Snow-go mojo

By Jim

"Momentum is important," the driver says as he gives the No. 44 some pedal to get up a hill as we head downtown on Sunday afternoon. I understand, having just crunch-crunch-clomp-clomped half a mile up a hill to get to my bus stop, my boots sinking six inches into the snow with each step. My personal momentum is gone but TriMet keeps delivering. I tip my ski cap to its mighty drivers and mechanics.

Leaving work at 10 p.m., I run out of the building, boogieing down Broadway. I see a bus making the turn from Clay south toward PSU. I run after it, waving. Yeah, baby, it's No. 44. Great timing! The driver stops. I'm saved. It's his last run of the night. "I've been working 14 days straight," he says, "and this is my 14th hour today."

When I think about the arctic blast of 2008, I'll remember my bus rides. I'll miss the chains a little. Before the snow piled up everywhere, the chains gave the bus a chattering Magic Fingers vibe on bare asphalt. 

At 10:27, when we get to the end of the truncated line -- Barbur Transit Center, not PCC -- about 20 passengers head for home. The driver says to us, "Be careful out there. And thanks for the job security."

Same to you, TriMet -- thanks for the get-to-my-job security.

On Christmas, it's a different story. We head downtown for a holiday-spirited night out. The 44 isn't even running, so we'll have to walk farther and catch the 12. We trudge a mile and a half through the snow, to the Barbur Boulevard and Capitol Highway stop. I call Transit Tracker. The message is ominous: The line "may be in service but without predicted arrival. . . . Due to snow and ice conditions, we are not able to report any arrivals at your stop." I confirm that empirically.

And yet we soon see a 12 on the other side of Barbur, headed south to King City. Ten minutes go by, and there's another 12, headed south to Sherwood. Twelve minutes go by and a third 12 rolls on, headed south to King City.

Finally, in the distance, we see a bus heading north. But this bus says "DROP-OFF ONLY." I've never seen that before. The bus stops right next to five cold, tired would-be passengers at the red light but doesn't open its door. I knock on the window. The driver points backwards -- that's TriMet middle-finger-speak for, "There's another bus coming along behind me." The light turns green and she rolls off, leaving us in the freezing cold.

Another bus comes after a while, and it's a 12. We ask the driver what's up with Miss Drop-Off-Only. "She's late and she's trying to make up time, so she's not picking up any passengers," he says.

That makes absolutely no sense. EVERY SINGLE BUS OUT THERE IS LATE! WHO CARES IF SHE'S ON TIME? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? JESUS! JESUS CHRIST! How do you NOT pick up five freezing travelers on Christmas day when you're stopped right next to them at a red light?

Well, whatever, at least we are on the No. 12 now. But this one is making a loud, hideous noise. TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK, TA-LUNK.

A passenger says to the driver, "You've got a loose chain."

He says, "I know. It's been that way all day. I'm really going to miss that noise when I get home."

Now I've changed my mind. If I get home, I won't miss the chains.

New blog catchphrase

By Mary

The place: 3rd and Madison

The time: Saturday night, the middle of the snowstorm from hell

The scene: A small herd of angry, cold people, some of whom have been waiting more than an hour for the 54 or the 56. Huddled together like a group of pissy penguins, stamping our feet, we take turns dialing TriMet and tracking our bus and its lack of progress. Finally, headlights pierce the swirling flakes as a squad of buses moves down 3rd. We perk up immediately. Surely one of them is a 56 or a 54!

But it's not to be. Instead, the buses turn out to be 9s and 6s. NOTHING but 9s and 6s. Out of six buses, how can they ALL be 9s and 6s? It's all the more galling because they're not even FULL! As the last 6 rolls smugly past, carrying maybe four people, one intrepid soul takes action: he seizes handfuls of snow, starts lobbing snowballs at the bus, and in a voice hoarse with cold and hatred, screams what we're all thinking: "FUCK THE SIX! FUCK THE SIX! FUCK THE SIX!!"

Well, hell. It needed to be said.

12-packs on the 19

By Angela

Two dudes ready to party get on the No. 19 bound for Southeast, one carrying two 12-packs of Bud; the other, two 12's of Natty Light. They aren't on long and we haven't even pulled away before Dude 1 starts carrying on, loudly, about nothing in particular. It's really not that annoying, and kind of funny after a long night at work, but apparently the driver was being nice in the first place in letting them on with the beer. He waves them off, tells them to walk it off; they apologize and won't budge. He waves them off again and threatens the cops. As they're stepping off, Dude 2 says, "Do you want ME to drive?" And just like that, they're gone.

Jingle what?

By Jake

My nanny told me today that on her bus a woman in a wheelchair started singing "Jingle Bells" and encouraged the rest of the bus to sing along. My nanny, who is Nepali, didn't know the words and couldn't sing along even though she wanted to. However, the only person who did sing was a Chinese man, who apparently didn't know the song past "Jingle all the way." Nobody else on the bus felt the call of the season. I probably wouldn't have sung either, which I find incredibly sad. Years of Christmas specials have taught us that the highest joy of the season is communal caroling, and yet I have never seen, nor participated in, any sort of fun-loving group sing-along.

A mighty wind

By Jim

At the 35th Avenue stop in Multnomah Village, an energetic, clipboard- equipped alternative-energy solicitor said, "Do you have a few minutes to punch global warming in the face?" Yes, I thought, that's why I'm standing here waiting for the bus.

Coins of the realm

by Jim

A rider got on the King City-bound No. 12 late Friday night, and while fumbling to put her change in the fare box, dropped most of it. The coins landed with a loud, high-pitched tinkle, maybe a buck fifty bouncing around the floor of the bus. A passenger in the front turned to the man next to him and said, "Trickle-down economics." They both laughed, apparently in a good mood over the election results.

