story, we pulled up to the Old Kent Road stop in Peckham, and the soon-to-be parents jumped off the bus, hand in hand. At the previous stop, the mother and child had gotten off, the girl still groggy from her little nap on the bus. Forty-five minutes earlier the bus had been full, but one by one, people continued to get off until the only passengers remaining were two other middle-aged men and me. One was a homeless man sitting toward the front, taking up two of the blue plastic seats and half of the aisle with his belongings. I could smell him from the back of the bus.

       I was about to start my story on him when I noticed the other man. He sat there in his business attire, his suit slightly damp. He held a newspaper in his hands pretending to read it, but it was obvious he wasn’t. His life seemed quite typical, and I couldn’t think of an interesting thing to say about him, so I went back to the homeless man. I imagined his life before he was homeless, how he may have had a job, and a wife and kids, and a great life, until something happened. I was pondering this “something,” this event that changed his life for the worse, but my mind kept drifting back to the businessman. Something was wrong. I couldn’t figure it out until we reached the last stop at Lewisham Centre where I would wait for my transfer. I got up, and so did he. As he folded his newspaper, I saw what had been sitting next to him all along, a soggy wet cardboard box just like mine, only instead of a nameplate sticking out that read, EDWARD COATES, there was one that read, HUGO WELLINGS. This fellow, a “typical businessman” as I saw him, was just like me:  fired and hopeless. We both hopped off the bus into the rain, and dashed into the bus stop shelter. Behind us, the hobo took his time exiting the bus with all his belongings and set off walking down the street.

The two of us sat there at the bus stop for some minutes in awkward silence before either of us said anything. “So you got fired, too?” I asked him. “Well, I suppose you could say that,” he said, turning to me. I told him what had happened earlier that day and asked what he had done to get sacked. “Same thing, really. Management needs a reality check now and then. I spoke up, and they said I wasn’t needed anymore.” “Have you ever thought about what happens now? I never saw this coming. What happens when we can’t find new jobs?” I questioned myself out loud.  “Well,” he said, “see that man down there?” as he pointed to the homeless man, who had only managed to walk about two blocks in the last five minutes. “That’s what happens.” I thought about how a person could go from having everything like I did, to having nothing. It just didn’t seem plausible. Eventually, I moved on and forgot about that day.

Three years later, there I was, stable job, same bus ride, same smelly people filling up the blue plastic seats on the stuffy bus, and there I was, getting off at the Lewisham Centre stop. The sky was cloudy but there was no rain, so I stood in the open air, leaning against the side of the bus stop structure. Behind me I heard the strumming of an old guitar followed by a scratchy voice. Typical busker, I thought. I turned around to see a scruffy man standing against a building. He looked familiar, but so did a lot of people in London. I thought about going over to drop a few coins in his open guitar case out of generosity, but my bus was almost there, and I didn’t want to risk missing it. Then I noticed a nameplate next to the case, similar to mine at work. It was old and the letters were fading, but I could make out, HUGO WELLINGS. Beneath the hat and beard, I did recognize the man, Hugo Wellings. Hugo Wellings from the bus that day. The man I could have turned out to be, but hadn’t. I dropped a couple of one pound coins in his case, got a smile and a “Thank you very much, sir,” and I went to catch my bus that had just pulled up. As I walked away I could tell he had recognized me. He called after me, but I ignored him and walked on. I stepped on the bus and sat down. I could see him through the window and knew he could see me. I couldn’t hear him, but I watched him say my name. “Edward Coates...” After three years, was it really possible for him to remember my name from my nameplate? To this day I will never know if that’s what he said, but it’s a story I never could have made up.