The Tomato Insurgency: May 2009

So there was this guy right? And he had this favorite rain jacket, it was triple-layer Gore-Tex and it fit perfectly over a sweater, with pockets in just the right places and pit zips for when it was really hot. Well this guy, he wore his jacket everywhere, just in case it rained, and so he wore it on the city bus one sunny day, and it got caught on a damaged seat back, which opened up a 10cm tear in the flank, which distressed this guy so much that he pulled out his cell phone right there on the bus and called the Transportation Authority to demand recompense.

Now the lady who answered at the TA was not that interested in helping him. As she saw it, people are responsible for their own clothing, on or off TA vehicles and property. But this guy was so attached to his jacket, and so torn-up about the damage, that he was eventually yelling at her about how everyone at the TA was an irresponsible little shit like her and that if he did not receive recompense, he would never ride again, and moreover he would organize a boycott by people who cared about how things ought to be done.

Now remember, he was still riding the bus at this point, trying to get to an Important Appointment, and as he was yelling these vulgarities at close to the top of his lungs, the bus driver could hear what he was saying. Specifically the bus driver could hear what this guy said about TA employees, he heard it over and over in his head and he could not stop hearing it. He could not put it down because, see, this here bus driver was a man who took pride in his work, who saw bus driving not as just a secure job, but as an honorable vocation, with various standards to uphold, and a storied history going way back to stagecoaches in England. This bus driver took pride in his perfect safety record, his directions to travelers, and his ready assistance to the old and infirm among his passengers. He had not once in 17 years of service, called in sick, and he intended to extend that record to to a round 20 and retire knowing in his heart that even if other men could match his performance as a city bus driver, none could exceed him, for his had been a qualitatively and quantitatively perfect record of service.

So anyways, this bus driver was obsessing about what this guy said, about all TA employees being irresponsible shits, and the more he thought about it, the madder he got; because he knew for certain that he was responsible and knew that while his buddies were not his equals in driverhood, that they were still damn good bus drivers and solid boys, not an irresponsible shit among them, for if there were, he certainly would not associate with him. And this bus driver thought to himself that if there was an irresponsible shit in this situation, then he certainly know who it was. And the more this jacket guy yelled at the the TA lady, the more this bus guy built up his head of steam until suddenly, in the middle of Moriarty Boulevard not near any know bus stop or convenient corner, he slammed on the breaks.

The air brakes on this city bus squealed like death and this guy with the ripped jacket lunged forward, catching himself on a seat back but perilously close to smashing his teeth in. He dropped his cell phone, which split apart into casing, circuit board, and button pad. When he recovered his balance, he was fuming so hard he barely got any oxygen from his breath. His carefully cultivated two-day scruff stood out lighter than his darkening crimson face. Now someone was really going to pay, he thought as tears of anger and frustration seeped from the outside corners of his eyes, light brown eyes that his last girlfriend had described as intelligent before he had told her that he didn't know if he could ever love her.

And as this guy approached the front of the bus to tell this irresponsible shit bus driver what for, and to demand recompense for his phone now, in addition to his jacket, this proud bus driver rose with his squarish and immaculate jaw steeled in anger and resolve. His black eyes, which his wife had never described as intelligent, but which she sometimes looked into as she said she loved him, were cold and steady. And this bus driver just opened the door and pointed down the steps and said, "OUT."

Now this was not at all what the jacket wearing guy expected, until he realized that this irresponsible shit bus driver had probably heard some of what he said and was now afraid he would lose his stupid bus-driving job, or at least fall in the eyes of his stupid, bus-dispatching boss. Well, Jacket was gonna set him straight, "You better pay for my stuff," he said, "it got broken on your shitty bus because it's not maintained and you drive it dangerously."

"You get off my bus right now." responds the bus driver.
"You don't seem to understand," replies Jacket, "I've got a very Important Appointment to attend, and I´m doing my best to be Ecological and Sustainable by riding the city bus, this bus here, and it has ruined phone and my jacket, I won't have it making me late as well. Now drive on to Mersona & Mangly if you please. And what am I to do if it rains?" he finishes, holding open the tear in the flank of his formerly perfect purple jacket.

And to that this bus driver says, ¨"It's shitheads like you who take what should be a decent system and make it always late and broken down, calling the bosses around to clean up your messes and watch your own asses for you. Now I don't care about your Gore-Tex jacket or your Important Appointment. You'll be getting off this bus right now or I'll have to make you." And this bus driver just steps up to this guy and grabs his skinny little upper arm to throw him off, but all he gets is jacket. Turns out this jacket guy had been starting to take off his jacket to better see the damage and had gotten so distracted that he put his arm back though the opened pit zip. So when this bus driver goes to pull this guy's arm, he just pulls his jacket right off him, stumbles back at the unexpected ease, and falls awkwardly into the driver's seat.

"Now see here," Jacket is saying, "give that jacket back to me, you can't just hide the evidence, you irresponsible shit, there's this whole fucking bus full of witnesses," and he gestures furiously behind himself at a cowering assortment of TA patrons. And just as he is saying, "And you´ll be hearing from me, probably when your superior fires you." he makes to take his jacket and leave. But this bus driver is still indignantly clutching the arm, vaguely wondering what happened but mostly filled with blinding rage. So this beautiful, triple-layer Gore-Tex jacket is just stretched between these two guys, and the ten centimeter rip is right in the middle of the taught part, and this rip opens slowly as these guys face each other in silent rage. And then this purple rain jacket just splits in two with the high, tight whine of tearing plastic fabric, and this jacket guy falls down the stairs and onto the curb of Moriarty Boulevard, and as he picks himself up and heads of briskly in the wrong direction, he angrily dons the remaining half of his jacket, shoving his other arm right down through the other open pit zip. And after a good three and a half minutes, during which there is no sound on the bus but the whooshes of passing traffic, this bus driver just drives off along his route, his new half-rain-jacket tucked neatly next to his lunch box.

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