Everyday People

The people we recognise without really knowing form the living furniture of existence, or possibly the background noise. It's strange when they're gone because we often hadn't even realised they were ever there. Back in the late nineties, now over two decades past, I delivered mail to Tarbert Road, East Dulwich. More recently, at least within the last couple of years, I had reason to walk down Tarbert Road on the way to somewhere or other while visiting England. It was weirdly nostalgic, and particularly so when I spotted a particular blonde man with glasses and a pony tail. I couldn't remember the name but he lived in an upstairs flat on the even side of the road with his wife and a small child. He was someone I'd once spoken to almost daily for a couple of years, and I hadn't even noticed his having gone missing from my routine. He said he didn't really remember me but that I looked familiar.

I find this kind of detail fascinating, namely the stuff which doesn't quite mean anything you can describe.

The faces I now see regularly in terms of familiar people I don't actually know are mostly cyclists, runners, or persons out walking on the Tobin Trail, a public greenway which forms an almost complete circuit around the city of San Antonio. I cycle twenty miles of it every day to McAllister Park and back and these are the people I see.

Asian Friend. For a while Bess regularly ran around our neighbourhood and so built up her own pantheon of persons regularly seen but not actually known, one of whom she referred to as Asian Friend, because the woman was of Asian extraction and they would usually wave to each other. For a while we assumed that our respective Asian Friends were one and the same but it has since emerged that the one I usually see is a bit older and has the look of having had a facelift at some point.

Book Bloke. He always walks along reading a thick hardback, walking slowly so as not to fall over, I guess. I've never been able to tell what the books are, but hopefully the Bible isn't one of them.

Crap Writer. He read his slightly lurid spy thrillers at some writer's group I attended, and then suddenly I realised it's the very same guy I saw out walking with his ancient parents more or less every day. The spy thrillers mostly seemed to concentrate on our hero meeting ladies and then engaging in acts of which I suspect the author may not have had much direct experience, if any at all. I said hello a couple of times, then stopped bothering because he never returned the greeting and seemed embarrassed to see me; which is fine because frankly he struck me as a bit of a wanker. I haven't actually seen him in years now, so maybe his career took off and his exciting spy thrillers sell by the truckload. That's probably what happened.

Fruity Grandmother. I say grandmother, but she's probably my age, or maybe younger. She has pigtails, little round sixties spectacles, and wears a variety of self-consciously eccentric t-shirts, one of which is something to do with having loads of cats, so I'm sure she's all right. The fruity quality, as expressed in the occasional cheery greeting, is probably down to my imagination as formed during all those years of being a postman; besides which, I'm very happily married and intend to stay that way.

Granny Racer. He's a young dude, skinny but muscular and bald, and he runs, but runs while pushing a very old lady in a wheelchair, possibly his mother. She's on the small side and can't weigh much, but it's still quite impressive to watch. I usually find those who engage in ostentatiously weird forms of exercise a bit obnoxious, but I like this guy, and his mother is obviously having a whale of a time into the bargain.

My Indian Girlfriend. This is actually the name by which Bess refers to her, which is hilarious, obviously. We first got talking when she flagged me down and delivered a slightly garbled testimony about a doggie seen roaming free at the Tobin Park Trailhead. I wasn't really in the business of rescuing stray dogs, but I guess she needed to tell someone. As it turned out, I did actually happen to know of people who were in the business of rescuing stray dogs so we got there in the end. I usually stop and talk to my Indian Girlfriend whenever I see her, which is usually every few weeks, because otherwise I don't actually have a social life and I miss hearing English spoken with an Indian accent. We talk about pets, because she's been following the saga of our neighbour and the fence we've had built to keep him out, and we talk about the president, because neither of us like him very much and I think she feels the need to vent. Actually, I don't think she's too crazy about white people in general, which is understandable.

