DAY 3

10/19/11

Wacky Wednesday morning Eastbound

I arrived at the bus stop 10 minutes earlier than usual. It was very foggy. Within a few minutes a #1 bus rolled up so I got on it. It looked like it was going to be an early commute which was fine.

As I was boarding the bus I heard a man behind me talking to himself. I looked back and recognized the man barreling down on me. He was a local character in his mid 40’s whom I had seen around town. He was tall and slender always with short black hair and clean shaven. He was always dressed rather decently, but just a little off like with his black slacks a little too short showing his multi-colored striped sox or his white shirt would be tucked in and his pants a little too high around his waist. I had seen him often years ago when I lived on the south side of town. My professional guess would be chronic mental illness with psychosis, but that is just a guess. I had never interacted with him and he seemed harmless except for his boisterousness and sometimes odd ticks (possibly due to Tourettes). He was kind of a fascinating character and I remember (before I became educated about mental illness) wondering what might be going on in his head.

The bus was pretty empty and the bus driver was very pleasant greeting me with a hefty “GOODMORNING!!!” I shot it back as him just as vigorously. I am a fond believer in greetings. I make it a practice at work, home or wherever to do them. I learned to be fond of them when I worked as a mental health therapist for a highly stressful environment. Every morning I was greeted with at least 2-3 crises. This lasted for years before I set some well needed limits. After that I would not deal with anything unless I was greeted properly by those in need or crises. A simple “good morning” or “how was your weekend” were a couple of greetings that I would insist are present prior to business. At first there was resistance, but after time it became the norm. It was nice when the bus driver did that and reminded me of the civility I need to practice.

As I boarded I glanced to the back and noted the seats were occupied so I was to sit in front. One of the seats occupied verified my thoughts from a prior day and kind of made me wonder about the day’s events to come. The seat was filled with another local mentally ill man that I had seen around for years. I suspected I saw him yesterday, but today he did not have glasses on and showed his piercing eyes and inappropriate glare. If you did not know any better you would think he would possibly be a surfer for he had shoulder length blonde straight hair and a full brown beard often sporting jeans and vans. His cheek bones were high and his face was stern. Actually his face reminded me of the old school Jesus photos people used to and still hang on their walls sporting an Americanized handsome Caucasian version of a long haired Son of the Lord. I never came in to contact with this man therapeutically, but I could tell he was chronically mentally ill, most likely schizophrenic. I had never interacted with him but came across him on multiple occasions around the 2 cities I frequent and in one case I came across him in a city 35 miles away at a burger joint. Hazards of being in the field I guess. I did sometimes wonder if he recognized me and thought the same thing…”man I see that guy everywhere”, or worse yet if I was incorporated delusional wise which sometimes happens to those  who work the severe mentally ill. No matter, I was happy to get a seat.

As we ventured east I put on my headphones and listed to news/talk radio that I sometimes do in the morning. The first guy I spoke of earlier sat next to me on the opposite side of seats and proceeded to loudly and randomly greet people as they got on the bus with a rather aggressive “Morning!!!” He settled down as some youngsters boarded the bus many of them in the perpendicular seats in front of us and one actually sat next to me. 2 of the 3 kids in front of me had white earphones as did the one sitting next to me. I was guilty of Apple-ness as well. The mentally ill man in the front started talking to himself sort of loudly and even though all the kids around had their headphones on I was sure they could hear him due to the odd glance every so often. Most of them seemed oblivious to this mentally ill mans ranting and I wondered if they had become numb from TV, video games or an over abundance of similar people around their own environments. It has been estimated that 1 in 5 people have a diagnosable mental health disorder in the United States. That is an astronomical number in my opinion.

Another couple stops down and the kids got off to go to high school for the day. The news in my ears told me that a man had been shot on a freeway by the police in my city. Not uncommon but news nonetheless.

When we stopped at the mall, a younger guy who was fit, sporting a pony tail and looking exhausted got on the bus with a few bags. As he sat in front of me he put his stuff down, took off his jean jacket (haven’t see one of those in a while) and proceeded to place his hands on his knees and take very deep breathes, 3 at a time with about 30 seconds in between. He kept doing this as we rolled away from the mall and finally stopped about 10 minutes later when we came to a bus stop where a handicapped older Hispanic lady and her husband were boarding. He moved to the back and the bus driver worked the machine to get the lady on board. He approached the seats in front of me and after making a few adjustments looked at me and asked if I could move so he could lift up my seat and make room for the handicap lady. Absolutely was my response, but he just looked at me like “didn’t you know that all this stuff needs to come up?” Once again I was doing it wrong. As I watch the driver adjust things and kind of buckle the wheelchair in, the woman’s husband shot me a dirty look. I almost smiled and stated have a nice day, but thought no that would be inappropriate and instead listened to my talk radio and starred at the back of the mentally ill high wader guy in front of me until he got off a few stops up. Like clockwork the bus emptied at the city college and I arrived at my stop 20 minutes early. This prompted me to head to the coffee shop for a coffee and beagal.