So, I decided to give the car a rest after all my recent parking troubles and hopped on the B61 bus last evening on the way to improv class. By the time we hit Columbia Street, the bus was filled with its usual cast of characters: overweight black women with canes, toothless project dwellers, a few hipster types donning Chuck Taylors and of course ghetto youths.
I was sitting towards the back of the crowded bus next to a gentrified woman on my right and an older black man on my left. Standing before me was a semi-gentrified white male and next to him near the rear exit an urban youth.
Everyone was doing their own thing. I listened to my iPod while the gentrifier next to me read her New York Times. The white dude was reading some book and the older black man was minding his business quietly. The only person making noise was the urban youth, in all his baggy-panted, puffy-coated glory, playing his rap music as loud as he could on what appeared to be a mobile phone (sans headphones).
The music itself was irritating enough, but then the youth decided to start rapping along with it. So I did the unimaginable. I spoke to him! I told him that he should consider headphones. (The white man standing up nodded his head in agreement and white girl next to me squirmed nervously in her seat.) He ignored this and continued his rapping.
As the bus stopped at Court Street, I suggested it again and told him that his music was "extremely irritating." He quipped, "Then give me your headphones." I told him that I wasn't giving him anything. And then there was awkward silence until the bus was waiting to make the left turn onto Smith at which point I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine.
I carefully chose a song on my iPod and stood up and starting singing at a similar decibel that he was rapping. Here I was in the middle of a crowded bus right across from a potentially dangerous thug (and possible gang member) singing Led Zeppelin's Going to California. No one quite knew what to do. The two white people moved to my left where there were some empty seats and I noticed the hipster/yuppie female vigorously texting someone (most likely about this most unusual occurrence on the bus).
Finally the bus came to a stop and I along with most of the other passengers exited. I scurried away quickly and ran down the stairs to the Manhattan-bound A/C platform feeling like Bernie Goetz or Rosa Parks. I may not have done something as extreme or brave as the aforementioned historical figures, but I am a hero to anyone who has ever been irritated by the noise of young thugs.
I'm just surprised there were no headlines today touting me as the "SERENADING BUS VIGILANTE."
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5 comments:
i could visualize the whole event, i can hear you, in a high quasi-nasal neil young-esq voice, singing "someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair"... and the young thug looking at you awkwardly, wondering why you didn't use the word "bitch" instead of girl... and wondering why a "bitch would have flowers in her weave"
i would have applauded your efforts and possibly joined in for the chorus. BOLD move sir.
-davis
Yes, an annoying an inconsiderate kid is automatically a thug, and of course a possible gang member.
You sir, need a reality check.
I applaud your move.
This is New York.
Where everyone is, was, used to be, and still should be entitled to tell the person next to you on the bus what an irritating Creep he or she is without the fear of catching a shiv in the neck.
One other thing: Gang members don't normally ride the bus. However, if you're gonna step to wiseasses regularly, start carrying a blackjack. Just to be safe.
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