Adventures in mass transit
Mar. 8th, 2005 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonDaily Aries Forecast
Quickie: A situation keeps repeating itself. Figure out what you should be doing differently.
I'm running late. No surprise there. What is surprising is the view I catch when we turn off Buford Highway, the downtown Atlanta skyrise. From here it looks like a gray bouquet of metal flowers, the individual buildings blur into each other, the pollution ring gives it a Turner quality- ( ships that vanish into the mist along the eternal thames). I must've ridden this same bus a hundred times, the #124, past this same exact spot a hundred times as well, never mind the few death marches i've made home from there for various sordid reasons. Yet i've never seen the Atlanta skyline from this angle before. It's one of those weird moments in the narrative of your life, when briefly, momentarily, you become aware of how long you've been undercover in your own routines.
(("We gotta pull him out!" the perpetual 15 year old poet screams "He's been in too long, chief."
Boss ego takes a long drag off a very expensive cigar, his eyes focused on distant contemplations, from behind a large mahogany desk.
"Yeah this shit's worse than the Nav..." Says Mr.21 agitated as always
"I'm scared!" The little boy whose always afraid of windows adds a hair above a whisper "...please sir, when will it end?"
There is murmuring and dissent. Various little Me's getting restless in a very small room.
Finally Boss Ego bolts out of his chair slamming his sledgehammer sized fists into the desk
"I SAID SHUT UP" He straightens out his tie and takes a shorter hit off his very expensive cigar.
"Hey! It's just a goddam job alright? Now if everyone'll just calm down and listen for a minute, you can hear he's trying to
write." Boss Ego sits back down stink eyeing the mob, his knuckles have gone bone white and there are cracks along the surface of the desk now.))
The bus arrives and everyone around me is swarming out of the doors making a mad dash up the escalator for the train waiting along the platform above. Not me. I won't run, I refuse to be a fucking mouse racing along the MARTA maze before the bells and whistles go off. Not today. If I miss that train up there, then a man misses it. I walk calmly up the stairs and arrive at the train just in time for the doors to shut in my face. A sudden burst off a cold gust hits and all I can hear is the roar of the Southbound pulling out without me. I raise my eyes to the sky, somewhere up in those windy clouds I can almost hear Baby Jesus laughing at me.
15 very long minutes later and i'm on the next one out. Problem solved. I wish...
"I wish you would lay a hand on me, but I know you ain't got the heart, faggot! You can't do nothin' withoutcher Momma there."
There is currently at the end of the car, a crisis of diplomacy occuring, and i'm seated two rows away facing the whole thing. From what i've gathered there's these two cats I see every morning on the train. One of them talks very loudly about objects of intrest found in an abandoned sports pages, the other one, just nods and mumbles something incoherent back.
"Are you crazy? I will kick your ass"
The other guy is just some passenger. He talks slowly, methodically with his accent highlighting the words 'crazy' & 'ass' like they were the first words of the language he learned. This poor guy apparently looked too long at the other two. The loud one starts talking shit. The man with the accent says 'Fuck You',a 'Fuck You back', then enough racial slurs to turn this whole episode into either a Tarantino movie or the Jay-Z album fire back and forth. It escalates back and forth. The man with an accent threatens to shoot them. I keep staring out the window trying not to make eye contact. Wondering if the gun threat is a bluff.
"Fuck you bitch. Lemme see yer gun then."
I guess he ain't wondering.
"I don't need a gun to kick your punk N*****R ass" The man with the accent barks loudly. The loud mans friend starts snickering.
"Your just talking shit 'cause your on the train..."
"Fuck You!"
"That's okay, that's okay." The loud guy gets up sits down, gets up again "That's okay 'cause i'm getting off at the same stop as you." He finds another seat.
"Fuck You!"
"That's okay, keep talking, that's okay." The loud man gets up yet once more and shambles down the corridor, his quiet friend gets up as well, mumbling something I can't hear, and follows suit. I feel small. This must be what it's like to be some small little country on the UN and have to watch the United States & some other country get into it. I keep my mouth shut and try to make it look like i'm looking at anything but them. Nothing new. Same rules as jail, bootcamp or even the punk shows. See no evil, hear no evil, talk no shit.
"Fuck You.... and your mother as well." The man with accent shouts down the cab and gets up and takes the seat where
the loud man was sitting.
"What? What was that?"
We pull into Chamblee. I debate getting up and trading cars. Then I realize, sick as it may be, I really wanna see how this is gonna go down. I hold my ground.
The doors open and the loud man and his friend don't say nothing. They take the seats just across from me. High noon silence and I feel this nervous need to giggle all of a sudden. Like an itch in your foot when you got your boots on, you try not to think about it and it just gets worse. The doors close.
The loud man and his friend rise out their seat.
"What?" the man with an accent barks defiantly at their approach.
They walk up to his row, and the quiet one pops open the emergency exit door that connects the cars to each other. The loud man leans in and says something I can't hear. Then steps through with his friend and the car door slams loud. The man with the accent looks through the window in the door. Shakes his head to himself and leans his head against the window and closes his eyes like he's sleeping.
Two stops later and I get off for my transfer train. I allow myself the luxury of a few quick giggles and head into work. Living strange in the loops of eternal recurrence.
