I always say thank you

I live in a mixed income neighborhood. “Mixed income” sounds like a euphemism to my ears but it’s not, at least not deliberately anyway. I don’t know what else to call it and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something in my lack of a better term. The income levels decline most of my bus commute to work, picking up at the end. On the first half of the trip there’s a shelter and a church that feeds people and one of those plasma joints - what’s the technical term? evil motherfuckers? - and some other spots where people in hard times congregate. The place where I get off the first bus and catch the connecting bus is another congregating point. I see a lot of people who look unwell, physically, and seem unwell mentally. I catch myself looking sometimes, as if I’m at the zoo or on some kind of tour.

Today one guy on the bus was slumped over and staring at the floor mumbling and another guy held a cigarette out close to him and said “here, take it” and the first guy didn’t reply and the second repeated “here, take it.” “Take it man.” [Mumbling, not making eye contact.] “Take it.” [Mumbling, not making eye contact.] “Take it,” a little louder. [Mumbling, not making eye contact.] “Man, take it. Take it. Here, take it.” [Mumbling, not making eye contact.] Everyone else in the bus had gone quiet, watching.

By the third time this was repeated another guy in the back of the bus by me had raised his hand in the air like a kid at school waiting to be called on, and after the whole bus was silent he said “hey man I’ll take it!” and the cigarette-proffering guy smiled big and said “well alright!” and the hand-raiser guy jumped up and walked down the aisle and took the cigarette and went back to his seat and the cigarette-giver guy said “you got fire, man? you got fire?” “Fire?” “Fire! You got fire? For the cigarette? You got fire?” “I can’t smoke it on the bus man, we’re on the bus!” The cigarette-giver guy laughed and said “I know that but do you got fire, so you can smoke it later?” “I’m good man.” “Well alright!”

I felt like a voyeur for watching. I won’t lie, it felt like good TV, but it felt wrong to be watching because they’re people in a bad way. Then I wondered if I was being condescending - either it’s okay to be nosy about people’s business, or it’s not, but treating them as too poor to be nosy about, that’s condescending, maybe? I caught myself wanting to find some kind of lesson in it about the human spirit overcoming or something, or about maintaining some dignity. That might be true but it’s also reducing these people to abstractions, caricatures even if flattering ones. I’m not religious so in a way I don’t really think people are ‘meant’ for anything and don’t have a purpose, but I also think that people just aren’t meant to live in deprivation, and I think seeing people in deprivation is jarring, if you’re still a human being yourself.

In response to that jarring sensation I catch myself not looking sometimes, or worse yet, looking through people. That feels like ‘mixed income’ - where I have a word that’s inadequate and feels hollow, an empty phrase that is filling in the space where a full term should be, and I suspect that space is there because I have the hollow phrase, like the hollow term used to be a euphemism for some other term but then the euphemism bored a tiny hole in my brain and sucked out the original, real word, and now it’s not a euphemism anymore it’s just my impoverished thought process, and I’m not sure this is right but I’m also pretty sure the term is a sign that some thing is wrong - except it feels much worse because the hollow metastasized euphemism and the boring of holes in my brain is not me losing a word but rather it is happening to my ability to really see another person, to perceive their concrete humanity. And it’s surprisingly easy. Sometimes it’s the most natural thing in the world to just not look at anyone, or stare through them, and it’s a relief because I don’t have to feel bad about them or to question myself for my response to them (‘I saw someone in a really bad way on the bus today, it made me spend the morning wondering if I’m something of a narcissist, or maybe a total fucking narcissist, hmm what a hard situation this was… for me’), or to feel angry at the social death machine that’s assigning these people to shorter, more painful lives.

It makes me want a cigarette. Partly it’s just seeing them, because cigarettes - holding them unlit between finger tips, or behind ears or between lips, or exchanging them with other passengers - figure a lot on the bus, and people at the bus stops are always lighting them up, their own or someone else’s, or stubbing them out, often carefully putting out a half-smoked one to keep the rest for later, and are often sharing a light. Seeing them I remember how good cigarettes taste and feel and I want one even though it’s been a long while, and a very long while since I smoked them with even the slightest regularity. (I’ve never been much of a smoker - I’ve bought only 2 or 3 packs ever, though I’ve begged far, far more than my fair share, especially back when I drank more often - but what I lacked in frequency and volume of cigarettes smoked I made up for in enthusiasm. Smoking is just so good, anyone who denies that is misguided and probably doesn’t enjoy anything.) I think part of why I want one in those particular moments is also for the grounding it would provide, climbing down out of my head, setting aside my abstractions about concerns about abstractions and just feeling that bite in my throat and lungs, and the light buzz. Is that about embracing the concrete reality of my fellow passengers - let’s have a smoke together - or avoiding it, stopping thinking about them and my response to them by stopping thinking altogether, thought paused by delicious sensation? I’m unsure.

I hope it counts for something that when my stop comes I always say thank you to the bus driver.