Because I had a plane to catch

Hello, friends! I was away for the weekend, away from home, away from the daily grind of life, and away from the blog... but that doesn't mean I wasn't taking notes.

My trip to the airport was overwhelmingly eventful. In a previous travel-related post, I made mention of my propensity toward taking public transportation and I also made note to maybe not use public transportation on the busiest travel days. But I figure it's fine and dandy on non-busy travel days. So, my trip to California wine country last weekend started with a hop on my local bus to catch the airport express downtown.

It started out as an average ride, with your average personas: the older Asian couple heading to the market in the International District, people commuting downtown to work, college-aged students, and the typical transit rider wearing headphones and talking loudly to himself. Seriously, not a big deal and a common occurrence. But on that day, our average person talking to himself decided talking to himself just wasn't enough and he began to yell. I couldn't tell you what he was yelling about, it was mostly nonsense; for the most part, it appeared that everyone on the bus had tuned him out--you just learn to do that riding public transportation. But the bus driver, doing his part to keep the ride civil, turned around and shhhushed the man.

The driver probably could have asked the man to not yell in a different way and probably would have achieved a different result, or maybe not, but his approach angered the man, so he yelled more. And the driver shhhushed more. More yelling, more shhhushing.

At this point the driver pulled over to the side of the road and asked the man to please, get off of the bus.

A couple of passengers approached the man telling him that all he had to do was not keep talking out loud and we'd be able to go. But he would have none of that. He blindly yelled back that the only person he was going to talk to was the bus driver. The bus driver told him that the time for talking was over and that he needed to leave the bus, or he was going to call the authorities. This is when the man started yelling incoherencies a little more coherently. He did not want to leave the bus and did yell something to the effect that if he had a gun he could shoot the driver.

Certainly, unsettling to hear that. But never at any point during this ride (or during the moments sitting there, or after I left the bus) did I feel this man had a gun. I didn't fear for my safety with him around--I just wanted the bus to get downtown so I could catch my flight.

After more yelling, and the driver getting on and off the bus, vacillating between his duty to drive the bus and to protect himself (I have to add that for the most part the two dozen other passengers and I just sat there, calm and collected, staring straight ahead like we were mannequins in this display window of pure urban crazy), the driver eventually calls the transit authority and the cops. He reports the threat, and we all sit and wait for the cavalry to arrive. The man is finally fed up and exits the bus. He wanders down the street, crosses in the midst of swerving traffic, and ends up wandering back up toward the bus on the other side of the street.

The driver is on his radio giving a play-by-play to the dispatch, and the man starts yelling back at the bus, he reaches in his pocket--which causes the driver to panic. At some point during his time on the bus I noticed his headphones were attached to a CD player in his pocket--so I blurt out, it's a Walkman, it's a Walkman! In a matter of seconds cop cars descend upon the scene. The first to stop jumps out and draws his handgun and starts negotiating with the man.

All I can think is, it's just a Walkman, it's only a Walkman, please don't shoot him. The next car to arrive has two more cops, guns drawn, and then a third pulls up next to the bus and the cop that gets out immediately draws his assault rifle (with a scope and everything). It is at this point that I lose it.

This is a horrible scene. All of us mannequins on the bus now have our hearts on our sleeves. My eyes well up with tears just hoping the man will stop yelling and do what the guns tell him to do. Fortunately, he does. He complies with everything and they make the arrest.

The driver informed us that he needed to stay and make a statement, so I got up. I asked the bus driver if we all had to make statements or if we could leave. He said it was okay to leave and then apologized for everything. All I said in return was, "I have a plane to catch."

And as true as that statement was, it couldn't have been a bigger lie.

I just had to get off that bus. What I experienced in that one maybe two minutes caused such an emotional trigger for me; were I to stay sitting there I may have completely melted. So instead, I walked away crying. Crying for the man that the cops were shoving into their car; crying because he was essentially a twitchy finger away from being shot by an assault rifle; crying because he really needs help and throwing him in jail won't do anything; crying because I just sat there frozen while this all happened; crying because I didn't tell the bus driver he didn't have to apologize that he was doing what he thought was right. But mostly, I was crying because when it came down to it, my persona on the bus was of the girl unfazed by what just happened, the girl who was so put out that this whole thing was going to make her late and ruin her day. Poor me. On an average bus, with the average personas, I feel like I was below average.