Reason To Drive
I used to ride the bus to work. It was a much less stressful and not watching the road gave me the opportunity to see a lot of things I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed.
One ordinary Spring afternoon, I was waiting on Colfax Avenue, which is the main street that runs through Denver. I heard somewhere that it is the longest main street in the country, but I’m not gonna bother digging up that stat. Suffice it to say that Colfax is a long road, but not a highway. It is a wide East-West street that splits Denver roughly down the center. The central North-South street is Broadway. Where these two meet, there is a bus hub. A crossroads where people go to and from downtown. It is also a crossroads of cultures, social stratification and reasons to be going somewhere on the bus.
It’s fairly easy to categorize the riders. The bulk of riders are commuting to or from work. The next largest group are people who are just not using a car to get where they’re going, for one reason or another such as to avoid parking fees. The rest are people just moving.
This story is about a couple of guys in that last category.
The buses that run along Colfax are the 15, which goes East and the 16 that goes West. In general, East is the wild side of Colfax and West is less wild. In neither direction is the neighborhood really great, but only on East Colfax I have I seen (while driving) a woman pole-dancing on a bus stop sign. I speculate she may have been warming up on her way to work that evening. A commuter!
Anyway, that Spring afternoon I mentioned earlier, I was on West Colfax, waiting for the 16, headed further west. Several other commuters were milling around, not talking to one another. I’m not sure why, but bus commuters around here don’t seem very gregarious. I’ve tried, but have rarely reached more than a cordial relationship with anyone. Oh, well.
But even people who don’t talk can move as a herd when the need arises.
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I saw them crossing the street and I could tell that something was up: two men with patches of silver paint on their hands and clothes.
And on their faces.
The rings of silver around their mouths and noses were red flags. That, and the severe palsy that nearly kept the younger of the two from getting all the way across the street. The older man didn’t have the same shake, but he did seem to be a little ‘off’. Just not quite right.
The tension level of the whole crowd of strangers at the stop jumped up as if a bird had begun squawking about lions in the grass. But no one ran. No one wanted to draw the attention of the two new arrivals. These were canny commuters.
As per protocol, they didn’t speak to anyone, (obviously, they had ridden the bus before) but went straight into the bus shelter where ‘Mr. Shaky’ slumped onto a vacant length of bench. His friend went straight to a garbage can just inside the entryway and began rooting.
As if synchronized, the herd began to casually exit the shelter. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to watch more; the intruders or the slow-motion dance of the fleeing commuters. Both were fascinating. Actually, I joined the dance, as I had wandered in out of the wind recently. Each member of the herd found something RIVETING to read or look at across the street, while keeping this dynamic duo in the corner of their sight.
‘Shaky’ yelled something at ‘Garbage Man’ about hurrying up. ‘Garbage Man’ rooted very slightly faster. He eventually came up with an empty plastic soda bottle and a section of discarded newspaper. Seeing this, ‘Shaky’ lifted his t-shirt and pulled out a can of spray-paint that was about the diameter of his torso. He was extremely thin, but that can really was HUGE.
He popped the cap off the can as ‘Garbage Man’ approached. Handing the bottle to ‘Shaky’, ‘Garbage Man’ tore small pieces from the newspaper. ‘Shaky’ and sprayed some paint into the bottle, wrapped a scrap of newspaper over the end and then began sucking the paint fumes through.
Great. He filtered. As if he cared about his lungs or getting even more paint on his face.
He generously sprayed more into the bottle and passed to ‘Garbage Man’.
By this point, they were in a world –and a bus shelter– all their own.
We nervous commuters wondered what was gonna happen next. Our question was answered about two minutes later as the express bus (16E) arrived, right on schedule. ‘Shakey’ and ‘Garbage Man’ got on.
As you might expect, everyone else decided to wait 25 minutes for the next non-express bus.
The dynamic duo had taken the wrong bus (15? 16? what’s the difference..?). They were on the wrong side of town. But I doubt they cared. They were just going somewhere. And in this case, ‘somewhere’ was deeper into the suburbs, where they were probably met by the authorities.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d seen a bus driver call for backup waiting at the park ‘n ride, but I think it was my last. I believe I started driving to work. I did work out a bike route as well, just to keep things interesting.
