welcome to the city...

It's really late and I'm about to pass out. It's been a full day of hanging out in the Mission District and having a dinner for new international students at San Francisco State University through a non-denominational outreach organization called International Students, Inc.

The reason I'm writing this right now is that I have to get this post written. I casually mentioned in my previous post that a fight broke out on the bus next to me the other day. Well here's the in-depth version of the story:

I was going to dinner in southern SF near Daly City. I had ridden the BART (an underground rail) to the Balboa Park station and was taking a Muni bus to my friend's house. After waiting in weather that is too-cold to be considered "Summer" I took the only seat on the bus - next to a "thug" dude. A person I now refer to as creepydude. So I sat in the tiny space between creepydude and weirddude. It was a tiny space. When I first got on the bus, creepydude had a razor in his hand...yes, a razor...and was shaving his black hoodie pullover. Seriously?? I guess he was taking the balled-up lent off his hoodie. He felt such urgency to remove this lent that he was doing it with a razor on a public, moving bus. (Hence the name creepydude.) So when he looked at me and told me I could sit next to him, naturally my city-smarts kicked in and told me: "Spencer, it's not such a good idea to sit next to creepydude. He has a razor in his hand on a public bus. Notice your surroundings." ....... Actually that's what should have happened. Instead, I just took a seat next to him and proceeded to stare at my iPhone in hopes that my concentration would make the bus wheels turn faster.

Creepydude was in an intense conversation with his girl who was sitting on the other side of him. (Obviously a conversation that was private and the rest of us were intruding on the conversation by being present on this bus.) After yelling at her, telling her to shut up, and counting to three (like a mom trying to shush her child), he turned and backhanded the living daylights out of this girl. Immediately the tension became tangible. No one in the bus knew how to react. Finally the guy across from me couldn't take it any more...with fury on his face he decided to confront creepydude. While his efforts were valiant, I wasn't about to get tangled up with a guy crazy enough to be playing with a razor on public transportation. The guy across from me decided he was mad enough to start a fight, so that's precisely what he proceeded to do.

Let's recap: I'm crammed into a tiny space between creepydude with a razor and weirddude. I can't move to my left because there's a pole for people to hold onto. I can't move to my right because there's an open razor blade...

So the fight breaks out. Eyeglasses are cracking, flat caps are falling, messenger bags are dropping, and razor blades are flying -- all right next to my face. Weirddude decides to slide over to get out of the way, and I decide to help him. I duck behind the pole and shove weirddude over so I can slip around the back of the pole to safety (ish). If I had gone around the front of the pole I would have undoubtedly become one with the razor blade. Now you, dear reader, understand my immediate proximity to the flying blade. Also it immediately occurred to me that a guy crazy enough to play with a razor on a Muni bus would probably have a knife on his person. Thus, I had no difficulty rationalizing my shoving weirddude in order to make my escape to safety.

Crazydude and his girl and one of their friends all got off the bus. I got off at the subsequent stop and had dinner with my friends. I wouldn't be lying, though, if I admitted to being slightly shaken by the series of events.

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Just moments ago, however, I became aware that this series of events made the headlines in the San Francisco Examiner: here are the two stores you must read. Also, my intuition was right...apparently the guy across from me (besides having the light of day beat out of him) was stabbed by crazydude twice - in the shoulder and the waist.

Story 1

Story 2

For now I will live to see the light (and fog) of another (cold) Summer day. Call me crazy for not helping hero-man, but I'm smart enough to stay away from anyone as crazy as razor-blade-holding crazydude on the 29 bus to Sunset.

So, lesson learned. No my city-smarts know tell me to look before I sit.