#A-TO-Z-CHALLENGE 2019 - LETTER "B" - BUSES OF NEBRASKA AVENUE AND ITS ENVIRONS

Buses! The many bus stories I have written over the many years of living here in the 'hood have covered varied facets of life in the streets of Tampa. Everything from a frothing bus ballet, when they all meet-and-greet in the central hub the Metro Bus Center downtown and do a delicate dance of braking and squealing and farting, as the dodge one another on their way to their separate berths. Being a passenger during one of these Stravinsky and Najinsky-inspired Rites of Spring is definitely not for the faint of heart, as metal behemoths dance by on one tire, mere inches from their partners. Yet, somehow, this craziness is repeated on a daily basis with no applause. Drivers all, I simply say, “bravo”. Except for Mr. “Safety First”, whom we shall address soon.

"The Rite of Spring" Ballet. Music by Igor Stravinsky; Choreography by Najinsky caused rioting at its premiere in Paris in 1913. It was mainly the ballet that created the mayhem and that was soon dropped. "Rite of Spring" went on to become a landmark work of Stravinsky, but the chaos and weirdness of Najinsky's ballet never caught on.

It's not only the drivers who are diverse and long-suffering. They are forced to put up with the guy who insists on yelling on his cell-phone to his cousin in oh, say Venezuela, or Germany. He's so loud that the phone isn't really necessary. The fact that he's blargling in some kind of English makes it not on whit better either. Tired of listening to him yammer, I look ahead to see some kid play-acting along with whatever is on the screen of his phone. The 4^th wall is truly broken here. To make matters worse, the kid jumps up to look out the window, and I reflexively jump up with him for FOMO. Kill me now. At least I'm not sitting next to “shouty guy”; the guy who just yells incoherently at nothing every five seconds.

Understand, this is just the very worst of the worst on a day on the bus. They're not generally like this. Most of the routes are rather normal, unless you're on the number 32 route, then you're on Psychiatrist Row and it's a grab-bag of looniness. The drivers who drive that route must have done something awful to have gotten stuck there. Once, when I was homeless, I was standing at the 32 bus stop, with my late companion, Jim, and the bus pulled up. We were visiting our Psychiatrist together, and Jim said, “Oh geeze, it's this old crab.” I just busted up laughing. Old crab is right. The time before, it had been pouring rain, and some not very nice people had deliberately soaked us with their car, by aiming for the puddles. Three very sweet women drove by right after those two guys and gave us two umbrellas, but the damage had been done; we were dripping wet.

As we clambered on the 32 bus, the Crab said, “Geeze, you're getting my bus all wet (the floors were already wet, but he just HAD to bitch), this is so rude!” From the back of the bus, one of our homeless compatriots, who was pretty feisty, yells from the back of the bus, “Bitch! It's not because we don't give a shit! It's because we're poor and homeless you numb fool! You're not gonna have to clean this up! Yada yada yada!” As Jim and I shuffled off to our seats. Great. I thanked her later. I'm usually the Mouth of the South. That shut the Crab up for that trip, but he was always snarky. He finally went to another route, or retired. I don't know what happened to him.

Much later, after Jim had died, my pretend-adopted-son Alex and I were trying to get home from the grocery store. We had to take the Nebraska Avenue Rapid Metro Bus, that crosses MLK, Jr. Blvd. Just as we were crossing the street to get to the bus stop, there was an accident in that intersection and it was serious enough to louse up the traffic, plus a Semi died and put out some hazard cones in the south left turn lane on Nebraska Avenue. Now, this did not stop a few intrepid buses from navigating around this treacherous scene and proceeding south on Nebraska to bear passengers to their destination.

However, the bus that Alex and I happened to land in was helmed by Mr. “Safety First”, a clod who never made the bus kneel when I tried to get off, so that I was at high risk of bashing my teeth out on the sidewalk, and never waited until I was seated, before jamming on the accelerator, as if he were trying to launch number 400 into outer space. So yeah, “Safety First” wasn't really an apt title, as we shall see. Said clod decided that he was unable to make his ungainly bus make a simple 90° right turn down a side street, like all the OTHER nice buses did, he was gonna sit there until. . .? Well, first off, we had a guy who had been in some kinda special forces unit over in Iraq and had driven heavy equipment, who OFFERED to drive the binch of a bus around the corner if the driver wouldn't do it. “Oh no! I'm all about safety!” The driver opined. I just goggled at him. “Well, Mr. Safety First! How's about you get on that fancy radio of yours and call someone to come and drive us the hell out of here?” I said. Bus driver dithered around some.

I was torn for today's topic, that's why it's late. I was thinking "bois" or "bakeries" or "badass" me. All I do is yell at the druggies around here and run them off, bleh. "Bus" is so much more fun!

I looked out my window and happened to see some policemans directing traffic in the intersection, not too far from where we were sitting. This was getting ridiculous. We'd been here, like what? Thirty minutes? The buses behind us weren't coming, because the broadcast had gone out that there was an accident, and this guy wasn't doing anything. I started pounding on the windows, yelling “Help! Mr. Policemans! We've been kidnapped by a deranged bus driver! He won't go around the corner and we're being forced to sit here against our will!” The other passengers began to laugh. My pretend-adopted-son Alex was trying to hide. Mr. “Safety First” was dithering even more. I turned to him and said, “Now, you ready to get on that walkie-talkie and call your supervisor?” He nodded and did so. (I guess they get points off for that kind of stuff, but really, this was idiotic.)

Pretty soon, a guy drives up in something that looks like it was made by the Dinky-Toy company and he gets out and gets on the bus to find out what all the ruckus is about. Both Special Forces and I 'fess up, saying we just want to get the hell out of there. The Supervisor looks at us both and doesn't say a word. He yanks Mr. “Safety First” off the bus and they have a chin-wag. The driver then gets back on the bus, fires it up and follows the Dinky-Toy car, around the 90° right turn. We make a slight detour and then, we're back on Nebraska Avenue, south of the still on-going accident scene. I'm home in 2 minutes. As I get off the bus, I turn to Mr. “Safety First” and say, “Listen, d'you mind kneeling the bus, please? I don't wanna bash out my teeth. Thanks.”