Most Interesting Person I Never Met

I was just thinking this morning of all the potentially interesting people who I’ve seen during the course of my life who I never talked to and never found out any more about. I’m sure you know the sort I’m talking about, the sort where there was something extremely unusual about them and you didn’t ask any questions out of safety…though there was surely an interesting story there. People you always remember but didn’t actually know anything about.

I’m thinking this morning about one guy in particular I saw on a bus trip one time. I only actually saw him briefly. It was a non-stop meandering three-day bus trip from Omaha to Seattle and I believe he was only on one short leg of the trip with me. We didn’t even sit close on the bus itself. I actually only saw him briefly in a bus station while waiting to get on the bus for the next leg.

I only saw him briefly, and he just stood there quietly and didn’t really do anything, but I still remember him. I can picture him in my head and the memory of him standing there still comes back to me after almost twenty years.

In general, I suppose he didn’t look that odd overall. He had a backpack and wore a denim jacket that was an identical white acid wash to his denim jeans. He might have had on a white t-shirt, but it was the denim jacket and jeans that really got my attention…because he had crosses drawn all over both in black ballpoint pen.

Yup, thousands of crosses. Thousands and thousands of crosses. They weren’t art-like crosses, no calligraphy or anything like that, just quickly scrawled crosses covering almost every possible surface of his denim jacket and jeans. He didn’t seem to notice them and neither did anyone else. He (and everyone else) just acted like they weren’t there.

Was he a severe schizophrenic? Did he have delusions of being pursued by endless streams of relentless and terrible demons? Was this the only way he thought he could protect himself? Did he think it was a normal way to accessorize his (matching) jacket and jeans? Was it just a strange fashion statement? Was he trapped in the middle of some bad 80s occult movie that would only show on television Sunday afternoons where he had to endlessly travel the countryside by bus in order to defeat a devil lord who looked suspiciously like Eric Roberts?

Really, there was no way to be sure because I didn’t get anywhere near him and didn’t speak to him. It was just a bus ride, after all. I just happened to notice him when I glanced over and he maybe glanced back once.

Still, he had to have been one of the most potentially interesting people I never met. I ponder this from time to time, but I’ve never regretted that I didn’t speak.