Monday, September 12, 2005

At the bus mall...

mushroom soup

Chiuey found me sitting dazed on the skytrain. "How long will it take you to get home?" she asked.

"From here? An hour and a half, maybe," I replied. She looked upset that I was out so late. I assured her that I would be fine. It was definitely not the first time I had ridden transit alone at night. She wouldn't stop frowning. "Just call me when you get home, okay?" she said as she got off the bus and walked off into the night.

I was definitely not dressed to sit out for an hour that night. I shivered in my flipflops and capris, feeling really nonchalant, but finding that my goosebumps were not helping me look that way. Sitting at the bus loop waiting for my ride, I had nothing to do but peoplewatch.

I sat inside one of the bus shelters, underneath one of those disgusting yellow streetlights that I hate so much. There was a group of maybe eight guys loitering around, smoking pot and swearing. Two women were also present, walking around nervously. They made several circles around the bus loop while I was there, unwilling to sit down while there was so much male bravado being tossed around.

"Hey baby, what's up?" he asked as he sidled up to me, pulling his oversized baseball jacket a little closer to his chest. His every movement lacked coordination and he flailed his arms out when he walked in that odd way that addicts do. "Not much," I sang with sweet smile, fixing him with a glare. He stalked elsewhere.

Shortly after a scuffle broke out behind me, to my left. "I don't got nothin'!" the same guy shouted, as two others began to shove him into the next shelter over, clobbering him with shots to the head. He swatted at them ineffectively, too stoned to defend himself. Eventually the transit police arrived and told them to leave. "We were only waiting for the 701," they pleaded politely, but the police would have none of it. With a couple of parting shots and a thorough search of the guy's pockets, they were gone.

The guy in the baseball jacket remained, seemingly unconscious on the bench of the shelter in the sickly yellow glow.

My ride arrived.