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
4th
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.”
