Hunting for it’s next victim
I was hardly awake as I stepped onto the 94 as I always had to make my way into downtown Minneapolis. The driver was running late. The bus only had room for me to stand - banishing me from my morning routine of zoning out to passing urban scenery.
Suddenly, the bus lunges forward. I am thrown back into a rather cranky woman with a cast and a cane. Her foot, trapped in the cast is probably none too happy with the circumstances. She decides to start hitting me repeatedly with her cane - yelling at me to get off of her. The bus is still accelerating. The traffic lights opened the road as a broad set of curtains would make way for sunlight to stream through a window. Honestly, I felt as if I were riding the bus for the first time.
A moment later, the driver slowed to turn a corner and I was able to get beyond the reach of the woman’s cane. She promptly directed her attention to the driver. I inched my way back as far as I could. A young, bookish woman looked up at me and let herself silently laugh. I could not help but smile. That cane was hunting for its next victim.
Nearly a year later, I found myself out of the twin cities, and on the Grand Central shuttle to Times Square, eventually to make my way to the East Village. As long as this shuttle runs, it’s packed to the doors. As with the bus, one must take care when riding in these cars, because many of the passengers don’t always realize the importance of holding onto something when the car jerks forward and screeches around a bend. Sure enough, the shuttle moves, and moves quickly. Several passengers are thrown back a few steps - probably onto the toes of their neighbors.
I had a smirk on my face. There was something strangely satisfying about the sight of these passengers being taken completely by surprise - woken from their preoccupying trance of chatter. Luckily for them, there were no canes in sight.
Apr 25th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Something tells me even if they had canes in NYC, they wouldn’t have used them. Different breed out there. They understand the pratfalls of public transit better than Twin Citians.