PATHOS IN PORTLAND

I was coming from a job interview that had gone well, I thought. The job title is “eCom Content Researcher.” If hired, I'll be turning database gibberish into nice bullet points for a product catalog. Pay is not much, but after a lengthy purgatory of unemployment, any job that doesn't include a free meal of saturated fat and salt with each shift sounds like heaven to me.

So I had a carefree bounce in my step as I strolled to the bus stop.

The interview had happened in an office in the Eastbank Commerce Center on Water Street. This big old industrial building was originally the Auto Freight Transport Building, and the central east side hub for freight shipping. Now it's full of “creative” businesses – ad agencies, fashion designers and tech startups. The celebrated clarklewis restaurant fronts the building.

Even while the area, inner Southeast Portland, booms, it remains home to many who do not share the wealth. On my walk I passed a dozen or more tents housing the unhoused, as well as doorway sleepers, shopping cart pushers and ghastly pedestrians sheathed in rags and filth.

Next to the streetcar/ bus stop at Grand Street and Stark, an emaciated pair of street ghouls stood guard. Based on their  predatory glances, I guessed them to be in the employ of Master Meth.

An old man sat alone in the shelter, a cluster of stuffed bags at his feet. He looked at me, with too much interest, I thought, but who knows. I turned away to see that the streetcar was in sight. When I glanced back at the shelter, the old man was lying on the ground.

His eyes were open and he seemed calm.

I asked, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. “I need help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Hospital.”

I did not have my phone. There was one other rider waiting at the stop, a woman whose phone had transfixed her.
 
I said, “Can you call 911 for an ambulance? This man is asking for help.”

She took a moment to come out of it. She looked at me, then looked the old man over and then, as the streetcar pulled up she said, “Why don't you ask the driver?”

The old man yelled. “Help! Help!”

I pointed the guy out to the TriMet driver. She took over like an expert. She got out of the cab, locking it behind her. She tried to talk with the old man, who repeated himself.

“Help! Help!”

I watched from a window seat as the driver handled the situation. She called in, then communicated to the old man that help was coming, and announced to the riders that she was required to stay until the paramedics showed up. She stood outside keeping an eye on the old guy.

He called out, “I can't see. I can't see.” The driver squatted, trying to talk with him.

Within five minutes a fire engine drove into the nearby side street, colored lights playing.

Then the man sat up.

He leaned back against the bench and said, “Sorry. I'm sorry.”

What the? Was he okay? Was he playing a game with us?

Suspicious twit that I am, I had to scrutinize him again. I saw that his eyes, which I thought had peered closely at me, now seemed unfocused and roaming. He was not so much sitting up as propped, like one of his bags, against the bench. No, he was not well.

“Sorry.”

Four sturdy responders walked up and took charge. One had a word with our driver, who then climbed back into the cab and drove us out of there.

Thank god for Trimet.

PREACHING TO THE WRONG CHOIR

Because a lot of people who are homeless, mentally ill, in the throes of addiction or otherwise marginalized don’t drive, they ride the bus. In the impersonal and crammed aisles and one-size-fits-all seats, they’re commonplace. And though climate change is killing us, very few average middle-class people have abandoned their cars for the wiser alternative.

The underclass, I’m saying, is well represented on public transportation. They’re not the condiment, they’re the main course.  And because a bus ride is often the only shelter available, there’s always a good chance some visibly unfortunate rider is dealing openly with the pain, sickness, demons or grief a middle-class person would handle at home.

Today, James Junior (not his real name), riding my 75 bus, was dealing.

As I boarded, James was sitting on the right front bench, preaching his personal gospel to a teen sitting on the left front bench straight across the aisle from him. The topic was “Respect.” James was on fire about respect.

He was declaiming, “You don’t let nobody disrespect a woman. Ever. EVER!” He repeated this assertion more than once, and glanced around the bus to show that, though he was talking to one person, we were all included in the situation.

James’ emotional state contained notes of anger, grandiosity, vulnerability, and a hint of possession. He leaned forward in his seat and spoke to the kid in the tone of an overbearing, disappointed father.

