A young bum in a wheelchair rolled toward me at the bus depot, and being a basically lousy person I ignored him, until he’d said “Excuse me, mister,” twice.
“Hey,” I said grumpily.
“It sure is cold, and I sure am hungry,” he said. He was right about the cold, and might’ve been right about his hunger. Other than a missing leg, he wasn’t particularly pathetic-looking, but he was dang skinny.
Of course, he was about to ask for a handout, but I’ll give five bucks to any homeless person, so I said, “No pitch necessary.” Reached for my wallet, and flipped through my minimal green. Didn’t have a fivespot and I’m not nice enough to give a bum ten dollars, but I had seven ones, so I gave him five.
“Thanks,” he said. “This’ll buy my first meal in days.”
“Happy to help,” I said unhappily but with a smile, and then he rolled away in his wheelchair. I hoped he was lying, cuz nobody should go days without eating, but giving cash to bums, you know it’s often spent on cheap liquor or fentanyl. I’m cool with that, though. Once the money’s been handed over, it’s not mine, so it’s not my concern where it’s spent. I hope it buys whatever makes that man’s life a little less lousy, that’s all.
As he wheeled away, the #99 came, so I walked across the concrete, boarded the bus, sat down. As the driver closed the doors and the bus started moving, I looked out the window, and hey, there’s my bum — for $5 he becomes “my” bum — rolling in his chair toward the convenience store, across the asphalt from the depot.
So he probably was going to buy some food, which cheered my spirits, no so much because he was taking care of himself as because he’d told the truth. Bums we got by the thousands, but an honest man is rare.
♦ ♦ ♦
Different day, different route, I was riding in a front-facing seat midway back, when two scruffy-looking men came onto the bus. One was big, Hispanic, wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and the other was smaller but not small, white, dressed in greasy overalls. The big guy sat in front of me, and the regular-size guy sat behind me. They were plainly a pair, so splitting up to surround me was peculiar, but there’s almost never any real danger on a bus. They’d taken separate seats, I’m sure, because the big guy was so big, even the little guy would’ve been cramped sitting next to him.
Extra-Large glanced at me, then looked down at my buttons. I’m a button billboard — leftist slogans and anything anti-Trump, if it’s on a pin I’m wearing it. “What about antifa?” he asked, because one of my pins says, ‘Ask me about antifa.’
“Antifa means anti-fascist,” I said. “Nobody should object to that, except fascists.”
There was no reaction on his face. Maybe my explanation had been too brief. “I can’t read that one,” he said, and pointed.
I followed his finger to the pin in question. Being farsighted myself, yeah, that one’s kinda wordy and the font is too small, so I un-clipped it from my chest and handed it to him.
He read it out loud: “‘The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born… Leviticus 19:34’. Whoa, that’s nice, especially for Leviticus.”
“Leviticus is nicer than America in 2026,” I said.
He laughed and said, “That’s me, the foreigner residing among you.”
“Where you from?”
“Cincinnati,” he said, “but my granddad was from Mexico, and that’s all some people see.”
“Well, fuck those people. You’re more American than they are,” I said, and he high-fived me. Well, middle-fived, since we were both seated.
“There’s a great one back here,” said a voice behind me, the big guy’s little buddy. He liked one of my pins, too, and the three of us spent the next mile or so talking about how much we all hate Republicans.
Seattle is a left-tilted place, so wearing my pin collection is not brave, but for a year now I’ve been wearing as many radical buttons as fit on my backpack and jacket, with not even one negative response. A dozen people have complimented me. Once, a lady even asked me to pose for a picture, holding my many-pinned backpack.
The rule of the pins is, anyone who likes one, gets one. I have plenty at home, and can easily restock my backpack, jacket, and hat. Ramon, the big guy on the bus, got Leviticus, and the regular-size guy, name forgotten sorry, got “I’m not worried about other people’s genitals.” He said he wanted it for his sister who used to be his brother.
1/12/2026
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