One fine winter’s day, I was standing on Second Avenue near the Pike Place Market, waiting for a bus home from downtown. The street was jammed with cars, the sidewalk crowded with scuzzy people like me, loitering or jive talking.
There came the sound of sirens, pretty damned loud and getting louder, and soon six fire trucks had snarled traffic at 2nd @ Union. No way was my bus getting through, but this was more interesting than a bus ride, and I had nowhere to be except back in my recliner, so I watched.
Couldn’t see any flames, but the firefighters dragged their hoses into a big building a block down the street. Once it was headquarters for the criminals of Washington Mutual Savings Bank, now it’s home to unindicted criminals calling themselves Russell Investment Center, with a branch of Chase Bank at the corner.
Even idling, the fire trucks a hundred footsteps away were tremendously loud, and knowing the evils of the building they were rescuing, I heard myself shout over the ruckus, “Burn it down! Burn it all down!”
Nobody reacted, of course. Downtown in a big city, you have to stab somebody to stand out from the crowd, and I’m not interested in standing out.
The news that evening featured no headlines of death and destruction downtown, so whatever had been smoldering, the firefighters put it out. Worse luck next time…
♦ ♦ ♦
On another afternoon at a different stop downtown, I stepped off a northbound bus, then crossed the street to catch a westbound bus, and at the end of my jaywalk, someone hollered, “America is a Christian nation!”
That ain’t true and it annoys me, and double annoys me when it’s shouted. Why would someone shout that lie on a crowded sidewalk?
I glanced around, and found a middle-aged white man facing a black or Asian woman who was wearing a burka, and as I watched, the man took a deep breath and shouted again at her, “America is a Christian nation!”
“Shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ fucker!” came roaring out of me, and the man paused for just long enough to size me up as an elderly fatso, before he started yelling obscenities back.
We screamed at each other about God and the USA, and after a few screams we flipped each other our middle fingers, and he walked away, crossing 3rd Avenue. He’d stopped screaming, so I stopped too, and only watched as he next crossed Spring Street, then disappeared inside whatever that building is.
I looked around for the burka lady, to apologize to her for America, and for the screaming scene, but she was gone.
It’s been three months or so since I watched a loud argument on the bus and said nothing, and decided afterward that I should speak up next time, and be a better man. Today I spoke up, and enjoyed it. Haven’t had that much fun since “Quit eyeing me, bruh.”
♦ ♦ ♦
I’m not always a better man, though. I’m still me.
Coupla days ago, I was back at the same bus stop where I’d rooted for the fire, top of this page. I was leaning on the windows of a building that’s probably 75 years old, but inside it’s a big modern drug store, occupying both the first and second floors.
Seattle is a city of hills, and 2nd Ave is on one of them, so the store’s ground floor is downward; I had to lower my eyes to see the shelves and shoppers. The second floor is higher than the sidewalk, and this wasn’t my intent, honest, but when I glanced upward to see inside the store’s second floor, I was looking up a woman’s mid-length skirt and seeing her polka-dotted panties.
Did I feel embarrassed? Yes. Did I turn away? Uh, no. I watched until she walked off to some other department of the store.
1/24/2025
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