Holy fuck, this was a good one. I'm glad the wife's laptop is here.
Just got off the bus. Coming down Washington Street at about 30mph, a big black Excursion coming the other way takes an illegal u-turn right in front of us, causing the bus to brake kinda hard to avoid hitting him. He swung around to our right, and is now facing the same direction as the bus, up against the curb, but he is trapped between the bus and some valet-parked cars. The bus continues braking and the driver flips the bus off, making a big show of his anger at being delayed a few more seconds.
So the bus driver (who looks like Manny Ramirez, fwiw) stops the bus. Now, the guy's totally blocked in. Manny opens the bus doors and stands up, the ford driver gets out of his car to yell, and I pause This American Life and take an earbud out.
Manny: "You puttin your finger up at ME? After that illegal turn?"
- Yeah fuck you, get the fuck out of my way.
etc etc for a few seconds, and then I hear the ford driver say "Yeah, well guess what? GUESS WHAT?" and hold something up at Manny. It is a police badge, apparently, because Manny says
"So what? So you're a cop? What are you gonna do with that? I got a bus full of people watching. What the fuck are you gona do?"
- You don't know what's good for you, do you?
"You lucky I'm wearin' this uniform, boy, or I'd bust your head open right here in front of these people. I ain't afraid of your cop ass."
[and just to be clear, this is a black bus driver and a white off-duty cop in his personal vehicle, near as I can tell. Extra points for calling the white cop "boy."]
At this point a homeless black dude gets up, shuffles to the door, and begins loudly and unintelligibly jibbering something at the cop. It does not help. I begin to wonder if someting fucking serious is gonna happen, but it does not. The bus driver closed the bus doors with the guy still yelling, throwing the bird, and showing his badge. I mean, if he was "in pursuit" he would've used a siren, right? He came off as a complete power tripping prick, but now in hindsight, what if he was on business? He could've just backed up and gone around if it was so goddam important... Anyway, I would've taken a pic, but I was kinda riveted. Shit got intense in a hurry. By the time I got off 2 stops later, the driver was laughing with front-seat patrons about how he was gonna get reported, and that people are so report-happy now anyway. "I dig at my nose at a stop light an someone would prolly call it in."
_________________ [quote="Bloor"]He's either done too much and should stay out of the economy, done too little because unemployment isn't 0%, is a dumb ingrate who wasn't ready for the job or a brilliant mastermind who has taken over all aspects of our lives and is transforming us into a Stalinist style penal economy where Christian Whites are fed into meat grinders. Very confusing[/quote]
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