Obelix and his mate. Middle-aged, handlebar moustache, fat with a skinnier friend, they're always cycling together, usually side by side making it awkward to pass them when I've been coming from the other direction; and always yacking away which is why they absolutely must cycle side by side. They used to get on my tits for this reason, along with my nodded greetings going unacknowledged on a couple of occasions, but then I once almost crashed into the fat one whilst combining cycling with rocking out to a Henry Rollins CD, the embarrassment of which seems to have levelled the previously uneven surface of our communal etiquette landscape, or whatever you would call it. So these days we vaguely acknowledge each other as we pass, plus I think we had a conversation about a large puddle of water at some point, so that broke the ice a bit.

Raggety. As with many of these individuals, I don't know their actual names and have therefore given them ones suggested by my own subconscious, as one tends to do without really thinking about it; which is why some of the names may seem a little cruel, not least being this one. Raggety was originally a wood troll associated with Rupert Bear, a slightly disturbing supernatural figure of disheveled appearance. Back at school, my friend Pete once referred to Rose Wilson by the name Raggety because she was small with a slightly rustic quality, which I thought was perhaps a little cruel even at the time. Nevertheless my subconscious had no such qualms in transferring the label to this woman whom I've seen either running or cycling more or less every day since I moved here. Of late she's taken on a striking and unexpected resemblance to seventies Woody Allen, but I think I'll stick with Raggety for the sake of consistency. She's small, even child size, resembling both Rose and Rupert Bear's nemesis, and is possibly of indigenous lineage. I've waved and said hello on numerous occasions to no avail, and yet have found her both chatty and personable when there's been some passing reason for conversation. She has a strong Texas accent and is definitely from around here, unlike myself. She seems like a reassuring presence, and I like people who understand that nothing need be said when there's nothing to say.

Responsible Medical Father. He's usually wearing scrubs, so I guess he might work at Northeast Baptist, and he's always walking with his kid, who clearly has some fairly severe physical disability and is in a motorised wheelchair. I wave, they wave back, or at least the father does, and they always seem happy. Also, I see them more or less every day, suggesting there's some actual proper fathering going on, which is nice to know in his shitty old world. We could use more dads like this guy.

Santa. Always walking, big white beard, and always called out good job whenever I passed him on my bike, usually as thanks for my having already called out so as to alert him of my intention to pass. Come to think of it, I haven't actually seen Santa in a while, which is particularly worrying as it's not even Christmas.

Skeeter. The name only just came to me now as I realised my subconscious was yet to tag this gentleman with a convenient if slightly insulting label. He looks unusually Texan, as though he knows how to fix a truck. If he isn't actually called Skeeter, he's probably related to someone who is; but he's all right by me. We once had a conversation about an owl, and a conversation which didn't end up with his assuming I'm Australian, so that works for me. If there's any sort of organising force in the universe, I suspect it may have provided Skeeter for the purpose of filling the ecological niche recently vacated by Santa.

Tim. So called because that's actually his name. He vaguely knows my wife's friend Andrea from when they both used to eat at La Fonda. One day my wife joined her friend for lunch and Tim happened to be there. He explained that he cycled on the Tobin Trail almost every day, and Bess said that he should look out for me, and that he would recognise me by my hat, so now we wave at each other whenever we pass. 'Hey, Lawrence,' he calls out. 'Hello, Tim,' I usually say in response. Movie rights to this story are still available if anyone's interested.

Withered Leg Man. Always on his bike, head to toe in lycra, and always racing. Ordinarily I wouldn't have noticed him amongst all of the other Alamo Heights bike tossers who clog up the trail with their ostentatiously weird and expensive cycles, recumbent or otherwise, five wheels and tractor tyres but no seat, requiring that one mounts by lowering one's bumhole onto the ergonomic pilot buttplug. Withered Leg Man has one withered leg, as the name implies, with seemingly normal bone structure supporting hardly any muscle. I'm genuinely impressed by his triumph over apparent adversity.

Wossername. Small, Hispanic, always walking her dog. My Indian girlfriend told me her name but I can't remember it. Apparently she doesn't really care much for white people either. This is probably why she's just sort of looked at me on the couple of occasions of my having said, good morning.