As the bus I’m on crosses the intersection, I see my next one already stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to change.  It’s going to be close, so I’m first out when we pull over and I race across the street to intercept my connection.  There are plenty already riding, and there’s a crowd waiting to board besides; that means the buses on the route are either running late or not showing up.  It happens all the time.

I make it to the stop and get on line, stepping around a big, upright piece of soft luggage left parked on the curb.  A balding, bearded black man with freckles emerges from a quick conference with the driver at the front, and, holding his camouflage fishing hat down on his head, runs to the bag and struggles to lift it through the open back door.

The bus is pretty full, so I walk to the back, where the seats horseshoe around the rear wall.  I sit in the middle of the last row facing front – a spot that’s almost always empty, for reasons I’ve never been able to figure out.  At the window to my left, a Mexican guy with a moustache stares out at the street, while Freckles is seated at the one on the right; he’s laid his heavy bag down across several seats on the side row in front of him.  Freckles smells a little ripe, but it’s not that big a deal.

A burly white guy in flannel approaches from the front, looking for an open spot.  Seeing there isn’t much available, he reaches for the ceiling rail and remains standing.

Freckles notices him, and moves to take a firm grasp on his valise.

“Hey man,” he calls out, “would you like to sit down here?  I’ll move my bag.”  Flannel waves him off – ‘That’s alright’ – but Freckles is determined to oblige him.  He turns to me.  “I need to put my bag down here,” he says.  I move as far as I’m able to one side for a moment, half out of my seat, thinking he intends to somehow wedge it into the space where he’s sitting.

Instead, he yanks the bag off the seat and sets it down square in the middle of the aisle, where it sits jammed against my leg.  I wait for him to move it, but then he settles in and shows no sign of moving anything.  I push against it, but not too aggressively.

“You gotta move your bag, man,” I tell him.

He jumps up from his seat and puts a hand on the luggage.

“Don’t touch my bag!  That’s my stuff, don’t you touch it!  I don’t want you messing with my stuff!”  He looks at me as if I’ve not only offended him, but the dignity of all men everywhere. 

“I’m homeless!”  He chastises me.  “I’m just trying to get by; that’s everything I own right there.  Don’t you even think about touching my stuff.”

“Then move it.  I don’t want your stuff touching me,” I say, letting him know we can all play princess.

He glares at me, keeping one hand on the upright valise as if protecting it.

“Slavery is over,” he booms.  “I made sure I brought it in through the back door so I wouldn’t bump anybody, wouldn’t bother anyone, and I need to keep a hand on it.”  He sits down, still glaring.  “Touch my bag…  I’m homeless!  I’m trying to get by!”

Freckles nods in the direction of a lone empty seat by the window on the other side of the aisle, in front of the Mexican guy.

“Why don’t you sit over there?”  He asks.

“I’m in my seat,” I tell him. 

“There’s a empty seat right there!  You can sit in that one.”

“This is where I’m sitting.” 

It’s not just about being a hardass; the open seat he’s offering is adjacent to a support pole for the handrail that bites into your leg whenever the bus stops short, which is all the time.  It’s a lousy place to sit.

He exhales heavily, trying to contain his frustration.  He reaches over and puts his hand on the grip of the bag’s extendable handle, drawing it out then bringing it down with a loud, clean click, like a plunger on a detonator.  His fingers linger on the handle, as if the luggage needs holding steady.  Or maybe he’s just savoring the dream of having a detonator plunger so close at hand.  Patting the sides of the bag, he tries another tack.

“I got a big snake in here, I don’t want him to get out,” he mumbles, checking me for a reaction out of the corner of his eye.  Meanwhile, no one has moved to fill the short row of seats he’s cleared.

“Hey man,” he calls out to Flannel again.  “You sure you don’t want this seat here?  I moved my bag.”  The guy tells him he’s fine where he is.

“Okay,” Freckles says, standing up, “Since he doesn’t want to sit here, I’m going to move this bag back up on these seats, so it won’t be in your way.”

“I’d appreciate it,” I say, thinking he’s extending an olive branch.  He isn’t.

“Yeah, you’d appreciate it.  You should appreciate that slavery is over!  You want to mix it up with me, go ahead.  You can mix it up with me, I ain’t afraid.  Touch my stuff…  You’ll go home to your wife, she’ll know.  She’ll know you been touched by somebody!”

Once he gets the bag settled, he takes off his hat and sets it on top.  Then he puts the hat back on.  He reaches into a large side pocket where he’s keeping a fat-bodied bottle in a wrinkled brown bag; he unscrews the cap and takes a good long slug before zipping it away again.  The hat comes off once more as he takes out a pair of FM radio headphones.

“Slavery is over,” he repeats, trailing off as he adds, “Your ancestors fucked with my ancestors!”

“…And now you and me are both riding the bus,” I’d tell him, but by then he’s got his headphones on, loud enough for me to hear the music.  He begins to sing, but he’s singing a ballad and the tune coming from the headphones is an uptempo dance number.  The headset comes off and his hat goes back on – and then comes off.  He grandly throws a leg up over the backs of the seats in front of him, but it’s not a comfortable position and he soon returns to sitting normally. 

I can’t help but feel all of this is for my benefit.

A stop or two later, he gets up and makes a production of taking the bag down.  He extracts the handle and wheels his way to the back door, but pauses before he gets off.  He calls to the front of the bus.

“Thank you, I’m sorry about disrespecting you, but I was being disrespected.  I’m homeless and trying to get by,” he explains, and I wonder what must have gone down with the driver before.  Then, maybe catching himself starting down a road he doesn’t want to revisit, he shakes it off.  “God bless you,” he says to erase any hostility.  “God bless everybody.” 

But he makes a point of not turning around to include me.

copyright,  © 2006 Wyatt Doyle

for information on Wyatt Doyle's collaboration with Stanley Jason Zappa, STOP REQUESTED, click here.