Thank you, TriMet

By Jake

It's the little extra efforts that make riding TriMet so special. About a year ago they tore up my bus stop and threw away the bench. But they gave me a "Temporary stop" a half-block away marked by a laminated paper taped to a utility pole. So on Tuesday, I was standing at the "temporary" stop, counting the buses going the other way and wondering when one would show up going my way. Finally, I see one, but it does not appear to be slowing. I wave. It blows on past even though I can see it is nearly empty. Now I am going to be late for work waiting for the next one. But the kind driver was thoughtful enough to point over her shoulder as she raced by me standing in the rain. I looked up the street and, sure enough, my old stop now had a sign sticking out of it. No shelter, not even a bench, but it did have a new sign and some fresh concrete. Apparently it had opened THE DAY BEFORE. Obviously, there was no way the driver could have stopped for a frequent rider waving from a stop that had been in place for a year.

They had his back

By Bob

Crowded late-night bus. People standing in the aisle. Weary man gets on the No. 12 Barbur in downtown to head home. Long shift at work. Needs to relax and pop open a beer. Got to get through the ride first. And to do that, a seat would be nice. To sit. To nod off for a while. Perchance to dream.

There, way in back. It could be an open seat. Squeeze through the standees. Stumble up the steps to the rear area. Why, it is an open seat.

About a dozen pairs of eyes seemingly stare through him as he approaches. Starts to sit. Suddenly . . .

"Hey, old guy. There's gum all over that seat." Two teenage girls chirp out the warning from just behind him.

He looks closely at the seat. They're right. Nice kids. Could've let him sit in that mess and just laughed.

Standing isn't so bad. That High Life is getting closer by the minute. And they had his back.

Actions, not words

By Bob

The twenty-something woman had been talking loudly to the person next to her, and anyone else in the vicinity of the front of the bus, since the No. 44 had pulled out of Multnomah Village and headed up the hill toward the PCC Sylvania campus. Her chatter, illustrated by constant arm movements, became background noise for most of the riders on a crisp, clear fall day.

When the bus reached the entrance to the campus and stopped to let off several people, she exited first. As she began to cross the traffic lane that leads down into the heart of the PCC campus, she turned her head to her right and, waving her arms again, began to make a point to one of her former seat mates. At just that moment, coming from her left and building up speed, chugged the bus that she had just left.

"My ex-boyfriend always says that I should take care of myself first," the talkative woman proclaimed. Fortunately for her, a fellow traveler grabbed one of her arms and tugged her back onto the sidewalk just before the bus passed.

Sometimes, apparently, ex-boyfriends have sound advice.

No-fool zone

By Amy

Another reason why Big Mama bus driver is an exceptional person:

ADDLED MALE PASSENGER TO BIG MAMA: Good afternoon, sir.

BIG MAMA (without the slightest pause): I ain't no sir, sir. I'm a ma'am.

COMMENTARY: I appreciate a woman who says her mind. She didn't get angry, and she didn't ignore the mistake--as I probably would--out of apathy or to spare that man's embarrassment. Another fool learns a lesson to pay a little more heed to the human beings around him.

Canned scam

By Jim

I'm waiting for the No. 44 out of Portland Community College when a clean-cut guy walks up to the bus stop. "Are you paying or do you have a pass?" he asks.

"I've got a pass. The fare is two bucks now."   

He replies with his real question: "Can you spare 80 cents so I can get on the bus?"

I wish I could say: "Here's a hundred dollars so you can get on your feet."   

But he's wearing a nice knit sweater and hip jeans -- he's dressed better than I am. It always strikes me as a market-research failure when guys in decent clothing ask grizzled, white-bearded, backpack-toting, down-and-out me for a handout.  

Plus his timing is bad. Just 30 minutes ago, I was on the phone with Chase Mastercard. For the second time this year, the fraud squad is calling to tell me my credit card number -- XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-4308, if you'd like to be one of the many people with access to it -- has been stolen.

 This time the scammers tried to buy $237 worth of anime videos from an online outfit in Florida. Chase denied the charge, much to their, uh, credit. Apparently their digital oracle knows I would never spend more than $150 at one time on anime videos.

Last time, the thieves succeeded in getting an $80 advance from a bank in Thailand. Now my credit card is canceled again. Since I have the card in my wallet, I'm guessing the number was taken at a Portland retail establishment.   

Mr. Cable-Knit Sweater gets my quick answer: "Sorry." He turns and walks away -- away from downtown. If he wants to get on the No. 44 -- which is heading downtown -- shouldn't he be walking north, not south?

So I saved 80 cents. You see, there are people who need the money more than Sweater Man does, people like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia Bank, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll be giving those big Wall Street players $2,300 next week. They dress a lot better than I do, too, but when they ask for money they don't walk away.

 

Machines say the funniest things

By Bob

The newer TriMet buses have an automated system that calls out the approaching stops. It's supposed to be helpful, and probably is to newbies, but to most riders it's annoying background noise. But it gave one rider a laugh on an otherwise dull late-night run.

As the No. 12 approached the YMCA on Barbur, the monotone recording of a male voice rang out: "YMCA -- Southwest Hooker Street."

Immediately, a thirtysomething woman chirped to the dozing half-full bus: "Hooker Street! Here? No, way. They should use that on 82nd or Sandy. Now those are hooker streets."

Badda-bing.

Breathe, stupid, breathe!

By Amy

A tweaker guy takes a long, final drag of his cigarette, and is about to climb aboard the crowded No. 6, but then Big Mama Bus Driver stops him.

BIG MAMA: You make sure you blow your smoke out before you step in here.

TWEAKER: What? What do you mean?

BIG MAMA: You know what I mean. Nobody wants to breathe that mess.

COMMENTARY: It's a sad reflection on our country when someone has to be told to leave his smoke outside. It's even sadder when he takes offense and argues with the driver over it. What in his life has brought this man to this point? What would his own mother say? This reminds me of that old Warner Brothers cartoon "Dough Ray Me-ow" in which the cat is so stupid that he forgets to draw breath: The parrot has to slap him and shout "Breathe, stupid, breathe! You forgot to breathe again."

PSA

By Jim

One passenger to another on the late-night No. 12 to King City: "You should stay in school. Look at me. I went to Chico State for two semesters, and then I dropped out. Now I have to grow weed for a living."

