The bus.

This past year, I’ve ridden the RIPTA (Rhode Island Public Transit Authority) bus at least 100 times. Specifically, the “60 line”, Newport to Providence.

Since July, I’ve been riding it at least 6 times a week, going back and forth between home and my job in Portsmouth.

Rarely does anything particularly exciting happen. Mind you, I ride the bus specifically for transportation, not for intense terror action, so I have little reason to complain. 99% of the time, the bus gets it’s job done without a hitch, except when they fail to stop and pick me up becase, A- My grey sweatshirt causes me to blend in with a telephone pole (“No shit, dude! Look at the pole! It’s the exact same color!“-Driver, after I chased him down), or B- My body language indicated I did not really want to get on the bus that badly. In the case of B, I was elaborately twisting and spinning while reaching deep into the French catacombs of my cargo pants for quarters. So, it could be argued I was conducting a performance art display at 10:45 at night on the side of the road in front of a deserted grocery store parking lot, not waiting for a bus.

If that were the case, it would be blatant discrimination, because they never fail to pick up Spinboy when passing through Bristol. This young gentlemen is probably afflicted with a neurological disorder of some kind, so don’t go thinking I’ve given him a cruel demeaning nickname, it’s an entirely accurate monicker. He is male, and spinning is what he does. After paying the driver, he always does a full 360, then grabs the nearest pole, topping it off with a bonus 180 into the seat. If there are no seats near the front, he continues with at least another full 360 while traversing the aisle. Several times he boarded wearing pajama pants, and carrying a blue blanket. In terms of surface appearance, he is a short Hispanic man of about 30, with an “escaped mental patient” style haphazardly shaved head.

The last time I saw him, his demeanor was more assertive. He spent the ride barking into a cell phone, and nursing an unlit Newport cigarette with rabid anticipation. These behavioral details gave me some powerful new insights into the depths of his soul, and the content of his character. Firstly, he has the ability to harness the power of technology. There are people that he knows, and he communicates with them freely. They may even be friends. More likely, it’s a doctor at Brown University’s Behavioral Science Facility, trying to get him in for overnight observation and testing (Spinboy’s sole source of income). Not until I smoke my Newport, says Spinboy.

Then, there is Cracker Jack. He typically rides between Warren and Bristol, a trip less than 10 minutes. He has important business in both towns. Get the money in Bristol, get the crack in Warren. Once fully crackenated, he’ll get back on the bus in Warren, twitch wildly, look over his shoulder constantly, air drum with rapid intensity to the music leaking from soneone’s headphones, wonder “Why doesn’t everyone in the whole world want to be my friend?”, then get off in front of Dunkin Dohnuts (The cultural hotspot of the quaint Bristol main street) and jive on down the block, into…oblivion? His unseen fate does not bode well, as his bus ride was the exact length of the average crack high.

He has only made one brief appearance so far, but The Pointer splashed onto the scene with dramatic flair and style. A white male in his late 20s, I at first took him for a typical jerk, shooting beams of fear down the aisle with his Ghetto Stare.  What up yo, why you in my field of vision, custy bitch? Then, he sat down next to an unsuspecting Roger Williams student, even though there were unoccupied double seats nearby. He made a loud, exaggerated effort to make sure the RW student didn’t mind. After being assured for the 4th or 5th time that it was ok, he settled into his seat. From behind, I could now see The Pointer was rockin’ the ever popular “escaped mental patient” buzz cut. With multiple random triangles of raw bare skin amidst the fuzz, it was a true representation of the hippest new fashion trend in Rhode Island.

After a few minutes, he raised his left hand to head level. His left index finger: extended fully. This man had a point to make. In a blatant dereliction of journalistic duty, I had my headphones on, so I know not what tender vocalizations accompanied the gesture. I imagine it was something along the lines of “No, no, NO! DON’T DO THAT! AAAAAAAHGAGAGA ffmphdeh.”, followed by a little drooling. The finger took over, wagging up and down in a tense, tight rhythm, yet with a loose wristed technique, like one of Cracker Jack’s invisible drumsticks. Once that particular verse was over, the finger curled and uncurled repeatedly , as if trying to meakly apologize for those (no doubt fully justified) points it had to make.

My stop was just before Kennedy Plaza, and I managed one brief up close glimpse of him on my way off. Both fingers had sprung to life, in an alternating frenzy of blame laying. The one snippet of his jibber jabber I heard was something along the lines of “I…I…I did that! I said that! No, no, yeah! I said I was…I DID!”.

What kinds of unimaginable experiments experiments are Brown University running on the cognitively disadvantaged citizens of Rhode Island? Are they so cruel as to make these test subjects ride the bus back and forth, not even giving them the dignity of being loaded up on Thorazine and tossed out of a white van in front of Dunkin Donuts?

Don’t let this highly condensed profile fool you, usually the bus is pretty fucking boring. These people are by far the most interestings things I’ve seen on the RIPTA. Only one in every three or four rides yields something worth peering up from my journal or taking off my headphones.

It’s not always bizarre and morbidly fascinating, though. The other day I had a confrontationally friendly conversation forced on me by an old woman named Estella. I was standing at the fron of the packed bus, holding the rail for support. Estella looked up and asked me “Why don’t you sit here?”. I barely managed to squeeze my way in next to her before she barraged me with questions. “How come you didn’t sit next to me before? You’re not scared of me, are you, HAHA!?”. I didn’t sit there because, between your fat ass and the fat ass of the other guy two seats over, about 75% of the seat was already acounted for, bitch. But I didn’t say that, I politely lied and pretended to be lackadaisacally unaware of my surroundings (which I usually am) with “I guess I just didn’t look hard enough (*durrr)!”.She then described me as “a trip”. That sums up my existence fairly succinctly.

