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The Immersionism Issue

Back Of The Bus

Everyone rides the subway in New York. Only poor old cripples ride the bus. But I just moved from yuppies-everywhere Park Slope to yuppies-by-the-water-and-largest-projects-in-Brooklyn-everywhere-else Red Hook. I'm not too scared of the projects, but I...
SF
Κείμενο Sam Frank

Elder Sherman (right) and Elder Starnes taking the bus. Photo by the author.

Everyone rides the subway in New York. Only poor old cripples ride the bus. But I just moved from yuppies-everywhere Park Slope to yuppies-by-the-water-and-largest-projects-in-Brooklyn-everywhere-else Red Hook. I’m not too scared of the projects, but I don’t want to walk half an hour to the train. So: the bus. Once I saw a retarded guy in a safety helmet and once I saw my friend carrying a lot of foam and last night a white-beard told me where to find doughnuts and hookers near the Gowanus Canal. What would happen if I rode this crazy fucking demented bus around in a circle all day? 12:20 PM: Latina lady pants-suited in pink with hair dyed orange to “match.” Old black blind man dapper in a fedora and tweed. Out the window, waiting for the bus in the other direction: a black guy in a “Stop Snitching” shirt. 1:30: Latina teen all in pink with hair dyed … red. She can’t figure out how a Metrocard works. Now she’s agitated, stomping back and forth like it’s our fault. 2:04: The driver weighs about 400 pounds. On gets a Latino little person with greasy wavy shoulder-length hair in wraparound shades and a sleeveless “I [heart] New York” shirt whose arms are really muscle-y. Oh, nope: they’re just deformed. 2:21: Mr. Fat Driver goes on break. New driver’s hair is spotted white. I’ll call him Patches. 2:30: 19-year-old “elder” Sherman asks me to church. “You know we have a prophet here on earth?” The older elder (20?) has skin flecked with dried zit cream: white on white. 3:11: School’s out. Forty 12-year-olds are waiting. Two black girls start catfighting. Then: slap! Cops drag one off in cuffs while she puffs out her flat chest and screams. 3:16: “Chickenhead.” “You was talkin’ mad stuff.” “Scuse you. You ain’t gonna be cursing at her.” “When Juania catch her in the street by herself it’s over,” says one four-foot girl and slashes her hand across her throat. She bangs my seat and says politely, “Scuse me, sir.” 4:26: Mexicans are coming back from construction jobs drinking beer out of bagged bottles. They all get off, and it’s just me and a black guy in a skully passed out against the driver’s seat. 4:50: “Hello!!!” Patches yells at the drunk and bangs his seat. The drunk is startled and goes, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” 4:51: Patches says: “That’s it for me, I’m done.” His bus’s sign switches to “NEXT BUS PLEASE,” and he pulls away. 4:51:30: The drunk wobbles down the street and back, mumbles, “Mumble, mumble, take a shit, mumble.” He picks his ear. 4:52: Mr. Fat shows up driving a new bus! 4:54: I board. Black women are coming home. 5:18: I ride around a while. My eyes sting and my mouth is dry. 7:05: I wobble home and take a shit, just like the drunk guy. SAM FRANK