Dawn, or its German equivalent, cannot be far off.
DC crime is up. Maybe I should be more specific: there seems to be an uptick in homicide and armed robberies in the 3rd District.
I’m white, a Midwest import, college educated male of 30 surrounded by people, black and Mexican, most who mean me no harm—couldn’t care less. And likewise, except when I see them on the bus before and after work. Then I think we share a common denominator, the banal and redundant migration to the five days a week job. Some of us go willingly, others out of habit, and the rest because we’re told to. As I pass each group, I make eye contact with and smile at the old ladies
sitting up front with the vagrants, who I conspicuously avoid eye contact with, nod at the males, and ignore the youngins. It’s this last group I read that are perpetrating the stick-ups, the young and, more exactly, the inexperienced; quick on the trigger because they haven’t a feel for it outside a row of empty bottles. And it must be just as stressful if not more so to demand money from a stranger while you have a piece trained on their gut, the end of which deals death and consequences. That is until you’ve snatched enough wallets to factor in the unforeseens that would require actually using the weapon for its Aristotelian function. Who doesn’t want to be dominated by the steady hand of aged experience, never mind the situation?
The city bus is more intimate a transportation contrivance than the metro. Bent knees need to be navigated around on your way to an empty seat or pole, then bury face in book. According to the website, Stuff White People Like, I should be reading a New Yorker, and that’s typically so. It’s not quite as guilty a pleasure as Harpers, and I can keep telling myself that I’m getting a feel for the writing so I’ll know just what to submit. After five years, it’s amazing the foolishness I’m capable of speaking and hearing. But, if I were a writer for the New Yorker, I wouldn’t be David Sedaris as he’s on the website, too. Like I said, on a metro it feels natural to throw your bag on the adjacent seat cushion and claim the whole bench. While the bus is crowded and you’re forced to share the two by two foot square of hard foam. When I sit, I usually take an outside seat, so as not to be trapped when the terrorists attack, which means when someone already has the window seat, I let one ass cheek hang over the edge with a knee pointing out into the aisle. That is unless I decide the person is being greedy. This usually leads to me purposefully resting my knee against theirs until they retreat to a less oblivious sitting style.
Could it be the heat that causes the violence in the streets, the heat and crowded conditions such as those on a bus on its way somewhere opposite Wonderlust?
