1st Week of Driver's Ed

My mom learned to drive when she was in her forties. She surprised the whole family by presenting her new driver’s license to us while dancing around the living room with joy. My mom never danced around. She was so joyous that she passed. She didn’t tell anyone she was going to driving school.

Being a native New Yorker I never felt the need to learn to drive. The subway system goes almost everywhere and in every direction and there are buses for the places the trains can’t take you. And of course there are four taxis to every person in New York City.

My first day of driver’s ed I wait fifteen impatient minutes for the bus. I get on the full, but not crowded bus and the only seat available is across the aisle from a laid out heroin/crack/meth addict. He is passed out and leaning on what looks like a large laundry sack in the seat next to him. He looks messed up with a large, red lump like a small horn on his forehead. His mouth is hanging open. On the floor around him are large bags.

The guy sits up like a zombie rising, his eyes don’t open. I see that the laundry bag was really a bent over woman in her own drug induced stupor. She is stooped over, bent in her seat. Her vividly dyed hair is the only thing alive and it is hanging over her face. The addict sways and falls back to the side and lays back down on the woman.

The bus makes a stop and folks get off. The man still in his haze calls for the bus driver to wait, he somehow realizes it is their stop. With wobbly legs he stands up. He coaxes the woman up. They pick up their belongings. When they finally get to the backdoor we see that dude has pee all over the back of his shorts! There is an audible gasp and folks start mumbling about it. I am disgusted and shaking my head. The drugged up couple tumble out the door.

The class is fine. The driver’s ed the teacher is funny. She tells us little hilarious bits about her life and the other students and the dumb things they’ve done on the road.

There are folks of all ages and races in the class. The first lesson is a typical driver’s ed lesson with lots of information about a cars dashboard and what the gauges mean it is all interspersed with jokes from the teacher and laughter from the students. One student tells the teacher he drove to class alone. Everyone laughed at how illegal and stupid that was.

Talk about a crowded bus!!

Image from the BBC.

Rats

There is a viral video out that involves a rat in a subway car in NYC. The rat does something so yucky and terrible that I don't even wanna repeat it. It reminds me of a Charm City bus experience with rats.

It is late one evening, I am waiting for the bus. There is a huge intersection in front of me and a large cemetery behind a large wall and high fence right behind me.

The amount of rats I see is crazy. It is like a horror movie. Across the street in the parking lot of a Rite A the rats are playing freeze tag and using the little scratch of grass and dirt as their personal playground. 1, 2, 3 and 4 come out of a hole and chase each other around. They run into the middle of the street and scramble back on the sidewalk. They go in a hole and 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6,7 come out and start running around. A cat comes out from behind the tree watching them it does nothing.

No sign of the bus.
Across the street where I am standing I am shaking in my shoes. I eyeball the sewer drain, the filled to the top garbage can near me. And a few minutes later I hear the rustling. A lady who is at the bus stop also makes a noise and moves away. I move without even looking and when I look there they are 1, 2, 3 running up and into the garbage can! TAXI!

Barefoot

It was one of the last very hot, muggy days and the grease on folks heads was frying their scalps at the bus stop where we were waiting for the always late, always crowded bus. The air in the streets bent like mirages.

A woman came walking down the street without any shoes on her feet, yet she carried a pair of men's boots in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. It was hot but she was barely dressed, wearing only a sleeveless longish shirt, her copper colored weave was dusty and matted. She had the most beautiful midnight complexion but her eyes were gone not seeing reality at all. She looked newly initiated into the world of heroin or crack. She still had fat on her and she wasn't stooped. I stared at her openly, everyone stared at her and made commentary. The older women shook their heads and the teenagers giggled and took pictures with their phones.

Child mama

Today a pregnant teenage girl got on the bus. She looked well into the pregnancy about six months. She got a seat in the front. In one hand she held a mountain dew in the other an unlit, but already smoked cigarette stayed between her fingers. She spoke to another girl who asked about her OTHER child. She said that child was with her grandmother of course. She hoped she was having a boy this time so she wouldn't have two heads to braid.

Free Bus

A new free bus is running around the touristy spots of the city. The buses are "green" but the most important thing about them is they are free! And they don't smell like pee or beer. The brakes don't screech. The seats are clean, for now anyways.  If they came on time they would be so convenient. 

By the frothy green water of The Harbor a large crane and several construction workers took down the huge ESPN Zone sign. The sports themed restaurant went belly up(ha!). It closed. Another empty building. It's like so many structures in the city.

There was a large group of about fifteen people walking towards the Science Center. The women, of various ages all had the same peachy complexion. Their blondish hair was pulled back and they wore some type of small blue cap over their buns.  They all had on the same white and light pastel patterned starched matronly dress. The pastels were in blues, pinks and yellows. One of the older women carried a brown baby girl in a back pack. The baby was sleeping and they adjusted the baby's position in the pack. The two women looked just like the other. 

The men and boys all wore short sleeved, buttoned down,  dress shirts and dark polyester looking dress pants. A white child held the hand of a little brown child my daughters age. The boys wore small versions of what the men wore. An older boy held an Asian toddler's hand. Some of the men had dark hair and there was an old geezer with a small straw hat. He had an all white beard and mustache and plaid shirt. Who were these people?
They were quiet as they walked to the ticket counter. Why were they dressed like folks from Little House on the Prairie? I wondered who the children of color were. Were they adopted? Members of their church?

A tatted shirtless man ran for the bus and the bus driver refused to open the door even though he made it. She said something about his shirtlessness and he yelled he had just come out of central booking. He walked quickly down the block.

Eavesdropped on a woman on the bus breaking up with her child's father on her cell phone. She kept telling him to "shut the f--- up!"  She told him she wouldn't make the mistake of falling for him again. And don't call her mother and she won't call his mother. And the 300 dollars you give her a month is a joke. She was cold!

Band Aid over a bullet hole

Someone took down the helium balloons and the pictures of the shooting victim that were on a light pole near the scene of the killing. A small memorial to the young life taken over a stupid argument in a fast food place where folks get their chicken boxes and fried lake trout sandwiches. They took the fight outside and that was the end.
The wreath is still there and the newest thing are all the police. Several cop cars patrol the streets and stand by their vehicles with lights swirling. A warning to anyone thinking about doing something illegal. I heard a bus driver say the other day all this attention now, is just a band aid over a bullet hole. He said the crime will just move to another area and then come back when the cops are gone and the tragedy is forgotten.
Not far from the gas station is a chinese food joint where an elder who was grabbing something to eat before work was robbed and killed. Another life lost for what?