poemtry and prose

As she crossed the road, she looked up at the west hills, laying just ahead of her. Fog and smoke from fireplaces hovered low in the air. The rain lessened up by the time Autumn got to her stop. It took her about fifteen minutes to get down to the station; just as the Max was pulling out and heading back down into downtown Portland.

Autumn muttered under her breath, "Damn. Why is it that I am always late?" She looked at her watch, the next train would arrive in eight minutes. Giving her just enough time to make sure the bookstore appeared in order and open the doors to the public.

"I will have to wait to take inventory later this weekend, I guess." She added, frowning. The red, dot matrix reader board above her head did not give her any comfort or answers. It consistently ticked down the minutes until her train would arrive. It also told Autumn that there was going to be a five minute delay for passengers wanting to go out to Hillsboro.

Everywhere Autumn looked, there was a grey cast covering the world. The buildings, the blacktop of the street, the ever so green pine trees, and even the traffic lights all had a ghastly hue to them. It made the world cold and impersonal and Autumn sighed. This was the perfect weather for staying indoors, sitting next to a roaring, red and orange and yellow fire, and sipping warm chai from a ceramic mug. Even the semi-moldy smell of things being wet for too long and wood burning far off in the distance told her that she should have stayed home today. The rain started up again and she pulled her jacket closer around her body. Adding to the melancholic mood that was slowly creeping over Autumn, the drops of rain thudded softly against the dull brownish metallic roof above her head. Their tinny echoey sounds reverberated like tiny sighs sent from the Earth herself. Autumn found the sounds strangely soothing and almost trance-like.

A deep clank clank clank sound rounded down from her left, signaling that her train had arrived. Autumn followed the oily black train tracks laying before her feet down to the slight yellow glow hovered from the large lamp bulb set atop the Max's main cabin with her eyes. The telltale white train bore the blue sign marked "Downtown PDX", which signified that it was heading Eastbound. Autumn adjusted the backpack on her shoulder and stepped towards the yellow line, readying herself to board the train.

The Max sighed as it pulled into the station. Autumn could see all the morning commuters lining the aisles, their coats, umbrellas and briefcases held tightly in their hands. Autumn hated standing in the trains, as they always threw her off balance. She hoped she would be able to find a seat to sit down in the crowded cabin. The doors opened with a whooshing sound. Autumn fought her way into the Max as people rushed to get off the Max before the doors closed. A rather large man, bumped into her as he got off the train, sending her into the metal guard rail. She frowned again and regained her balance.

Swerving in an out of people standing in the aisles, Autumn searched for a seat. A voice appeared from the Max's speaker system and announced, "the doors are now closing. please do not block the doors," with its monotone, computerized voice. A few high school aged kids darted on the train, just as the doors were closing. They giggled at one another as they successfully got on board the Max before the doors had a chance to full close.

Autumn sat down on a cold, hard, yellow subway chair next to a window. She leaned her head against the even colder windowpane and wondered where all the people outside were rushing to go. Everyone had on their heavy, fall rain jackets. Some people even carried umbrellas, shielding themselves from the constant rain and cold. It did not matter what anyone was wearing, they all had one thing in common. They were moving or running fast to get to or get away from out of the wet.

The train lurched forward and Autumn pulled her head away from the glass as she felt something press up against her side. An elderly businessman with slightly thinning grey hair plopped down in the chair besides her. He held an enormous briefcase that looked as if it could take all the space of the seat. Autumn scooted closer to the window to give the gentleman more space. He brushed the rain from the sleeve of his suit at Autumn.

"Hey, watch where you are wiping the wet off," she retorted. But, the businessman did not say anything. It was as if he did not see her sitting next to him at all. Autumn sighed once more and glanced at the top of the train. Brightly colored posters and bill boards lined the top part of the train's walls. They looked like bordering wallpaper used by many homeowners to separate and provide contrast between a white wall and the even whiter ceilings. Autumn looked at all the posters surrounding her.

