“Nobody’s really a fan of the buses here in Los Angeles,” he stated with a matter of fact tone. “I mean… sure, we appreciate them overall, I guess. In the way that, like you said, at least we’re able to be driven around instead of having to pay attention to the road and all of the people who may or may not be in the best mood. It’s kind of one of those necessary evils at this point. Subway’s like that, too… although it’s another option for you. A little quicker, too.” It seemed, to Dante, that the people who used the subways were more likely to be weird, but… in Los Angeles… weird was almost normal. “More confusing, I think. But, you know, it’s there.”
Dante nodded in agreement. “Some people just want to complain, or be miserable. Like our strange neighbor seems to be. Know a few of them.” And, perhaps, in his own way, Dante might have been one of them, too. At least he wasn’t one of those people who wanted to leave the city, or made a big deal about wanting to leave the city. That would probably never happen.
“I fixed it… by fixing the situation so that my uncle would have to get a new one… not the best debut for my engineering skills, but I’d like to think that I’ve tipped the scales back to being successful since then.” And that wasn’t wishful thinking, to his great satisfaction. “Plus, now, if something actually does break and it’s, you know, got wires and stuff, my family actually wants me to try and take a look at it. Which can be a little annoying when it seems like I’m taking my work home with me, kind of. But it also lets me get a little extra practice in. So, you know, if you ever have something like that come up, you might consider having me take a look at it. I might be able to fix it… but I also wouldn’t touch if it looked like something that I might not be able to handle.”
That explained his hesitation towards bribes. Made sense. “Eight years…” there was a part of Dante that wondered what Marcus had seen in those eight years, because being a cop, and probably spending the bulk of those years in Chicago, could have meant that the man saw some things. And while Marcus had almost gave Dante carte blanche to ask just about anything, that didn’t mean that Dante was going to ask him about the parts of his job that Dante himself might not be able to stomach.
“Sounds like you’ve got a job that you enjoy, too, if you’ve been there for eight years.” Which may not have seemed like a long time, maybe… but Dante was relatively sure that Marcus wasn’t that much older than him, so eight years was a majority, if not the entirety, of Marcus’s adult life. That, in and of itself, was impressive.
Still, there was the part of Dante that reacted to the news of his neighbor’s occupation with a bit of hesitation. He was a minority, after all… and sometimes, cops weren’t exactly the best when it came to giving people like him a fair shake. Would he let it color his opinion of Marcus? Absolutely not. “It might not be worth that much, coming from someone who you just met today, but I appreciate knowing that someone like you is out there keeping people like me safe.” Because, yes, he’d seen cops in the neighborhood who had been beat down, emotionally, and embittered. From what Dante saw of Marcus… that wasn’t the case. And he hoped that it never would be.