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In Michelle Carter’s Writing in the Public Context class at San Francisco State we are to listen for and write down overheard dialogue that intrigues us, or that we find mysterious, impenetrable, or loaded with hidden meaning. 

This is an easy assignment for me because I find a lot of conversations in my own house to be curious and confusing. When I ask certain individuals who live with me where they went or what they were doing that kept them out until 4:30 in the morning, I am met with a blank stare and the reply, “That ain’t none of your business now, is it?” 

I get a similar response when I’m asked if I can make a loan of 10 dollars to someone who I have just paid three hours prior. 

“Well,” I say, “if you want a loan I think it’s only reasonable that I know what it’s for.” The standard reply is a repeat of the line, “Ain’t none of your business,” accompanied with the following explanation: “You can loan me the money, I’ll let you do that for me, but you can’t tell me what to do with it, cuz once you give it up to me, it’s mine to do with what I want, you dig?” 

When the loan is finally negotiated, I am sometimes told about its future. “This is my ‘ain’t goin’ nowhere money” the loan-ee will inform me. 

“What’s that?” I ask. “It’s money that ain’t goin’ nowhere but my pocket.” A few hours later another request for a cash infusion makes it obvious that the ‘ain’t goin nowhere money’ went, in fact, into someone else’s pocket.  

On my weekly walks with Willie to Doug’s Barbecue, we engage in a wide range of topics, that include tidbits on Willie’s life before he came to live with my husband and me, factoids about myself, and information about the people we encounter. Willie tells me that he’s got a doctor’s appointment next month at Highland Hospital. “What for?” I ask. “I got a hernia,” he replies, “and they gotta see if it’s cancer, but don’t trip now, cuz I ain’t trippin’.” But I literally do trip, over a crack in the sidewalk, and this prompts Willie to ask, “No offense now Suzy, but was you uncoordinated when you was a child?”  

At Fair Deal Meat Company we make our regular stop for sliced cheese and pressed ham. “You try that head cheese I gave you last week?” asks one of the men behind the counter. I crinkle up my nose in response. “It’s an acquired taste,” he tells me. Then he whispers, “I don’t like it all that much myself.” 

Willie and I stroll around the corner and I leave him at Doug’s doorway. “You gonna be alright walkin’ home by yourself?” asks Willie. “Of course,” I reply, turning to go. “Don’t trip, now,” he warns and I wonder if he has intended a double meaning.  

Walking past Acucare Spa at the corner of Market and 39th streets a man pushing a shopping cart asks me if I’m going in for a massage. “Not today,” I say. “Why not?” he asks. “It’s a stress reliever, and you look like you could use it.” 

I turn the corner, and run into the same woman I see every week when I walk with Willie. She is striding down the block with purpose. “How’s by you?” she asks. “Pretty good,” I answer as she passes. “Be sweet now,” she says in return.  

Yesterday morning at Temescal Pool I follow a part of a conversation between two naked women in the shower. I can barely contain my excitement at the discussion and spend much longer soaping up than intended. “I did my dissertation on the ecology of the vagina,” explains one of the women. “How interesting,” says the listener. “I suppose it’s a real forest down there, full of all kinds of things.” “Yes,” says the woman with the dissertation, “and when I lecture my students I always start by saying that fifty percent of the world’s population needs to know about this stuff because they have a vagina, and the other half should know about this because they want one.” 

I get out of the shower, dress, and run from the locker room to my car where I keep a notebook under the front seat. Maybe the same two women will be at the pool tomorrow. I can hardly wait.›