…now get the Hell out!

Originally uploaded by tozzo
The four of us sat in the dirty aquarium screaming with green-grey light, a small filthy oasis in the Port Authority bus terminal. I was on my way to another freelance interview. Now that I’m on the treadmill, I can’t stop looking for the next gig — I’d rather face down an injured wolverine with an air rifle than go into another long stretch of nothing like I did this summer.

So there’s me in my dark grey interview suit, sweating like Whitney Houston in an airport, sitting there on the little nod-proof bench, just waiting on the bus. An old woman stood across from me, standard issue, straight from Central casting. She wore a sun hat and blue-blockers just like my grandmother and a fanny pack with an L. Ron Hubbard book sat just above her hips.

We were all doing the New York thing where everyone sees each other and says nothing at all for a good ten minutes or so when the old woman crossed the room and stood right next to me at the end of the bench.

“Scum,”

she said, in a low voice that only I could hear.

Scum on the anus of this earth is what you are. Manipulating the legal system to intimidate witnesses in a federal case is a very serious crime in this country. You might be on top for now, but you won’t get away with it for long.

I looked at the floor, bug-eyed, the whole time she was saying this. I hoped maybe she was either crazy and talking to herself or having an AWESOME conversation via Bluetooth headset.

When she leaned against the wall directly across from me and stared straight into my eyes, it became very clear that she was talking to me. I sweated even more. Finally I got a little mad and started staring right back, aiming my best laser gaze at the center of her blast-shield shades.

After a few millennia, she walked directly up to me and said

Excuse me. Do you have something that you want to say to me? Because you’ve got an awfully funny way of showing it.

I was actually just wondering if this was the bus to Overpeck/AGFA

I started to say, but she cut me off.

You know, I’ve stayed silent about this, and I’m not staying silent anymore. I am fighting this fight with all I’ve got. My hands are tied right now but once the legal system lets go of me, your people will know better than to intimidate a witness when I’m around. Shame on them. What do you think about that?

Me and crazy people, we’re like tractor beams for each other. They’re drawn to me, and I can’t help but fall in line with whatever rationale they’re presenting. I always take them seriously — they take themselves really seriously, and I always bend my mind to fit the world they live in. It’s an instantaneous process, and I can’t stop myself.

I think you’re on the side of right! This is a good fight for you to fight, the world needs more of it,

I said, enthusiastically. Best to get on side with this one. She weighed maybe 95 pounds but had eyes like switchblades and a mouth like a can opener. This granny was ready to make me spill my guts out right on the dirty linoleum.

Well, I’m sure you do. I bet you

Listen, lady, I’m just trying to get a job in advertising,

I interrupted.

I bet you are, I just bet you are. You look like a pretty worldly guy … once you get that job in advertising, maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about how the real world works and you’ll see who you’re really up against.

I had a little internal crisis here. She was so convinced and so furious, a tiny pillar of righteous rage standing alone in a corrupt and crumbling world. I felt like a character in a Philip K. Dick novel who wakes up and has had his identity completely replaced with a hardened criminal’s and everyone knows but himself.

At this point, the driver opened the bus door and I broke for it. The whole ride I was writing this thing down, furiously, stopping only to move up and ask the driver where my stop was. I sat in the seat behind the driver without looking. I turned after a moment to look at the seat next to me … and there she was, my little friend from the waiting room. She pursed her lips and glared, rummaging in her fanny pack. She pulled out a notepad and pen, staring at me and furiously taking notes in her lap.

I got off and went into my interview, stunned, took the elevator up at met the Art Director, who said

Hey, man, good morning! How was your commute?