Looks like muskrat love

By Jim

The first odd thing I notice as I take a seat up front on the 10:36 p.m. No. 12 is a handtruck holding a cat carrier, with one end cut out of it. The second odd thing is the owner of the handtruck, wearing a battered leather cowboy hat laced with rawhide around the outer edge of the brim. Hatman is holding -- up against his face -- a white rat with an eight-inch-long tail. More than holding. Stroking. Incessantly stroking. And kissing. As in fur to lips.

After a while, he begins to talk to the rat, soft murmurings. If my lip-reading is correct, he's saying "I love you." The stroking and kissing continue from the Portland State University stop to 4900 SW Barbur, where Hatman pulls the get-me-outta-here cord. He stands, opens his leather jacket, places the rat inside on his left shoulder, then closes the jacket. Hatman wheels the handtruck off the bus and is gone.

Maybe the rat is a service animal, though it's difficult to know who is serving whom. Another possibility: the 4900 SW Barbur stop is where a grocery store employee feeds the rats with leftovers from work. Maybe it's a playdate. Or maybe rats are the new cats. Trendy people ride TriMet, too.

Blue notes

By Jeremy

The kids always know what's going down in this magic metropolis, and with school back in session, my commute on the Blue Line MAX is again filled with kids spitting the truth.

For instance, just yesterday, I learned from a pack of three bros standing nearby that:

Devon said you can get headphones at The Dollar Tree, but you totally can't. It's total bullshit.

The Sex Pistols aren't bad; they're just old.

The Beaverton Transit Center is called the BTC. To assert your street cred, you have to say it over and over and over.

Thanks, kids!

Fashion in transit

By Jake

Today was fashion day on my bus.

There was the old guy with heavily tattooed arms, including a monkey wrench on his triceps, who was wearing suspenders made to look like tape measures.

There was the elderly lady, with white hair and glasses, mobility and weight issues, wearing a Megadeth T-shirt.

But my favorite was the large man in grungy laborer clothes. He was sweaty and smelly and dirty and wearing a bright yellow, rolled-up headband that Olivia Newton-John would have been proud of.

Sometimes it seems to me that the people on my bus are a testament to life's consequences for questionable decisions about personal appearance.

The moth

By Bob

The air inside the bus was warm and stifling, even though many of the windows were opened. The No. 12 lumbered along Barbur on its way from downtown on a late summer night. About 20 riders dozed, listened to headphones or texted.

And then it appeared. A moth, brown in color and about the size of a matchbook, fluttered its way from the back of the bus toward the front. The moth darted to the ceiling and then descended, dancing along the tops of the riders' heads. A few people noticed, but most sat unaware, listening to tunes or concentrating on cell screens.

When the moth reached the front of the bus, it turned and made its way back. And upon reaching the rear, it again turned and headed forward. It was doing meandering laps, like a stoned version of Michael Phelps with wings.

A few riders began to pay attention, especially when it would descend to eye level. The moth seemingly would toy with some people, flapping its wings and circling their heads, forcing them to shake it off.

One guy's dodging motions got the best of him and his head struck the head of the young man sitting next to him. "What the ... ," the surprised neighbor blurted out. Then they both laughed, as did several people sitting behind them.

For about five minutes, the wandering moth entertained about a dozen people in the back of the No. 12. The moth continued its laps before an audience that now and then yelled out encouragement and warnings.

"Look out, there," a woman said when the moth closed in on an oblivious rider in the front. "Go, baby, go," said another passenger as the moth picked up speed on its return trip to the rear.

Then, while midway along a lap toward the front of the bus, the moth suddenly darted toward an open window and flew out into the darkness.

And the riders returned to their headphones and cells.

Duel

By Bob

Sometimes the journey home gets more interesting once a rider leaves the bus.

On a hot Friday night, the last No. 12 from downtown was mostly full. A pretty lively crowd of the mostly sober, the less sober and the mostly drunk headed toward the burbs. It was talkative bunch. The booze and the beer and whatever else had put even the headphone-wearers into a gabby mood. Good times.

One rider departed at 53rd Avenue, a desolate stop on Barbur notable only for the strip club there, the Big Bang. After the bus moved on, the traveler crossed Barbur and headed up the hill on 53rd. Walking steadily, he dodged a couple of cars along the sharp curve at Pomona and continued up 53rd toward Capitol, several blocks away. The unlit street is paved here, and at nearly 1 a.m., only a few houses had lights on.

The traveler heard a vehicle coming up behind him, a rarity that time of night on 53rd. He was walking on the left side of the street, and as the SUV passed him, it slowed somewhat, and he could hear voices and music and smell cigarette smoke from the open windows. The SUV proceeded to the intersection with Capitol, crossed under the sole streetlight and continued up 53rd, which at that point turns to gravel.

The traveler was following some distance behind. He saw the SUV's brake lights come on and watched it stop at the next block, Buddington. The traveler's usual route kept him on 53rd until Buddington, where he would take a left, but something about the halted SUV set off inner alarms. So he took a left on Capitol and headed up the hill to 51st, where he would take a right and head toward Coronado.

The stretch of 51st between Capitol and Coronado, several blocks long, is also unpaved and dark -- no streetlights. It was quiet and the traveler could hear the scratchy sound of rocks beneath his feet with every step. He walked in the middle of the narrow road. As he neared the intersection of 51st and Buddington, he looked down the hill to his right, expecting to see the SUV at the bottom, where he had last seen it a few minutes before. But suddenly he was blinded by headlights. The SUV had climbed Buddington, apparently with its lights off, and was almost at the intersection with 51st.

Startled, the traveler increased his pace and moved to the left edge of 51st. The SUV accelerated toward him, spraying gravel as it gained speed. The traveler started to jog and made his way to the nearest lawn as the rocks splattered behind him. He climbed a small incline until he was about six feet into the home's lawn. The SUV kept coming and swerved to avoid a boulder that marked the edge of the property.

The traveler, fully alarmed, started to run toward Coronado and the nearest streetlight. He stayed off the road and ran through the lawns of several houses. The SUV followed, directly to his right. Its spinning tires sprayed gravel toward him. The traveler's heart was pounding and he was almost out of breath. As he sprinted, he looked over at the SUV, whose headlights were bobbing as it bounced over potholes in the rutted road.

