On Mondays and Wednesdays my class ends at 3:15. If I am one of the last to leave class and walk slowly I make it to the bus stop at 3:20. The bus pulls up mere seconds before I arrive. I get on, find a seat and wait for ten minutes before it pulls away and takes me back to the apartment complex. During these ten minutes I watch people from behind my polarized sunglasses.
I am usually entertained by sorority girls outside the window. They gather by the bus in a group of five or more, talking animatedly. I don't know what they're saying so I usually make up stories in my head so long as they correspond with their hand gestures. Sometimes I'll see some odd sights. Like one time a girl tried to get on to the bus but the doors were closed. She was so embarrassed she waited for a later bus, I think. Or some guys tossing a football back and forth on their way to the field by our rec center. One didn't aim too well and someone not in their group caught it. And then started running. So the group ran after him. That was a bit strange.
Today my interest was piqued by someone who got on my bus. I didn't pay too much attention to him, simply shifted my bag so it wasn't in his way as he walked down the aisle. He had a faded light blue shirt on with an equally as faded decal on the left where a pocket would be. In yellow to large letters. GT. In black type. American. In italicized red cursive. Simply Fast! It was only a glimpse, so I wasn't too sure about the American and Simply Fast!, but I saw the GT and enough similar letters to have an inkling I was right. I turned around to see the back of his shirt. Had he been wearing his backpack like a normal person, I wouldn't have seen the confirmation I needed, but his backpack was slung from his right shoulder exposing the same, albeit larger, decal on the back.
The same chassis I used to race! In quarter midgets my family was very close to the then owners of GT American. I wondered how he came to have this shirt and what it meant to him. I wondered what his story was. How much we would have in common. Here's the thing though. I couldn't reach out to him.
Racing is touchy. For some people, once they leave the sport, they never look back. What if this kid didn't like racing anymore and was only wearing the shirt because he liked the color and it was laundry day? What if he was a different person now and didn't want to be reminded of when he raced? Sometimes kids only race because their parents want them to. Sometimes they are forced out of it because their parents want something else for them.
I know half of you are going, "What? You were just scared. Next time talk to him." But that's the thing. If he were still in racing, wouldn't he have worn other racing shirts? And since I take this same bus every Monday and Wednesday, wouldn't I have seen him wear a racing shirt before? I recognized his face, once I looked. Wouldn't I have caught a glimpse of him in a different racing shirt on one of the other buses I take? There's a reason we stop wearing racing shirts. Once you leave that world, it's really hard to go back. Especially when someone you don't know comes up to you and starts tearing into that world. You have your friends in school, your friends in your neighborhood, your friends in racing. When you try and mix them...it's like oil and water. And then imagine a stranger coming in and trying to find out about that world. It's not something you can just go up to someone and ask, especially if they seem like they're trying to hide it.
I usually only wear racing shirts at the race track or to sleep in, but come winter I pull out my Tulsa Shootout hoodie and wear it like a second skin. It makes me wonder what will happen the first chill. Since I'm displaying it a little louder, will he notice and approach me? Or will I have my sunglasses on, pretending to be in my own little world, pushing him away?
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