Sunday, 12 February 2006 | Giving up

I've mostly stopped listening to music when taking public transportation. Not because of the recently prevalent iPod thieves (mine is relatively inconspicuous anyway, in part due to the ratty black headphones that connect me to it, which are, in spots, just a tangle of naked gold wires), but because I've been kind of enjoying the general quiet produced by vehicles full of preoccupied strangers. If my thoughts are somewhere else, I often don't consciously see anything at all, and I mechanically stand when my stop arrives. Lately I've been reading.

Usually the bus is equally quiet. A couple Sundays ago I boarded a bus behind a feeble black lady with chin-length gray hair that curled into her cheeks like horns on a ram. She was wearing a round flat bellhop hat (the kind with wide mesh that pokes out at the brim and floats in front of the eyes), and she was carrying a small, wheeled suitcase with a retractable handle.

"You're going to have to go to the back of the bus with that," the bus driver told her, gesturing toward her luggage.

It wasn't initially clear whether she'd heard him (she had), because not only did she not acknowledge his request, but she promptly disobeyed it, and sat right behind him, on one of the seats facing the side of the bus. I took the seat opposite her. The bus was nearly full.

The bus driver repeated his request, this time with more boom in his voice. She stared straight ahead, as if she were stone deaf. The driver said it again, adding, "I'm not going anywhere until you move to the back." With that, he turned off the bus and folded his arms.

One after another, various passengers -- all of whom happened to be old black women -- began admonishing the driver. Things like, "You can't make her go back there! She's an old lady!" And, "There's plenty of room on this bus for that suitcase!” “You'd better turn this bus back on!"

He sat there for a minute, weighing his options, before ultimately deciding to concede. He started the ignition and began to roll forward.

The women had not forgiven him. They continued to yell at him, as comebacks came to mind. "You outta be ashamed of yourself!" more than one person said. "You'll see! One day you'll be old, too, and you'll know what it's like!" Occasionally the suitcase lady muttered a comment, as well, but she didn't share the others' anger; instead she seemed quietly defiant and detached, as if she were almost bored by the stir she'd helped create.

Whenever I thought the comments had finally died out, another would bubble to the surface from the back corner. "For shame! Makin an old lady go to the back!" One woman, armed only with a sharp tone of voice, offered her support. As she stepped off the bus she yelled sarcastically, "Have a nice DAY, bus DRIVER!"

It continued until well after the lady who'd inspired the drama had exited the vehicle (who did so amidst a chorus of supporting words). By that point most of the passengers on the bus had been recycled, the new ones having no idea what the spontaneous outbursts were about. The bus driver didn't say a word, and was locked facing forward.