The SUV's engine was roaring and the gravel was flying. Then, it abruptly came to a halt. The traveler kept running, cut behind a small fir tree and, staying on the lawns, headed up Coronado. He could hear the SUV's engine being gunned. Glancing behind him, he saw that it was stuck, maybe high-centered on something at the road's edge.

The exhausted traveler slowed to a walk and climbed the hill on Coronado. He still had a long stretch to go on the trip home, but the pursuit had ended. He was looking forward to a beer.

Immunity

By Jim

I am stuck hanging onto a strap in the middle of a conversation at the front of the standing-room-only No. 12. Cells are passed back and forth to show photos; parties are discussed; girlfriends shift liquidly onto and off of laps. The multimedia mash-up goes on for nearly 15 minutes as we roll south through the neon night of Barbur Boulevard.

As we near the Transit Center, the driver turns and says forcefully: "Will the young man in the white sweatshirt please quit using the F-word."

Strangely, I have not heard the F-word, and I am standing right next to the guy, who is sitting to my left. But he doesn't protest; he just slouches in the seat a little more. Apparently the profanity has not registered with me. What is the sound of one F-word clapping if it falls in the forest and nobody's "there" to notice?

Riddle of the roof

By Jim

Waiting for the microwave to char my pitiful leftovers, I stroll to the second-floor window of our company cafeteria and gaze down on the street, hoping to spy that transcendent transit talisman, the Mighty 6. No sighting. But before the dinner dinger goes off, the No. 58 rolls by.

On its roof is an advertisement: "KXL 750 AM -- We're On It."

On the ROOF of the bus! Huh? I wonder how much that advertising costs. I wonder who sees it. I think about a bus on its side in a ditch, with diesel fuel pooling around it, a sparking engine, and flames illuminating that radio station ad, now in the lots-of-eyeballs, Our-Top-Story-Tonight position.

Why would you put an advertisement on top of a bus? I'll be thinking about that on my ride home tonight.

Blessed are the bus drivers

By Amy

 

I was waiting for the bus at night in the South Park Blocks, in the glow of an old-fashioned streetlamp. The earliest traces of autumn rode in on the wind, seeping through my summer clothes and chilling me to the core—the warm, sunny afternoon had tricked me into leaving my sweater at home. Pacing back and forth with my arms crossed, I tried to stay warm.

 

My bus appeared, at least seven minutes late. At least I thought it was my bus, but its sign said CENTER GARAGE instead of the line number and the destination. As it came closer, I recognized the scowling brunette behind the wheel as the usual bus driver at this time on the route.

 

She saw me on the curb, and shook her head no while making a slicing gesture at her neck with her hand, like a mechanic signaling to another to cut the ignition, or a bartender telling a drunk no more, you are cut off. Then she blasted right past me.

 

Now, you have to understand, my previous experiences with this driver have not exactly been pleasant. But they haven't been so unpleasant that I'd go out of my way to report her to TriMet in hopes that she loses her job—it's not that serious. But I do have a few minor complaints.

 

For one, I don't like the way she drives. She brakes too hard and too late, as if red lights were annoying afterthought instead of a crucial means of controlling traffic. If I'm sitting, I brace myself to keep from shattering my kneecaps on the seat ahead, or if I'm standing, I have a death grip on the pole to stay upright.

 

And another thing: either TriMet has assigned her a bus with no shock absorbers, or she manages to roll over every single bump and pothole possible on the road. When I used to work on a Forest Service fire crew, we'd tell our co-workers with this driving habit to pay attention to where they're going and "stop hammering our kidneys."

 

She also annoys the hell out of me by speaking at a volume that only a woman who has mothered at least three children can achieve—the telltale shout used for herding kids. She sounds like Ethel Merman, had the legendary Broadway singer been a drill sergeant. For example:

To a driver who nearly T-boned us: "Can't you see the sign says yield YOU STUPID IDIOT."

To a bicyclist: "I told you FIVE TIMES to turn your bike the other way on the rack. WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME THE FIRST TIME?"

To a hippie girl boarding the bus: "Sweetheart, if you stand back in the darkness like that I CAN'T SEE YOU." (To which the girl replied: "I'm not your sweetheart.")

 

On the other hand, she deserves props for not holding a grudge. One night, after I had rung the bell, she drove past my stop, which I confess is nearly completely hidden by trees. "HEY, THAT'S MY STOP!" I shouted, completely overreacting, but maybe subconsciously mimicking her trademark yell. The following night, although her bus was noisy and crowded with teenagers, she went out of her way to shout "GOOD NIGHT, DEAR," to me as I exited the back door, no trace of sarcasm in her voice at all.

 

On a different night, a homeless man boarded. As he balanced a halfway-smoked, snuffed-out cigarette on his bottom lip, he proceeded to search his pockets one by one for his transfer. He checked his jacket pockets; his shirt pocket; the front, back and leg pockets of his cargo pants, and then he moved on to the half-dozen or so bags he was carrying. The driver set the emergency brake and waited with her arms crossed in back of her head, as though she were sunning herself in Cabo, while he dug through his belongings. I seethed in my seat. Why doesn't she kick him off? This fool is just pretending to have a transfer. He's trying to break her down so he can get a free ride. After no forward motion for five minutes, which in TriMet time is 20 minutes, the man shouted "Aha!" and had held up the tiny slip of paper for her to see.

 

So if she could be so nice to Sir Many Pockets, why did she leave me shivering and alone in the Park Blocks? What a stone-cold bitch.

 

I flipped open my cell phone and called the transit tracker. The mechanized white male voice on the other end told me the next bus would arrive in 26 minutes. I cursed the voice and hung up. During the wait time, I marched down to the Safeway and bought a half-gallon of milk and a six-pack of beer.

 

When I left the store, my bus was just pulling up. I boarded. A burly young man was driving. I told him my regular driver failed to stop for me earlier. "What gives?" I asked.

 

"She had a customer-caused accident," he said. "I'm a fill-in driver."

 

I thought about possible scenarios. After so many near-misses with merging cars, did she finally get in a wreck? Did a fight break out on the bus? Did it involve guns? Did the stress become too much for her and she just up and quit?

