COTA chatter

Today, like every day, I rode the bus. It’s a great way to observe humanity. You can’t help but observe – its quite in your face. I missed the bus I was gunning for, so I had to wait on the next one for about twenty minutes.
While at the stop there was, I’m guessing, a family of children. The oldest were maybe fourteen or fifteen, one of whom was pushing a stroller. I was reading a book, but I couldn’t help observing this family. They were right in front of me. One shouted to another something about “ . . . getting your ass beat.” I looked up and a seven or eight year old girl was having a conversation with her eleven year old, I’m assuming, brother. The conversation seemed to be somewhat in the vein of the girl’s appearance. I didn’t make everything out, but she seemed to indicate through her grandiose body language that she thought her ass could look better. Her brother pointed out that she needed to diet, and she latched on to the idea with enthusiasm.
“I’m gonna be eating my noodle soup, I ain’t gonna be eatin’ no cheese, I gonna be drinking my diet soda . . .”
I got on the bus and there was no room to sit. To me, a bus with no room to sit doesn’t necessarily mean that every seat is taken. I’m all over and empty two-seat bench. I usually sit in the seat nearest the aisle, so as to discourage anyone from trying to share with me. A three seat bench I am somewhat wary of; someone could take the seat on the other end and on public transportation you never know what manner of person that might be. If there are no unoccupied benches I will usually share with someone, depending on the length of my ride and how tired I am. That is only an option if there is bench with someone of normal girth on it. In Columbus, Ohio this is by no means a certainty. The middle of a three-seat bench is almost always out of the question for this same reason, but also because being sandwiched, even between two normal sized (thinner than average) is not much fun. When I can’t sit I can’t read, so when this happens I settle into a thousand yard, watching the human and commercial squalor pass through the windows. The depressing sights no longer affect me, and, pushing into the sunset towards Hilltop there is sometimes an unlikely beauty in that rolling urban mural.
Today, I stepped on the bus and a quick survey showed no available seats. Before I can turn around I hear: “There’s a seat right here.” I turn around and there is indeed a sandwich seat “available.” What the hell I thought, and I sat down without surveying the man who made the offer or the other person. I sat down, sliding my backpack around to my chest, unzipping it, and removing my book, a well-practiced maneuver. But before I can open the cover, completing the last leg, the man to my left, who had invited me to sit, spoke. This is rarely a good sign on a bus.
“My name’s Andre.”
I looked over at him; looked him square in the face. I hesitated for a moment, thinking about giving him a false name, giving me some personal distance from this man, because, God knows, we couldn’t have been physically closer. But the only name that came to mind was my own, and I turned to my book.
“What are you reading?”
I was really in no mood for this, so I simply closed the book over my hand, presenting the cover to him. (“SECRETS: A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS” by Daniel Ellsberg.) At this point I actually began to read.
“What are you reading that for?”
Now, some days I am more than willing to engage the benighted and often intoxicated people who ride the bus. But today I had many things immediately on my mind, including this book, which I was (and am still, as of writing) intent on finishing today. Again I hesitated. Without really intending to, I was an asshole.
“Because it’s interesting,” I said.
This for sure put an end to it. But Andre wasn’t finished. He made an observation about the fact that he was drinking. I couldn’t summon the will for even the most inane reply; I may have vaguely twitched my head in response. I continued to read.
Maybe the bus hit a pot-hole, or maybe Andre just momentarily lost control of his hand. What happened is that Andre dropped his coffee straight down to the floor of the bus. I looked down to see coffee splattered all over my left foot. The Styrofoam gas-station coffee cup rolled on the floor and Andre retrieved it.
“Good thing I had the lid on good and tight.”
“ . . .Yeah,” I muttered heavily.
I felt violated; he might as well have vomited on my shoe for the way I felt at that point. Then I began to think he might actually vomit on me. I felt violated. I felt my shoe get slightly warm. It might as well been any kind of Andre’s body fluid, it would have felt just as vile. Maybe I should just stand up, I thought. No, I countered to myself. That would surely invite some sort of comment from him. I sat and read and fumed.
Recently COTA (the Central Ohio Transit Authority) has been approved to begin using larger busses on the busier routes. Too late for my shoe.