Taxman and the Lady Who Would Not Swap: A Hate Fight on the Bus

I tried watching Tucker Carlson last night. I hoped he would give me another blog topic, but that didn’t work out. 

TC’s opening piece was about immigration. He called it an “invasion” of “Illegals” to lump them all into a single, easy-to-remember category of Others to Fear.

He had Kirstjen Nielsen talking quietly and calmly about enforcing the existing law while videos of hordes climbing walls played on the screen behind her.  Nielsen called it “the worst crisis we’ve had in a decade.”  (I have not previously seen a cabinet member on TC; is Tucker gaining prestige, or is a Cabinet  position no longer what it used to be?)

After 17 minutes stoking fear about immigrants on our border,  TC teased out to commercial with promises of an upcoming discussion about Gun Control, followed by new info about Jussie Smollett.

I couldn’t watch any more, so I went to sleep.

When you ride the Commuter Express bus 30 miles each way each day, you see the same people over and over.  You share stories at the bus stop about what you saw on the downtown street, about changing bus and fare schedules, about the weather, and about the construction project on I-10.  You notice when someone’s routine changes, when they get a new haircut, or a new umbrella, or new shoes. You get used to where people sit.  If someone leaves a bag on the bus, everyone knows whose bag it is from the seat location and the color scheme, and the forgetful one gets the bag back.

Then again, you have no idea what kind of work they do, what their family life is like, or what their religion and politics are, although you can sometimes guess from the bumper stickers on their cars in the Park ‘n’ Ride.  Still, you feel a little pack mentality that will compel you to stick up for them in a crisis.

One evening, shortly after Nov 8, 2016, one of the DTLA locals rode his bicycle through the bus line on the sidewalk at 5^th and Fig a little too recklessly for one of my fellow riders, who evidently said something.  The bicyclist skidded, stopped, and launched into a lecture about his right to ride his bicycle on the sidewalk.  It was an angry lecture, full of constitutional and legal facts that wouldn’t stand up to high school fact checkers, punctuated by the worst name he could think of to utter: “Taxman!”  Had Angry Bicycle Boy made a move toward Taxman, I have no doubt I would have stepped in to defend him.

Taxman rides the Commuter Express with his wife.  More than once, I have heard him politely ask another passenger to swap seats with him so he could sit with his wife.  Tonight, though, the passenger he wanted to swap out was a black woman, and maybe she didn’t want to swap, but Taxman got loud and said, “You only want the seat because you’re Black.”

“Hey,” I said as loudly as my Parkinson’s lungs would let me. “Knock it off.”

Taxman looked up at me, let go of the woman’s bag, and then there was movement I don’t remember except that Taxman and his wife had moved to another seat.   As he was getting into his seat, he looked at me and said, “Don’t mess with me, Jackass!”  Then he sneered at me an even worse name: “Democrat!”

I thought maybe it was over, but the Lady Who Would Not Swap also would not stop egging things on, taking selfies that included Taxman, and at one point standing in the aisle shaking something that looked like a hammer-shaped letter opener at Taxman, who struggled to get out of his seat while his wife tugged his jacket sleeve trying to hold him down.

He escaped the Grasp of Reason and swayed in the aisle, and I sat forward and sternly barked: “Hey!  Sit Down!”

Taxman whirled and got right in my face.  “You want a piece of me?  Bring it on.  Bring all your musclebound sons.  I don’t care; I’ll take you all on.”

My hands were shaking, of course, but not from fear.  You know why.

“Sit down,” I said quietly

He laid into me again, and I told him, quietly again, to sit down, and thankfully he did.

A passenger in front of the tension walked up to the driver’s area.

Later, on I-10 near West Covina Plaza, we heard a siren, and the bus driver pulled over for the CHP.

Taxman and LWWNS were asked to exit the bus and were questioned at length. Riders apologized to loved ones for lateness on cell phones. One rider who had boarded after the seat incident tapped me on the shoulder and asked why Taxman had come after me.  The driver turned off the engine. We could hear Taxman shouting at one of the CHP officers.  He didn’t think he had done anything wrong.

CHP Officer wearing a bullet proof vest asked me to step outside, then asked me what I had seen.  I left out the part about TC and KN.  He used a top-bound 3 inch by 5 inch spiral notepad and a fine point mechanical pencil, and I commented that his writing was very small. 

“Always has been.”

He asked me if Taxman had threatened me with a TASER, and I said no.

One co-rider behind me said loudly, “I have to pee;” others asked if they had time to go to Jamba Juice. A Transit Company Supervisor boarded and apologized for the delay, as if it was his fault. (No free monthly pass, though.)

45 minutes after the siren sounded, we drove away without Taxman and LWWNS.

Fine-point CHP Officer was parked in our Park ‘n ‘Ride when we debarked, writing in his 3×5.

Taxman has an OAN sticker on his car.

Tucker and Kirstjen are probably still blabbering about the Border Crisis.

I think the Crisis here is that we keep saying the same things to each other and expecting to convince each other, and when we cannot, we call each other names.