Friday, November 21, 2003

BX Stands for Bonkers

There are those who say that the 38 is the toughest line on the grid, but regular riders know that it gets tougher - on the 38BX.  The BX stops at all the gritty little stops from 25th down to Masonic, and then it hauls clear up to Bush and cranks downtown nonstop, veering across three lanes of one-way traffic in a race against eternity.

I was on the BX recently as it lurched with ill humor and broad shoulders to its final stop in the avenues, Presidio Avenue.  Anybody with business on the west side had best get off there. The doors that day had opened, several people got off, others got on in approximately equal numbers, and the doors started closing again when he started calling out “back door” and fumbling his way to the stairwell.  He reached the stairs, called out again - this time, with the enthusiastic assistance of several others in his vicinity eager to help him depart our company.  He wore a crushed and lusterous brown felt porkpie hat with a little feather in the hatband, a once-vibrant guatemalan patterend jacket, well-worn and faded but in excellent repair; a colorful plaid shirt of similar quality, olive drab fatigue pants torn off to make knickers, tragically overextended hiking boots… his face was a question mark portrayed in human features, with sallow brown eyes behind rectangular wire frame glasses, the dusting of a red beard on his jaw line vaguely curving around his face like an interrogation you couldn’t quite make out; he carried a tote bag (who carries a tote bag?) stuffed full of a wide variety of papers, a fair number of which he may have self-authored, along with a bottle of Anchor Steam (a fine beer with a distinctive bottlecap) and a mysterious parcel wrapped in tattered brown tissue.  As he left the bus he was asking everyone around him, “Is this the right stamma for mamnammallahh....?  Is this where gabbalabbala....?” His voice, querlous and weak, collapsed on its own confusion and couldn’t make an intelligible inquiry. We ushered him to the sidewalk, leaving his unspoken questions unanswered. As the bus pulled away for its run downtown I saw him approach a man on the sidewalk, and then a woman, asking them each in turn a question about a yellow card he was holding out in front of himself - something, perhaps, like a doctor’s appointment slip.  The man sidestepped him adroitly; the woman already looked exasperated with him.  The guy in the hat just looked very, very earnest, and entirely confused.  He disappeared behind us, and by the next day, he was gone.