On the Bus, a short story

[Jack]

So the other day I spent the entire day (around 18 hours awake) in the wonderful city of Lexington, Kentucky, running various errands and shopping. For about three hours, all together, I rode public transit. A greyhound bus there and back, a taxi, and LexTran, the public bus which runs through the city of Lexington.

At the city bus terminal downtown, after a short layover, I got in line with a bunch of people to catch another bus. Two of the people stuck out in particular. I should point out that most of the people who ride this public transit are ethnic minorities and/or poor (I include myself here, by the way). In a poet’s language I would call them (and indeed have called them) “the ghetto people.” The immediate images that phrase brings to mind are the kind of people who ride this particular public transit most of the time. They are people, mostly black and Hispanic but a few others as well, who have had a rough life and who are struggling to get by (I mean, if most of us could afford a car, insurance, and gasoline, we wouldn’t be on the public transit in the first place).

The two people who stood out most to me on this particular day in that particular line were an older woman with huge Nicole-Ritchie-style dark sunglasses who wore uncut salt-and-pepper hair, and an auburn-haired woman in her 20s who seemed to be a clone of the older woman. She must have been her daughter, I reasoned. The older woman was speaking Italian, and the younger woman was speaking Italian to her mother and perfect American English to somebody on a cell phone at the same time. I had never noticed how beautiful the Italian language sounded until I heard it spoken by the older woman. There was something about the quality of her voice, deep, rich, and sonorous, which made the language sound like the finest of musical instruments being played by a master. Speaking Italian wasn’t what made me pay particular attention to them, however. I paid them attention because of the way the younger woman had her arm wrapped inside of her mother’s arm the entire time they stood in line. As they boarded the bus together, I realized the older woman was blind.

I found a seat near the middle of the bus, and the two women sat directly in front of me. On the other side of me sat a middle aged, Caucasian, stereotypically “hillbilly” man in his late 30s or early 40s, wearing a cut-off white wife-beater shirt with a red, black, and yellow NASCAR print hat. He bore faded green tattoos down both shoulders and had a large scar on the side of his neck. His skin was that strange mixture of extremely pale and extremely sunburned at the same time. He smelled of beer and it was soon obvious to me that he was very, very drunk. He was speaking in a loud, simple voice to another man about three rows in front of me, two rows in front of the Italian woman and her daughter.

The man in the front said that he had accidentally misplaced his wallet somewhere today while in Hamburg, a popular shopping center, and couldn’t find it. He was talking to the drunk as though the drunk man were perfectly sober, and he re-iterated, “I sat it down somewhere, and then I just couldn’t find the God-damned thing.”

Immediately, the blind Italian woman, who had been chattering quietly to her daughter, spoke to both the men (and everyone else) in heavily accented English:

“I do that all the time.”

I instantly laughed a spontaneous, loud, cackling kind of laughter from deep within my chest.

I instantly shut up.

Every person on the bus except for the blind lady, including her daughter, the bus driver, all the ghetto people, and the drunk, was staring directly at me as though I were a terribly sick individual to laugh at that utterance, and I guess in some ways I was (and am) sick for laughing at it. It was not socially appropriate to laugh at that particular moment, but I just couldn’t help it. I didn’t know she was going to say that, and I found great humor in the utterance.

I presently sunk down in my seat, put my mp3 headphones in my ears, and stared at the floor of the bus as I pretended to listen to music, and I heard the blind woman speak again to her daughter, in Italian, probably calling me an ice-hearted son of a bitch.

[peeplj]

I can strongly sympathize.

Inappropriate laughter has unfortunately been one of my defining characteristics through much of my life.

As a child, it got me into trouble more times than I can count. As an adult, it sometimes leaves me struggling to explain to puzzled or irritated friends that I am an oddball and that, when it comes to humor, sometimes my mind insists on making a U-turn against oncoming traffic.

--James

[Charlene]

I've had to ride the bus to work a few days because our second vehicle is leaking oil very badly and I don't want to fry the engine by driving it. I have to take 2 busses to get to work, one downtown and then transfer to the one that goes to work. The people on the one bus going downtown are fairly "normal" but boy the folks on the other bus! Wednesday I realized as soon as I sat down behind this woman that she was drunk (at 9:30 in the morning) and then some guy sat behind me and he was giving off fumes too. There are a lot of rehab centers on the street where I work and I think most of the folks on that bus were headed to one of them.

I"ll have to do this 2 days a week and have my husband pick me up from work those nights, because 2 days I start much later than he does. The other 3 days I start earlier so he can drop me off, then one day I'll have to either take the bus home or walk to my husband's store (about 3 miles), and the rest of the time he can pick me up. It's a pain.

I miss not having my own transportation! We don't have the same days off or work the same hours, so it's really hard to look for another car together.