Quickie: A situation keeps repeating itself. Figure out what you should be doing differently.
I'm running late. No surprise there. What is surprising is the view I catch when we turn off Buford Highway, the downtown Atlanta skyrise. From here it looks like a gray bouquet of metal flowers, the individual buildings blur into each other, the pollution ring gives it a Turner quality- ( ships that vanish into the mist along the eternal thames). I must've ridden this same bus a hundred times, the #124, past this same exact spot a hundred times as well, never mind the few death marches i've made home from there for various sordid reasons. Yet i've never seen the Atlanta skyline from this angle before. It's one of those weird moments in the narrative of your life, when briefly, momentarily, you become aware of how long you've been undercover in your own routines.
(("We gotta pull him out!" the perpetual 15 year old poet screams "He's been in too long, chief."
Boss ego takes a long drag off a very expensive cigar, his eyes focused on distant contemplations, from behind a large mahogany desk.
"Yeah this shit's worse than the Nav..." Says Mr.21 agitated as always
"I'm scared!" The little boy whose always afraid of windows adds a hair above a whisper "...please sir, when will it end?"
There is murmuring and dissent. Various little Me's getting restless in a very small room.
Finally Boss Ego bolts out of his chair slamming his sledgehammer sized fists into the desk
"I SAID SHUT UP" He straightens out his tie and takes a shorter hit off his very expensive cigar.
"Hey! It's just a goddam job alright? Now if everyone'll just calm down and listen for a minute, you can hear he's trying to
write." Boss Ego sits back down stink eyeing the mob, his knuckles have gone bone white and there are cracks along the surface of the desk now.))
The bus arrives and everyone around me is swarming out of the doors making a mad dash up the escalator for the train waiting along the platform above. Not me. I won't run, I refuse to be a fucking mouse racing along the MARTA maze before the bells and whistles go off. Not today. If I miss that train up there, then a man misses it. I walk calmly up the stairs and arrive at the train just in time for the doors to shut in my face. A sudden burst off a cold gust hits and all I can hear is the roar of the Southbound pulling out without me. I raise my eyes to the sky, somewhere up in those windy clouds I can almost hear Baby Jesus laughing at me.
15 very long minutes later and i'm on the next one out. Problem solved. I wish...
"I wish you would lay a hand on me, but I know you ain't got the heart, faggot! You can't do nothin' withoutcher Momma there."
There is currently at the end of the car, a crisis of diplomacy occuring, and i'm seated two rows away facing the whole thing. From what i've gathered there's these two cats I see every morning on the train. One of them talks very loudly about objects of intrest found in an abandoned sports pages, the other one, just nods and mumbles something incoherent back.
"Are you crazy? I will kick your ass"
The other guy is just some passenger. He talks slowly, methodically with his accent highlighting the words 'crazy' & 'ass' like they were the first words of the language he learned. This poor guy apparently looked too long at the other two. The loud one starts talking shit. The man with the accent says 'Fuck You',a 'Fuck You back', then enough racial slurs to turn this whole episode into either a Tarantino movie or the Jay-Z album fire back and forth. It escalates back and forth. The man with an accent threatens to shoot them. I keep staring out the window trying not to make eye contact. Wondering if the gun threat is a bluff.
"Fuck you bitch. Lemme see yer gun then."
I guess he ain't wondering.
"I don't need a gun to kick your punk N*****R ass" The man with the accent barks loudly. The loud mans friend starts snickering.
"Your just talking shit 'cause your on the train..."
"Fuck You!"
"That's okay, that's okay." The loud guy gets up sits down, gets up again "That's okay 'cause i'm getting off at the same stop as you." He finds another seat.
"Fuck You!"
"That's okay, keep talking, that's okay." The loud man gets up yet once more and shambles down the corridor, his quiet friend gets up as well, mumbling something I can't hear, and follows suit. I feel small. This must be what it's like to be some small little country on the UN and have to watch the United States & some other country get into it. I keep my mouth shut and try to make it look like i'm looking at anything but them. Nothing new. Same rules as jail, bootcamp or even the punk shows. See no evil, hear no evil, talk no shit.
"Fuck You.... and your mother as well." The man with accent shouts down the cab and gets up and takes the seat where
the loud man was sitting.
"What? What was that?"
We pull into Chamblee. I debate getting up and trading cars. Then I realize, sick as it may be, I really wanna see how this is gonna go down. I hold my ground.
The doors open and the loud man and his friend don't say nothing. They take the seats just across from me. High noon silence and I feel this nervous need to giggle all of a sudden. Like an itch in your foot when you got your boots on, you try not to think about it and it just gets worse. The doors close.
The loud man and his friend rise out their seat.
"What?" the man with an accent barks defiantly at their approach.
They walk up to his row, and the quiet one pops open the emergency exit door that connects the cars to each other. The loud man leans in and says something I can't hear. Then steps through with his friend and the car door slams loud. The man with the accent looks through the window in the door. Shakes his head to himself and leans his head against the window and closes his eyes like he's sleeping.
Two stops later and I get off for my transfer train. I allow myself the luxury of a few quick giggles and head into work. Living strange in the loops of eternal recurrence.