I Wish I Was On the Bus...

A crazy man ranting came appearing out of nowhere. With corn row hair and riding a mountain bike he circled us twice or maybe three times as we waited for the # 2 bus to downtown.

Dragging his feet he stopped. Heels dug in and balancing atop his seat he remained at a distance for awhile. Pulling closer he began to speak. First he apologized. Looking at me and then at the woman next to me he very careful recited that he understood this isn't the way that normal people begin conversations but we seemed like upright (or maybe it was alright) people. "I mean that it doesn't matter that you are white and I am a black man."

He was right that wasn't what mattered. What mattered is that he had chosen to instigate a conversation with two complete strangers, people who one glance would have shown were not just strangers to him but to each other.

Talking in a rapid style with a limited vocabulary and using words like Yuse he told a story. It was both an odd story and an odd telling of the story. Initially it seemed like he spoke just a couple of sentences repeatedly. But the narrative grew each time. As he repeated the initial sentences he refined the narrative and then he moved on to the next paragraph. Starting again he worked his way up to a third paragraph and then he cycled back again.

I was almost alone at the stop only a semi-mute older woman shared the shade of the shelter with me. Trust me she was perfectly willing to stare at her shoes as this conversation is evolving. Bottom line on my fellow traveler was that she would have been staring at her shoes anyway. I have met her on the buses before and that is what she does. My guess is that she is one of God’s special people.
The bus stop where I was waiting is near a community mental health center. I have been inside this place before with someone who was losing it, really losing it. Funny this should be occurring so close to the scene of that train coming off the tracks moment.

Back then I was locked in a little room a man who picked up the phone, listened for a time and then offered it to me. He had declared as he held the phone out, “It is God and the Devil fighting over my soul." The scary thing then was I knew he meant it. But that was different experience for the room back then was being monitored and the man had been searched and the risk level was low, or as low as it can be when the person you are with is breaking from reality in a major way, say like a Greyhound Bus breaking from a hairpin turn in the mountains and heading into thin air.

But today it was different. I was not in a confined room. I didn’t know anything about the man or what was in his pockets. Still, he truly seemed to just be trying to work his story up to a question. Finally he moved on to the crux of the story. The gist of it was this.

He had lived in Flint and Flint was a city without hope. Talking in a deeper voice he said “You know the stories of Flint” With that he put one hand on the handle bar and another on his hip and began shaking his head as a gesture of negative exclamation. (Flint has its stories for sure like tales of suburban kids beat to death and sexually assaulted as they wandered in the wrong part of town.) Continuing on he tells me, “Well I just got up and left and I came to Lansing and I was living at the VOA. Right away I met this white cat from Nebraska and we hit it off and we moved in together with this guy’s girlfriend”

Eventually the reason he gives me for repeating this story in this building looping style is kind of the reason he could actually move. My bike riding new friend gets disability money from when he got beaten in the head with a hammer back in Flint. And anyway he really isn't any problem to anyone because he mostly stays in his bedroom and plays the Game cube. He emphasizes he does like the cable TV but that is not working.

The woman keeps looking down. Oh once in a while she will glance over at me, but her eyes never even move toward the man as he keeps going back to the start of the story again and again.

Why am I listening? Well, I am a trained listener and I use all the tricks I have picked up over the years. There is the occasional head nod, the tilt of the head to the side and the interjection of a "Yes?" or "Okay" as needed. At no point has his voice ever raised or grown aggressive. Staying polite in his fashion his tone has always seemed expository or inquisitive.

And finally the tale comes to the core question. There is a bill that came yesterday that the bike rider had opened and it shows that the cable bill stands at $800 and that is the reason the service is now cut off. Apparently there is no hope of it being turned back on. Our/my new best friend has called the cable company and partial payments are not an option. With the cable off he tells me he won't be able to watch The Closer. He poses his dilemma, "So I get all up in his face ‘cause this isn't the only lie man. He told me his mother was dead and honest to God man she called the other day. And then his brother showed up and kind of told me that my roommate wasn't all there."

What was going through my mind at this point, I am sure you want to know. I was wondering where the hell the bus was; it had been due 20 minutes earlier. What was also crossing my mind was why do nut jobs always seem to find me? My thought for some time has been is because of my myopia. Being nearsighted to the extreme my gaze does not fix in the right space for most people to read my intentions correctly they assume I am intently interested in them. If I could look like my gaze was focused a little more in the distance I might be okay.

The story commenced again only this time it was beginning in the middle and the fact that his roommate’s father had suffered a stroke and that was the reason for the call from the "dead" Mom is being interjected as a new story element. Right then I saw the bus coming. The woman at the stop bolted for the curb because she was getting the hell out of there no matter what.

Looking my question filled acquaintance in the eyes I said that I was going to have to leave. But I offered that it was my opinion that getting up in someone's face and calling them a liar almost never ended well. My suggestion was that he should try a tact perhaps offering the implication to his roommate he opened the cable bill in error. He could then see if his roommate wanted help in sorting it out. I urged him not to use the word liar because it was a very powerful word that pisses just about everyone off. I wished him good luck just as the bus door closed. A little acceleration up Washington Avenue and he was gone.

Having just left my cardiologist’s office, it seemed only appropriate I got a real world stress test.