[Lambchop]

We can't always control our impulses. But that doesn't mean you can't remedy the situation!

Next time this happens, just emit that loud, cackling laughter at intervals thereafter. Exhibiting a repetitive tic of some sort along with it will make it more convincing. That will make everyone think you have some kind of disorder, and that will ease any embarrassment the lady might have felt.

[Innocent Bystander]

We can't always control our impulses. But that doesn't mean you can't remedy the situation!

Next time this happens, just emit that loud, cackling laughter at intervals thereafter. Exhibiting a repetitive tic of some sort along with it will make it more convincing. That will make everyone think you have some kind of disorder, and that will ease any embarrassment the lady might have felt.

Beware of vinegar made with honey.

[anniemcu]

My first thought on her comment was that she was making a joke. I would probably have laughed as well.

[Lambchop]

It was a joke. Dry humor . . . guess it doesn't translate well over there.

I'm having a little trouble grasping the vinegar bit, but I guess it was meant to be critical.

For the record, it would be exactly the same advice I'd give to anyone who suffered similar embarrassment. It would be delivered in an absolutely deadpan style and I can guarantee that that someone would never be quite sure if I was serious or not.

That's how I got the nickname Lambchop. Well, part of it, anyway.

[chrisoff]

You should have pretended you had a comedy album on. I'm sure I've had some strange looks in the office when I've been listening to Ross Noble on my MP3 player.

Or maybe pretend you'd seen something funny out the window.

Nice story though, liked the attention to detail.

[jw wren]

The environment I struggle with is sitting at a workstation with high walls. I can hear everything everyone is saying, but like the woman on the bus, can't see anyone. I tend to simply contribute to any conversations I can hear - assuming that if they are speaking loudly enough for me to hear then they expect that I can hear and will respond. It works well enough but can get difficult if the person is actually speaking to someone on the phone, not me.

Ah the wierd wired world of the modern workplace...

[hyldemoer]

My first thought on her comment was that she was making a joke. I would probably have laughed as well.

Same here and if everybody turned to me after the laugh I would have interpreted it as them thinking I laughed because I wanted to join in the conversation.
(A laugh is pleasanter than a cough as an introduction.)

I probably would have interjected with a smile on my face (and yeah, most people can hear when you're smiling) something like, "So true! I do that too. I guess we're all just human aren't we."

[Flyingcursor]

It may be that some of them stared at you because the laugh was unexpected and they may have not even been paying attention to everything else.

[mutepointe]

Whenever I have to spend time in an elevator or some other place I can't leave and there is a person talking on a cell phone, I answer all their questions and engaged myself in the coversation. If people want a private conversation then they should have it in private. (If it's a Mom dealing with kids, I don't do this. Moms have enough problems.)

[Martin Milner]

Whenever I have to spend time in an elevator or some other place I can't leave and there is a person talking on a cell phone, I answer all their questions and engaged myself in the coversation. If people want a private conversation then they should have it in private. (If it's a Mom dealing with kids, I don't do this. Moms have enough problems.)

Exactly. So many people wander the streets these days plugged into a mobile phone, and seem oblivious to everyone else. Worse when they're driving.

Nice attention to detail Jack.

It's a shame that "bus people" have to be ghetto people. In London travelling by bus is more socially stratified, and with gas now £1.16 a litre (approx $8.70 a US gallon) and the average speed of road traffic in London around 11mph, you can understand why. There are still many people who like to sit in their little metal boxes for a couple of hours a day though.

[Jack]

It's a shame that "bus people" have to be ghetto people.

I kept telling myself that "these people are truly Jesus," in an attempt to love them more, but myself told me right back "you're afraid of some of them anyway," and that had some deep inner consequences.

Oh well. A weekish later I think that it wasn't as big a deal to everybody else as it was to me, and that makes me feel a little better. I was just listening to everything being said, and most other people probably weren't, so they just stared at me weirdly.

[hyldemoer]

It's a shame that "bus people" have to be ghetto people.

I kept telling myself that "these people are truly Jesus," in an attempt to love them more, but myself told me right back "you're afraid of some of them anyway," and that had some deep inner consequences.

"Ghetto people"?

I ride the bus and subway/elevated train a lot around Chicago. Depending on what time of day it is, there might be more "blue collar" workers (factory or craft employed) or "white collar" (office employed; though lots of office employed people tell me they have no dress code at work any more).

And just for the record, when ever someone comes to the door when I'm alone at home, or I'm waiting at a bus stop or walking down the street alone late at night, or I'm stuck in an elevator (lift) with a very scary looking person I pull out my cell phone and pretend I'm talking to someone who can hang up, dial 911, and tell the police I'm being attacked if that happens to me.