Another One (Make That Two) Rides the Bus

Now that we're ensconced in our new digs in Queens, neither Girlfriend nor I have much occasion to ride the M21 bus.

As readers of Girlfriend's blog are probably aware, riding the M21--which goes from Bellevue Hospital to Soho and back--is often a richly entertaining experience, as it seems to attract a higher percentage of freaks, lunatics, and the, er, mentally challenged than any other line.

Today, however, I had lunch in Soho with a colleague of Girlfriend's in an attempt to score some work. We ate at the fishalicious Lure on Mercer and Prince, so afterward I walked up to Houston to catch the M21 to the old 'hood to pick up a package at my Manhattan mail drop.

A couple of stops later a youngish, scruffy looking man boards. He's dressed in a ragged 1992 NBA Championship T-shirt, a pair of shiny track-suit pants patched with duct tape, and dirty sneakers, no socks.

"Hey Man," he hails the driver loudly, "Does this bus stop at Avenue C?"

The driver informs him that it does.

He makes his way to a seat a couple of rows behind me.

In a booming voice that could be heard not just throughout the bus but all the way to 14th Street, probably, he proclaims, "I got to get to the Con-Ed plant on Avenue C. I'm on call. Do you believe I worked sixteen hours yesterday?"

I do what all New Yorkers do in this situation: I look straight ahead at my magazine thinking, avoid making eye contact at all costs.

The elderly gent sitting immediately behind Con-Ed Man is--unfortunately for him--without reading material. Out of the corner of my eye I see Con-Ed Man swivel around and fix Elderly Gent in his gaze like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner on the revelers going to the wedding.

"Er, mmm, that's a long day," says Elderly Gent.

"Yeah," replies Con-Ed Man, "And they called me to come back in cause it's an emergency. I got to fix the wires, or else there's gonna be a major blackout."

"Wow, that's a lot of responsibility," says Elderly Gent.

Con-Ed Man nods vigorously and continues: "Yeah . . . I'm the Operating Manager . . . Twenty-two years I've worked in that plant (Con-Ed Man looks to be in his early thirties) . . . There's gonna be a major blackout if I don't get there . . . Do you believe I worked 188 hours last week?" (Don't dial up the calculator; there are only 168 hours in a week) . . . With Elderly Gent wearily replying "Wow" . . . "Oh Boy" . . . "Really?" etc.

Then Con-Ed Man moves up to a seat in the front. "I'm gettin' close to my destination!" he announces, wide-eyed, to the entire bus, as if this news was of great interest to his fellow passengers.

Con-Ed Man gets off at First Avenue and starts walking westward on Houston, i.e., back the way he'd come--and away from the Con-Ed plant on Avenue C.

As the bus moves on I think, wow, even if you're completely delusional, wouldn't you want to make your fantasy persona something more interesting than the overworked, long-serving manager of an electrical plant?

Like years ago, my then-wife had an encounter with a panhandler on the subway who explained to the passengers that he was actually a Kennedy, but that Jack and Bobby and Teddy had cheated him out of his share of the family money, and so he was raising funds to hire a lawyer. (The panhandler was a young black man.) She gave him all her change just for his originality.

So immediately after Con-Ed Man gets off, I hear a worried female voice exclaim from the seat behind me, "Oh, no! What time is it! Is it three o'clock? Sir (tap tap tap on my shoulder) can you tell me what time it is"?

Without turning around I look at my watch and tell her," Uh, no, it's a quarter to two."

"Oh good! I thought it was three. Thank you, sir!" Relief is evident in her voice.

At the first stop on Avenue C, she shouts "Look! There's Kevin Bacon!"

Along with the other passengers I swivel my head to look out the window.

There's no one remotely resembling Kevin Bacon visible from the bus.

Now she starts reciting a list of Kevin Bacon movies like she's reading it off imdb.com, but she adds an enthusiastic "yay!" after each title:

"Apollo 13, yay!"

"JFK, yay!"

Even the most obscure flicks of Bacon's oeuvre:

"Quicksilver, yay!"

She keeps up the litany of Baconia until the next stop. Then it's:

"Look, Sarah Jessica Parker! Hi, Sarah! Congratulations on the baby!"

As we pull away:

"Sex and the City, yay!"

Next stop:

"Look, it's Jim Morrison's son! Jim Morrison was the lead singer of the The Doors! They were a rock group . . ."

Then she switches from the celebrity shout-outs to an amazing stream-of-consciousness rant. Oh, how I wish I had a tape recorder to document this amazing flow of verbiage!

The great thing is, it's not just disjointed ramblings; she's amazingly articulate, albeit in a batsh*t insane way. As I write this hours later I can only remember fragments, but there's stuff about how if she was walking up Park Avenue instead of Madison Avenue she could find the right doctor to treat the fireman's psoriasis and that doctors are the loneliest men and they have a higher suicide rate than firemen even and they need nurses who are diligent but the most important thing for anyone is to have the right kind of shoes . . .

At 12th Street, she gets up to get off and I finally see what she looks like. While you could pretty much make Con-Ed Man as a wackjob from his appearance, Celebrity Spotting Lady is a well-dressed, well-coiffed, middle-aged woman.

As the bus door opens, she says "Goodbye! I'll see you Tuesday!" to the driver. She swivels around and repeats this farewell to the entire bus--with the same wide-eyed look as Con-Ed Man announcing his imminent departure--before stepping down to the street.

I get off at the next stop, and immediately adjust my tinfoil helmet to deflect the alien mind-control rays being beamed at me from the Empire State Building.

I'm just keeding!

But I'm struck by the fact that Celebrity Spotting Lady didn't start her insane rant until right after Con-Ed Man got off the bus. Was she intimidated by the prospect of competition?

Or are these people subject to some sort of union rules? "Bylaws of the International Brotherhood of Certifiable Wackjobs, paragraph 11.10-b: No wackjob on a bus or other public conveyance will begin ranting in a deranged manner until a brother or sister wackjob, having previously begun his or her own rant, has left said conveyance . . ."

It would've been much cooler if they'd started ranting simultaneously, trading lines like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie trading riffs in some smoky bebop club.

"Duelling Wackjobs," anyone?

All part of life in the Big City. Everybody everywhere has the occasional wackjob encounter; but I'd wager we have them a lot more frequently here in New York.

Finally--in case you, dear LIFSOS reader, aren't already hip to it--there's a great public blog on which New Yorkers transcribe conversations they've heard on the street, both wackjob and non-wackjob related.

My favorite involves two teenage guys on the subway looking over a technical-school recruiting brochure:

TEENAGER 1: "Look, yo! They got a course in 'bee-yatch'!"
TEENAGER 2: "Lemme see that . . . "It's 'BIO-TECH,' you idiot!"

Comments

[ilene]

equally entertaining are the folks from the methadone clinic on the M101 around 16th street, though it never fails whenever i get on the bus there are at least 2 whackjobs. maybe its me?

[tree]

Prisons treat, don't treat prisoners too well

[leen]

My life's been bland. I've basically been doing nothing to speak of, but what can I say? Not that it matters. Eh. Such is life.