She decided that there were three different types of posters found in Portland's mass transit system. The first type, and most common, were advertisements. These professionally done and the most brightly colored posters took up 75% of of the space on the tracks that held the plastic sheets to the walls. Most of these posters advertised car insurance, mortgage and realty brokers and lawyers interested in auto or work lawsuits. A small majority of the posters were advertisements for local businesses who had shops located a block or two from each transit stop.

The second type, came from a transit beautification project the Portland Transit Authority hosted a few years ago. They decided it was time to make mass transit more fun to ride by putting up fun things for passengers to look at or read while they road the system. They offered a small fee to entice local artists and writers for their best submissions. Their posters, were often a small poem set against a contrasting solid color like red, or orange with the poet or artist's name across the bottom with the Portland Transit Authority's logo and moniker written in big letters across the top or bottom of the poster.

When she first read about the program in The Oregonian, Autumn thought it was a great idea. She even donated a few hundred dollars to help promote the idea. She hoped that it would help encourage literacy, along with artistic pride in her city community. However, the program was a huge failure; all the posters doomed to sit unnoticed among the advertisements. It had been years since she last saw any fresh ones being added to the walls of the Max trains.

And finally, separating small sections of the poems and advertisements, were the long posters showing the entire light rail system. Glossy blues and reds and greens divided the three different lines that composed the Max system. Westbound lines were displayed in red, Eastbound in Blue and the airport lines, in green. The wide lines on the poster were divided into sections by small black lines denoting each stop along the light rail's path. Autumn spent most of her time each day staring at the nearest map, ticking off each stop it reached until she got to her destination, Skidmore Fountain. One way, the whole trip took her about 15 minutes and that was only because most of the stops between here Goose Hallow stop and the Fountain were in downtown's free ride zone.

Finally the female automated voice called out her stop in about three different languages. Autumn stood up and waited for the businessman sitting next to her to stand and give her enough space so that she could squeeze her small frame past him.

She glared at him, over her shoulder as she caught him moving over to take her spot by the window. "What is with people, today," she wondered as she waited for the pedestrian walk sign to give her the safe go ahead to cross the road. The traffic lights turned red and her green person light came on. Autumn looked both ways, and then headed up Burnside to catch the train that would take her to her store.

It took her another five minutes, but soon she was standing out in front of her bookstore, the Page Turner. The red brick building was nicely tucked in between a few house stores. Autumn kept two potted evergreens to spruce up her bookstore's front windows. Each one of the potted plans sat on either side of the doors. Autumn bent down to feel the soil in the pots.

"Good morning Autumn," called out the soft, familiar voice behind her.

Autumn jumped back, not expecting to hear the greeting, "oh. Andrews... it is just you. Good morning."

A elderly man, rounded the corner and waved at Autumn. She smiled and took a good look at him. Andrews, as he preferred to call himself and was the only name Autumn knew him by, wore a tattered tshirt over a hooded long sleeve t-shirt. It must have been a special day today because Andrews wore a newish pair of blue jeans, white sneekers and a black suit jacket that seemed to be a bit too big to fit him well. Andrews, was a local oddity. He was homeless but was never seen drinking alcohol. He also never accepted handouts.

"How is it going today, ma'am?" Andrews said as he bowed down in mock greetings.

Autumn smiled at the silly gesture, "I am actually running a bit behind schedule today Andrews. Seems like everyone was as well. The Max was full of people today. And not all of them were in such a grand mood as you are."

She walked over to the front door and slid her key into the lock. A slight push on the door and they were in the foyer of the Page Turner. The smell of paper, dust and book ink filled their noses.

Andrews wiped his feet on the rug Autumn kept in front of the door. "Is there anything I can do to help you feel caught up?"

"Oh, that is really sweet of you Andrews, but I cannot think of anything at this moment. Not unless you would like to water and maybe trim the bushes outside?" Autumn said, smiling.

Andrews returned the smile, "Autumn, you are always so nice to me that I really do not mind helping a young, pretty lady like yourself out with her duties once and a while." And with that, he took the watering mug from Autumn's outreached hand and took it to the back washroom to fill it up.

