jennie and i were talking last night about boston. we both love the city, i visited for a few days a few years ago, and she just got home from a week long visit. the architecture is amazing, the clash of old and new is something that we don't really see in the midwest, it having been settled 200 years after the east coast was, public transit is awesome, and there are about a zillion interesting things to do and see. i was saying that even though i love cities, the distribution of weath in them tends to bother me a little more than maybe it should. in and around boston, and many big cities, there is an abundance of wealth: the most expensive colleges in the nation, the wealthiest businesses, the wealthiest people. so why also so much poverty? i've been thinking all day about social programs and why they don't work, or maybe they do work, it's just that they work slowly and there are too many inpoverished people to make a noticable difference. what's the value of the 32 cents that i've got in my pocket when the guy on gilman street shakes his cup my way? it's true, i could use that 32 cents. i've got plenty of expenses and student loans to be thinking of. what's he got? not as much as me. does that mean that he needs it more? how do i know?
i'm thinking about all of this as i am tucking my credit card back into my wallet at community pharmacy, after spending almost $60 on organic-woman-positive multi-vitamins, super special SLS free toothpaste for my terribly sensitive mouth, some herbal extracts, and a bottle of lysine supplements. not bad, actually, for products that will help keep me healthy and hopefully keep every little lip-bite from turning into a raging canker sore. i have $60 to spend on the wellbeing of my body.
thinking some more. it's almost 2:00, i've been in class all morning. i am going to take the bus home, eat lunch and go shopping for some super special pants to wear under my hockey gear. i'm expecting to spend about $30. to compensate, i've been taking my lunch with me to campus every day this week.
i like riding the bus. i like that i live in a place where, not only is it an option for me, i have choices. there are 2 routes that stop within a block of my house, one of which actually stops about 30 feet from my front door. i like that i don't have to wait for the bus to warm up, or stop to fill it with gas. i can listen to music on headphones on the bus, i can read, i can sip my coffee, i can look out the window, i look at other people. sometimes, the bus is filled with students. in the mornings, the bus is packed to standing room only with them. high school ones. it's like watching herd animals on a nature documentary. they shout things at eachother, laugh, swear, talk shit, watch eachother like hawks, and then they all leave at the same time. it takes a minute or two for them all to get out the doors, but relatively it's very abrupt, like the turning of the herd. it's fascinating and kindof scary how big of a deal they make out of eachothers' words and actions. in the evenings, the bus is pretty much a mixed bag. students on their way home from campus, random teenagers, people talking on cell phones, and the people that you hope don't sit next to you: the ones that smell bad, are carrying several plastic bags full of either clothes or more plastic bags, and the ones that look at you like they are blaming you for that thing that happened to them 30 years ago that made thier life suck ever since. i am a student. i am white. i wear clothing that is clean and appropriate to the weather. since i work for tips, i usually have some cash in my wallet.
i am thinking about cities, about poverty, about the $60 worth of stuff in my backpack which will, hopefully relieve the stinging that's going on just inside my lip right now, where i bit it worse than i've ever bitten my lip before. (i'm serious, it was swollen to the size of my little finger for 3 days because i just kept biting it, and when the swelling finally went down, it turned into a blister, then sore just about 1 and a half times the size of a q-tip head) the bus comes, i swipe my student bus pass, which i got for free from the university when i enrolled for classes. and when i say "free" i mean, my tuition paid for this bus pass, which i am now using to permit me to ride the bus home. there are fewer empty seats than occupied ones. i have to choose who to sit with. i usually sit with women. people who look the most like me. this is a trend that i notice on the bus. if the person getting on the bus has to sit next to someone, they will most often choose the person who appears to be the most like them. it makes sense, but on the other hand, why? what difference does it make? you don't really form lasting relationships on the bus. i sit next to a pretty average looking woman near the middle of the bus. i adjust my backpack. she's looking at me. the bus driver is giving directions to a woman who appears lost. he reluctantly gives her instructions and she walks away. the light turns, we're almost a block away from where i got on. the driver says, loud enough for us hear, "she asks me that same question every day. every day." i'm thinking about asking the same question every day when the woman sitting next to me makes a comment, i don't quite understand what she said, but it was something like, "you're an asshole." she's looking at the bus driver. less than 3 blocks since i got on the bus, and she turns to me and asks for a couple dollars for bus fare. she says that she needs to get on another bus. i tell her that she can get a transfer ticket from the driver. her face turns nasty, "i didn't pay to get on this bus. got any more stupid questions or stupid answers?" i am thoroughly appalled at what is happening. do i get up and move? do i give her a dollar? does she understand that transfer tickets are free? at some point she says, "i could do a lot of things: i could rob a bank, i could be a prostitute." i scold myself for silently responding, "you could get a job." she didn't pay to get on the bus, ok, that explains the lack of transfer ticket. maybe i can get her a transfer ticket. no, i paid with a bus pass. why should i help her anyway, after she was nasty to me? 2 miles to go. she looks back to the driver, "he drives like shit." i'm sticking it out when the bus stops and the driver looks back to her and tells her to get off of the bus, here's the place where she told him she was going. i'm getting ready to get the hell out of her way when she says to me, "if you don't know, don't say anything, but if you do know, tell me: do you know where savers is?" the bus is stopped, everyone is looking, she's not getting up, she's volatile. very carefully, i say, "yes." she tries to be specific in her next question, but is nasty and flustered, and the driver is waiting. she ushers him on, he looks pissed, we move again. she asks me where it is. thankfully, it's on this bus line. i think she would have been pretty pissed if it was on the other side of town and we were actually traveling away from it. she asked me where, i told her that it was on first street. she rolled her eyes, got nasty again and told me that she wasn't from around here. she started talking to me very slowly, as if i didn't understand her language and/or should have fucking known that already. 5 blocks to savers. i tell her that it's just up the street a few blocks and that there is a bus stop there. she maintains that she should not be expected to know where either first street or savers is. part of me is scared: is she going to freak out on me? part of me is angry: i want to tell her to stop being such a bitch, get a route map and fucking figure it out. part of me is sad: there are people who won't do things for themselves, blame other people for it, and believe that they are right. she spends the next 4 blocks telling me about her lack of money, the apartment that her friend got for her which doesn't have heat, her broken down car so now she has to hitch hike to stevens point, and the winter coat that she borrowed from someone who wants it back so now she has to get one with no money and no cigarettes. really? are these things actually true or are you giving me shit, not wanting to admit that you did have the $1.50 to get on this bus but that you're embarassed because you didn't know about the transfer ticket option? is she still trying to get money from me? cigarettes? part of me wants to carry around a pack of cigarettes just to have something to give to people so they'll stop asking me for money, but there are more probems with that idea than solutions. not the least of which is that cigarettes are carcinogenic and dollars are not. give homeless people cancer. awesome. i tear myself away from her and approach the driver, i've seen it done before where passengers request transfer tickets on their way off of the bus. transfer tickets have a time limit, why waste a third of it while you're on the bus that you paid for? i thought maybe he'd forgotten that i paid with a pass. it was worth a go. nope. shot down: he was almost yelling at me, saying that he doesn't know where i got on, how should he know, he can't remember everything, why should he be expected to remember everything?! i wanted to say, "clearly, i got on the bus somehow, asshole." instead, i just walked away from him, in the middle of all his glory. i think it pissed him off even more. at this point, we're less than a block from savers, so i tell the woman that hers is the next stop and push the button. after i take a seat elsewhere, she stands up and pulls as hard as she can on the stop rope. it doesn't make a sound because the stop has already been signaled, which is apparent by the big red "stop requested" marquis at the front of the bus. "piece of shit."
