I actually heard somebody say that, on the bus heading uptown, a big old loudmouth white woman and I mean that in a good way, reminding me of a particularly dear playground friend from when our kids were in elementary school, but saying "fucked" a lot more. I didn't initially suspect she was going to be anything but fun. We were crawling up Sixth Avenue toward Rockefeller Center and past a lively demonstration where I think I failed to recognize somebody mildly famous at a microphone, and I think she felt it was going to take us a long time to get out of there because of the crowds, and she said several times that we were fucked, to nobody in particular, but we were facing each other across the aisle so that it was as if she were saying it to me.
"Not that I think they did the right thing to that guy, that was fucked, but you have to deal with it the right way, not with violence."
I said I didn't think there was going to be any violence, but she disagreed. "What about yesterday," she said. "They were up there at Rockefeller Center, they blocked the West Side Highway. Dozens of people arrested."
I pointed at the thick crowds on the east side of the street. "Those people are tourists," I said, "going to look at the tree. That's what's slowing us down."
"And they're scaring the tourists too. That's great."
I started playing with my phone, actually wondering for a moment if there was some violence in New York yesterday I hadn't heard about. Twitter said the main demonstrating tonight was in the opposite direction, down around Foley Square.
She turned around and began addressing the empty space next to a black woman looking around from a front-facing seat. "I grew up in the country," she said. "We used to play together, we used to swim together. I don't see race." Really? "But like this is fucked. I'm 65 years old, I don't care." The front-facing black woman and I both remained silent, and I think she was wearing a wearily sarcastic smile for my benefit, both of us a little ashamed maybe at our inability to answer back, but she may have thought fairly enough that it was my job and not hers. The loudmouth white woman must have felt a bad vibe, because she stood up, continuing to grumble, and took a front-facing seat further ahead, and the black woman and I exchanged one more glance before going back to our phones.
Perhaps she was just pissed off from the day before when anybody taking the bus up Sixth Avenue would have been well and truly fucked, not because of the "I can't breathe" demonstrators but because of the tree lighting in Rockefeller Plaza, which the protests had been unable to affect in any way ("Are you kidding, I was 45 minutes late getting home, how is that not violence?"). I got stuck on that bus exactly a year ago, when there were no demonstrations, just tourists, and it took hours. On this year's tree-lighting day, I took the train.
I should have said, "What violence, have you been watching Fox News?" I should have said, "You got that line from Stephen Colbert!" I should have been live-tweeting the incident. But I'm all about the esprit de l'escalier. Once past 50th Street or so the bus began moving at a respectable pace and a lot of people got on.
I almost missed my stop, rushed to get the door before the driver took off again, and kind of bumped into her on my way out with my swinging backpack, causing her to make an angry noise. She'll probably think I did it on purpose. To the spiteful, all things are spites. But I'm pretty old too and I don't care either.
"Not that I think they did the right thing to that guy, that was fucked, but you have to deal with it the right way, not with violence."
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| The 2009 tree getting hoisted from its birthplace in Eaton, Connecticut. |
I said I didn't think there was going to be any violence, but she disagreed. "What about yesterday," she said. "They were up there at Rockefeller Center, they blocked the West Side Highway. Dozens of people arrested."
I pointed at the thick crowds on the east side of the street. "Those people are tourists," I said, "going to look at the tree. That's what's slowing us down."
"And they're scaring the tourists too. That's great."
I started playing with my phone, actually wondering for a moment if there was some violence in New York yesterday I hadn't heard about. Twitter said the main demonstrating tonight was in the opposite direction, down around Foley Square.
She turned around and began addressing the empty space next to a black woman looking around from a front-facing seat. "I grew up in the country," she said. "We used to play together, we used to swim together. I don't see race." Really? "But like this is fucked. I'm 65 years old, I don't care." The front-facing black woman and I both remained silent, and I think she was wearing a wearily sarcastic smile for my benefit, both of us a little ashamed maybe at our inability to answer back, but she may have thought fairly enough that it was my job and not hers. The loudmouth white woman must have felt a bad vibe, because she stood up, continuing to grumble, and took a front-facing seat further ahead, and the black woman and I exchanged one more glance before going back to our phones.
Perhaps she was just pissed off from the day before when anybody taking the bus up Sixth Avenue would have been well and truly fucked, not because of the "I can't breathe" demonstrators but because of the tree lighting in Rockefeller Plaza, which the protests had been unable to affect in any way ("Are you kidding, I was 45 minutes late getting home, how is that not violence?"). I got stuck on that bus exactly a year ago, when there were no demonstrations, just tourists, and it took hours. On this year's tree-lighting day, I took the train.
I should have said, "What violence, have you been watching Fox News?" I should have said, "You got that line from Stephen Colbert!" I should have been live-tweeting the incident. But I'm all about the esprit de l'escalier. Once past 50th Street or so the bus began moving at a respectable pace and a lot of people got on.
I almost missed my stop, rushed to get the door before the driver took off again, and kind of bumped into her on my way out with my swinging backpack, causing her to make an angry noise. She'll probably think I did it on purpose. To the spiteful, all things are spites. But I'm pretty old too and I don't care either.
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