4:59 pm: An earlier bus before the transit station...A man got on the bus, disheveled, hair hanging in thin strands.
His lips & nose enlarged as if from chronic drinking.
A schoolgirl with a box of fund raising candy pays his fare. She got on seconds before him at the same stop just as he had walked up to it.
The people on the bus make rude talk. They all move towards seats more back, except the schoolgirl, the man, and I.
He leaned back halfway in the seat, oblivious to his surroundings and unable to speak, and had feces down the outside of his leg facing the other riders as he sat in a front sideways seatbench.
Many shots of deodorizer are sprayed by the driver politely, no reaction by the man. The mob rants. One of them comments how he is about to go 'take care of him'. The driver ignores their rudeness. The talk starts to get racial.
She's white. I'm white. The man's white. The only black person on the bus not ranting was the one that paid his fair.
We get downtown. He rises at an intersection as if to get off, but the driver tells him to sit down. She continues on, talking to dispatch in a muffled voice not to insult him...she needs to change busses due to the soiled bench seat.
The bus stops at the next light, where the man gets off and forgets his hat he drops. The school girl goes to pick it up, the mob already giggling about his departure...one yells out "Don't touch it"...two others guffaw in laughter.
She ignores them. She steps off the bus holding it out and calling him. He looks back but keeps walking.
She looks at him and places it right side up on the sidewalk in front of her and gets on the bus without saying a word.
The driver doesn't speak until I say my goodnight and thank you for the ride. We just listen.
They're still armchair quarterbacking the man.
I guess they don't give a crap.
No comments:
Post a Comment