 

"You could say she was in a hurry to change her uniform," the driver said.

 

"You mean someone vomited on her?"

 

"Yep," he said. "That's one of the risks you take with this job. Especially tonight, with the holiday weekend just starting. Lots of crazies out there."

 

Vomited on by a stranger. She didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. She was just trying to drive a bus, for Chrissakes. Make some money to pay her bills, like everybody else. I tried to imagine how I'd feel if someone on the bus barfed on me, or if someone leaned over my cubicle wall at work and let it fly. 

I felt ashamed that I was so quick to make her the target of my anger. Who really was the impatient person here, the one quick to judge? In my heart of hearts, I knew the answer: I was the true bitch of the bus.

 

P.S. St. Christopher, the patron saint of bus drivers, please keep our TriMet operators safe.

HazMet

By Jim

The first warning comes from two rows in back of me. "We've got to stop! It's a biohazard!"

Huh? It's my bus pal Jackie, whom I see occasionally on the southbound No. 12 late at night, leaving downtown. We've just passed the Capitol Highway Safeway. She sounds the alarm again: "We've got to get a new bus. It's a biohazard."

Other riders stare at Jackie, then begin to look around, the first wave of panic, like a herd of wildebeests beginning to sense that lions are nearby. Attention turns toward the front of the bus, to a silent, still fellow with black hair, his head hung low.

He has just finished vomiting.

The bus slows. Riders cover their faces with garments as if they are air filters certified by the Centers for Disease Control. But the smell spreads quickly, a potent, bad blend of . . . fermented muskrat and spoiled deviled eggs? . . . of a garage freezer that lost power three months ago and the greasepit in a Portland food cart? This odor is surely not of the living world.

The No. 12 pulls to the curb and stops. Riders begin to move away from the contaminated man, who, strangely, just sits there blankly, surrounded by his own filth. Even Rosa Parks would have given up her seat and moved to the back of the bus.

"Really, it's a biohazard," Jackie reminds everybody, authoritatively.

The driver opens both sets of doors. A few people leave. I join them, bailing out the back. I think of my co-worker Bob. At exactly 10:30 p.m. I said to him, "Let's go, man."

"Naw, you go ahead," he said. "I've got a few things to do. I'm catching the 11:05."

"OK." And I jetted out of the building. I do whatever it takes to catch the next bus, including running until I erupt in a coughing fit.

Now, standing outside on the sidewalk next to our stranded toxin wagon, I look south down Barbur. At least in this section, there is a sidewalk. I move to the open front door of the bus and say to the driver, "Are we staying here?"

"Yes. We're going to have to get another bus."

Excellent news. Wonderful. I figure I am about three or four miles from home; I could walk it in an hour. So I start trudging, giving a mental, obscenity-laced shout-out to Bio Boy and fate.

I've walked for about 15 minutes when I hear the unmistakable TriMet diesel engine that is hard-wired into my bus-catching DNA. It's the No. 12, up and running again. In the blackness, it hurls by me. Why doesn't the driver stop? Doesn't he know it's me, with my huge backpack and beat-down, Friday-night-after-work demeanor? He saw me walk away. Did I insult him by giving up on TriMet?

I walk for another 10 minutes and reach the Barbur Transit Center--and there is the No. 12. There are all the passengers, milling about. There is Bio Boy, sitting on the ground against a wall, head down, unmoving.

But there are no men in hazmat suits, no ambulances, no fire trucks. Just the quiet, blacked-out, empty hulk of our bus. I find my friend Jackie, the Paul Revere of puke, and get the details. Another bus is coming to meet us at the transit center. This happened to her once before, which is why she knows the drill, knows that TriMet considers vomit a biohazard.

In just a few minutes, the substitute bus arrives, coming all the way from the Rose Quarter to rescue us. We all board, except for Bio Boy, and continue off into the night. If fate is kind, we have not been exposed to plague germs.

Applied physics

By Bob

The No. 54 was making its way toward downtown on a weekday afternoon. The bus, one of TriMet's newer models, was about half full.

As the bus left the Swan Mart stop on Barbur Boulevard, a thirtysomething guy sitting in the back pulled the cord. The next stop was the last one on Barbur before the bus would turn onto Naito Parkway. The man rose to make his way to the rear door. He was carrying a large sack. He reached the landing at the rear door and waited.

The bus approached his stop, but didn't slow and instead roared past. He yelled to the driver, "Hey, hey, what about my stop?" The driver acknowledged him with a wave and pulled the bus over with a lurch at the auto lot just before Naito. The driver hit the brakes and the thirtysomething man, apparently caught unaware and holding only his sack and not a pole, fell hard into the landing's wall, bounced back into the rear wall and hit the deck. His sack went with him.

"What the ...," he cried. No answer from the driver. His fellow passengers just stared. The upended man slowly got to his feet, cursed again, then grabbed his sack and pushed open the rear door. Shaken, he unsteadily made his way down the sidewalk.

Often on the No. 54, a departing rider will say "Thanks" as he or she leaves the bus. Kind of a Portland thing. There was no "Thanks" this time.

Gotta go

By Bob

Late on a Friday night around the Portland State campus, the bar-goers and party people were making their way home. Three such happy folks, smelling of beer and smokes, wandered from the Cheerful Tortoise to the bus stop at Jackson and Broadway.

As they waited for the bus, one guy said to his two college-age companions, "I gotta take a leak." One of his friends said, "I do, too." The third guy just nodded his head as, a few blocks away, the No. 12 came into sight, stopped at a traffic light. "We'd better hurry," one of the three said.

This particular block on Broadway has a row of bushes and hedges along the sidewalk, next to fencing that walls off a PSU parking lot and tennis court. Not stupid, just drunk, the three guys took advantage of their surroundings. They separated themselves a bit, and each one squeezed into various openings in the hedge to do their
business.

Conducting their tasks with dispatch, they emerged about a minute later -- just as the No. 12 was pulling over at the Jackson Street stop. As they climbed aboard the bus, the last one on said, with obvious relief: "Man, I'm glad those bushes were there. I don't think I could have held it to Terwilliger. I probably would've peed my jeans."

