- Published on
Angrynice (Love Through Frustration)
- Author
-
-
- Name
- Posts
- Posts
-
She was standing there at Dearborn, and I sighed. She was Rose, and the question was whether or not to let her on. Elderly, infirm, and heavyset, with a stuffed stroller, as quick to snarl as I am to smile, with stringy silver hair and corresponding eyes, tiny ones, which nevertheless had enough bile in them to rage against all about her, all the time. I don't think this is what Dylan Thomas was talking about.
A line of people boarded before she did, and I sat there wondering what to do. She'd been on my bus recently and behaved such that it would be appropriate to refuse her service, but true to my form (as I explain here), I'd forgotten the details. Her tendency is to harass anyone in her way. Ah yes, memories were coming back, against my will: among other abrasives she'd yelled at an elegant Somali woman in the aisle in a manner completely confounding to the lady, who seemed as bewildered as she was hurt, as if thinking: when did people of this age group behave without manners?
The thing is, I just don't like refusing service. I've never even kicked off LSBW, for Pete's sake. I believe these folks, highly disagreeable though they can be, deserve to ride as much as I do.
"Rose, hello," I said, with no great amount of enthusiasm. "How you feelin'?"
"Good," she replied, shifting her weight.
"Okay. In that case, come on in!"
I began the process of deploying the ramp. On the very oldest and very newest coaches, that takes forever, but on this mid-2000s model it came out quickly. Rose ambled forward at her pace and no one else's. Should I begrudge her the right to be unhurried? It's difficult when fifty people in the vicinity feel differently. I like to be the one person who is patient, who does give them a small oasis of acceptance, here in the desert of the harried and overtaxed.
Rose's attitude doesn't exactly make this easy.
"Goddamnit," she explained, pushing her stroller forward at no considerable speed. It was a puny affair and long past its due, lightweight white dirtied by time, buckling under the weight of several huge bags no stroller designer ever thought of. The wheels had rusted to a stop and no longer turned in the direction of travel, and some didn't roll either. She grunted with effort, cursing, each small impediment a worthy cause for fury: the lip of the ramp where it meets the cement; the geography of the bus's floor layout, requiring her to turn the stroller; limited visibility; the bags slipping; and more than all of this, the weight of the years, the accumulation of strife, seeds of misery now grown, long percolating as only she knew.
I'd already gestured to the brothers behind her, saying, "you can use the back door if you want to!" They were thrilled. Forget fare; this got them nearly five whole minutes– an eternity on the road– of comfort.
"My wheel is stuck, the wheel on the stroller," she bemoaned.
"I know," I said. "That's okay, come on in. I'll make some room for ya." I walked over to the front seating area and flipped up every seat that was empty, saying to those uncertain whether they should move, "we'll let her decide where to sit."
As she arrived in the seating area– which I know is only a few feet from the door, but you really have to imagine slow motion here, like a cargo frieghter docking at port– she snarled, "put that seat down! I want that down!"
"What do you want, Rose? Tell me what you want."
"I want that down."
"This one?"
"Yeah."
I flipped the seat down. "Alright," I said, mostly to myself.
Back in my own seat, I gave her a moment to get settled before saying, "alright, I'm just gonna roll out slowly–"
"STOP THE BUS YOU FUCKING BITCH NOW!"
"You're all right, Rose, we're stopping."
"Bus driver won't stop the goddamn bus, goddamnit–"
"You don't need to yell, Rose,"
"Motherfucker,"
"If you yell at me, I won't pick you up again."
She continued muttering. I was thinking about how her raspy tone was practically identical to Honey Bunny's voice in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction, where right after Tim Roth tells everyone, "everybody be cool, this is a robbery," Honey Bunny climbs atop the table and in the very opposite of cool-headedness shrieks, with hair flailing and to excellent comic effect, "any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!"
Wouldn't Rose and Honey Bunny make a terrific dynamic duo?
I'd watch that movie. There was time to reflect as we carried on our way. Rose mellowed into a hesitant silence, and I let my musings wander. My first thought was, well, I'm definitely not letting her on in the future. No need for all this drama. I'm not kind so that people will be kind to me, but when kindness is returned with such vitriol, one's enthusiasm wanes. I thought about a 41 driver I used to see regularly, older guy, generally rude to the folks, sometimes cringe-inducing. It went that way for years, until one day he was friendly. What? What gives, I wondered, and asked him how he was doing. He shared that finally, after decades of excruciating back pain, he'd at last had a surgery that took the agony away. I felt embarrassed for ever having judged him, and thankful for the context.
