thisCassandra

Bad Wrist Action, Bad Bus Activity

The tendonitis or whatever it is in my left wrist is getting worse; I wear the brace all the time, and still the wrist hurts. Deep hurt. I can't wear my watch kind of hurt. I think it may be time for more yet more physio. Ouch.

The bus energy was crazy this morning: on the way to work the bus was jammed full, and the door had closed and someone came and knocked on the door, and the driver opened it to say that the bus was full and he couldn't take any more people. The fellow got on the bus anyway, and refused to get off again, and kept calling the driver a jerk off and saying rude things.

Eventually the driver got to the end of his rope and exploded and said, "You want a fucking boot in the face? Or what?", which led to more back and forth, more threats.

Yeesh.

Eventually he got off the bus and we were able to leave, but not before the driver opened the door to shout at the man, and closed the door again a few times.

On the way home, a woman got on the bus and talked to herself the whole time she was there (from one stop to the next). She said things like, "He's coming," and "He's going to kill me." People on the bus snickered and commented that she was on drugs, and how the drugs must be really good.

I did not snicker, nor did I make any comments. I did, however, say, very quietly, "Fuck off, both of you," when the morning bus driver and the nastenger were going at it.

I believe that a well placed, quiet "Fuck Off" can work wonders with respect to stress reduction. Nobody else need hear the "Fuck Off," the speaker just needs know it was spoken. "Fuck off."

Vocalizing irritation can be good.

No Longer Part of the Group

My last group session was today, so I am no longer a part of my group, or maybe the group is no longer a part of me. Or maybe it's part of me, but no longer a part of my life.

The intellectualizing...Yes, absolutely it was the right time for me to leave, to go out into the world without that safety and support net. Absolutely, I was ready.

Though, saying goodbye to people can be an emotional experience for me. I cried. There is finality, there is an end of this time. At the very end, I told them all thank you and said, "You're all in here," and pointed at my heart. Then they all hugged me. Then we all walked away. I didn't just walk away easily, just letting go of the emotionality; once or twice on the way home, I teared up again. Letting go is not so easy. It is not so easy to leave people with whom you have shared so much intimacy.

I have been attending group for about three years now, and I have learned to live with people, which is something I would never have been able to before group. I have been able to live with people for more than one year, and not blow up. It's a miracle. I didn't think I'd be able to do this one thing, but I proved myself able. I have proved myself to be warm and wise and able and stable and mostly okay. I just needed to determine where my boundaries were and their importance to me.

More bus stories: yesterday the bus driver yelled out the window at a driver who drifted into the path of the bus, "Stop talking on the phone"; today the bus driver of the crowded 99 B-Line bus got on his intercom and told people to remove their backpacks and large bags to make room for more passengers. I like it when people do things to encourage what is not wrong; I do not like it when they do things that add to what is wrong, like talk on the phone while they're driving.

Which my bus driver home this evening did.

The Curse of the Crackhead, and Other Tales of Transit Terror

Yesterday on my way to ECIAD to pick up Crowtography II, I approached the bus stop cautiously; there was a red-headed woman sitting on the window sill of the social housing by the bus stop. From where I stood, she appeared relatively healthy, her hair was still bountiful, her body still had curves, but she was smoking a pipe.

While I waited for the bus, she approached me from the right, and placed herself directly in front of me. Close up, she was clearly fucked up on something, drugs or poor mental health. Her eyes had nothing in them; they seemed like voracious little black holes absorbing light and letting nothing out.

Conversation with the red-headed crackhead:

You don't have any spare change, do you?

Sorry, not today.

Nothing? Not a loonie? Not a twonie?

Not today.

Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Not today, maybe someday.

You never give back. You never give anything back. So, DIE!

She stomped away from me

Just after she left, the bus arrived. When I got on, I saw that the driver was the same one as I'd had on a ride home from downtown earlier in the day. At Main & Hastings the regular variety of people had gotten on the bus: the street people begging rides, the Asian workers on the way home after shift, the elders taking care of the young 'uns. I noticed a tiny little two year old girl walking resolutely by herself to the back of the bus, where she took a seat and sat alone. I looked around for her adult supervision and tagged an older woman sitting by herself at the front of the bus as a grandmother.

My stop is at Jackson, two stops east of Main & Hastings. Just before Jackson the tiny little two year old strode resolutely back to the front of the bus, I assumed to rejoin her adult supervision. The bus stopped at Jackson, I got off through the rear door, and walked across Jackson towards thisCastle.

When I got to the other side of Jackson I heard some commotion behind me, a child crying, no, wailing, and a woman shouting in Cantonese, things I did not understand. I turned around and saw the tiny little two year old from the bus howling with some intense emotion and running full speed towards me, about to cross Jackson Avenue behind me. Behind her was the adult supervision shuffling along and the bus driver passing her to catch up with the girl.