A fortunate fellow. As were his friends and, unknowingly, his fellow passengers.

Mr. Bobblehead

By Bob

On a hot Saturday night, the midnight run of the No. 12 was crowded -- standing room only and the aisle was filled. The rear of the bus was loud with talk, as usual, while the riders near the front were mostly into their cells and iPods. But the real show took place in the middle rows.

Sitting next to the window in the last row before the back door was a fortysomething guy who obviously had been into his cups all night long. As the bus moved, he moved. He was prisoner to the forces of acceleration and deceleration. When the bus would pull away from a stop, the drunken fellow would fall all the way back in his seat, with his head tossed back as far as it could go. And when the bus would brake for a stop, he would mimic its slowing, his body gradually edging forward until his head made contact with the back of the seat in front of him.

Depending of the severity of the driver's braking, the drunk's head would gently tap the seat's back, or hit with a loud thud -- amusing and alarming the passengers around him. And on this night, the bus came to a halt at a nearly every stop. Back and forth, Mr. Bobblehead would rock, his eyes closed, his breathing loud and labored. The fumes emanating from his direction smelled like Mad Dog or Two-Buck Chuck. But he was blissful in his stupor, with a kind of grin on his sozzled face.

After this entertainment had gone on for a dozen stops, the bus started to empty. The woman sitting next to him, unable to stifle her laughter, moved to a vacated spot. As did the smirking guy who had been standing behind Mr. Bobblehead. As the guy found a seat, though, he also found compassion. The guy said to the woman: "Maybe we should try to wake him before he hurts himself."

She took matters into her own hands, ignoring the maxim of letting sleeping drunks lie. She returned to her old seat and nudged Mr. Bobblehead. No response. She then clasped his nearest shoulder and shook him. He slowly opened his eyes into a squint. He mumbled something. She asked, "Sir, are you OK?" He mumbled something more, equally unintelligible, and then leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. She backed off and moved away again.

The No. 12 continued on its way, and soon Mr. Bobblehead resumed his routine. And no matter how hard he hit his head on the seat's back, he never opened his eyes again or said anything.

Both the woman and the guy who had taken an interest in Mr. Bobblehead's safety left the bus at various stops. But Mr. Bobblehead maintained his antics. The bus would pull away from a stop and his head would fall back; the bus would slow for a stop and his head would lurch forward and strike the back of the forward seat.

Finally, the bus headed down the long hill on Barbur that leads to Tigard. The force of gravity overcame Mr. Bobblehead. His head fell forward and hit the seat back. He remained in that position, his forehead resting on the back of the seat, even as the bus pulled away from a stop. He was in repose. He started to snore loudly.

The No. 12's journey continued, but Mr. Bobblehead had reached his destination.

Results may vary

By Amy

Another day, another spin in the vortex of humanity known as the Mighty 6. Yesterday's ride in was so bleak that for a moment, after I got off the bus downtown, I began to doubt why I write about this topic in the first place.

Sure, like any halfway decent bullshitter (I majored in English in college), I can rationalize my habits: Since I am a captive audience on the bus twice a day, five days a week, anyway, why not share my quirky experiences and get some writing practice in to boot? Or, my favorite: The bus ride is a microcosm and metaphor of the overall human experience, so work with it. Explore it. Feel it. Analyze it. Well fuck it, I say. The best reason is that it gets me to write, which is something I couldn't claim three months ago, and writing is something I care about.

But I still can't answer the question: Why the bus? And on bad days: Is there something wrong with me for focusing on this depressing shit?

And yesterday was especially heinous. One of my all-time favorite quotes, from Snoop Dogg, seemed to apply: "If it ain't one thing it's a motherfuckin' other."

First, there was the driver, a silent, poker-faced man in a cop mustache who neglected to turn on the air-conditioning, even though it was hot and humid and the bus was stuffed full of people. Also, you can learn a lot about a driver's capacity for compassion by how willing they are to engage with the people in the front passenger seat opposite them, what in the bus operators' parlance is known as the "creep seat," "drone throne" or the "fool stool" (This precious insider knowledge is brought to you thanks to the public transportation 'zine The Constant Rider). This driver was having nothing to do with the talkative, eager and most likely mentally ill woman sitting there, though she had adjusted seats for two people in wheelchairs, fastened them in after they boarded, and alerted the driver when the bus reached their stops.

No seats were open, so I stood. I tried to avoid clobbering the sitting passengers in the head with my purse. To my right sat two young women who looked just out of their teens. One, in a short, flimsy brown dress, was talking loudly on her cell phone, saying "Where you at? I'll meet you on 82nd. I'll call you when I get there." After she hung up, she said to her seatmate, "With that motherfucking punk ass, I'm not Tanika. I have to remember that. My name is Ashley. My name is Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, Ashley." Both women busted out laughing.

Ashley and her friend got off at the MAX stop and a new pack of passengers replaced them. A clean-looking white couple scootched past me, and I, along with some other standing passengers, recoiled when I saw the brown-red bloodstains on both upper sleeves of the man's button-down shirt—two matching spots right over his biceps. The couple got off at the next stop—having ridden only about three blocks.

Toward the front, the lady in the fool stool had made a new friend, and the two women were having a lively discussion. Another passenger boarded: this time a big black man, probably in his late 50s, who looked like he could put some serious whup-ass on someone if he weren't so loaded. He teetered down the aisle, wearing a sports shirt that had the word "RESULTS" on the front in big letters. If he were the results, I thought, then I would not wish to undertake the endeavor that brought him about. He looked weary: The lower lids of his eyes sagged in red crescents like a basset hound's. "Spare some change," he chanted in a monotone over and over as he made his way to the back of the bus.

Seats were beginning to empty up front, so I grabbed one near the window, adjacent to the women in the fool stool. I wasn't there for very long when Results sat next to me, hemming me in.

"Spare some change," he said to the women.

"WHAT?" one of them yelled, and she looked at him as though he were covered in raw sewage.

In just those few seconds, I knew an invisible trigger had been cocked. There would be a fight. I would be pinned in.

