Why I Am Late

            by Annie Rigney

 

    I am not a very rememberative person…so they tell me. Nor am I a very timely one. The two go hand in hand you see; I can never be on time because I am always forgetting things and I can never remember anything because I am always late. This tendency became a real problem for me once AC Transit became my main mode of transportation. One might expect that a girl with no sense of time and a public transportation system with no bus schedule to speak of would function beautifully together but this was not the case. I can honestly say that in my three years of attempting to ride the 67 bus to school in the morning, I never once caught it on time. It was always the same business: the bus was scheduled to arrive two blocks away from my house at 7:54 am. Naturally, at 7:53 am. I was frantically tying my shoelaces, while brushing my teeth, finishing my math homework, and singing a little ditty to my cat Poncho. At 7:55 am, the conscientious bus driver would undoubtedly be late (lucky for me) and I would remember that I did not have earrings in. I would shuffle through my earring supply trying in vain to find a matching set and then jog to the front door desperately listing the things I would need for the day in my head: lunch, ballet shoes, pencils, calculator, string cheese, math book, english…the second-hand on the clock would tick another 60 times, then out the door I’d go. Now about this time I’d always feel pretty good and then WHAM, it would hit me in the head like a sack of potatoes: I had forgotten my bus money! Coincidently, I’d also would have inevitably forgotten to bring a key so now I’d be stuck outside my house ringing the doorbell incessantly and praying that when my father crawled out of bed to open the door for me, he would be too asleep to yell at me for waking him up. One advantage to always running late is that I did develop a rather keen sense of when the bus would come every morning. The only problem was that it was always one minute before I would arrive at the bus stop. It seemed that every morning, no matter the time, the bus would always pull up to the quaint little bus top on Ordway and Gilman exactly two blocks before I would reach that same bus stop. There are a few methods for stopping a moving bus, all of which include running uphill with a gigantic backpack, ruining your social image, and some of which are potentially hazardous to your health. At some point I have employed all such techniques.

1) Running alongside the bus spastically while flailing arms.

2) Staring the bus driver in the eyes like you are about to eat him and his little bus too and saying “you will not pass.”

3) Hurling yourself in front of the moving vehicle and giving the bus driver two options: to kill a sweet little girl or to stop the bus and let you get on.

Warning: This tactic if used, usually causes bus drivers to say something like “jeez will you be careful! Next time why don’t you try not to kill yourself?”

The truth of the matter is, I’m quite good at stopping buses. I usually hop on by the time the bus reaches its next stop having sacrificed just a little self dignity.

The other day, in fact, I was with my friend in a ritzy restaurant being introduced to some of her parent’s friends.

      “This is our daughter’s friend Annie,” said my friend’s mom to the woman sitting across from me at the table.

      “Hey, aren’t you the girl who always chases after the bus?” the woman asked.

      Riding the bus makes me feel like the only sane person in a loony bin. I’m surrounded by dirty, creepy, people talking to themselves, and all I want to do is whip out some Purell and sanitize my hands. Let me illuminate some of the regulars to you. There is Vaseline man. Now Vaseline man is under the impression that Vaseline is to be worn in a thick, slimy layer, coating all exposed flesh. He sits on the bus with his jar of gooey fluid, bald head glistening in the sun, the oily concoction dripping down his cheek bones as he mutters to himself. Then, of course, there is the smelly man. Although quite a high percentage of AC Transit passengers are smelly, this man deserves special recognition for he surpasses all others in regards to his stench. So smelly is he that I will actually get off the bus and walk if I see him standing at an approaching bus stop about to board.  I can’t forget Ted. Ted has good intentions but a little too much OCD and a touch of Tourette's system. We first met a few years ago at the bus stop near my house and ever since then I seem to run into him at random times in random places. He asked me for my phone number once while twitching one eye, nervously adjusting his jacket, and being careful not to step on any lines, cracks, or leaves on the sidewalk. I didn’t give it to him thankfully but even today, almost three years since we met, he still says hello to me in a deep baritone voice while twitching one eye.

      Although most characters who ride the public bus system are needlessly crazy, obnoxious, or just smelly, some can be quite educational. As a little freshman riding the bus to school every morning, I did not, in fact, get my Sexual Education knowledge from that ridiculous “class” they call Identity and Ethnic Studies; I got it from a girl named Joan. Joan was a senior in high school, a slut, and a frequent rider of the 67 bus that came at 7:54 each morning. Her piercingly loud voice was perhaps well suited to the stage, she claimed she was an actress, but I believe her true forte was in “getting around.”

      “So the other day, I was like sitting in a room with these eight people,” she said to her friend sitting beside her and announced to the entire population of the bus, including the elderly man two rows back, “and I realized that every single one of them had sucked my tits.” This was back in the day when the 67 bus was still in service and the busses were only about half the size that they are today. It was impossible not to hear Joan and so no one else dared speak over her.