“They are queens. Every woman is a queen.”

He said this again, and then again. And then, to stress the point, James Junior greeted women around him.

“Hello, Queen! You are a beautiful creature and I love you!”

He seemed sincere and passionate. One woman smiled. Another one tried to ignore him.

James declared, “I can have any woman I want.” He meant it, and repeated the statement, but I doubted him. No woman there stepped up to get a piece of James.

James’ fiery speech was meant, as I say, for all of us. And though he filled the bus with self-esteem, he got nothing back from us. No surprise. From what I’ve seen, a fiery speech given on public transportation does not fall on deaf ears. Instead, it falls like a small bomb into the midst of captive strangers who are trying to block out their ride. Half of bus riders wear earbuds. Most riders are going to take even divine inspiration, if it interrupts a podcast, as a really annoying distraction, if not a sign of mental illness or even a threat.

James carried on.

“I’m James Junior and THERE IS NO HELL. NO ONE goes to HELL. I’ve died and come back and I guarantee there’s no Hell to be afraid of. And anyway, you can’t be afraid to die. If you’re afraid to die, you can’t live.”

He was seized with feeling – tears, broken voice – he was fighting against an invisible enemy for something he believed in. 

He repeated and repeated and repeated that no one goes to Hell.  I had to get off the bus before he was done, but I think I got the gist.

I take James’ point. I’m a little afraid to die, not because of Hell, which I don’t believe in, either. What I fear is reincarnating into a life worse than the one I know and suffering in ways I can’t even imagine.  

Now, that might be Hell.

MY INTERLOPER

There was no coffee in the house.  A bus was  due in nine minutes, probably time enough to walk a block and a half to Delphina's for an Americano and then pack myself into the sardine can at the stop near the store. And in case of a near-miss, the next bus was only three minutes behind.

The plan went smoothly. I reached the busstop with my drink as the bus hove into sight three stops away.

A car slowed on the far side of the street. The driver rolled down the window and waved at me.

"I have to talk to you."

I almost trotted over. But the bus was now two stops away, and I was carrying two bags and a full cup of coffee. Plus I had never seen this guy before. I tried to put all of these thoughts into a wave back at him with my "free" hand.

A car came up behind the waver, honking. My man drove ahead, pulling to the curb about 100 feet away and continuing to wave his arm emphatically out the window.  

I glanced around in case something dangerous was closing in. There was nothing.

The man kept waving.  I got bus ticket in hand as the bus roared up. Without slowing, it roared past.  Funny, there were empty seats in it. Sometimes, of course, a driver skips a stop because she's behind schedule or is returning to the garage for repairs. Usually, I believe, the reason for passing up riders is that the vehicle is full, and this drive-by was definitely less than full.

Well, the next one was due in three minutes.

The waver drove to the corner, turned around in the intersection and headed back towards me.  He pulled up, leaned hard to put his face near the window. The moment of truth.

"This is not a busstop anymore."

I glanced up. In fact, the busstop signpost was gone. I recalled that the last time I waited at the stop a couple weeks ago, there had been an announcement posted on the signpost that may have said something about a change to the stop.

I looked back at my interloper.

"This is what I've been trying to tell you."

"Oh.  Thank you."

"My wife did use this stop every day. That's how I know."

This stranger's assertive generosity suddenly sank in. He had detoured from his trip, probably losing a few minutes from his commute to work, to save me a few minutes' trouble.

I thanked him again and "ran" to catch the next bus. 

Blazing on the Crazy 8

I boarded the 8-Jackson Park just after it turned off Multnomah onto 15th Avenue. Standing room only but a bench seat opened up at the next stop and I snapped it up like the true geezer I'm getting to be. The atmosphere was subdued, the passengers mostly commuters keeping to themselves. 