"Excuse me," I said to the man, and he popped up to let me out. I scooted over to what had been his seat and was about to stand up, but hesitated because it seemed like he was going to remain standing while he argued with the women.

No luck. He glared down at me. "If you say 'excuse me' then get the hell off the bus," he said. I got the hell out of his seat. Quickly. He continued to shoot me dirty looks for the remainder of his ride, after I had found a new seat toward the back.

I no longer question my instincts. Although I chose not to fight that battle, I walked away in rage, which eventually deteriorated to depression stemming from a feeling of powerlessness. Then I had to go to work and stare at a computer screen, all pumped up with adrenaline.

A while back I watched a similar situation go down on the bus. A young man, maybe a PSU student, had the window seat, albeit there was a wall where the window would be. A hardened-looking woman in the seat next to his was arguing on her cell phone and gesticulating wildly. The two obviously weren't together. The man ignored her, though her hands at times flailed awfully close to his face. I got the feeling that something bad was going to happen. It did. The woman, screaming at someone on the phone, jumped to her feet and slammed her fist into the wall, inches above the man's head. He didn't do anything but sit there, motionless, and stare ahead.

Was he frozen with fear? Was he high on tranquilizers, or in a deep state of meditation? Or was he just dumber than me? Or braver?

Do your stuff

By Amy

I was waiting for the No. 6 bus at the stop on MLK and Fargo on a terribly hot afternoon, one of those glaring days when the sun lit up every crevice of the boulevard, exposing dried up grass and weeds and cigarette butts in the patches of dirt that escaped being covered with concrete. Things were hopping: Cars whooshed past me, adding to the gritty, heavy aroma of exhaust hanging in the air, and workmen were pulling their trucks into the parking lot for a lunch break at the Popeyes chicken across the street.

 

About a block away from my stop sits Reggie's barbershop. Reggie's building displays one of my favorite neighborhood works of art on its northern wall: a painting of a bespectacled barber and his young client, both smiling a little too broadly. In the left lower corner of the mural, there's a blue ghostlike figure that never fails to fascinate me. What's it doing there? Are the men wearing happy faces to conceal their fear of the blue specter? What were the intentions of the mysterious artist "Lissette"?

 

In front of Reggie's some children had set up a table and chairs—a lemonade or Kool-Aid stand, I assumed. I could tell from afar that they were young kids by the way they couldn't sit still—popping up and down out of their chairs and bopping to and fro around the table like ants near a hole to their colony. The kids reminded me of my 5-year-old nephew, Tavish, who on Thanksgiving, wearing pajama bottoms and a towel fastened around his neck like a superhero cape, ran about 60 laps around the first floor of my house—through the dining room, living room, front entryway, kitchen, dining room, over and over—while Beck's CD "Guero" played. Sometimes when he passed us, he would tilt his skinny white shoulders in a sly little dance move in time to the beat. My brother and I, creaky and weary from L-tryptophan, aging and the necessity of having to work long hours for those things that were freely and happily provided to us when we were small, wished aloud that we could harness about one-fourth of his energy for ourselves.

 

The bus wasn't coming anytime soon, so I started to walk the block toward the stand. I don't have children, and for me, happening upon one of these beverage rackets, designated by their construction-paper signs written in shaky childish block letters, can be as rare as seeing a bear in the woods. But following this summer's trend among the preschool set, even Tavish had put on a lemonade and cookie stand at his home near Seattle. Over the phone, I asked him about his sales pitch. "I told them you can have some strawberry lemonade and cookies," Tavish explained, "but first you have to give me the money." He ended up raking in the bucks. Sometimes being direct pays off.

 

As I approached, I saw that three little boys manned the stand on the sidewalk in front of Reggie's. Except these kids weren't selling mere lemonade—no—they had a snow cone machine, a clear plastic box filled with ice of the rare consistency and texture to hold its shape when served in paper cones, which these tiny entrepreneurs also had in supply, along with paper cups.

 

"You want a slushie?" a flirty little boy in French braids asked me. "How much?" I asked. "50 cents . . . I mean a dollar," he said, grinning. "You mean a dollar for two slushies," I said, citing the price advertised on their sign. 

"What flavor do you want?" all the boys asked me, talking over one another. "We have cotton candy, cherry and blueberry." And indeed, they had professional quality bottles of syrup, the kind found at ballpark concession stands—not anything so lowly as fruit juice or Kool-Aid or things their parents could buy at a regular grocery store.

 

I chose cherry flavor and the boys set to business. As I watched them scramble around the table, it slowly dawned on me that each boy had a designated chore: The charmer in braids was the salesman, the boy at the machine filled the cups with ice and provided the straws, and the third kid, who had waves and curlicues shaved into his close-clipped hair at the temples—probably the son or grandson of Reggie—was in charge of flavor.

 

I chose a paper cup, figuring it would be easier to smuggle on the bus than a cone, and after a loud and long discussion and negotiation, I went with a straw with a spoon built into the end instead of their other model, a spoonless straw that bent near the top.

 

After Mr. Ice packed my cup to maximum capacity, he handed it off to the boy with the designer haircut.

 

"All right Syrup Man, do your stuff!" the salesman shouted as he performed a crazy bendy-legged, stretchy dance. Syrup Man drowned the ice in red cherry syrup, pouring it on so heavily that he elicited a loud "Whoa!" from his partners. I gave the salesman two quarters, and they all thanked me for my business.

 

That cherry syrup was mighty powerful stuff—my tongue remained red and the back of my mouth tasted like Robitussin for the rest of the day—not even Extra Polar Ice mint gum or strong coffee could cloak it. Maybe I should have chosen cotton candy instead. Funny how tastes change over time. When I was those boys' age, while walking home from Beaumont kindergarten, I'd buy bubblegum ice cream from Rose's on Fremont, not caring if it stained my mouth a bright blue. Now I'd prefer an organic green tea gelato drizzled with raspberry coulis, please.

 

 

Spate of late

By Jim

TriMet is a complex, dynamic nonlinear system. That's why a woman who got pregnant three years ago put my job at risk.

It's "the butterfly effect." That's the theory that something small, the swimming of a sperm in Portland or the flapping of a butterfly's wings in China, could cause something large, the loss of my job or a tornado in Kansas.