What travails had Rose endured? What collusion of life events had led to this unfantastic present, this day-to-day existence you knew was not her high point? To ponder the disappointments those small grey eyes had been privy to. I would never know the details, but being kind certainly wouldn't make things worse. It also occurred to me that she wasn't going anywhere. She's a longtime fixture on Rainier. What was I going to do, pass her up every other week and force some other poor operator to put up with her? No. Too selfish, too cowardly. I needed a different solution.
She always gets off at Mount Baker. When we arrived I didn't deploy the lift just yet. "One second," I gestured to the people waiting outside. I walked back to where she was, and took my right hand out of my pocket. I was ready.
"Okay." I stood directly in front of her and spoke clearly, firmly. Everyone was watching. People wondering, what's going on here?
"Okay, Rose. You need to get a new stroller. This is twenty dollars so you can go get one. If you don't have a new stroller the next time I see you, I am not gonna pick you up. You have to get a new stroller. Okay?"
I think her day started over right then. Sunset and sunrise, in the moment between my "okay" and her reply. She looked at me, nonplussed*, dazed into confused silence. Rose, taking it in. Her world was getting larger.
"Okay," she said.
She said it quietly, accepting the bills I almost never carry but happened to have that day. Once again, I asked the brothers (and sisters!) outside to use the back door, and Rose gathered herself and began the procedure for liftoff. When she passed me, sitting in my driver's seat, she stopped and patted the hair on my head. Her way of saying thanks. "I know you're not supposed to touch the driver,"
"Well. I guess that's okay for today."
When she was outside, just off the ramp, she turned back slowly and asked, "what was your given name?"
"Nathan, like Nathan's Hotdogs. Yeah."
"Okay."
"I'll see you again, Rose!"
"Okay!"
I drove in silence for a minute. We sat at the light at Martin Luther King Way. Mia was sitting up front, a regular rider. She'd seen everything. We were silent for a moment longer, and then we laughed. We cackled together, at the joy of it, the comic absurdity of it all, laughing out my frustration, Rose's anger, her pace, at the ridiculousness of my tone giving her money, practically demanding, angrynice, feeling good that we'd done something. "You know?" we told each other, grinning wide.
I said, "hopefully we just made life easier for her... and fifty other bus drivers!"
"And who knows how many passengers!"
We chuckled some more. In my mind though, I kept returning to the sight of her on the sidewalk at the very end, clutching two $10's and one very dilapidated stroller and looking out at the world around, looking calmed, bewildered. Rested. The things she thought were rules had changed a bit.
It was a new world.
---
*Nonplussed means surprised and confused, usually to the degree of not knowing how to respond. Lack of knowledge over what this word means has led to its developing a slang usage in the US exactly the opposite of its original definition; you may hear people use it to mean unsurprised or unperturbed (search the definition on Google for a laugh, as you'll be presented with two perfectly opposed meanings). I use the word here for its original definition.
A line of people boarded before she did, and I sat there wondering what to do. She'd been on my bus recently and behaved such that it would be appropriate to refuse her service, but true to my form (as I explain here), I'd forgotten the details. Her tendency is to harass anyone in her way. Ah yes, memories were coming back, against my will: among other abrasives she'd yelled at an elegant Somali woman in the aisle in a manner completely confounding to the lady, who seemed as bewildered as she was hurt, as if thinking: when did people of this age group behave without manners?
The thing is, I just don't like refusing service. I've never even kicked off LSBW, for Pete's sake. I believe these folks, highly disagreeable though they can be, deserve to ride as much as I do.
"Rose, hello," I said, with no great amount of enthusiasm. "How you feelin'?"
"Good," she replied, shifting her weight.
"Okay. In that case, come on in!"
I began the process of deploying the ramp. On the very oldest and very newest coaches, that takes forever, but on this mid-2000s model it came out quickly. Rose ambled forward at her pace and no one else's. Should I begrudge her the right to be unhurried? It's difficult when fifty people in the vicinity feel differently. I like to be the one person who is patient, who does give them a small oasis of acceptance, here in the desert of the harried and overtaxed.
