Yours Ever - Melody Cryns

I didn’t write to him for about a month, that guy I met on the BART subway train one night while commuting home to the apartment I lived at in Hayward – for a little while. Looking back I can’t believe I actually lived in Hayward for a while. I had a cute one-bedroom apartment at the very end of a cul-de-sac that actually had its very own backyard – and the rent was cheap back in the ‘70’s. I think it was only $200 a month.

But I mainly moved to Hayward because of the boyfriend I had – the boyfriend whom I was supposed to marry – when I was only 20, he had gotten me an engagement ring as a surprise gift for Christmas – I opened the gift at his parents’ house and everything. All exciting stuff, only things had pretty much fallen apart with the boyfriend by the time I met the guy on the subway train heading for Hayward that one night. I wasn’t even wearing the ring anymore. I remember sitting on a seat facing other people and feeling as if I was on some sort of weird spaceship and not on a subway train – they were still pretty new back then. Sometimes weird things would happen, like the doors would just randomly open and close and stuff like that. It was always delightfully scary to travel through the long tunnel that was actually underneath the San Francisco Bay, the BART train just zipping along. I had a notebook and a pen with me and I was writing in it when I heard someone say, “Hi, what’cha writing?”

I looked up and saw a guy in full green Army uniform sitting directly across from me – with a huge smile on his face – with jet black hair combed back and wire-framed glasses. “Hi, oh nothing much.” I shut my notebook right away, not wanting to talk about the letter I was attempting to write to the soon to be ex-boyfriend or ex-fiance or whatever.

“Looks like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” the guy said sitting across from me, never getting rid of that big smile.

“I guess you can say that.”

And so we began talking – his name was Stephen, with a ph he did not fail to point out to me. “Wow, this subway BART thing is really cool!”

“You’ve never been on it before?” I asked, as if this Stephen guy was from another planet.

“No, I’ve been away – and tomorrow I’m headed for Germany. Just wanted to go see my family tonight in Castro Valley before I go.”

“Wow, Germany!”

“Yeah, I’ve been there before.” It passed the time to talk to this strange guy in full military uniform – got my mind off other things. People milled about but the only one I noticed was Stephen with a ph. He was charming in a weird sort of way, and funny too. He kept cracking jokes and he told me all about Germany. In no time at all it seemed I had a clear picture of what it would be like to walk down a cobblestone road in a small German town. At the time I never in a million years imagined that I would ever go there.

The loudspeaker mechanical lady yelled, “Hayward, next stop Hayward!”

“It’s time for me to get off,” I said. “Nice to meet you Stephen with a ph!”

He laughed. “But hey, can I write to you? A guy overseas can get kinda lonely…and I love writing!”

Wow, for a moment I felt a spark – he loved writing. I clutched my notebook close to me. It might be fun to write to a guy in Germany. But then there was the complication of the soon to be ex and…

“How ‘bout if you give me your address, and I promise I’ll write to you. Here.” I opened up my notebook and handed Stephen the pen.

“Wow,” he said, looking at the notebook paper. “Yellow notebook paper. I’ve never seen this before, so cool!”

As he wrote his address down on the page, I laughed and said, “So I promise the first letter I write you will be on that yellow notebook paper!”

“I hope that’s a promise! Actually, I think I’m getting off at the same stop you are!” He handed the notebook and pen back to me.

It turned out that Stephen would have to take a bus to Castro Valley. One part of me wanted to offer him a ride, but I still didn’t know this guy from Adam – he wasn’t much taller than me, kinda short and his black shoes were so shiny – spit shined he laughed. But he seemed nice.

And a month later, as promised, while sitting on a train with my yellow-papered notebook, I started my first letter to Stephen with a ph – “Dear Stephen, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m that girl from the BART train…”