Across the aisle facing me a young man rummaged in a small shoulder bag. His movements were deliberate, in slow motion. He pulled out a smaller zip bag, zipped it open silently and poked a finger around in it.  He took something out of the bag, keeping it hidden in a hand. Then he took out a device, an implement, a tool or useful item I couldn't immediately identify. I watched carefully, not wanting to be surprised by a weapon. (Crazy, huh?) 

The thing was a vape pen. I watched as the young rider slowly and silently loaded it with what had to be bud. Loco weed. I looked around and saw no one else taking this in. 

Weed has been legal for almost six months in Oregon, so I shouldn't be surprised to evidence of its use, even in public, even on a crowded bus. 

However, I did not expect the man to light up. But light up he did. The guy put the pen to his lips and inhaled. There was no sign of smoke on the inhale, which is the point of vaping, I guess. But then a brief, thin wisp of personal smog came out of the corner of his mouth.  

I was the only one shocked. No one else noticed that law was breaking in plain sight like a vinyl record hitting the sidewalk at your feet after being tossed out the window of a second-story condo. Why, I remember when the founder of the White Panther Party, John Sinclair, was busted for possession of two joints and sent to Marquette State Prison for ten years. A bunch of counterculture celebrities got together and busted him back out with a concert:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sinclair_Freedom_Rally 

The revolution has arrived.

When the man hit his vape pen again and the wispy evidence trailed from his lips, I said -- loudly, because I wanted the driver to hear me in case there were repercussions -- "Dude, are you vaping on the bus?" 

No one cast a glance except the vaper himself, who looked up at me for the first time, caught my eye and smiled. I had to laugh. Then he quietly dropped the pen back in its bag, dropped that bag into the shoulder bag, stood up and walked to the back door. At the next stop, Fremont, he sailed out of there into the future on invisible wings. 

Like wow, man.

We All Lived

It was after work and, as usual, I had fallen asleep on the Max. It's an art in which some part of the brain remains aware of the stops and I wake up just as the train pulls into the Hollywood Transit Center.

But I woke a stop early, at the Lloyd Center. I didn't want to, and tried to go back down. A guy had just sat down to my right, on the bench seat, and had muttered something I didn't comprehend. Another guy, sitting directly across from me, was smiling in a fixed way.

He said, "I don't give a fuck where you from," the smile still fixed. He was gazing at the guy on my right.

Now I was wide awake.

The guy on my right said, "I'm not from Portland," in a "what's the matter with you?" tone.

The guy across the aisle said again, "I don't give a fuck where you from." He kept smiling, the smile maybe bigger or maybe just closer to me, and leaned forward. He was solid, athletic, a forearm across his leg noticeably enlarged by weightlifting. He seemed calm.

I, however, was alarmed.  I said "Don't do it, man."

The guy turned the smile on me, blinked once or twice, and then turned back to the other guy.

"Please," I said politely, "don't duke it out here."

I looked around. No one else was paying attention.

The guy to my right began to slowly, deliberately, remove a watch from his right wrist.

A woman immediately to his right said, "Aw, look. He's taking off his watch. Damn."

She turned to a woman who looked like her -- maybe a sister -- and said "Get my baby out of here." The sister got up and pushed a stroller that was in the aisle further down to the right.

The first woman stood up and got right in between the two men. She was tall and queenly. She had a neck tattoo. The only emotion I could discern was the amused sternness of an authority figure who has done this a hundred times. She looked down at the guy to my right and said, "You don't know what you're getting into here." The guy looked unconcerned, almost bored. He said nothing.

She put her face close to the guy across the aisle and spoke quietly to him. I heard her say, "We're getting off at the next stop. Let's go." He flicked his eyes at her and the smile diminished.

"Let's go." He got up, putting the mad dog stare back on my neighbor, along with the smile.

The woman laid a hand gently on her partner's or brother's or good friend's arm and urged him down the aisle after her sister and the baby. She kept herself deliberately between the men until they were well away from the guy next to me.  Her guy kept his eyes and smile fixed on a spot to the right of my shoulder.

That guy to my right slowly put his watch back on his right wrist.