Rose's attitude doesn't exactly make this easy.
"Goddamnit," she explained, pushing her stroller forward at no considerable speed. It was a puny affair and long past its due, lightweight white dirtied by time, buckling under the weight of several huge bags no stroller designer ever thought of. The wheels had rusted to a stop and no longer turned in the direction of travel, and some didn't roll either. She grunted with effort, cursing, each small impediment a worthy cause for fury: the lip of the ramp where it meets the cement; the geography of the bus's floor layout, requiring her to turn the stroller; limited visibility; the bags slipping; and more than all of this, the weight of the years, the accumulation of strife, seeds of misery now grown, long percolating as only she knew.
I'd already gestured to the brothers behind her, saying, "you can use the back door if you want to!" They were thrilled. Forget fare; this got them nearly five whole minutes– an eternity on the road– of comfort.
"My wheel is stuck, the wheel on the stroller," she bemoaned.
"I know," I said. "That's okay, come on in. I'll make some room for ya." I walked over to the front seating area and flipped up every seat that was empty, saying to those uncertain whether they should move, "we'll let her decide where to sit."
As she arrived in the seating area– which I know is only a few feet from the door, but you really have to imagine slow motion here, like a cargo frieghter docking at port– she snarled, "put that seat down! I want that down!"
"What do you want, Rose? Tell me what you want."
"I want that down."
"This one?"
"Yeah."
I flipped the seat down. "Alright," I said, mostly to myself.
Back in my own seat, I gave her a moment to get settled before saying, "alright, I'm just gonna roll out slowly–"
"STOP THE BUS YOU FUCKING BITCH NOW!"
"You're all right, Rose, we're stopping."
"Bus driver won't stop the goddamn bus, goddamnit–"
"You don't need to yell, Rose,"
"Motherfucker,"
"If you yell at me, I won't pick you up again."
She continued muttering. I was thinking about how her raspy tone was practically identical to Honey Bunny's voice in the opening scene of Pulp Fiction, where right after Tim Roth tells everyone, "everybody be cool, this is a robbery," Honey Bunny climbs atop the table and in the very opposite of cool-headedness shrieks, with hair flailing and to excellent comic effect, "any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!"
Wouldn't Rose and Honey Bunny make a terrific dynamic duo?
I'd watch that movie. There was time to reflect as we carried on our way. Rose mellowed into a hesitant silence, and I let my musings wander. My first thought was, well, I'm definitely not letting her on in the future. No need for all this drama. I'm not kind so that people will be kind to me, but when kindness is returned with such vitriol, one's enthusiasm wanes. I thought about a 41 driver I used to see regularly, older guy, generally rude to the folks, sometimes cringe-inducing. It went that way for years, until one day he was friendly. What? What gives, I wondered, and asked him how he was doing. He shared that finally, after decades of excruciating back pain, he'd at last had a surgery that took the agony away. I felt embarrassed for ever having judged him, and thankful for the context.
What travails had Rose endured? What collusion of life events had led to this unfantastic present, this day-to-day existence you knew was not her high point? To ponder the disappointments those small grey eyes had been privy to. I would never know the details, but being kind certainly wouldn't make things worse. It also occurred to me that she wasn't going anywhere. She's a longtime fixture on Rainier. What was I going to do, pass her up every other week and force some other poor operator to put up with her? No. Too selfish, too cowardly. I needed a different solution.
She always gets off at Mount Baker. When we arrived I didn't deploy the lift just yet. "One second," I gestured to the people waiting outside. I walked back to where she was, and took my right hand out of my pocket. I was ready.
"Okay." I stood directly in front of her and spoke clearly, firmly. Everyone was watching. People wondering, what's going on here?
"Okay, Rose. You need to get a new stroller. This is twenty dollars so you can go get one. If you don't have a new stroller the next time I see you, I am not gonna pick you up. You have to get a new stroller. Okay?"
I think her day started over right then. Sunset and sunrise, in the moment between my "okay" and her reply. She looked at me, nonplussed*, dazed into confused silence. Rose, taking it in. Her world was getting larger.
"Okay," she said.
She said it quietly, accepting the bills I almost never carry but happened to have that day. Once again, I asked the brothers (and sisters!) outside to use the back door, and Rose gathered herself and began the procedure for liftoff. When she passed me, sitting in my driver's seat, she stopped and patted the hair on my head. Her way of saying thanks. "I know you're not supposed to touch the driver,"
"Well. I guess that's okay for today."
