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Tuesday-Wednesday, around midnight:
The bus was nearly empty: an overdressed bag lady leaned over her cart full of sacks; a grizzled and unshaven old drunk nodded off; a tweaker with wide, darting eyes was picking imaginary ants off his face and muttering something; a brace of b-girls with too much rouge and large, arching eyebrows scrawled across their foreheads were calling it a night. There was also a well-dressed woman—of the middle class type—with eyes as wide as plates, who'd apparently found herself on that bus by dint of some horrid mistake.
The #358 inbound from Aurora Village to downtown: The Street Stiff Express.
Evie Takahashi and your gentle (if perpetually drunken) narrator were in the very back, snorting lines of cocaine off of the lady's compact mirror and passing a gallon bottle of Bacardi Gold back and forth. We were, perhaps, laughing a bit too hard and sucking face a bit too much. From time to time, the well-dressed woman glanced at our sleazy coupling and, with her eyes, begged us to shut up and act like citizens. Takahashi and company were all-too-aware of the well-dressed woman's disapproval, but did nothing to accommodate her.
Even from the back, the driver's boredom and exhaustion could be felt. He was on his last run of the night, according to the answer he'd given to my question when my beloved and I had boarded, and wouldn't broach any shit at that hour. “Worry not,” I'd assured him, “we'll keep our debauchery far from your fatigued ears, my friend.” All the bus driver had offered in response was a grunt. Expecting no more than that from the man, we had paid the fare and retreated to the rear bench.
Our outbursts of laughing aside, there was no noise but the labored growling of the bus.
“Ketamine!” Takahashi said in too loud a voice. “That's what we need, Saavedra! Ketamine! I want to shoot 1,000 milligrams into my tight little arse, have rabid weasel sex with you, and commune with the departed! Necromance, you know! And this must happen soon!”
“Sounds like a plan, my sweet little cabbage,” I responded. “Where do we get this miracle of modern chemistry, pray tell?”
“4th and Pike, by the Rite-Aid. Sloppy Sue Mondragon sells the stuff at a good price. She should be there at this hour.”
The well-dressed woman glanced at us once more, her mouth twisting into a hairpin of disgust; she clearly did not know the joys of ketamine nor did she seem to approve of the white powder clinging to Takahashi's nostrils. She also gave the hairy eyeball to our insanely enormous bottle of Bacardi. She was hugging herself, just as she would if she were freezing cold; but, in this case, she was endeavoring to symbolically protect herself from us and the other passengers, and point out that she wasn't one of us.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Takahashi said to the woman.
“You're breaking the law,” the woman answered, “not to mention Metro regulations. You're also being quite annoying.”
“Some rum? Is it some rum you want? Maybe some coke? Wanna arm-wrestle for it?”
“That's it! I'm complaining to the driver!”
“Go for it, chickie-baby,” Takahashi said while leaning over to inhale another line.
The woman arose and, fighting the unsteady swaying of the bus, made her way to the driver's compartment. Takahashi paid her no mind, and instead wiped a residue of cocaine off her nose before taking another deep swallow of rum. Your affectionate (if chemically enhanced) narrator was more concerned, however—concerned as to how the well-dressed woman's outward respectability might work against us. I also remembered that the driver had threatened to become nasty if anything got on his nerves.
The situation did not bode well, my friends.
“They're... they're drinking... alcohol!” we heard the well-dressed woman say. “And they're doing... well... they're doing drugs!”
“Fuck off,” the driver muttered. “It's too late for this shit.”
“It's not like these people are children. They're adults. They should know better. And they're acting like savages. I demand that you put them off this bus, or I'll take this matter to your supervisor first thing in the morning. It's your choice.”
Suddenly, the driver applied the brakes, and the bus wheezed to a stop in the middle of Aurora Avenue. He pulled himself out of his seat and, with an exhausted but singularly irritated voice, ordered everyone off the bus. There were mutters of discontent, and no one moved until the driver barked out his order once again. Then, one by one, people began to get up and step off the bus. The well-dressed woman didn't budge a muscle, she stood perfectly still with her mouth hanging open.
“You can't do this!” she said to the driver.
“It's my bus,” he responded, “and I can do anything I want with it. Call my supervisor if it bothers you so goddamn much. Now, get off my bus before I call the police and have you arrested.”
“I only wanted this couple thrown off!” the woman protested as we approached. “No one else was breaking the law! You simply can't put me out on Aurora at midnight! Anything could happen out there! It's a very dangerous street!”
“Then you shoulda kept your yap shut. Now, off the bus.”
Takahashi was laughing hysterically as we drunkenly stumbled toward the front. We reached the driver, and I asked him if he had a Thermos. He averred that he did, and I told him to break it out. There was a little hot coffee inside. I poured about three shots of rum into it, telling the driver that it should make the rest of his night much more pleasant. He seemed stunned by my act of charity, but made it clear that he wasn't changing his mind because of one little act of kindness.
“I wouldn't have it,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go home, and get some well-deserved rest.”
“Yes,” Takahashi agreed, “we have plenty of booze and drugs to get us into town. And this isn't the first bus we've been thrown off of.”
We tripped down the steps and out into the night. The old drunk had already curled up under a tree. The meth head was on the ground, sitting Indian-style and tying his arm off with a rubber ligature. The whores were thumbing a ride. The bag lady began to silently push her cart along Aurora, and we followed her. For several seconds, the well-dressed woman stood stunned against the backdrop of Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery before realizing that we were her only protection, at which point she hastened to catch up with us.
“Do one of you have a cell phone?” she asked us.
“I do,” Takahashi said. “Saavedra never pays his bills. Why do you ask?”
“Call me a cab!” the woman demanded.
“Ah,” Takahashi said, “no can-do. You're walking into town like the rest of us. Hell, it's a gorgeous night. Why shouldn't we walk?”
“I insist! You must call a cab for me now!”
“Hey, sweetie-pie, you ain't my momma. Now get to walking or get left behind.”
“Goddamn dope fiends,” the woman muttered.
“You need to chill, lady. Here, have some rum. You can have some coke, too, if it'll shut you up.”
“No, thank you. I'm not s drunk or a doper, like some people.”
And that was it—there was no more talking. But Takahashi and your (forever corrupted) narrator cared not one whit. Our loud party continued, all the way across the Aurora Bridge and on toward downtown. The well-dressed woman, her arms folded, walked silently behind us. We could feel her growing hatred bump against our backs. Every now and then, an empty cab passed by, and the woman raised her hand to hail it—but no one stopped. She opined (to herself) that they weren't stopping because of us. She was probably right.
We, my friends, are at war with reputable society. They support clenched butt cheeks while we support ongoing parties, public drunkenness, and lots and lots of violent sex in inappropriate places. The struggle is particularly acute here in Seattle, a city founded by free spirits and ne'er-do-wells, but now taken over by real estate developers. But, for those of us who live in the gutter, the conflict will never end until the last boy scout has been converted into a ravenous, slathering sex and dope fiend.
Oh, and as it turned out, the ketamine was superior.
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