Day 3

Name: Jim

Profession: Not provided

Location: The Ruggles train station

Question: What brought you here?

Answer: I commute by bike.

After receiving a disappointing number of rejections today, including from the officers at the Boston Police Department, the woman behind the counter at the Fast Cash store, a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer, and countless pedestrians, it was hard to hold my head high and keep moving forward. The fact that people avoided the young woman with the tape recorder like they would a desperate beggar was difficult to cope with. Thankfully, my frozen and weakening expectations were salvaged when a tall, older man in full biking gear (his bicycle faithfully at his side) stopped and allowed me to speak with him.

Preferring not to give his last name or profession, Jim seemed to have little to say: “I bike out, and I take the train home.”

Coming from work in Norwood, Jim bikes about 12 miles home every evening, and has been doing so for years. Though he didn’t give any specific number, he did say that he moved to Boston in 1977 from Michigan for a job, and has since started a family who uses the household car.

The real gem of the interview came after I had shaken his hand and thanked him for his time, finger on the stop button of the recorder. Before walking away, he added: “I once thought I would take a picture—we have a few of the Pru[dential building], from the west side, where you get a great sunset on it—but I once thought I’d take a picture of the Pru every day at the same time for a year. I’m saying every day is a little different, the way the light’s cast on it… That’s my, you know, one a day thing.”