When she was outside, just off the ramp, she turned back slowly and asked, "what was your given name?"
"Nathan, like Nathan's Hotdogs. Yeah."
"Okay."
"I'll see you again, Rose!"
"Okay!"
I drove in silence for a minute. We sat at the light at Martin Luther King Way. Mia was sitting up front, a regular rider. She'd seen everything. We were silent for a moment longer, and then we laughed. We cackled together, at the joy of it, the comic absurdity of it all, laughing out my frustration, Rose's anger, her pace, at the ridiculousness of my tone giving her money, practically demanding, angrynice, feeling good that we'd done something. "You know?" we told each other, grinning wide.
I said, "hopefully we just made life easier for her... and fifty other bus drivers!"
"And who knows how many passengers!"
We chuckled some more. In my mind though, I kept returning to the sight of her on the sidewalk at the very end, clutching two $10's and one very dilapidated stroller and looking out at the world around, looking calmed, bewildered. Rested. The things she thought were rules had changed a bit.
It was a new world.
---
*Nonplussed means surprised and confused, usually to the degree of not knowing how to respond. Lack of knowledge over what this word means has led to its developing a slang usage in the US exactly the opposite of its original definition; you may hear people use it to mean unsurprised or unperturbed (search the definition on Google for a laugh, as you'll be presented with two perfectly opposed meanings). I use the word here for its original definition.
-claps-
Bravo, sir!
And, I can see where this interaction seemed to transpire within mere minutes. Such a small stretch of time wouldn't typically be judged to hold the content of an entire blog post.
But, aha! So not true!
Did you surprise yourself? :)
I was just reflecting this upon looking over Metro's Long Range Plan– just an amazing disconnect between where people actually travel between versus where the routes suggested in that plan will end up taking them/forcing them to transfer between. One small example- they want to split the 7, 36, and 49 and reroute them all away from downtown, entirely ignorant of how busy those routes are despite ostensible rail duplication, and of how bus and rail are not the same type of transport and don't replace each other.
More importantly, yes, it's great to be reminded by you of everyone having a secret pain. We're all bitter over something, as I like to say.
This is probably one of my favorite blog posts of yours, ever. Both the writing, which is compassionate and absolutely hilarious, but also the absurdity of the situation and your resolution for it.
The aggressive kindness you show here: this is why I continue to read your blog. It is inspiring.
Funny what Lori mentions above... While we were talking on Link Light I had thought, "would it be weird if I gave him 20 bucks to give to somebody who needed it?". Then I thought that maybe there was a rule about you giving out money and I didn't want to put you in that situation. But I agree with the above commenter, if there was some way to give bus drivers a dual role as social workers, imagine how well those efforts would be targeted!
Thanks for sharing this story- I'm excited to hear the follow up. Hopefully with Rose and a new stroller... Because I don't believe you could follow through and not let her on board!
Really glad you like this post. Your thought about the $20, prior to this event taking place, is pretty amazing– almost like you intuited that the event would happen, down to the dollar amount! Wow!
I am extremely curious to see if she'll get a new stroller. I hope so, or that she spends it on something of even more pressing urgency I don't know about.
When she ask your name when she was outside of the bus, her face, voice, and body softened a little. The curse words were gone.
BTW, is that Cyrillic script on the Submit button?!
And I have no idea regarding the buttons. They're in Mandarin for me sometimes, though I'm seeing them in good old Amuurican English right now....
True to form though, showing the self control of a child she began cursing at the passenger across from her, who btw seemed stunned by the ease with which those hateful words came from this elderly woman. Finally at her stop she again blurted out " don't you fucking touch me" at another passenger offering to help her to her feet. She left, and in some twisted way I don't understand I can't wait to see her again to witness first hand so much true kindness go head to head with so much anger and bitterness.
Thanks for reading! I can completely identify with what you're describing at the end of your paragraph, and it's so refreshing to read someone else writing about it- that weird desire where you welcome it, getting to exercise that muscle again and make it stronger. Even if she didn't receive your kindness in the way we might like, I'm positive your behavior resonated with any number of the passengers who were watching. The positive impact we have on others will always be larger than we're ever aware....