Cross Town Traffic

Cross Town Traffic – Jimi Hendrix

We are having Visitors this week. They will be landing shortly at La Guardia Airport, up in Queens. Not having a day job makes me the picker-upper by default. And so I’m taking the M60 bus from West 125th Street to the airport. A guy in a baseball cap takes a seat in the front, next to a little old lady; I find a spot halfway down the aisle. As we start driving, the guy looks around and mutters something unintelligible. He pauses and says it again, louder this time.

- ‘Pissassniggawhitebitch!’

Pardon?

- ‘Imafuckingkickyourblackmotherfuckingfaggotass, youcrazyfuckinglilywhiteskank!' he proclaims, to no one in general and everyone in particular. At first, nobody moves. When the guy charges on, apparently confusing baffled silence with approval, the little old lady can take no more. She tries: ‘Well, now, mister. Is that really necessary?’

Contrary to what the movies teach you, New Yorkers are surprisingly soft-spoken. People really don’t swear in everyday life – the incidental try-out gangsta rapper aside. In general, people express their inner turmoil using minced oaths like ‘shoot’ and ‘oh my gosh’ and ‘darn’. They don’t do excrements, or sexual slurs, or profanities. People are happy to self-censure up to the point where the fishmonger in my grocery store, when he gets to the punch line of one of his dirty jokes, actually says ‘f**cking’ – clenching his teeth between the ‘f’ and the ‘ing’ – so as not to be offensive.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, tension is mounting.

- ‘Cocksuckingmotherfuckerbitchass!’

The little old ladies’ courteous reprimand is hopelessly trumped by the guy’s ongoing random abuse. Others try to intervene, slinging shots the likes of ‘Sir, I urge you to please stop talking, please,’ and ‘Come one, man, cut it out’. Then a middle aged man in a borrowed suit rises from his seat. He turns to the guy, triggers a finger at him and states, calm and deliberate: ‘Now you better shut the fuck up, you god damn mother fucker.’ The guy’s face turns a distinct gray. He abruptly falls silent and ducks into his seat where he continues to stare morosely at the man. At the next stop, the guy jumps up and darts to the exit door. He squeezes past a still perplexed lady to freedom. ‘Fucsssscuze me,’ he manages before he runs off.
I can swear I hear the old lady send him off with a heart-felt ‘Serves you right, mother crusher!’