Fiction | Short Story

Tell Me What You Think of Me

I knew how these small moments could accumulate over time, threading back to one another, changing how you behaved in the world.

I was stepping off the Muni when I heard a high, desperate voice. “Hold the train, please!” An older white woman, about a block down, speed-walking with great effort to the stop.

The trams rarely wait, backed up every day due to mismanagement and maintenance. When I turned around to alert the driver, the metal door had already slid shut. I looked back at the woman. She was about half a block away, and she looked devastatingly tired. As she drew closer, I could see her deep wrinkles and age spots.

I realized I was staring. Another tram will come soon enough, I thought. I’ve overstayed the situation. One of the personal flaws I was trying to correct. Two of them, actually—staring and overstaying. And all followed from the worst flaw of all: my indecision.

I’d been on the way home from work, rehearsing in my mind what I would say the next time I saw my boss. I’d proofread so many newsletters that day, stayed overtime without getting paid overtime, and my boss said I still wasn’t ready to write copy. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can do everything, he’d said as he swiveled in his $1500 office chair. You think you’re working hard now? Wait until you really work. 

What did that even mean? I’d considered quitting, starting something new. But. But. But. Maybe if I stayed a little longer, he’d let me write the marketing email, the one that 0.6 percent of our subscribers opened. And then . . . I knew I should be grateful to have a job, but it was sad to think of how small my ambitions had become.

I wondered what my boss really thought of me.

And that was why I got off the N Judah late that evening, why I’d run into the woman on the street. She had the whitest head of hair, sticking out all sorts of ways. Her arms and legs moved like a marionette’s, controlled by an unskilled puppeteer.

Then it happened: She crumpled on the sidewalk, as though somebody had kicked the back of her knees. Her shoulder hit the cement, her shirt flapped like a broken wing. I tried to decide if I should go to her. Why hadn’t I left sooner? Other people were passing by.

I found myself crouched down beside her. “Are you okay?”

I’ve overstayed the situation. One of the personal flaws I was trying to correct.

The woman mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I put my face closer to hers and smelled liquor. Then a second note of detergent, something flowery or citrusy. She was drunk, but very clean. Her clothes were bright. Her hair, however messy, was recently washed. Close up, it was almost blindingly white, like snow beneath the sun. She wore brown orthopedic shoes, the expensive kind you see in the display windows of bougie-hippie shoe stores. Her left hand clutched money, at least two or three bills, the one on the outside a twenty.

“Let’s get you up,” I said, trying to lift her from her armpits.

“Ow, ow, ow.”

I remembered her shoulder. She was heavier than she looked, and I wasn’t strong enough. I felt guilty about being so out of shape, unable to lift a frail woman. I was weak, too.

She became limp dead weight, leaning her body against mine, and closed her eyes as though she might pass out. “Are you hurt? Where do you hurt?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes fluttered open, then shut again. Noises came from her mouth.

“The train left,” I said. “Another one will be here soon, so let’s try to stand up. Hello?” I was talking directly into her little ear, wondering if my words were making sense to her. “Hello? Ma’am? Hello?”

People kept walking by. In some way, I hated everyone who passed us. I wondered exactly what it was inside those people that allowed them to keep going, unbothered, and what it was inside of me that made me stop. I felt right, but also flawed. Unlucky.

A man’s boot stepped on the skirt of my dress, leaving a dark mark on the hem, and I was reminded of a time when I was little, at a school fair: I’d accidentally swiped my cupcake against a man passing by, smearing the seat of his pants with bright blue frosting. He hadn’t noticed; he just kept walking away with that frosting on his ass, fading into the crowd. Now I was the one soiled and trapped. I needed to get this woman up. I could see us from above: two pathetic, stranded people in this sidewalk sea of shoes and old gum marks.

“Is everything okay? Do you need help?” came a deep voice.

Standing above us was a middle-aged couple, a man and woman. I don’t believe in God, but in that moment I did, and I murmured my thanks.

“Should we call 911?” The man crouched down beside us and looked with concern at the fallen woman.

“Oh, yes,” I said. I felt ridiculous for not having thought of that.

The old woman opened her eyes, stared up at the sky, and spoke coherently for once. No, no, she was fine, just fine; she only needed help getting up. The man helped me lift the woman to her feet, as his wife—I assumed, but she could have been a girlfriend or a friend or a sister—stood nearby with her arms out, ready to catch us, or perhaps shielding us from any staring passersby. I was in love with them both.

Once standing, I could see the tram just down the street, stopped at a red light. I touched the old woman’s shoulder. It felt solid and intact. I checked her arms and hands for scrapes and cuts. She was dazed, but unhurt as far as I could see. She was still gripping the money in her crooked fingers. I was holding her elbow, letting her lean against me, when she looked over and smiled. Big, white, square teeth.

She opened her mouth, like she was about to say thank you, but then she looked in the opposite direction and finally seemed to register the presence of the man holding her other arm. She shut her mouth and narrowed her eyes at him. She turned her head toward the other woman, whose arms were still out, as though about to hug or catch us. The old woman came alive. She straightened herself up, animated by a mysterious source of energy unfurling inside her. She shook the arm the man held.

“Don’t touch me!” she said.

The man let go and stepped back.

“You coloreds are taking over the neighborhood! Get away from me!” The old woman waved her empty hand at the couple in a dismissive gesture. Get. Get. Get. 

I was still holding her other arm—gripping it, in fact. Why?

With the old woman’s words stabbing the air around us, I looked at the couple more closely. I guessed they were South Asian, perhaps of Indian or Pakistani descent given San Francisco’s population. The wife/sister/girlfriend/friend, with her dark brown skin, wavy black hair that brushed her shoulders, and perfect, thick eyebrows that, in that moment, pressed in on one another in a look of concern and distaste above a pair of round, clear-framed glasses. The man, in his button-up and slacks, had lighter skin than his companion and black hair buzzed close to his scalp. He was retreating, as he’d been ordered to do. They both looked at the old white woman, then back at me, and I wondered what they were thinking.