After exchanging names, star signs, and brief life histories giving context to our mutual reliance on public transportation, she resumed browbeating the other residents of the front of the bus. “Hey, girl! You’re a Taurus, right? That means you always got to git what you want, AWHAW YEAH GIRL! Hey, you’re really pretty. You could be a model, seriously! I know this stuff, my brother was a fashion photographer for 25 years! He had his own studio in Boston! He worked for Vogue magazine in Germany! You could be one of those girls with Tyra Banks!”

What if I wanted to be one of those girls with Tyra, huh? Would Estella validate my dreams, or does she only work her magic on the young and the beautiful? She had the air and presence of a powerfull witch, wielding dominance and influence, casting glamour charms and curses in equal turn. Which side of fate did I fall on that day? Perhaps I’ll never truly know.

I should officially petition the city of Providence to make me part of it’s “Rennaisance City” campaign, to improve the city’s image. My artistic portrayels of the RIPTA experience would motivate other adventurous spirits to visit the city via the bus, reducing congestion on Route 95 by .358%. This could be just the thing to avert the coming of a new Dark Age.

Gay Coffee Shop

This afternoon, whilst drinking a near hallucinatory amount of espresso at the “gay” coffee shop (not my descriptor! Though, it is a happy place), I stumbled aboard a certain train of thought.

I soaked in the atmosphere. It was around 5:30pm, just after Wickenden street had finished coughing up the rush hour traffic. There were people reading books, newspapers, typing on laptops with headphones, and chatting about Brown University minutiae. That last one is par for the course, given my proximity to College Hill. it’s a nexus of…I haven’t quite figured it out yet. A hive of intellectual activity? A grotesque gallery of Ivy league elite? A garbage disposal patte’ of thick rimmed glasses and white earbuds and regrettably hip fashions?

The relaxed crowd wasn’t giving me any straight answers. I was simply enjoying the flow of the atmosphere, like a light social breeze relieving the stifled friction that can creep up on my when I’ve been in my room too long.

Now that I’m back in my room, recharged from briefly dipping my toe into the social moors, I realize how distant and disengaged my poise and mannerisms were. I was so soothed and pacified by my perception of the din, if one of these people actually came up to me and said hello or asked a question, I would’ve freaked. I was intensely drilling my pen into my notebook, searching for the unknown mission I’d commited to.

How are you supposed to act in a coffee shop? How should you act in this situation, social and isolated simultanesously?  Is not knowing the answer to that the whole point? Does the allure lie in the struggle to simply be there? How do you want to act? Which of these questions should you take in consideration to reflect the true intentions of your inner self? Do you want to be true to yourself in there, or just sway along with the prevailing vibe? These are the questions that race through the mind of this particular recovering social anxiety case, faster than a Japanese bullet train.

It’s more comfort than contact, when the feeling connects. You can feel like you’re not alone in there. Physically, you are occupying the same space as these other beings, and you are theoretically there under similar pretenses. You have things in common! Coffee, sitting, and purposefully holding reading materials out in front of you with a rigid death grip.

Originally, this post was going to be about the current generation, and how new communication technologies are rapidly changing (destroying?) social environments and personal relationships. Then, I just started going off about the coffee shop I had that thought in, and it turned into a little example to sort of illustrate my muddled point of view. Isn’t that nice?

The biggest negative of digital connection and communication that I’ve percieved is it breeds an attitude of apathy and meaninglessness. The epitome of this is the Internet message board. Never has one person’s opinion or feelings been so inconsequential. Any thought on any subject can be dismissed or picked apart any infinite number of ways. A thought could also be lauded, blindly followed, quoted or mimmicked by a chorus of yes men. Which opinions are the ones to take to heart?

When you are forced to pick and choose the responses you want to believe, the ones you decide are true, it can be dizzying, nauseating. You are forced to create your own reality among the bile and refuse and falsehoods and fluff and rare gems of truth.

This is a mammoth, herculean task, especially for someone of sensitive perception like myself. The infinite array of angles of attack and dissection completely dwarf whatever the original discussion was supposed to be, swallowing it whole.

In the coffee shop, things are simple, yet no more real. My overactive mind is left to create imagenary attitudes and views for all my fellow patrons, what they might be thinking as they notice me wildly scribbling in the notebook. Why does that feel more alive to me than sitting in here alone? Why is it such an effective mental stimulant and motivator? Why do these anonymous faces lift my spirits?

As this new age slowly seeps into all of us, I’m left wondering if it’s a new golden dawn or the spark that set fire to Rome. Is anyone going to stop and wonder, is this all too much too fast? What are we leaving behind? Are we taking everything with us from the past that we’ll need to survive in this new form of society? Are real human emotions going to survive? When compassion and humanity can be crushed from a thousand different angles at once, what’s the appeal in acting human anymore?

This streak of old fashioned thought is surprising me. I’ve been a hardcore computer nerd since birth. I’ve also seen how people and attitudes have changed since the Internet began to exponentially explode in 1997. All I know is, as time goes on, I’ll be struggling to stay balanced between the infinite connections and intimate proximity, and I hope I won’t be alone.