Yeah, Right!

Last Tuesday was slow for Steve but got a little slam bang there for a while at the end.

Afterward he came home to 640 Monroe with a sack of grub from Dog Town and decided to check his mail on the way up to his room.

The only thing was a blue flyer from Chase Bank down the Avenue.

Something like two hours earlier, at the end of the afternoon, he had been rushing to finish some correspondence and found, when he logged off, that he had only a half hour to make it to the P.O. down on Broad Street and post his package.

A do-able walk, he had told himself pushing through the heavy door at the foot of the stairs and going out through the one step across lobby along side those self-same mail boxes to get himself out on the street, Monroe.

And, then, whuddayuh know? there was a No. 7 bus just pulling into the curb at the corner in front of Lola's.

It wasn't there for him; he'd only just come out on the street. But he hardly had to run to catch it.

The doors opened and a passenger descended to walk off immediately and disappear. The doors closed. But he got to them just as, tapped on the glass and was admitted to ride.

It was a day warm for February, last Tuesday, even if the sky was all over gray and it would have been both wonderful and worth it to walk but, now, with this fortunate convergence of himself and a bus, a dollar fare would leave no question of his getting his package to Virginia off on time. Catching the bus was the right thing, he told himself, while No. 7 growled out into traffic and made for downtown.

Seconds later the bus was slowing again as it came up on the red light at Goodman. While they were still moving, beginning to slow down and just passing Enright's Thirst Parlor, Steve noticed out the window on the right a cop couple on stroll patrol shoulder to shoulder going the bus' direction out on the sidewalk. Without cap or coat, the two were blue straight-arrow models for a Police Academy poster this fine afternoon. He was tall and slender and she had her hair tied back and, with her hands together on her belt buckle, her shoulders squared.

The two of them were such remarkably fine young officers Steve want to comment on them. But this was a bus full of weary looking late afternoon riders and no kind of audience. All were filling their seats like sacks and staring slumber-eyed straight ahead of them to no where.

The bus, held up at the light behind other traffic, wasn't quite at the front of the Chase Bank at the corner and the young cop couple over took and passed it. The light went green just as the boy/girl patrol turned smartly in through the glass outer vestibule door in the bank's cropped off Goodman/Monroe corner where the ATM resides.

And, just at the same moment, with the bus crawling out into Goodman gaining speed, Steve saw that there were two police cruisers parked up along the curb just before the Goodman entrance to the bank's parking lot. A funny thought occurred.

"Y'don't suppose they knocked over the bank again?" he spoke out loud.

The somnolist in the first forward looking seat on the aisle managed to look around where Steve indicated. His hang down face had that patient, enduring look of all veteran bus ridding, health clinic visiting folk.

"That'd be third time this year," Steve suggested.

Something like a smile came to the traveler's face after all. An appreciative smile, Steve thought it. These days who wouldn't smile at the thought of a bank being robbed?

The ride downtown left Steve off just the other side of the Inner Loop overpass in front of the Strong Museum. Across the way the steel construction frame for the new office building going up on the corner of Woodbury was already part of the high rise sky line of the downtown City of Rochester behind and above it. The girders were that rust brown and the building frame was a huge new playground Jungle Gym appropriate for a spot across from a Museum of Play.

Steve cut across through the museum grounds. The new skating rink in front of 10 Manhattan Square was a shallow artificial pond once more in the fair for February weather. The thought occurred to him that, when the inevitable next freeze came, he'd want to come down here after dark and take in what the rink looked like with lights all around it and the magic midtown city looming above it against the night sky.

There was a line at the post office but he had come in plenty of time and his Valentine package went off to Herndon, VA, with assurances that it would arrive well before Saturday.

After, he stood out in front of the office and decided to go home by Alexander Street and Park Avenue. He was still thinking he might walk up Park and revisit Stevers candy store for a little late shopping for more local loved ones.

Instead, he turned down Rowley and came home to Monroe that way putting his shopping off to the morning when he would have letters to Penn Yan and Bloomfield ready to go. He was still, then, thinking he'd go home and make a healthful salad for his supper but, then, after he had walked home, he decided instead to walk on up to Dog Town and treat himself to Italian Sausage and an order of fries.

"That for here or to go?" he was asked.

"Go," he said.

There was a plate of home make cookies on the counter as he had hoped there might be and two looked like Oatmeal Raisin.

The Canine Commune was busy and several orders were in ahead of his for the Meth Head crew in the kitchen back of the counter to fill. The end of the counter toward the door was especially crowded with others waiting for food to go and the tables toward the front windows and the door were especially full of customers dining on dogs and burgers.

Steve was about to pass the time taking in the place's gallery of art, at least the framed photographs of dogs on the walls away the crammed front of the place when he overheard some one ask,

"Which bank is this?"

"Chase Bank, down here...."

One of the owners was standing with his back to the wall in the gap at the end of the counter along side the menu sign that describes the Town's specialty dogs.

"...Cops were through here lookin' for the guy. Asked me had I seen anybody suspicious, anybody run by here?"

The owner looked all non-plus.

"People run by here all the time," he said. And, making a further face, added, "Who don't look suspicious?"

"Whole neighborhood looks suspicious!" one of his listeners agreed and the laughter continued.

"Third time this year," Steve spoke up.

"Second time for this one guy!" he was told.

Steve was thinking about what had been said about the neighborhood.

"I was in Exxon one morning," he related. "Guy comes in there complaining to a cop having coffee that this dude talking to himself was back out there up the street again. Cop said, 'You're going to have to be more specific.'"

It got a good laugh. They were a good crowd and knew Monroe.

When Steve came home to 640 and checked his mail the only thing in his box was a blue flyer from the Chase Bank. If he opened a checking acount with them, the bank would give him a hundred dollars.

"Yeah, right!"