Crass Transit

Last week, a man undressed on the bus. He stripped down to his underwear, flannel checkered boxer shorts sewn in warm colors that somehow seemed appropriate for these blustery fall days. I typically sit in the rear of the bus because I like the ratio of lunatics to normals, about 3:1, and the element of reasonable danger that it spices my evenings and mornings with. The stripper got on the bus one stop after me, the last stop downtown before we cross the river. He sat down next to me in the back row of the number 1 Greeley line and he was jittery, fidgeting with two tattered brown paper bags full of newspapers and old magazines. The back row of the bus, because it is so close to the engine, is typically hot. To me, it felt like a heating pad on low, to him, I imagine it felt like a steam iron pressed against him through his shirt, because he yelps in pain when he leans back against it for the first time. He was on something, something making him restless, anxious, sensitive, itchy. Five minutes into the ride, when we've all settled into our books and headphones, he shouts: CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TIME IT IS?

5:30

"Figures," he says and immediately starts to undress. T-shirt, shoes, socks, jeans and a red headband pile up next to me. He's hairy, fit and silent except for two loud grunts when he leans forward to pull the jeans off over his feet. A middle-aged woman, who also prefers to sit in the back and whose name I have sometimes imagined to be Maria or Sandra, looks over the top of her trashy romance novel at him and her eyes are large and nervous. I don't look at him again until he shouts: WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?

5:34

He pulls the stop-chain sharply, as if it is the lever that will eject his seat and body safely from the fighter plane that is roaring towards the ground in hostile territory, and the bus stops hard at the next intersection. He bolts down the rear stairs in only his underwear, onto the sidewalk, barefoot and wild eyed, covered in bugs we can't see. Everyone on the bus cranes their neck to watch as he runs screaming towards the welcoming glow of that 7 Eleven at Killingsworth and Greeley and all I can think about is the clerk inside, reading the Auto Trader, unaware of how his world is about to change. That, and I really want a Slurpee.