Stranger every morning

A Stranger Every Morning
By Sean Nelson

Ed and Joe waited for a bus together every morning for three years. Ed
would spread out his newspaper, like a protecting wall against the
chaos of the city and Joe would light up a cigarette. "How disgusting",
Ed would think. Categorically, he hated smokers. Or actually, he just
had a habitual thought that he hated all smokers whenever someone lit
up a cigarette near him.

Though the two men spent this time together, they were divided by
differences so huge that no bus ride could ever connect them. Joe was
black; Ed was white. More importantly, in Ed's mind, was the fact that
he was a professional journalist, a thinking man. He was put off by the
extravagantly fancy suits Joe wore. Even if Ed could afford such suits,
and he certainly couldn't, he thought that he would have better taste
than to wear them. And Ed disliked Joe's artificial charisma. Though
good looking and obviously professional, Joe seemed to Ed to be lacking
in depth. Ed thought all this though the two had never talked. But
didn't Ed have a right to observe people's dress and body language and
think about them? And besides, Ed had to have something to think about.
He was a thinking man.

Joe, for his part, had never noticed Ed. Really. I mean, of course, he
saw him every morning and somewhere his brain had wrinkled and copied a
picture of Ed's face but Ed had never been the subject of even one of
Joe's conscious thoughts. Why? Philisophically, one could say that Joe
was very engaged with his own life and had a vital focus that Ed
lacked.
More practically, however, Joe was a creature of habit. Every morning,
Joe sat at the same seat at the bus stop. Then he lit up a cigarette.
Then, relaxed by the nicotine, he started to think about the moves he
would make at work today. Joe was a stockbroker. He lived in the
fast-paced, schedule oriented world of a major trading house and his
habitual, precise way of behaving served him very well. Ed noticed
this, I mean that Joe was a very habitual person. But Joe never noticed
Ed.

One morning while our two heroes waited for the bus, Ed was reading an
article about second hand smoke and how it caused lung cancer. His own
lungs felt irritated by the smoke coming from Joe's cigarette.
Ed said, "Exscuse me, sir, but I would greatly appreciate it if you'd
go outside the bus stop if you have to smoke." Joe was dumbfounded. He
looked at his cigarette. And for the first time, he looked at Ed.

"But I smoke this cigarette every morning. You've never complained
before."

"And I've breathed your second hand smoke every morning and I feel that
it may be a health risk to me. As you'll notice, there is a no smoking
sign right over there." He pointed to the wall of the three walled,
open enclosure that was the bus stop.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Joe took another drag on his
cigarette.

"Well, if you have no respect for the well being of others, then that's
just the way it's going to have to be."

"Why do you say I have no respect for the well being of others?"

"Because secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and every day, you smoke a
cigarette right next to me." And then, a miracle occured.

"You know what?! You're right. Thank you." Joe threw the burning
cigarette onto the pavement. "I've been meaning to quit for a long time
now and that was my last cigarette. Wow, I really appreciate
that...uh....what's your name?"

"Ed."

"Joe." The two shook hands, making the first real contact they'd ever
had.

Just then, the bus came. Saturday and Sunday passed. Monday morning
came.

Ed arrived at the bus stop. Something was different. There was no
cigarette smoke. But there sat Joe with a friendly smile, revealing a
collection of good fillings and a shining gold tooth. "Hi there", he
said.

"Hi Joe." Ed unfolded his newspaper.

"It's a beautiful morning." Ed looked out a city awakening to life and
mist clouds that rose from the cold wet ground and danced to the music
of the rising sun. Ed realized he rarely took the time to appreciate
the morning.

"Uh, yeah, it's nice." Ed's glance returned to the financial section of
the newspaper.

"What's your favorite book?" Ed heard but assumed that Joe was talking
to someone else, another citizen of the bus stop who Joe was on
familiar footing with.

"Ed, what's your favorite book?" Ed looked up, shocked that Joe would
ask him a question like that. After all, they were strangers to each
other.

