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?