Goin off the rails on a crazy train

I tell you what — there is a whole lot more crazy on BART than there is on the commuter bus from the burbs.

I missed my damn-ass bus this morning, the one that takes me straight downtown to within a couple blocks of work, and had to take the other bus to BART, and thence to the last SF stop. So right after I get on the damn train, some guy gets on, an older guy with one of those little carts that homeless people and old women use for their stuff.

He sits down and starts this SCREAMING ARGUMENT with … no one. In Spanish. Staring into the middle distance, furious. And keeps it up non-stop, probably till the end of the line (he was still going strong when I got off). People were giving him space — I guess because of the sheer volume, but also to give themselves a fighting chance if The Crazy (Screaming Variety) suddenly turned into The Dangerous Crazy (Physical Confrontation Variety). Ipods were deployed (mine at full volume). Books were opened and stared at. Backs were partially turned. No one said anything, though (in New York, at least in my years there, somebody would probably at least have said “Shut the fuck up, man!” or something). Mostly, people were trying to pretend he didn’t exist.

That is a stressful way to start the day, y’all. This kind of thing never happens on the commuter bus — it ain’t sexy, but at least it ain’t crazy.