Portland in the Rain

I took the light rail from the airport to downtown Portland the other day. It was raining, and two stops into my ride, a guy named Josh got on the train. Josh was young — in his 20s with red hair that looked like he had cut it himself. He was wearing a paper wristband with a barcode on it, and underneath his jacket I could see a little bit of a soft cotton garment that I recognized as a hospital gown. I could tell from his eyes and the way his limbs moved like they were hanging real loosely that he was on some kind of medication.

But he was nice, and sat down next to me and immediately struck up a conversation. He asked if I was visiting town and offered to give me directions to any place I was trying to go. “Man — I been living in this city for a long time,” he said. “I guarantee you I know this town better than any Uber driver. I could be an Uber driver if I had my ID. See, there was this mix up and I let my girlfriend borrow it so she could pick up a package for me at the post office, and she got stuck down in Redding and hasn’t come back around in a few months.”

Then he asked if I knew anything about quantum computing. I said I had heard that term, and if I understood correctly, it was a type of computing where a bit can have more states than just a one and a zero. “So you know it,” he said. “Listen. Me and some guys, we’re getting into it. Like, big into it. I’ve been playing with computers since I was 5 years old. Remember Windows 3.1? I was taking ’em apart and putting ’em back together. I got messed up by a power supply once — did you know those fuckers can shock you even if they’re not plugged in?” I said that I didn’t. “Well they can. I didn’t know that when I was 8 though.”

A college-aged kid came by with a petition and asked if we were registered Oregon voters. I said I was visiting from California. Josh said he does live in Oregon but see, there was this mix up. Some high school kid traded him a bag of pot to let him borrow his ID to buy booze for a party, and sure enough, the kid vanished. He never saw him again.

When the kid with the petition left, Josh asked me if I owned any real-estate. I told him I didn’t. “Me and some guys are getting into it,” he said. “The way prices are going up in Portland right now, you buy a few properties, and in a few years they’ll be worth two, maybe three times what you paid for ‘em!”

He told me he wanted to go into business by himself but he needed some people to co-sign the papers with him. “See,” he said. “There was this mix up. I left my ID at this bar and some guy I barely even met charged a bunch of drinks for his friends on my tab and they’re holding it until it gets paid off. They put it up on the wall and everything, but it’s a bunch a bullshit ’cause I wasn’t even there half the time!”

I told him that may not be legal and he should look into it. He said it didn’t really matter because he thought it was probably expired.

Josh got off a few stops before me. He said goodbye and wished me a good visit. Before he stepped off the train, he paused at the sliding doors and turned around. “I hope you accomplish what you came here to accomplish.” He said it loudly, as a proclamation; addressing not just myself but everyone huddled in the shelter of the car. Then he slipped through the closing doors and out into the driving rain.