      “Have you ever done it in the bathtub? Me and Isaac did last night and it was like so much harder to have an orgasm, ya know?” A silence would ensue but then, once again, would be broken by her brash voice, “But whatever, at least we didn’t have to use a condom since I’m on birth control. Ya know you should really start taking that stuff because the sex is sooo much better now.” I’d pull the string and the bus would make that little “Ding” sound signaling that it was my stop to bet off the bus. The passengers who exited were always thoroughly disgusted (let’s just say she was not the most attractive person) and a little enlightened by the experience.

      The 67 route was altered in June of last year. The changed path meant that the little 67 could no longer take me where I needed to go and thus I was forced to end my relationship with that bus. Although I may never sit on the blue plastic seats of the 67 again, the memories will always remain with me. Now bus-less, I was forced to seek out a replacement line. My search brought me to the 9, a bus both larger and smellier that cannot adhere to a schedule and therefore chooses to come whenever it fancies. I missed the bus just as frequently and cursed at its tardiness just as frequently. On the 9, however, I did meet the craziest AC Transit member of them all. A title will not do this character justice. No, I must tell you the story of how I met the bag lady with the biggest mouth and the biggest attitude in the city of Berkeley.

      It was a warm and sunny afternoon in fall. I had finished school for the day so I walked up to Shattuck Avenue to buy myself a caramel Frappacino and wait for the bus to arrive. As I approached the bus stop I saw a woman sitting on the ground. She was big-boned with a broad nose and was surrounded by ten or so plastic bags containing the contents of her life. I walked a short distance past her then sat on a bench to indulge in my whipped-crème-covered delight. I began to hear quiet grumbling and murmurs coming from the bag-lady’s direction.

      “fjskh...spider legs…sicko…gsjhg hfh…” When I looked up, she was staring at me. “Yes, you,” she said pointing a long bony finger at me. “You and your spider legs.” I tried not to react much but she continued, “You’re crazy, you are. You make me sick.” I was puzzled; I had never met her before in my life and now she was yelling at me. “dfgjsl…gks…spider legs,” she mumbled again under her breath. A young girl sitting near me and waiting for the bus leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry, she did the exact same thing to me yesterday.” I felt a little relieved; at least I wasn’t the only target of this crazy bag-lady. But then it got worse.

      “You and your spider legs, you’re disgusting. Look at you, you’re anorexic, you’re crazy.” The funny part of this situation was that I was slurping a gigantic caramel, sugar, and whipped-cream, concoction as an obviously insane woman called me both loony and starving. She continued with the voice of a hyena, “ You must be anorexic and out of your mind lady…kookoo….kookoo.” She began chanting at me a phrase that was perhaps better suited to herself, “kookoo…kookoo…kookoo,” motioning the crazy signal with her right hand. The bag-lady beckoned a near-by man to come close to her, and then in a whisper as quiet as a lion’s roar, she said, “Hey mister, do you see that girl over there, the one with the spider legs? She’s crazy.” The man eyed me from his distance and I smiled politely trying as hard as I could to look sane and healthy, I don’t know if he bought it. Kids from my school were beginning to pass by and the bag-lady got their attention too, “hey look at the crazy girl on that bench over there,” she’d say. I’d wave, briefly explain that I was not in fact crazy, and watch them walk by. I began to understand the pain of all those people in movies who get thrown in an insane asylum by mistake and no one will believe them when they say they are not crazy because everyone believes that they are just insane. I began to feel really uncomfortable and then, I began to believe that maybe I was crazy. What if I only thought I wasn’t out of my mind because in fact, I’d already lost all my marbles? At this point, it got pretty weird. Tired from her monotonous chant of “kookoo” over and over again, the bag lady sought new inspiration. Where did she find it? In the alliteration of the English language of course. The bag lady came up with a clever and catchy phrase which she began to chant at me with renewed vigor.

      “Annie anorexic, Annie anorexic, Annie anorexic,” she sang. It just so happens that my name is Annie. How did she know? The truth is I don’t think she was aware that in her madness she had stumbled across the true name of her victim. Nevertheless the experience was unnerving for me.

“Annie anorexic, Annie anorexic,” never before in my life had a prayed so fervently for my dirty, smelly, bus to carry me home. Naturally, it was running at least a quarter of an hour late by now, as befits the 9, and so I had no choice but to wait. In my darkest hour, the 9 had decided to desert me and so after 20 minute I decided to give up. And so I said goodbye to the crazy bag-lady and I walked home.

      Many years have passed since I first began my relationship with AC Transit. I am a senior in high school and like to think that I have grown and changed a lot over the years. Some things, however, never change. I will always be a little late, I will always sacrifice my self-dignity to catch a moving bus, and I will continue to run into countless lunatics wherever my life takes me. Although this thought is rather depressing, it is nice to know that if I ever feel a little homesick, or a little lost, I can always lean on my good friend AC Transit to provide the consistency and the comfort I crave.