So, I realize this note is very long, but it's worth it. Trust me.
The other night, we waited for fifteen minutes or so in the cold to catch the 59U. There's nothing unusual about that. When the bus finally came, most of the seats were full, and there was a big crowd waiting to get on the bus. Rita pushed her way up to the front of the crowd, but Pat and I were stuck at the back, so while Rita was able to stand on the top step leading up to the back of the bus, Pat and I were stuck in the crowd at the front.
This half hour worked out perfectly. Our group was splintered, so we were able to get both angles of the high drama playing out on the 59U.
The bus pulled away from the curb, and that's when the action started.
Andy is standing by the back door in the alcove where they tell you not to stand. He's wearing bright blue. Sharon is sitting in the frontmost seat of the back section of the bus, so that she is behind the plexiglass that is at Andy's eye-level. Rita is standing next to Sharon's seat. Sharon and Andy appear to be in their late 30s, early 40s.
Sharon is on the phone. She hangs up and, with a severe speech impediment, says, "They're gonna meet us at Forbes and Murray. And if the 59U is too crowded they'll take that C bus."
Andy nods and pulls out his own phone. He speaks to someone on the other end of the line, too quiet for Rita to hear, and when he hangs up Sharon turns to him and bellows, "WHY DO YOU CARE?"
And that was that.
Also with some speech problems: "Why do I care, Sharon? What kind of question is that to ask someone, Sharon? What do you mean, why do I care, Sharon? I'm a nice person, Sharon, that's why I care. The difference between me and you, Sharon, is that you don't care about being rude to people, but I'm a nice person, Sharon, and I consider feelings. You hold grudges, Sharon."
Sharon is intermittently yelling "No!" at him.
"You're a good person, Sharon, I know you are."
"No!"
"You have a good heart, Sharon. I don't know why you have to be like this, Sharon. You don't have to be friends with her, Sharon, but you don't have to be mean to her. Sharon, if you were... if you were a criminal, Sharon, I'd forgive you. Sharon, if I... if I stole something? Or if I killed someone, and I went to jail, and I did my time and then I got out, Sharon, would you forgive me, Sharon?"
"No!"
"Well, I can understand that, Sharon, but if you were a criminal, Sharon, I'd forgive you."
The bus, which is packed to capacity, is absolutely silent except for these two yelling at each other. Pat and I look at each other worriedly, and then look back at Rita, who looks terrified.
"Listen, you need to keep your personal business OFF the bus. Shut the fuck up," says a girl standing near Rita.
"It's not my personal business, it's hers!" Andy yells. "Sharon, why do you have to be like this, Sharon?"
"It's because I'm stubborn," Sharon responds.
"Stubborn? What is stubborn?"
"It means... strong will. My grandfather and my father were stubborn and I guess I just learned to be stubborn."
"Well, why do people have to be like that, Sharon? I don't understand it. Why be this... stubborn. Why are people stubborn, Sharon?"
At this point, the yelling has been going on for close to ten minutes. We pull up to Forbes and Murray. A number of people get off the bus. A seat opens up next to me, so I sit down. Pat moves toward Rita, who sits down across the aisle from Sharon. I'm sitting next to an old man.
A dozen large people get on the bus and squeeze in around me, all of them chattering loudly, all with trouble speaking. One particularly short woman is standing next to me. She has an enormous fur hood and an enormous purse, and as the bus begins to move, she puts a hand on the pole next to my face and swings freely around the aisle, slamming into the side of my head with her hood and her purse. A woman tries to get off at the next stop, and the woman next to me shrieks, "THERE'S NOWHERE FOR ME TO MOVE, MA'AM! YOU CAN'T GET PAST HERE!"
"Now now, Jackie, settle down," says an older woman with better control over her voice.
"I've had it, Sharon! If you're going to act like that, I can't talk to you, Sharon!" screams Andy, and he rushes to the front of the bus, where he is immediately surrounded by these new women, who rub his back and say things like, "Aww, Andy is Sharon being mean to you again?" and "Where is Sharon? She's so mean."
Sharon, in the back, sits there with her arms crossed and her lower lip jutting out.
"She's so mean!" shouts Andy. "Sharon is so mean. I don't understand why she has to act like that. Do you guys remember that time we were over your house, and she just started SCREAMING at Dawn? That was back in 2001 and she still acts like that! She holds a grudge! It's so mean!"
"I know," says one woman, patting him on the back. "It's okay. You're better than her."
"I'M NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOU AT RED ROBIN!" shouts Sharon.
"But Sharon!" gasps Andy. "Then I won't eat!"
