bus ride

Bus drivers in LA are a surly lot, addicted to power, jealous of its exercise in their mobile little domains, maintaining order and enforcing obedience with capricious stops and captious wrangles over payment. In the dysfunctional logic of boss kick man, man kick wife, wife kick kid, kid kick dog, the car-less Angeleno is dog (or possibly something even lower down the scale of being). In fairness, the drivers only apply the last and mostly the least of the humiliations visited upon the unbeautomobiled. And we for our part show no solidarity in the face of oppression; the elderly and halt stand and stagger in the aisles, packages sit comfortably as children sway between poles and knees, and when the inevitable crowded stop is ignored, there is no outcry, no complaint, for we know that without all those new riders, we chosen have a better chance of finding a seat for our own selfish bottoms.