The kid ran fast. I looked up and down Jackson to see if there were cars coming and calculated how long it would take me to run and pick her up to keep her from being run over, but the driver got to her before I even started towards her. It took the driver, a fit, taller than average man until the girl reached the far side of Jackson Avenue before he caught her. He scooped her up and took her, still screaming, back to the adult supervision, who was still shouting in Cantonese.

I have no idea where this tiny two year old was going or what she was screaming about, but unless she thought she'd forgotten something in Chinatown, I think she might have been following me; I was the only person who got off the bus there and crossed Jackson Avenue. Maybe she thought she knew me from somewhere and that I was leaving her on the bus.

When I was about four years old I used to have a recurring nightmare - it started with me and my mother going on a trip together, waiting in a train station or bus depot or marina or airport for our transportation. When the vehicle arrived, my mother would get on, leaving me on the platform or bay or wharf or tarmac, and then the vehicle would leave. My mother would stick her head out a window and throw a rope to me, which would always slip through my hands, and I would be left behind, causing my little heart to break.

I think I recognized the anguish in that resolute girl’s cries as the pain of being left behind. Weird, I know, but I have no other explanation.

When I got off the bus at the other end of the second journey, I asked the driver if he was the same one that chased down the resolute two year old, and he said he was. I commended him on a job well done, and I think he was pleased with that. Bus drivers seem to like to be recognized for their contributions.

Friday afternoon on my way home I’d had another occasion to thank a bus driver for being a hero: I was sitting in the fourth single seat back and just about to draw the back of a guy who was sitting in the second single seat back, when another guy decided to sit in the third seat back (zone of energy - see the post of 28 Mar 2006 - Drawing Attention to Myself). The guy in the third seat back wasn’t quite a street person, but definitely had some challenges with how he appeared. He had dirty shoulder-length hair which he was shaking with little head tosses (a la Alice). 

I was a bit frightened of contracting some sort of body livestock from this fellow, and made a bad decision to move to the first single seat, two in front of him. He noticed me doing this, I think and started to berate the Japanese and people in general. He had a resonant baritone radio announcer voice, the voice that I imagine Yahweh, the jealous God of the Old Testament to have, an extraordinary voice to hear saying the things he was saying..

"The little Japanese are afraid…All they can do is talk about themselves…I can say whatever I want about crazy people, because I am one...It’s like saying nigger, you aren’t allowed to say it unless you are one…I dare you to talk about anything other than yourself for once…You and your stupid little lives…I am God, I am everywhere…"

He had been going on for some minutes and I was tired of it, and made another bad decision. I turned around and said, "Shut up. If you’re god, then you don’t need to speak. Shut up."

He pretended not to hear me and escalated his abuse of the Japanese and people in general.

I made another bad decision. I continued, "Shut up you cracker fuckwad. Just shut up."

He started to scream that I was a Japanese bitch and that I’d said "Fuck you," to him, which I had not, and the driver intervened by kicking the guy off the bus. He did not go quietly, insisting all the way that I had started the problems by saying "Fuck you," to him, and that I was the trouble, not him.

Now most days I know how to behave, and I know that I should not have engaged this fellow, that engaging him would only result in escalation, but I had already opened my mouth and, believe me, I wished that I had not. Even though the people on the bus were relieved that this tiresome fellow was off the bus, and were mightily entertained by this whole scenario, it could easily have ended with violence. The guy could have thrown punches at me or at the driver, or he might have had a weapon. You never know.

When I got off this bus, I thanked the driver for intervening when he did. He said, "Yeah, he was really going for you, wasn’t he?"

Yeah, I guess he was at that.

This afternoon there was yet one more driver intervention: I was on a bus on the way home and at Drake and Seymour heard some yelling on the sidewalk. I saw an older man struggling with a younger man (the perp) over a metal cane. The  perp took the cane and cross checked the older man across the nose with it. Then the perp strode off (ever so resolutely). As the perp walked away, another man tried to kick him in the nuts, but he either missed or the perp was so hopped up on something that he didn’t even break stride.

There was another bus in front of the one I was on, and that driver went to the older man and checked to see if he was okay. Our driver called 911. About 30 - 45 seconds after the altercation, two big guys got off the first bus and two big guys got off the bus I was on and started to chase the perp down the street, shouting, "Hey, asshole, you can’t do that…We’re coming to get you,"  and other related things as they ran down the street after him.

"Do it for bus 93," I imagined these bus vigilantes saying amongst themselves before they got off the buses, "Let’s roll."

The older man? His nose was bloody and he was shaken up, but he claimed to be okay.

I did not thank the driver for intervening this time, but I was a little grateful. The bus ahead of ours was the bus I wanted to transfer to, so I was able to do that as the two buses sat. Personal injuries, stolen property and bus vigilantes chasing down perps aside, changing buses is rarely so tidy a process as it was this time.

In my world the bus is always half full, and that’s the truth.