"AND YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH OF US! YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE!"
Andy straightens up. "I've had hit," he says. "I'm going to straighten this out."
The old man next to me looks at me and says sadly, "I'm not going to make it off this bus, am I?"
"No sir, you're probably not," I reply.
Jackie sits down across the aisle from me, next to a man even bigger than she is in a Steelers shirt. "Sir! MOVE OVER!" she screams in his face.
"Now, now, Jackie, he's a big man, there's nowhere for him to go," says the older woman.
Jackie stands up, smacks me in the head with her purse one more time for good measure, and pushes the bigger man out of his seat. He stands up and exits the bus, muttering.
"It's so wrong of him to talk about his girlfriend to his ex-girlfriend," one of the women says to her seatmate. "You just don't do that."
The woman who was comforting Andy sits down in the handicapped seats, directly in front of me.
"I know," she says, "But I know he still loves me." She has tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. "I know he loves me. Why is Sharon so mean?"
At the back of the bus, Andy leans down in Sharon's face and bellows, "IF YOU DON'T STOP ACTING LIKE THIS, SHARON, I'M GOING TO PULL YOU OFF THIS BUS AND THROW YOU ON THE RAILROAD TRACKS, SHARON!"
The old man taps me on the shoulder and says, "I need to leave." I stand up, strong-arm one of the women out of the way, and force a path for the old man to get to the front. Then I sit back down, not thinking, and move over to the window seat. A massive woman sits down next to me.
"Hi Karen!" says a male voice from the seat behind me.
"Hi Robbie!" says Karen, the woman now pressing me up against the window.
"Hi Karen!" Robbie returns.
"Hi Robbie!" says Karen. This goes back and forth at *least* a dozen more times. I slam my head against the window just because I can.
Sharon starts sobbing, so Andy runs back up to the front of the bus. He sits down hard next to the woman who believes he loves her, and puts his head in his hands.
"Why is she so mean?" Andy says.
"What's wrong, Andy?" she asks, rubbing his back.
"Sharon is so mean."
Across the aisle, the women talk loudly about how he needs to just choose already.
"You know, Andy, she's right. You can't have both of us. You are going to have to pick, eventually."
Andy lifts his head up and looks the woman in the eyes. "You know, if she's going to act like this, I won't be able to eat at The Activity tonight."
"Aw, Andy, hang out with the rest of us! She's mean. You don't need her."
"But I can't eat. And if she's gonna act like this... I choose you."
Tears spill out over the woman's cheeks.
"Nikki!" bellows the woman sitting next to me, Karen. "I didn't hear! Who'd he choose!"
"He chose ME!" Nikki says, blubbering. She pulls vibrant purple lipstick out of her shirt and applies it to her lips, tucking it back in her cleavage when she's done.
"Aw, shit," says the woman sitting behind Karen.
Karen turns around and says, "Now, don't you get upset, or you'll have seizures again."
"This like a fucking soap opera!" a young guy a few rows back exclaims.
Karen twists around in her seat and says, "Amen! You think this is bad? I live this every day!"
"Who did he choose?!" exclaims one of the women across the aisle.
"Wait, he chose someone? Finally!" shouts another.
"He chose Nikki!" someone yells.
Sharon shrieks quietly in the back.
Karen turns back to Nikki, who is engaged in a half-hearted hug with Andy. Karen says, "Well, we'll see how long this lasts, won't we."
Nikki begins to bawl, but for a different reason this time. "That's not nice!" she says. The woman across the aisle frowns at Karen, who hangs her head.
Nikki looks at Karen, and then Andy, and then cranes her neck to see Sharon in the back. Then she turns back to Karen, who is rifling through her purse.
"Where's your gun."
I feel like all of the air is instantly sucked from the bus. My eyes open wide, my cheek against the window feels even colder.
"I want your gun, Karen. Is it in that compartment?" She reaches for Karen's purse, who clutches it to her chest. "He don't know what he wants. Sharon is being mean. I'm sick of it. Where's your gun."
"Now, now, Nikki, don't even joke about that," says the older woman. "Let's be nice. Let's have fun at the Activity."
"I'm serious, I want the gun," Nikki says to Karen, slowly rubbing Andy's back. "I want it now."
Karen shakes her head, and Nikki crosses her arms and sticks out her lower lip, tears streaming down her face. "He picked me," she mutters to herself.
The woman behind me says, "This needs to stop or I'm going to have problems again." She begins to rock back and forth.
"Let's go!" shouts Rita, and I see she and Pat are standing next to me. I stand up, literally shove Karen into the aisle, and push my way off the bus.
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