So the No. 44 pulls into the stop across the street from the Jewish community center. There's Mom with her gigantic baby stroller, waiting. Great, I think, with the mindset of an oft-burned, burned-out commuter, this is going to take an extra five minutes to lower the lift, get her stroller on it, raise the lift, get the stroller on the bus, and lower the lift again, to hoist Mom herself onto our bewheeled slave ship. And Mom probably won't have her fare ready to put in the box.

Wrong! Not five minutes. Much longer.

The driver presses the button to lower the lift. It stops halfway down, sticking out over the sidewalk, pointing at Mom like a cosmic middle finger. The driver presses the button again. The lift is stuck. The driver presses the button at least 20 more times. Then -- newsflash -- he says to Mom: "The lift isn't working."

Instead of walking away, Mom stands there, expectantly, looking at the lift. The bus driver begins pressing the button again, maybe 15 more times. Nothing, not even a mechanical grunt. "It's still not working," he says. She stands there. Then the driver tries to get the lift to come back up. It won't move. He presses the button repeatedly. "It won't come up, either," he says.

The driver reminds me of computer tech support guys: "Have you tried rebooting?" "Yes," I tell them, "three times." Then they always say, "I'd try it again."

Now just two days before this great sperm/butterfly fiasco, every single person in our little work group had been late. Our boss sternly reminded everyone that if we want to get paid for a full shift, maybe we ought to work a full shift. Hard to argue with that logic.

Mom had already doomed me, though. I would be late, at the worst possible time. The question was only: How late would I be?

"Is there another bus coming?" somebody asks the driver.

"Probably," the driver says. He's a regular Vegas oddsmaker.

In about 10 minutes, the No. 1 shows up. Twenty riders on the beached 44 jump off and, like escaping rats, board the 1 -- which takes an agonizingly slow, circuitous route behind Wilson High School. It will eventually get downtown, but it ages you.

Obviously, I was late for work. But it wasn't my fault. Thanks again, TriMet.

Listen, if you think you're going to get pregnant, let me know, and I'll give you a condom. Twenty years from now, when the kid you didn't have is not a drug-addicted high school dropout still living at home, you'll thank me. You might even call it "the butterfly effect."

The LOST girls

By Ellen

In my neighborhood, you can't wait for the bus without seeing lots of missing cat posters. Sometimes there's a small dog in the mix, but most every lamppost is 100% feline.

In these parts (SW Portland), the coyote sightings have gone up every year since the new Sylvan exit got built into the 26. There is even a warning sign on Fairmount that says coyotes can be aggressive and to watch out in case you are walking your dog. So the signs for the cats say LOST, when they probably should say LUNCH.

Also along my bus line are thongs. The little panties are usually curled up in the gutter or nestled among the grass on parking strips, but there is a polka-dotted green one now hanging from a tree branch. I am old enough to think of them as underwear for not-so-nice girls. At first I thought it was a girl gang sign the way sneakers on wires are for boys, but then I thought of the coyotes and how they must be getting big on cats. And they just have to eat more to maintain their weight.

I know in real life these girls haven't been eaten by coyotes; their underwear has just fallen out of their boyfriends' cars. But here's what I'm hoping: Maybe, just maybe, they're throwing their slutty underwear around in a modern kind of bra burning. They're going back to comfortable, nice-girl, full-rear underwear in 100% cotton. And they are celebrating their newfound liberation by thong throwing.

Wall and barrier

By Bob

The bus stop across from the PCC Sylvania campus is drab, even by the meager standards of the category. There is a shelter, true, but no bench. And no listing of the bus schedule. Pretty bare bones. And the traffic on Southwest 49th can get awfully loud, especially in the afternoon when classes let out.

But there is a short concrete retaining wall. A few feet tall and a half-foot wide, it can be a makeshift stool for the weary traveler waiting for a bus.

On Wednesday afternoon, on the ground next to the retaining wall lies an unopened condom wrapper. On Thursday afternoon, the condom package is still there -- but someone has placed it on the top of the retaining wall. On Friday afternoon, the condom package is gone.

Safe sex for someone, we hope.

Mighty 6 catchphrase

Ride on. Write on. Right on!

Friends in high places

By Bob

The No. 12 pulled away from the Burlingame Freddies on its way downtown. The occupants of the half-full bus seemed carefree on a summery Saturday afternoon. Lots of talk and laughter.

At the next stop, a twentysomething man climbed aboard. He was wearing a T-shirt and cargo shorts, with a plastic mug attached to his belt. He didn't bother taking a seat, though many were available. He grabbed a pole and stood near the front.

"Which stop do I take to get to the beer festival?" he asked the driver while tapping his mug. "I was there last night, but I got so hammered I can't remember which way I was headed when I left."

"I'm not sure," the driver replied. "I'd imagine Taylor would get you pretty close to the waterfront."

Another passenger, one from a group of four twentysomething women, chimed in: "No. It's better to get off at Oak. The walk is shorter."

"Great," the beer man said. "A buddy of mine works at the place where they package the tokens. He jacked a box. So we're drinking for free today."

The young woman who had offered directions now said: "You can just follow us. We're going to the festival, too."

One of her companions had the final word: "No. We'll follow you. You've got the hookup on the tokens."

File under 'WTF?'

By Amy

Sometimes actions speak volumes, but this kid had a lot of volume, taking up more than his share of space on the bus with his two giant pieces of luggage that blocked the back-door exit. Even this kid's hair was voluminous: His dark curls had been combed out into a tidy eight-inch Afro that radiated from his scalp.

The trouble was, the bus was crowded, and it took passengers, some with small children, a long time to weave their way through the aisle of bodies to the back door and then squeeze through the sliver of space between the young man's luggage and the barrier to get out.

The bus driver noticed the slowdown by the time the people who needed to had stepped off the bus. "Clear the back door," he yelled. "I need you to keep the exits clear."

A woman, in her mid-50s and a wearing a pink T-shirt, who up until then had been sitting quietly next to me, shouted back at the driver: "The doors are clear and they're already out, SHITHEAD!"