Design Blocks

I just missed bus 13, so it’ll be a half hour wait before the next one arrives. I take a seat in the bus shelter and let my eyes wander until they take notice of a man with a hurried stride headed my way. He sits next to me and I say hi.
“Yeah hey… you know when the bus is coming?”
“In about 30 minutes I think.”
And it’s like this that our conversation began. We failed to properly introduce ourselves, so I’ll refer to him as James.

James is a multi-tasker. From the moment he sat next to me at the bus stop, he was texting, talking, jumping up to scan the street and counting the minutes.
James lives just three blocks south of the Goodwill bus stop. He used to live on the New Jersey coast, but now he’s in Greensboro to help out his sister and her two kids.
“They don’t got no father or nothing.”
I ask James if he’s taken a liking to North Carolina, and he says “no”.
James asks me if I’m from around here, and I tell him I’m from Durham, which leads James to purse his lips and shake his head.
James is on the phone again. It’s a brief call.
“Where you at? Alright… well I’m waiting.”
James is getting impatient. He expresses this in a mumbled “man, I hate this shit.”
James explains that he’s waiting for a friend to meet him at the Goodwill parking lot.
“So you’re not riding the bus?” I ask.
“No, I only take the bus when I have to. Sometimes I can get a ride from a friend.”
I decide to let James know about the school assignment and he seems to take an interest… but no video and no photos. He offers up some advice.
“Why don’t you get rid of these holes in the wall?”
I twist my neck has he points to the metal paneling behind us that is indeed punctured with a grid of small holes.
“People get all wet when it rains. But I guess they built it that way to keep people from sleeping the night here.”
I glance away and say that he’s probably right and then a question comes to mind
“What were the bus shelters like in Jersey?”
James goes on to describe some sort of Plexi-glass paneling in a more spacious shelter and then he adds “But that shit still stays real cold in the winter.”
James’ phone vibrates once and he answers.
“You here?”
He stands up and walks towards the parking lot with the same hurried stride. There’s no wave good bye.