HELLLLLEN

At around two o’clock in the rainy, sunny afternoon, I was on the 38, heading back into the Richmond from downtown, half-asleep and half-listening to the bus conversations going on in my vicinity:

“Hello? No no no, I say to you already, I can’t work today. I work so hard last night, I am very very tired now” (sez the dude with three of his guffawing friends and a bunch of Banana Republic shopping bags)

“Are you cutting school too?”
“I went this morning but was all, ‘fuck it,’ y’know?”
“heh heh yah”

“My birthday is soon!”
“Oh yeah, you were born in March too, right?”

“They’re on the bus right now, they look like they’re going to get off …. yeah they’re getting off at the next stop, at Fillmore. No, Fillmore. Fiiiiiiillllllll - mooooore. Yeah that’s where they’re getting off. Huh? Oh, hrmmm… one’s got a blue sweater, black pants, black Giants cap, a backpack …. he’s tagging the bus right now …”

what?

I opened my eyes and looked to my left, where, sho’ nuff, this tall skinny high school-lookin’ Asian kid in a navy hoodie, black baggy slacks, and a Giants cap was standing at the rear bus exit, glancing over his shoulder. A flat, obviously empty backpack was ceremoniously draped on his back. He looked at me, uncapped a fat blue Sharpie Magnum (TM) and tagged the top of the door. The exact spot he was tagging had a thin coat of white matte paint, veiling someone else’s recent tag in the same marker color. To my right sat a thick middle aged mustachioed white dude in a middle aged corduroy blazer and middle aged sweatervest with middle aged aviators, accurately describing the kid and his curly auburn haired friend into his cellphone in conversational voice. I was bewildered; who the hell narrates the unremarkable goings-on of Muni young turks into his mobile phone, in a voice audible to everyone around him, AS IT’S HAPPENING? An older dude in front of me seemed to notice what the guy was saying too, and his expression told me that he was wondering the same thing. Middle Aged Mustache began yammering into his phone again: “Meet me at the Fillmore stop, alright? They’re about to get off.”

what the FUCK! This kid and his curly friend were being FOLLOWED by this guy, in some kind of coordinated attack. Suddenly I was very afraid. Even after realizing that Middle Aged Mustache was probably some bumbling undercover truant officer, and the schlep on the other end of the phone was probably a cop in a car, I was still scared for him. I could tell that Giants Cap was about to get into trouble, and I wanted to tell him to run, to get away from that shitty dude, to leap out the rear bus exit and hit the ground running. After he finished tagging the door, he glanced back at me one more time. I tried to give him a “Dude-you’re-being-followed-by-that-fucking-mustachioed-freak-on-my-right-get-the-hell-away” look, but being a girl of few faces (I’ve got “pasty”, “pissed”, and “spaced” down) he didn’t get it and looked away. The bus stopped at Fillmore, he capped his marker and stepped off onto the wet pavement while murmuring to Curly. It was ridiculously bright outside, and I could see him clearly: Asian Teen Thug, middle school dreamdate circa 1995. A few seconds later, Middle Aged Mustache dashed out the rear exit, his fat face still glued to his mobile phone. The doors lingered for a second, a beardless homeless man wearing a sleeping bag hesitantly peered in, the doors shut, and we were back on the road.

Sorry Azn Teen Thug; you’re probably being slapped right now by your crying mom, who had to haul your ass back home from the police station and is shrieking, “YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD, I BOUGHT YOU PLAYSTATION 3, AND THIS IS HOW TO REPAY YOUR MOTHER” in Cantonese, and she’s probably not going to let you hang out at Stonestown this weekend with your mall rat dawgz and your little Bebe-loving girlfriend. But seriously, that dude was yacking about you on his cellphone for like five whole minutes, and he was a mere seven feet away. How the fuck did you not hear that shit???!?!?!?!?!

cool tag though, what the hell did you write

P.S. The Geeks are playing Balazo in 90 minutes, and I’ll be there, punching the floors and staring at the merch table. SHOW UP!