12/18-19/2013, 11:00 p.m. to 12:10 a.m.
I bussed it into the ghetto on the way to work last night to check on the homeless—as I am so concerned about their accommodations. One dude was sleeping in the gutter in the mouth of a steaming sewer. Another dude was curled up in a ball against a brick wall under the awning of a pawn shop. There were some drunks walking around. I got my connect—no problem.
12:10
When I stepped on the bus there was an open seat if only this one fetal drunk in overalls would sit up. Somehow, as I made him move and he mumbled, he managed to remain prone on the one seat.
There was one dude up front chatting up the bus driver, and leaning against the dash, in violation of the federal ordinance posted above their heads. Everything was normal.
Then, at Kane and Eastern, Smokey, a small middle-aged man in a bomber jacket and ski cap, stepped up with his cane in one hand, and his bedding in the other [a plastic bag full of circulars and newspapers that he covers up with]. Smokey has a dark patina rather than a complexion, from those years of unbathed nights warming his hands over a trash bin fire. Smokey was also smoking a long brown, and much sucked on, cigarette.
12:22
I was thinking, 'Here I go again. Three white dudes on the bus: me, a drunk, and a homeless guy.'
The bus driver said, “Put that cigarette out. You ain’t stinkin’ my bus up.”
Smokey stops a little as if his back is stiff, and kind of grimaces, almost biting the cigarette in half. He did not, however, stop smoking.
The bus driver said, “Put that cigarette out befo’ you stink my bus up!”
Smokey puts the cigarette out on the collar of his jacket and said, proudly, as if addressing us all, “That’s alright I just shit myself!”
He stepped back toward us—not having paid—and the driver said, “Oh, no he didn’t!”
A big lady sitting to his left and my right covered her face with her scarf and said, “Oh yes he did!”
The driver pulled off, as if speed would save her nose. I was now digging frantically for pen and note pad.
Smokey then smiled at the ceiling and stepped over to sit down across from the scarf-veiled lady, between two young people—who bolted for the back of the bus. As he turned to face the lady across from whom he was about to sit, he smiled at her. “This bus is heaven to me. I love this bus. God bless you people—smell the love!”
The scarf-veiled lady said, “You are nastay. You should get off this bus.”
Smokey plopped down on his seat with a smile. “This is some nasty shit ain’t it. You want a smell? You want to wipe my ass?”
The lady then crossed her arms in front of her face and peered at him in disgust as I broke into laughter and had a hard time keeping pen to paper.
Smokey continued to speak loudly, firm, and clear, with nearly perfect courtroom diction, “This bus is so warm, like heaven. I got kicked out of the bar earlier for pissing myself. I’ve been so cold. You people don’t realize how painful it is to shit out in this freezing cold. Would you let me shit in your house Miss?”
The lady cringed behind her scarf as my eyes ran with tears laughing at the insanity. The lady fired back from behind her scarf, “You stink, get your smelly self off the bus so people can breathe.”
Smokey laid back and grinned with his brown teeth. “Oh, I can breathe just fine! I’ll see you in church!”
The bus driver stopped the bus where Northpoint Blvd loops around Eastern in a cloverleaf, and demanded he get off the bus.
Smokey [knowing that odor is not an off-putting cause] inquired, “For what reason?”
“For being disrespectful!”
“I’m staying on this nice warm bus—smell the love people!”
“I’ll call the cops!”
“Good, they will take me to another warm place.”
I was still laughing. But the rest of the people began to complain about getting home late. The dude that had been chatting the driver up reminded her that Smokey had not paid, so she demanded he come up and show his ticket.
Smokey stood, shook his hips a little, and waddled toward the front, the veiled lady pinching her nose and pointing with squeals of disgust at a large lump above the back of his knee.
12:30
As Smokey was going through all of the trash in his wallet the man stepped down the stairs, and off the bus. Smokey continued to fuss for a pass that was not apparently there. As the driver began to question him with her nose in the sleeve of her sweater, two big brown hands reached up and grabbed Smokey’s jacket and hurled him out onto the grassy median of the cloverleaf.
The big man bounded onto the bus to a round of applause. The driver was stunned. “What did you do?”
He said, “Baby, drive, I don’t work fo’ no MTA. I wanna ged home. En Lord knows what be crawlin’ up out a him next—roll!”
She rolled as directed.
For the next ten minutes I watched Smokey’s lonely cane rattle where it was propped up against the befouled seat of its onetime master, not a pace from my seat, next to the drunk who slept through the entire episode.
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This story makes me want to puke, but then i can picture you desperately looking for your pen and pad to write this down and then its surprisingly funny!!!
Dude, I almost broke a rib laughing!