Jordan walked to work from the bus stop located six block away from his office. He did this because the LA Metro system has the rapid buses stop either six blocks before or, the equivalent to, four blocks after. Lately he had been questioning the sanity of anyone who worked for the LA Metro system. Not just the bigwigs and bureaucrats, but also the little guy, the blue collar worker. Take, for instance, an incident which had occurred to Jordan whilst he made his way to work one chilly November morning.
Jordan stepped off the Red Line train, the second train in his daily commute, and made his way up the massive, Bataan Death March of an escalator, towards the bus. Yes, just as he suspected a massive mob of motley miscreants and mental patients crowded around his bus stop. These people were not necessarily awful, but they were no damned good, that much he new. As soon as the bus was in sight the mob morphed and congealed towards where everyone felt the bus would stop. Once it stopped the group crowded ever closer towards the curb; pushing, prodding, pleading without words to be let on first to have a seat, any seat was far more pleasing than standing for the duration (which in LA traffic can seem less like eternity, but more like a never ending story with no discernible plot). They inched closer and dispensed with anything society would deem a reasonable bubble of comfort. Stale hair, dandruff, cheap body spray, cigarettes, coffee breath, coughing, sneezing, all combined to bring forth a symphony of disgusting and vile aromas. And there was Jordan, smack dab in the middle of all the fanfare and pageantry.
Jordan was of course no fool. Since he began taking public transportation he had learned a thing or two. One: The train and/or bus will stop at roughly the same designated areas, therefore, stand where the door of the vehicle always ends up. Two: Carry a fully charged I-pod and always have your headphones on. Three: Women get your seat...but take this on a case by case basis (sorry 12-19 yr. old ladies). The other rules are pretty standard and can apply to anything else, don't get stabbed, if you see a crazy homeless person and/or gang member and/or pimp and/or hooker and/or not homeless, but disheveled geriatric, do not look them in the eye or speak to them, etc. Jordan did, and still does, all these things. He is a savvy commuter. This is to say Jordan was in front of the mob, waiting for the bus, and as such, was of the first to see the blind man, with cane and dog, prepare to come out.
The blind man cometh and Jordan did what he thought all sensible, non-psychotic people would do, he backed up and prepared a hole in the morass of humanity for the man to walk through. However, at the moment Jordan backed up the crowd surged forward in another desperate and selfish attempt to be first on the bus, as though it were some lofty goal to be attained by everyone at the bus stop. The people pushed again, and swirled around our protagonist as he attempted to do what he thought everyone standing there would do. Finally Jordan, the soon to be hero, became agitated just enough to mention, in the most political and non-confrontational words he though best suited the situation, that the crowd should make room for this vision impaired person...it sounded something like, "excuse me, this man is attempting to get through," but was actually this: "make a f**king hole, whats wrong with you idiot people, he's f**king blind, now make a f**king hole!" He might also have stared directly at one man who had stepped directly in the blind man's path, hoping to burn a remembrance mark upon the inconsiderate man's face. Jordan thought about the incident, lamented mankind's inability to be logical people, shrugged, and got on the bus.
As Jordan walked down the aisle of the Rapid 754 bus he noticed the large crowd still waiting to get on. The bus was already three quarters full and Jordan was forced to stand in the aisle, pressed up against a dozen other strangers. "Madness" said he, in a low whisper. The bus driver, who had been silent during the blind man incident was now urging the patrons of the 754 to, "move back! All the way back! Come on, lets go you, with the glasses MOVE BACK!" Much to Jordan's amazement the bus driver was talking to him. Jordan was of course confused as he was physically touching seven other people by simply standing. Those seven were also touching other people and so on, all the way to the back of the bus. "This son of a b**** must be out of his mind, or has a stigma, a cataract, or something that has impeded his vision." Again came the call from the bus driver, to the ire of all present, "move to the back of the bus! Come on, lets go!!" Jordan stood, at this point heroically, in the sea of humanity and increasing mutual anger, like a pillar of indignation, staring back at the man at the wheel. The bus driver caught our hero's glance and defiantly stared back. "So it is a battle of wills is it," thought Jordan, "So. Be. It."
The two stared, as if it were their paid profession, until Jordan gave a, "can I help you," look which included a head swivel and condescending glance from behind awesome aviator sunglasses, but not the weak round ones that make your head look small. These were squared and he had chosen them specifically as they were worn by Robert DeNero in Taxi Driver. These were bad ass sunglasses and they were now being used for their intended purpose: to make the wearer appear like a baller, shot caller. The stares. The swivel. Then after Jordan was unable to keep his outrage silent, his vocal cords sprang into action, "where would you like us to go?" The diver stared back, he too wearing sunglasses, but weak, gas station brand shades that seemed to scream, "I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton." The busman therefore had no response, except to reaffirm his desire that all should, "move to the back of the bus!" "This man must be out of his damned mind, or his programming is flawed," said the downtrodden immaculate wearer of awesome eye-wear. As Jordan thought about his blood pressure and the five different scents of body odor wafting past his nostrils he felt compelled to reason, one last time, with his captor, "If you want us to move back any further, I suggest you come here and show me where to go. Maybe I'm blind to the massive space you seem to THINK is behind me!" In his mind Jordan also reasoned that if this Metro representative were indeed a Terminator he obviously had a direct link to Skynet and of course would know how to solve the space issue with the cold calculated accuracy that only a robot could deduce. Also this might include bending the human body in to shapes it was never meant to be bent. This all occurred whilst never a break in eye contact was made by our two combatants.
The Driver closed the doors. Jordan chatted casually with a fellow victim less than two inches from his face. The bus made its way down Wilshire, stopped at La Brea, where Jordan lunged out the door, walked past the driver as he made his way past the front of the bus and gave him a, "you're seriously a douche" wave, then began writing this story in his head with hopes to one day share it with other non-cyborg sentients.
