It’s 5pm, and my C-max and I are clawing our way through rush hour on Montgomery, with couple of passengers on their way home after a hard day of work in finance. The foot traffic is just as bad as the car traffic, with the narrow sidewalks packed with every kind of suit and pantsuit fighting it out for their spot on the pavement. Everyone’s mind is on getting to Bart first in order to snatch the last seat on the outbound. Everyone’s mind except the guy in an actual beekeeper’s hat with the net up, standing on the curb, moving his hand in very slow motion closer to his face, as if to examine life ammunition, island of calm in a river of pedestrian neurosis. Now this neighborhood naturally has its set of characters, given it’s downtown San Francisco, but this guy looks well pressed and sane, even if acting peculiar. As we get closer, my passengers and I gasp, since we see what no one in the crowd seems to see, partly maybe because their view is obstructed by a garbage can. The street side of the standard concrete garbage can is covered by a substance that looks like a thick sweater, but at closer look is a swarm of bees. Plus there is an eery number of bees in the air, again, ignored by the pedestrians. The sidewalk and the swarm are close enough for us to reach out and touch, if we were so inclined, but I roll the windows up in a hurry instead. My two passengers and I stare at the scene for quite some time, since the traffic is barely moving. Nothing changes: the guy in beekeeper’s hat tends to the bees, the crowd marches by. It occurs to me that what he is doing is the more normal thing: we have been beekeepers longer than we have had jobs in financial district. He is out of context, but doing ancient job. There is a box on the ground that I imagine he plans to coach the swarm into. Unfortunately I must give up the front seat to the event as the traffic moves. I pass by two hours later. The man is gone, the bees are gone, the crowds have thinned. |
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also san franciscoA ridesharing driver, artist and a commentator operating out of San Francisco. A r c h i v e s
September 2016
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