The oath of loyalty on celluloid.
This, muttered by the man to the left of me and a seat away on the bus this morning. The words grab my attention and I look over at him and examine his rough hands, dirt under his nails. He has a bunch of bags and is reading the paper and chuckling. He smells faintly of sweat and urine.
On a workhorse route like the 38 Geary, he would be a common sight. But on the 1AX California Express, he is an anamoly. This express route caters to the suit and tie crowd, and services the tonier parts of the Richmond District and Lake Street Corridor.
I was going to take my scooter to work this morning, but was running late and was a little too tired. I'm new to riding, so I'm meticulous and a bit superstitious about everything that concerns my Vespa. If I'm foggy-headed, if I know I need to rush, I don't ride. This morning I weighed my options to the point that I made myself even later, so the bus it was.
Once I was on board and found myself close to this man, I started to regret that choice. San Francisco has hardened me. That sounds laughable- this is not a hard city. Not like New York or Philly, I imagine. But it's made me often intolerant when it comes to homelessness. I know this man has a right to be here (assuming he paid his fare), but I will admit, I hate riding the bus and being trapped with someone whose personality is boderline and who smells. That may sound wrong, that may sound elitist. I wrestle with my conscience that tells me to be empathetic and charitable, and my feelings of discomfort and slight fear. There have just been too many stories recently about transients stabbing people on Muni.
We can buy Planned Parenthood. Moxie!
The man continues to read the paper and mutter disconnected phrases. Next to me, two passengers, a man and a woman who are good friends (or at least bus buddies) talk nonstop about their kids, little league, and recent travels to Hawaii, as they do every time they are on the bus. The lyrics to Beck's
Sexx Laws cycle through the back of my mind. They've been visiting me on and off since my spin instructor played the song in class last week. I stare at my hands for a while and wish the traffic wasn't so heavy.
Once, I road the 38 Geary to work, and there was a man on the bus that started to say inscrutable things in a mystical, wise voice. Phrases like, "He knows that you will be there when Molly signs the tablet," etc. Phsyically, he was a cross between Pete Postlethwaite and
the giant from the Roadhouse dream sequence in Twin Peaks. And maybe I had been listening to too much of Stephen King's
The Dark Tower audiobook at the time, but I was convinced that this man, in another era, would have been a soothsayer, or a proverbial wise man on a hilltop. I nicknamed him "The Riddler" and promptly told my friend, Dave, to keep an eye out for him, as we've been nicknaming enigmatic denizens of our towns since college days.
SSSsssssss!
The man on the 1AX starts spraying his head with what I think is spray deodorant. It draws me swiftly back to my junior high locker room, where the girls had all simultaneously embraced Secret Powder Fresh Scent in an environmentally destructive aerosol. The woman to my left covers her nose, and I stifle a sneeze.
I wondered about this man. He was talking a lot of nonsense, but it was pithy nonsense. He, like The Riddler, are different from the aggressive gutter punks that make me avoid Upper Haight, or the downtown lungers strung out on crack. With a prescription, with a different decision made years ago, or perhaps without a job layoff... I wondered who he could be. He sounded smart, and his face revealed a faint semblance of normalcy beneath the veneer of crazy. As I said, I am no homeless advocate, but I wish there was a solution. There probably never will be, 100%. So I don't know if this post was meant to be a mini-treatise on the state of homelessness in San Francisco, or has just become a snapshot of my rather ordinary morning.
