Wednesday, June 27th, the Pissed Off Black Man Driving Bus #114

I'm pretty sure he's the same one who slammed the door in my face and drove off on me about 3 years ago.

In unrelated news; when I was at the bus stop getting ready to go across the river, there was an African American kid of about 15 or so, who had a brass instrument that I couldn't identify. He took it out of a case and blew just a few tentative notes on it that sounded low and mournful; definitely in the bass clef. I wanted to walk over to him and say; "Oh, nice..." and be able to name the instrument; I probably could have asked: "What is that?" But now I know it was a euphonium; a small cousin to the tuba. He wound up on the same bus as me and at one point, seemed to recognize me and smiled and asked, or stated- it was somewhere in between- "You like that weed?" and made a weed toking motion with his hand. He must be one of the kids who sells weed on Canal Street when not playing his euphonium; probably with a large brass band on a corner of Frenchmen Street, doing music that doesn't require much from the euphoniums, past a few tentative notes. Of course, if he smokes "that weed," it probably becomes more like a "euphorium" to him...

 

That time, I had been sitting on the bench, an old black lady by my side, whom I had actually struck up a civil conversation with, as we sat there. In retrospect, she might have said: "No, he's OK." to the driver after he slammed the door shut, whereupon he could have opened it back up and let me on.

That was the same lady who had, since the sun was about to go down, said to me "You don't want to be out here at night..."

I thought I had recalled a story abut a carload of youngsters of color jumping out of their vehicle at that particular stop and beating a white person severely, who had happened to be waiting there late at night -waiting for a bus to take him to the relative safety of the other side of the river where the demographics were at least 30% white, and not 11% like in the area around the bus stop....

When the bus pulled up, the lady picked up a couple bags that she had and moved towards the bus, while I took an additional couple of seconds to fold up my laptop, put it in my own backpack and then start towards the bus.

The lady was already onboard, standing at the turnstile thing, most likely inserting her ride-for-a-discount card that seems to be a birthright for people of color (rarely have I ever heard the "clink" of actual change, after someone of color boarded the bus; the majority of the time it is "card not valid" that emanates from the speaker; although they invariably get waved through -not their fault their card is invalid, it's the system, trying to hold them back -keep them from making their appointments with their slip and fall attorneys, or whatever the case).

And so, the driver should have waited until the lady had seated herself, so the lurch forward of the vehicle; exaggerated by the anger fueled way that he had slammed the pedal down, wouldn't have potentially knocked the old lady off her feet.

But, it was easy for me to posit that the driver had been somehow provoked by the fact that I was sitting at the stop using a laptop computer; one of the symbols of white supremacy in a mind such as his; and that is why he had allowed me no leeway.

They All Look The Same To You Out Of The Corner Of Your Eye

I think it was the same driver yesterday, although to some degree the trope that "they all look the same to me" applies. 

That is probably because I'm conditioned not to look into the eyes of the people of color down here, wherein I might glimpse their individuality. 

That is a no-no, because people of color might think you are trying to put the make on them, as the perpetrator of some past crime they committed and this could turn them belligerent. Many a time I have heard "What 'chew lookin' at?!" when I had merely been trying to make eye contact. And so they wind up all looking the same when seen out of the corner of the eye, type of thing...

But, this time, the bus pulled up and I rolled my bike to the front of it to put it on the rack. He couldn't slam the door and ride off at this point, as he would have run over me.

Then, since I had been in the middle of drinking an energy drink, I paused for a couple seconds to chug down the rest of it before getting on the bus. He couldn't slam the door and ride off at this point either, or else he would have had to account for the bike on the front rack that I most likely would have reported "stolen" to the RTA NOLA headquarters; stolen by one of their drivers..

But, he instead yelled; "Man, come on, I ain't got all day!" or something to that effect.

Provoked a bit by his emotional outburst, I stopped a couple gulps short of draining the can and just flung it towards a trash can that it bounced off of and landed on the ground a foot or so away from.

"That's good; I'll just leave it on the ground like everyone else around here does," I said to the driver. If he had given me a couple more seconds I could have disposed of it properly.

"What are you trying to say?" asked the driver who had probably driven off on me a few years ago; leaving me vulnerable to the predatory natives.

It was clear what I was "trying to say," that black people are litterbugs.

"I usually dispose of things in the proper receptacle, in order to keep my neighborhood looking tidy; but around here it appears that there is trash laying everywhere and my little can isn't going to make a noticeable difference," I said, to which he remained silent.

He probably doesn't know what "dispose," "proper" or "receptacle" mean, and so thought I was speaking the language of an academic or at the very least, someone who could get him fired by using some of those big words in a lawsuit against him.

"Shut up and worry about turning right and left, stopping and starting, bro...maybe take a few GED courses to improve your lot," I didn't say.

I really think I might have flustered him and he might have had the wheels turning in his mind still about 10 minutes later when he actually went by the on-ramp to the highway going over the bridge (which is the only thing keeping me from riding my bike to Gretna whenever I go and saving the $2.50 on the round trip bus fare) and had to make an awkward 3-point turn and get on the ramp on the other side of the 4 lane road.

Maybe he was trying to come up with a way to articulate that there is a good reason why black people are litterbugs; one that I just wouldn't understand, because "it's a black thing."

Like, I Wouldn't Have A "Comeback?"

I would have said something like, not only do I think we should have sent all the slaves back to Africa after Lincoln freed them; we should have demanded our money back.

"You're out in a bountiful field for 10 hours and all you can pick is 60 pounds of cotton, maybe 70? That's pretty lazy, bro." If he thinks he can anger me with his words; then turnabout is fair play.

And if he is going to slam the door and drive off on me; let me give him a better reason, than me flaunting "my superiority" by using a laptop computer.

But, I'm going to need to ride his bus again perhaps; and so I won't kick the hornet's nest, I'll just let him spew his hatred; A comment like that would "go viral" amongst the all black driving staff, and I might wind up blacklisted from ever (yeah, excuse the pun) riding on any RTA NOLA buses.