proper manky

Public Transportation Story #69:

Sitting at the bus stop. Chilly morning, half awake. Burly Black dude in his 30s saunters up to the stop. He wears a black hoodie and leans stiffly against the shelter. About to light up a smoke. He puts a white plastic bag next to his feet. I stop paying attention.

A few minutes of day-dreaming later I see him changing position and I notice he dropped his Marlboro Reds. I make eye contact with him and point at the pack on the ground. Immediately, I get the death stare.

I look at him and the pack, just meaning to be helpful. Sneering stare now. Perhaps he thinks I’m somehow calling him out for littering. He keeps staring a hole through me. I’m too tired to explain. Finally, he looks straight in my eyes and grunts: “It’s empty.”

A minute later he picks up his plastic bag and walks off. Which is a bit odd. People don’t usually wait at a bus stop and leave before a bus arrives. The only other people at the bus stop are a mother with her young daughter, whom I know by sight, and someone who looks like the mother’s sister travelling with an enormous suitcase. Next to me sits a Hispanic kid duded up to the nines in hip-hop clothing. Sharp, replete with woollen condom hat and custom kicks.

All of us stare after the Black dude who is now randomly crossing and re-crossing the nearby intersection. The kid next to me takes his right earphone out of his bling-studded ear and says to me, very slowly: “Looks – like – this – gangsta – has – no – respect!” He goes on: “Must be an Eastsider!” And then: “I’m a Southsider, man, and I got respect!” He gets up from the bench, picks the pack off the ground, and carries it to a trash can. He sits back down and turns to me: “I’m only 15, but I bet I have more respect than this gangsta.” And he double-fists himself on the heart.