What's Going On?

I once looked out my window in China and waited for a bicycle accident. So many bikes, so little space. It had to happen. And yet it didn't. Some magical force stopped people inches away from collisions.

Sometimes I think New York is like that. So many people jammed together, but instead of bicycles it's socioeconomic bubbles. Somehow people trudge slow-motion up rush-hour steps, inches away from someone who could not possibly understand their station in life, without popping.

And yet three times this week I have somehow involved myself in racist altercations.

1. My bus driver from Montclair, N.J., to Manhattan last Sunday was a short, dreadlocked West Indian man. He snapped at me when I took too long looking for my ticket. I bought another one. I asked for a receipt upon arrival in the catacombs of the Port Authority parking lot, so I could get a refund.

“You have to get it when you buy the ticket,” he said. I asked again and said I'd wait outside so the other passengers could get off. He ignored me and finally came down the steps and got right up in my face. Suddenly he was moving in slow-motion, brimming with rage and about to strike. I realized we were alone in the parking lot. I noticed my face smiling, as if I was relaxed, and my body slowly pivoting sideways, as if to protect such things as my nose and testicles. It occurred to me that I have never pushed or punched a black person, though I have been pushed and punched by them, and that I probably never will. In this case, it wasn't just because he was a driver and I'd be looking at seven years in the brig, and it wasn't just from fear.

"Why didn't you ask for a receipt when you got on the bus?" he said in a tropical cadence that in other circumstances would be soothing.

“I didn’t think of it,” I said, pointing to my head like a madman. “I’m sorry.”

He climbed back on the bus and got me a receipt. He even wrote “Decamp” on it, which I thought he was telling me was his name before I remembered that was the name of the bus company. A few days later I called Decamp to get a refund. The supervisor was white and sounded a bit excited by the story. He asked if I was related to Gerry Cooney, the boxer known as the “Great White Hope” till he fizzled 20 years ago. "It'll all be on video!” he said. “We got one camera inside, one outside because people always claim they flag the bus down when they don't. Write a letter to our president and tell him you talked to Bobby A." I felt guilty that the Rasta-man might be out of a job. I still haven't written the letter.

2. I was riding north to Washington Heights on a packed 1 train, when white woman about 50 pushed her way onboard. After a couple stops, she again pushed her way between two people from a tight spot to one with a little more breathing room, muttering imprecations under her breath. A West Indian woman, black, snaggle-toothed, maybe about 60, said to the general public, "She pushed her way on here and now she’s still pushing." The pusher, who was reading Forbes magazine, an article about billionaires, said, "What? Oh, shut up.” Thick New York accent.

"You shut up," said the West Indian lady. "Don't talk to me like that. I've been riding this train for 30 years."

“Yeah, a cattle car is what you're used to, lady. Riffraff. Go fuck yourself."

How could we all stand by without taking sides? There was a half-minute of silence, then I volunteered, "She's reading Forbes magazine, so we're all riffraff to her."

The crowd didn’t react. The West Indian looked up at me, trying to gauge which side I’d landed on. "Huh?" she asked.

I repeated it. She nodded, happy for the support. "Lady," she said, "if you think you're better than us, you should call 777-7777 and get a limo!"

"Shut up, you bitch!"

An Albanian woman who had moved to New York when she was two chipped in, "She's a hater. She's just mad at the world." Her accent was all New York, no Albania. She kept shaking her head for the rest of the trip.

When the West Indian woman got off, she called out, "Ok, this is my stop." She raised her hand as if waving from a float. I stroked her back.

The white woman got off at 145^th Street, without comment. Enough people had left so she didn’t have to push. I got off at 168^th, but first I held out my hand to the Albanian, like a "gimme some skin" gesture, and she slapped my hand and held it there. For a brief moment we were holding hands.

3. Last night I was riding the L train under the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I was going back to a home that will only be mine a couple more days, after another tormenting split with my Argentine girlfriend. This could explain my side of all these fights with the public. But not the other side.

On the bench across from me was a fat white woman sitting beside a Mayan woman who in our land would meet the 4-feet-10 threshold to qualify as a dwarf. The Mayan apparently was coughing, although I didn't notice. I was listening to sound of my own voice on my headphones, a recording I made of thoughts while walking across Spain last winter. When the Mayan stood up, she dropped a glove. The white woman kicked at the leg of the Mayan to let her know about the glove. It was an odd gesture, so I took off my headphones as if to register that I’d actually seen it. The Mayan looked appreciative and bent to pick it up. She stood beside the white woman, separated by silver metal bars. Standing, she wasn't much taller than the white woman sitting.

"You should cover your mouth when you cough, you know?" said the white woman. She looked a little drunk, accent of a New York native. "You were fucking coughing all over me."

The Mayan smiled at first, assuming at first that when two strangers talk it is friendliness. Even if she didn't get all the words, though, she could see the woman was getting angry.

"It's common courtesy to cover your mouth, instead of coughing all over people.” She mimed out the difference between someone coughing into the crook of an elbow and someone coughing into the air.

The Mayan looked confused, then said, “I know.”

The seated woman glared right at her, through the metal bars. “You fucking bitch."

"Hey!" I said. "Settle down over there."

She looked stunned, as if slapped. Her eyes big. "Mind your own fucking business. She was coughing on me. Anywhere in the world you're supposed to cover your mouth."

"Just get up and move," I said. "It's not a big deal. Let it go."

"Shut up. I don't know how they do it in Vermont or New Hampshire or wherever you're from. But this is New York."

That got a genuine laugh out of me, since I had moved back to New York from Vermont just two months before. I was shocked. But how could she tell? Was my hair messed up? My face unshaven? Oh, I was wearing a plaid shirt under my sweater. Or was it the Buddhist way I shrugged, closed my eyes, and said, "Let it go"?

She was standing now, fulminating as she moved to exit the train. She was still glaring at me, and just before she left the train, she said, "Welcome to New York, asswipe."