New Haven Independent

Nov. 7, 2006

I haven’t written anything recently about my bus commute. The fact that I get lazy and “forget” to jot things down notwithstanding, it’s mostly because there’s really been nothing to write home about.

Okay, so there might have been a couple of transvestites on the inbound bus, a loud Hispanic Jamaican dancehall rapper on the outbound bus and several curious incidents involving vast language comprehension gaps. But these were all non-related, isolated occurrences. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: a cross-dressing Hispanic rapper attempting to give directions to a non-English speaking Russian grandmother is noteworthy; a single gorgeous woman with 5-o’clock shadow slumped in a seat and reading the Advocate in silence is not. Do you remember Dr. Seuss’ And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street? You get the picture.

I left my house today a little before 9 expecting the normal, dull commute. My pre-work schedule had been laid out while I showered: I’d take the B bus;it stops at the Green and doesn’t swing around by the hospital, so I’d get off at York Street and stop off at the Booktrader Cafe for some coffee (mmmm… coffee….) on my way to the medical center.

According to the published schedule, the B4 bus would be coming at 9:00, followed by the B at 9:06. Half a block away, at 8:55, I saw the B go by, followed immediately by the B4. Go figure. The next bus, scheduled for 9:21, showed up at about 9:25.

I mentioned the previous buses’ schedule issues to the driver. He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a sweet, sad smile. No one could give me back my wasted time, but at least I got the sense that my pain was his pain.

In contrast with the morning bus that occasionally runs right on schedule, the ride home is never, ever on time. My record for standing around waiting for a bus that’s supposed to be by at 15-minute intervals is over 45 minutes. Today, I waited only half an hour and felt lucky.

Just for fun, I asked the driver why the two previous buses hadn’t shown up. Without turning to look at me, he rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

I sat in one of the seats against the wall. At the Church Street stop, a guy got on and sat on the same bench, leaving a seat empty between us. I was busy trying to read a paper for work when I felt something on my shoulder. I looked up and saw that he’d draped his arm over the seat back and was tickling my shoulder with his fingers. I pulled away and glared at him just as the bus door opened at the Green and a high school kid dropped himself in the seat in between.

“That guy bothering you?” he asked.

“Not anymore,” I replied.

A woman with a CD player shaped like a UFO was moonwalking back and forth across the aisle in front of me, sending the other standing passengers fleeing toward the back of the bus for safety. Then she wrapped herself around the pole and writhed and bobbed while singing something about Jesus truly loving the world. Her eyes were closed the whole time so she couldn’t see that the entire front section of the bus was watching with combined horror and fascination.

By Winthrop Avenue, both the shoulder-tickler and the dancer had gone their own ways, leaving the bus quiet and a little bit emptier for their absences.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll see a transvestite.