We’re sorry, we don’t know you or this woman, but we tried to help and can’t anymore. Or maybe, We see you, and we know you see us—you’re like us. Don’t feel sorry for this woman, leave her. Or maybe, Why are you with her? We’re sorry we helped either of you.

What had they seen in me? Whatever my face conveyed, it didn’t compel them to stay. The woman grabbed the man’s hand and they walked away, not looking back. I watched them shrink and disappear as they moved down the street.

I knew that feeling. The feeling that not only are you not yourself, you are nothing at all. 

The old woman tugged her arm. “You’re hurting me,” she said, her sudden vigor vanished. She slumped again, leaning into me. “Oh, honey, I’m tired.”

I saw a bus coming down the street in our direction. Not the N Judah, but the 43, a couple of blocks down. “Hurry, the bus is coming,” I said. The old woman let me pull her to the stop. The bus opened its doors.

“Does this take me to my daughter’s house?” the woman asked.

“Where does your daughter live?”

“In the Sunset.”

“This is the Sunset,” I said. “We’re in the Inner Sunset. This bus goes up the hill. Do you want to go up the hill?”

“As long as it takes me to my daughter’s.”

“You getting on this bus or not?” asked the driver.

“Yes,” I said, “she’s taking it.”

The driver lowered the bus. I told him sorry, I was just helping, I didn’t want to ride. Sorry, could he please just wait for me to get off before leaving? I led the woman to a plastic seat near the door and placed her in it.

“Here,” she said, pressing something into my hand. The money she’d been holding. “Pay this nice bus driver and keep the rest, sweetie. For your help today.”

“No, no, I can’t,” I said, trying to give the money back.

She swatted my hand away. “Don’t be silly!”

“You getting off or what, miss?” The driver was yelling at me now.

I leaned over to pat the woman’s shoulder in a kind of goodbye, a gesture I immediately regretted. I could feel something slick. Something pinkish on my palm: a small, faint splotch. Like blood. The woman didn’t seem upset; she was smiling, staring out the window.

“Hey!” the driver said. “I can’t wait here forever!”

“Okay, okay.” I walked to the front with the money in hand. “How much does it cost for her to ride?”

“Seventy-five cents for seniors,” he said, pointing at the fare chart.

“She doesn’t have any change.”

“It’s fine. Just get off. Now.”

I jumped down, and the doors shut.

I stared at the back of the woman’s white head, now propped against the window as the bus turned up the hill. I wondered if I should run after it. I looked at my palm again. The blood had already dried crusty on my hand. I thought about calling 911, as the helpful man had first suggested. But I didn’t know what I would say if I did.

I looked around, worried that somebody might have been witness to what had happened, but nobody was watching me. I was sweating so much I could taste the salt on my lips. I wiped my hand on my dress. Then I remembered the money in my clean hand, and fanned it open. Four twenty-dollar bills.

I started walking, fast. Down Irving Street, in the direction the couple had gone. The people, the stores, the cars—everything looked different than before, distant and warped, like it was beneath a layer of crinkly plastic wrap. And yet I could not help but catalog or guess at the background of each person as my eyes landed on them: East Asian, White, East Asian, White, Latino, White, Black, White, East Asian, White, South Asian . . . I turned right down 9th Avenue. I walked into stores and peered through restaurant windows. I’ll find the couple and give them this money, I thought.

I did not find them. I could have gone into the park, where they might be taking a stroll through the rose garden, needing to be surrounded by the harmless and pretty. I could’ve gone further down Irving, kept looking through every window. I could have waited at a corner, to see if they would pass by. But they were probably home by then. They were probably watching Netflix, petting their cat, calling their friends, venting to each other about all the times something like this had happened to them.

I knew that feeling well—that vertiginous sensation that makes you sick. Your insides crumpling in on themselves. The numbness that sometimes follows—unless it’s rage, or confusion, or fear. The feeling that not only are you not yourself, you are nothing at all. I knew how these small moments could accumulate over time, threading back to one another, changing the way you behaved in the world.

Maybe the couple had forgotten everything by then. Maybe they were used to it. Maybe they were stronger than me. Maybe they had developed a shield over the years, something to protect them, like the woman’s arms had tried to protect us from passersby.

And what was I going to say if I found them? What could I possibly say? Thank you for your help? Sorry for the racist woman? By the way, she gave me some money—I don’t know why—and I want you to have it. Because how had she not seen me? Had she not seen me? It’s my people, if any, who have taken over this neighborhood—the Chinese, since way back.

It’s not you. It’s me.

How had she not seen me? It’s my people, if any, who have taken over this neighborhood—the Chinese, since way back. 

I turned around and went back up 9th, back toward the bus stop. There was a gelato place just a few doors down from there. I went in and got the largest size they had—a scoop of pistachio, a scoop of chocolate, and a scoop of salted caramel—in a bright pink, flower-shaped cup. I paid with the old woman’s money, then ate it all with a bright pink spoon as I walked home up the hill.

I want to know if I did something terrible, or at least something not right—like the time with the cupcake. I should have told that man what I’d done, run after him to point out the frosting on his ass, but I didn’t. I know that was kind of different, but it was also kind of the same. It was an accident, right? What should I have done?

Should I have abandoned the woman? Has she made it to her daughter’s? Did she think I was white? Did that couple think I was her friend? Are they okay? Did the old woman just have a scratch, or was it something worse? Should I donate the rest of her money? To where? Or do I deserve it somehow? Just tell me what you really think of me. Please.