Last Thursday I traveled cross town
to visit my old colleague and friend Mack. Mack is a retired
shrink/educator/writer and thinker. I'll bet Mack is ten years older
then me which puts Mack up there. I like Mack, Like Mack a ot and I
figured I better get y ass in gear and visit him before he “winks”
out as I know he will sooner then later—which I don't like thinking
about living in a world with out Dr Mack . I could easily jag off
here and write a whole post on Mack. I am not going to do that. I
will write more about Mack, our visit and our relationship soon but not
now.
This post is about my trip over to
Mack's part of town. To get over to Mack's I take the UTA 209( Ninth
East) over to about 4800 South and 900 East. I have found if I go to
the 6400 south Traxx station the 209 takes off from that station .I
can get on the bus there and just wait for the bus to take off.
I drove my chair to the station, which
worried me a bit because I knew the trip would eat a lot of power
yet I was not too concerned I would
plug my charger at Mack's place talk for a couple hours and be good
to go. The early afternoon was far from hot but at the same time not
too cold. Had there not been a breeze, the afternoon would of been
perfect. The bus was turned off not even idling as the many buses do.
The driver had wandered off to find a bathroom. I sat there and dozed
for a few minutes in the added heat from the sun reflecting of the
buses flank—a 2-fer, direct sunshine and the reflected heat. This
wonderful heat was dashed a few minutes later when the driver
returned and started the diesel and immediately the air conditioner
came on and made the space/time miserable, for,me.
We had just turned North on Ninth East
when at the first stop a severely over weight young man climbed onto
/the bus and of course took the directly in front of me and carefully
looked over the passengers. This kid was obviously a regular and
acknowledged the bus driver and several of the other riders. I could
tell immediately the kid was developmentally disabled. I sat still
as I could hoping he would look past me and engage one of the other
riders. Didn't work. “ What's your name?”
“ I'm Mark” I tried to insert a
“verbal stop sign”,which worked for a couple of blocks. The
questions kept coming and I resigned myself to their answers. I
tried to answer on auto pilot but suddenly focused when I got the
question “ God won't like me if I kill myself.”I groaned I did
not want to have this conversation. I dd not want to be the transit
shrink of the hour. The kid wanted brown hair not red, the kid id not
like is low-end service job and clearly would be interested in
“checking out” if doing so would not bring on God's wrath. He got
off a couple blocks later, unresolved. I doubt he did anything morbid
but I had to wonder and I had to wonder again what is/was my
obligation. One can only do so much in 10 blocks, but still one has
to wonder.
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