A Familiar Stranger

A Familiar Stranger

We both arrived at the Delta service desk behind the baggage carousel at about the same time. That’s where we were sent by the Delta Airlines agent at the arrival gate at Houston’s Intercontinental Airport, to which we had been sent when our original flight from Cincinnati to Houston Hobby Airport was cancelled. Instead of a voucher for a bus ride to Hobby Airport where my rental car awaited me, the service desk rep handed the two of us a voucher for a taxi for the drive to the other airport.

Right away something seemed familiar about my fellow taxi passenger. He was very pleasant, chatty—especially with the cab driver, and already comfortable to be with. A guy who announced, when I said that I was retired, that he would be fifty on his next birthday. Other tidbits of information I gleaned from either his comments to me or to the cabbie were that he is a seventh generation Texan, a native Houstonian, a bricklayer who works for an international concrete institute that builds demonstration homes for low-income people in other countries. He’s married, has a wife who loves him (deduced from his “I love you, too” to her during a cell phone call from the cab.)

He looked like an outdoors person, tanned and lined face and neck, strong-looking fingers and hands, wearing clean and pressed workman-type clothes—blue work pants, and matching long-sleeved shirt with rolled up sleeves against the humid Texas afternoon heat. His hair was mostly dark, as were his eyes, and his teeth looks well-cared for, but were gapped and protruded a little. But it was his voice that captivated me. A distinctive accent, one that sounded familiar to me, and yet I couldn’t quite place it. Southern, yes, but not a Southern “drawl.” And expressive, so expressive. A bright, clearly-enunciated lilt.

And he was cheerful, even when describing the run-down parts of town we were driving through and how they’d changed over the years. Enthusiastic, I think that’s the best description. He just sounds enthusiastic about everything. It lifted my spirits after the long and frustrating travel day. An example of how you never know who you might be influencing. I silently thanked Mr. Bricklayer Man.

And then, when I finally got to my room in the hotel in Galveston, it hit me. Malcolm. My familiar stranger sounds just like my friend Malcolm. Maybe he’s Malcolm’s baby brother, lost at birth and raised by adoptive parents in Texas. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. A kindred spirit to Malcolm, though; a familiar stranger to me.