Some people wonder why I like winter. One possible answer presents itself as a man with a compulsive twitch decides to help me off the bus. "There you go, miss," he says politely, guiding my hand unnecessarily toward the door. He seems like a perfectly nice, normal guy, but the needle tracks dotting his arms and legs beg to differ. If it was winter he would have been wearing long sleeves and long pants, and I would have been none the wiser.
He had sat across from me for the whole trip. I paused once in a while from my book (which ironically enough was Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh) to watch him twitch and fidget before falling into a nervous sleep. He woke up only once, when he fell over onto the man sitting beside him. A little boy standing in the aisle asked him if the sores all over his arms and legs were chicken pox. Some adults on the bus exchanged knowing glances. The junkie didn't answer. It's better that way.
The saddest thing about drug users is that I'm sure the majority of them are good people, but you can't exactly trust them. Drugs tend to turn people that you know and love into lying, cheating bastards, even if they don't want to be. It occured to me that we as a society wouldn't have problems with substance abuse if we didn't have brains. There are some people I know that would probably benefit from labotomies, but I don't suppose that will be possible in the near future.
I saw Devon on the previous bus that I had taken. "Why don't you sit down?" he said, referring to the last available courtesy seat at the front of the bus.
"I don't like to sit at the front of the bus," I said, "Just about the time that I sit down, I fall asleep or zone out and I don't notice that someone needs the seat. Then I look like an asshole for not offering it to them."
"No one needs it right now," he replied, and I was forced to agree. I sat down. After he had left the bus I cracked open my book again, and within two stops I had a lady with a walker tapping my knee asking me to move. Once again I am an insensitive asshole. Next time I remain standing.
|