"The Bible. Certainly the bible. It's the most fantastic collection of
wisdom man has ever put together. What's yours?"

"Well it's Hackory's 'Guide to Getting Rich'."

"Well, that's a good choice, as far as it goes. I like that. You know,
when it first came out, I wrote a review of that book."

"Really? Who'd you write it for?"

"The Suburbia Times, this paper right here."

"Really?"

"Yup. I've been writing for that paper for twenty years now. It's the
first job I got out of college."

"I recognize you now, Ed. I see your picture quite often, every Friday
isn't it."

"Yeah, among other things I write a weekly column on events in the
stock market. Do you read it?"

"No, I've never read it. But at my work, I often rifle through the
financial section of the paper to find the part with the closing prices
of all the stocks."

"What kind of work do you do?"
"I'm a stockbroker."

"On the floor of the exchange?"

"No, I've got a guy who works for me on the floor. I call him on his
cell phone and he makes the trades I tell him to make."

The bus came. So did Tuesday morning.

Ed was waiting when Joe walked in. "Joe, what's your ultimate goal in
life?"

"Well, gee, getting a little personal, are you? We met what, yesterday?
But I tell you what, I'm really glad you asked that question. My
ultimate goal in life is to watch my son graduate from Harvard Business
School!"

"He's going to Harvard?"

"Oh, no. He's going to pre-school. But someday, I'm telling you, he'll
graduate from Harvard."

"I don't think getting a piece of paper is a very good goal."

"Well, what's your 'ultimate goal in life'?"

"I want to write the perfect newspaper article. It doesn't have to be a
big story. It could be a little piece and almost nobody would even read
it but down to the last word, it would be perfection. Every day I write
decent articles, once a week I write a good article, and I remember a
few glorious times in the past when I've written great articles but
I've never written the perfect article."

"Why are you so obsessed with your work?"

"Because it gives meaning to my life."

"No, Ed, that's not why you're obsessed with your work. It's because
you've got a painful emptiness right here," Joe thumped his left pec
for effect. "And I've got that same emptiness, brother, but that's not
the way to deal with it. You can't fill it with words, you've got to
fill it with love."

"Well, I'll tell you something about love. I love my two daughters and
I would never make either of them go to any college just because I
wanted them to. I love my daughters so much that I want to give them
the freedom to choose their own lives." Ed knew how insulting this
sounded and expected Joe to blow up in a tirade of swear words.
Instead, Joe's jaw dropped and a stunned expression came onto his
face.

"You think my son won't want to go to Harvard Business School?! And
then my dream would never come true. But he'd have the opportunity to
make his dreams come true and that's really what I want. That's my
dream."

"I can see how much you love your son. I'm really impressed."

"But that's what I was telling you, Ed. I'm not a religous man but I
think I was sent to you by a higher force. We all feel this loneliness,
this..."

The bus came. But this time, Joe and Ed sat right next to each other
and continued their discussion.

Joe resumed, "It's a cold world, Ed. The world always seems like it
wants to suck everything right out of you. And you're tempted to hide
away inside yourself. You hide behind a newspaper and you're safe but
you're not in love with the world. You've gotta fling open the doors
and let the world in and yourself out."

"You're right, Joe. Thanks for the advice."

"I just have to tell you. It might seem like you owe me for that little
talk I just gave you but actually I owe you, big. Remember that morning
when you asked me to quit smoking? Well I did and it changed my life.
I'm better at work. I'm happier. I'll never forget the proud look on my
son's face when I told him I'd quit smoking. It was a look of absolute
love."

"That's what it's all about, love. And I'm telling you now, I love you
as a friend and as a brother. The things you've told me about opening
myself up to the world...enough said....you freed me, you gave me a new
lease on life."

"Yeah, I love you too, bro, but I'm worried about you. You've gotta get
outside of yourself."

"I will. Tommorow, my life begins anew."

"No, Ed. Not tommorow. Right now."

"Today, I'm going to write the perfect article." And he did.