He Lived

After tens of thousands of hours riding public transportation, the worst physical violence I had experienced personally were a couple of punches to the head that did no damage. And I'd never seen another passenger assaulted (I'm just lucky, I guess.) Then, a couple of weeks ago, I had my first brush with serious violence.  

The first thing I remember about it was walking absently down the concrete steps from the Max to the bus mall at the Hollywood Transit Center. Why so many people there, between the Max platform and the bus mall? They were mostly teenagers, milling, shouting, cutting up. Leaning and leaping. Racing by. There were a lot of them at the bottom of the steps, too.  Maybe there'd been a game at Grant High School.

Once on the ground, finding my way through the crowd, I heard the angry shouting.

A couple of teenage boys had taken off their shirts and were loudly challenging someone, who was hidden from my view by the multitude. One of the boys was fearsomely muscled. He was bellowing threats and emanating fear. I slunk by – dinner was calling.

About 20 yards from the madness, next to the northbound 75 busstop, a a young man sat on the curb. His right hand held his neck. Blood was pulsing from between his fingers and soaking his shirt. A man came up next to him, bent over and said a few words while adding his hand to the hand trying to stop the blood flow.

The extra hand slowed the leak to a slow ooze. The crowd was quickly thinning, most of them fleeing up the steps to the Max. A security guard called 911. A couple other bystanders were making phone calls. Most people walked by, either unseeing or uninterested. 

The shirtless kids stopped by.

The big one said, “He's my cousin,” speaking to the amateur EMT and meaning the injured kid. To his cousin he said,“Come on, you got to go.”

The kid shifted in his spot and put a hand down to help himself up but was being held firmly in place by his rescuer, who said “Sit here and stay calm.” 

Another man, who looked more like the kid's cousin than the self-proclaimed cousin, repeated “Stay calm.”

The kid was not going anywhere, and a moment later the shirtless ones had disappeared towards the Max.

For about three minutes – or it may have been just one, time felt sped up – nothing much happened. Hands were on the kid's neck, blood leaked, people were on phones, people walked by. Some of us were waiting for an ambulance. The kid tried to get up again, but was told to sit and stay calm and did so.

His eyes, which had been restlessly roaming, grew still. He spit up some blood. The man holding the kid's neck took his hand off, gesturing futilely, and shouted, “If we don't get an ambulance here quick, he's gonna bleed out.” I thought so, too. The kid's shirt and jacket were more shining red than not. The man got his fingers back on the kid's neck.

I ran down to a medical clinic a block away, realizing it was probably pointless but not knowing what else to do. The clinic was closed. A woman coming out said yes, there were doctors inside but they were not allowed to work outside the building. A siren started up nearby. I went back to the scene.

First came two police cars. At the scene, four cops hit the asphalt and assessed the situation. They were in no rush. A couple of them got within a step of the kid and looked him over. Our hero exchanged words with the cops, which I couldn't hear.

Next came a fire engine with an ambulance on its tail. The EMTs exited the vehicle already sporting blue latex gloves. At the same time, a small group came out of the building, also in blue latex gloves. Two of this group, young women, stood by like trainees waiting for orders. A third woman in blue gloves joked around with a young man who wore the gloves and a shirt that read “Personal Trainer.”

While the EMTs bandaged the kid's neck and hoisted him onto a cot, a middle-aged  man showed up and tried to convince them to let him ride in the ambulance to the hospital.

“Who are you?”

I couldn't hear what he said, but the response was “We can't do that, sir.”

“Somebody who knows that boy should be riding with him.”

I couldn't hear why the EMTs wouldn't let him ride in the ambulance, but iI suddenly had a theory of why he wanted the ride

The kid was African-American. Every other one of the dozen or so people in the close vicinity, including the man who had been tending the kid's wound, was white, except for this black man asking for the ride. I believe he was concerned that the kid might die on the ambulance ride with only white witnesses there to say what happened. I think he didn't trust the EMTs to do everything they could to save his life. 

Makes sense to me.


The story as reported by the Oregonian:  http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2016/02/man_suffers_life-threatening_i_2.html