Autumn went to the front counter and started opening the one cashier's station. While she counted the till, she watched Andrews carefully tend to her plants outside. Andrews was an oddity to her. He had almost been with the store from the beginning. Sitting out front. At first, Autumn was afraid that a dirty, homeless man would scare her possible clients. However, on the contrary, he seemed to almost help and inspire people to wander into her quaint, little local bookshop. The fact that he seemed to also be well read helped a bit as well and they soon found their friendship flourishing on the street. Andrews had blue eyes and black-greyish hair. His skin was pale and weather worn, probably from years of being out in the world without a home. Unlike many bums, Andrews's frame was nice and fit. Autumn attributed the wellness of her friend to the fact that he never drank nor did drugs. And while Autumn could definately tell that Andrews was homeless, he never, ever accepted hand outs from her. But even more curious was the fact that he never told her where he went at night to get out of the rain and sleep.

She had gone looking once. She knew many of the standard homeless haunts, like the Park on Park Street or under the bridges. But Andrews was not one of the bridge bums, as she called them. And he always smiled a polite dodge at her questions. So, she learned to stop asking them. Instead, they spent most of their time in the early morning minutes before the shop opened, talking about the world, politics, philosophy and movies. Even though he was almost twenty years or so her senior, Autumn found herself enjoying their morning talks. He reminded her of her wayward father, a man who had died in her early twenties. A person she never really got to know well.

The door beeped as he re-entered the store. "Okay Autumn, your babies are all watered and ready to great patrons," Andrews said as he put the pitcher on the counter.

"Thanks Andrews," Autumn replied as she put the pitcher back under the wooden counter where it was safely hidden and out of sight. Autumn grabbed a twenty dollar bill from the stack of money laid out on the counter.

"You know your money is no good with me," Andrews said as he stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of the jeans.

Autumn grinned micheviously at him and said, "I know THAT, you old coot. I have one more task for you to do today. Could you wander over to a Coffee People down the street and get me a large chai, warm with soy milk? And maybe a cruissant? You are welcome to get whatever you like with the left over change and whatnot." She held the twenty out towards Andrews.

He watched her, waiting for the catch. She raised an eyebrow that signalled no catch to him and finally, he reached out and took the money from her. "Sure thing. I can do that. I shall be right back with your treat."

The door beeped once more and Autumn found herself alone in the store once again. She unlocked the cash register and deposited the money in the till and then ran the morning register routine. After five minutes of waiting, the register beeped a happy tune, alerting Autumn that it was ready to start taking patron's cash.

Autumn went into the back office and hit the four light switches that brightened the shop and turned on the custom made, neon Open sign. The sign was made to look like an open book, with white pages surrounded by black borders. On the left page there was a quill pen held at an angle by an unseen hand. On the right side, in bright red, cursive letters was the word OPEN. It looked as if the invisible hand had used the quill to write the word down in the book. Autumn thought it gave the store a nice writerly, friendly and creative touch to it. And it set her sign apart from all the standard signs with their blue circles around the red OPEN.

The door beeped once again and Autumn ran out from the back and into the main room. She half expected to see Andrews, returned with her chai and his cold mocha latte. It could be blizzarding outside and he would always have a cold mocha to drink. Autumn had no love for the taste of coffee and always found it fun to chide Andrews about his love for cold tasting coffee. She once offered to make him a cold cup of it herself, but he told her that it was not quite the same thing.

However, when she rounded a stack of books, she saw that it was not Andrews who had entered her store. In the middle of the room, stood a young man, roughly in his thirties. He had mousey brown hair and wore trendy jacket, shirt and pants that closely resembled the hippie era. It was sa style that seemed to be making a slow and steady comeback these days. He held a piece of yellow legal paper in his hands and seemed almost dazed and confused. Autumn felt a pang of compassion for the young man. She could tell that he was desperate and trying to find something that seemed impossible to find.