I had been in Bushwick visiting a friend's new apartment when this journey of public proportions began. Eleven o'clock rolled around, sneaky as it can be, and I debated my two lackluster options for crossing the distance between 'Shwick into 'Stuy. The Train Option involved boomeranging out to the east of both neighborhoods on the L train and then making a connection to the A or C at Broadway Junction and swinging back west to my stop at Nostrand Ave. The Bus Option tricked me into thinking it was (a) simpler and (b) more convenient, more direct. Simply take the B38 to Thompkins Ave and switch to the B43. No.Big.Deal. Easy as Pie! A pie you don't bake! An icecream pie!
Nope.
The ride started out well enough, except that I had accidentally befriended a very precocious set of young kids whose mom didn't seem to be with it enough to do anything but slurp some sort of food out of a black plastic bag. The kids were pretty adorable, but I was a little worried I'd miss my stop with three chatty charlies hitting me up with questions from all directions. They bounced on their seats and asked what sports I played, commented on my running shoes, learned that my name was Hannah and then quickly began calling me Hannah Montana and serenading me with songs from the show. They asked if I knew of Justin Beiber. I said, "No, not really." (I've seen pictures of the kid, supposedly some pre-teen heart throb. Don't kids still believe in Kooties??? They should!) The way that they described this Beiber person stunned me and caught my fascination. The youngest girl described him with the tactful and practiced phrase, "He has a complexion like you." Wow. So interesting! I found myself wound up in thoughts of the implications behind a phrase like that, and wondering who had taught these kids to speak of one's complexion instead of saying "He's white, like you." The thing I found most interesting was that their way of describing his appearance left any assumptions about my race or ethnicity out of the conversation. Anyway, I don't know how conscious the choice of words was, but it stuck with me. And so did the kids, at least for a couple more stops until they abruptly stood up and raced to the front of the bus on their little kick-scooters yelling "Bye, Hannah Montana!" back at me. Their mom exited through the back of the bus and I think I heard her calling out to them as we pulled away -- "Benessa! Don't you dare -- "
So that was the B38 part of my ride home. Next came the long wait for the B43. The B43 was scheduled to arrive at 11:40 at DeKalb and Thompkins. I saw a lit bus stop a little further down the street and wandered to it. On the way, I passed several people on bikes, thinking that I was so close to home that a bike ride would have been a ridiculously easy solution and luxury at that moment. As I sat and waited, and waited, and waited for this stupid bus, I realized that I would have much preferred to have taken the train. I'd have been waiting on a platform with dozens of other people, and probably not for longer than ten minutes. At the bus stop, ten minutes passed with no sign of the B43. Meanwhile, a young-ish woman had sat down beside me. She was just as annoyed with the bus line's tardiness, and was detailing the events leading up to her waiting for the bus; mainly that she was too full of food and drink to sit for this long and was worried she'd miss her other connecting bus. She had been at her cousin's house, and had even been sent out with sarcastic wishes for "good luck" from the other party-goers who know the bus route and how it can be at this time of night. I know that I can at least speak from my own experience in saying that I once waited through three scheduled stop-times after visiting my friend Ada in Park Slope only to have three busses from that particular line show up at once, very late. I wrote an e-mail to the complaint people at the fine MTA company, but the canned response I got back clearly didn't mean anything in the way of concrete changes to better the system.
After another five minutes passed without any bus in sight, my bench companion decided she was going to call a car service. I hated the idea of waiting at that stop without her, so I looked up the road one last time and decided I'd call a car too. I asked her if she knew of any companies in Brooklyn that take cards for fares. In Manhattan, that's the practice now. All cabs have digital meters and card swipes inside. In Brooklyn, the cars take cash and don't have fixed rates. But, it's better than being stranded in the styx at night sometimes. The woman made a sympathetic sigh in response to my question and basically suggested that there weren't any cars nearby that weren't cash-only businesses. She then did something incredibly generous and asked where I was going and offered that I could ride in her cab and get dropped off. It was on the way, but she still didn't have to do that. Her name was Shandell and I got her address on the short ride to MacDonough Street. I tried making conversation in the car, but I could tell she wasn't interested in that. She just wanted to get home and go to sleep as quickly as possible. I'm so grateful to her because even now, as I finish this blog entry, I feel like I could have very well been stuck at that bus stop still. Goodness gracious! I believe the time public transit should be most reliable is at night, for us owls who just need it to work and work right.
Thankfully, I met some nice people on the way home tonight and I hope that's what I remember out of all this. I want to send Shandell a thank-you card, but first I need to do what she's doing right now and catch some shut-eye. I hope I don't have transportation nightmares, but it would be understandable.
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