Andrew J. Lederer

the chinatown bus to dc, an extremely large black man made unfortunate contact with me, seemingly unaware that his size and haste didn't work well on these city streets.

when i got to the bus, at the very last minute, i saw that he had been rushing there too.

he got on just ahead of me and by the time i made it to a seat, he was, for reasons unknown to me, refusing to give the bus company woman his ticket.

he began whining like a sniveling, little weakling about there being too little space for his enormous frame, like he was on the acela express and not a cheap-ass, halfway illegal, immigrant conveyance

then he searched for a better spot (as if there was variable spacing, seatwise) and finally moved behind me as i had not yet placed my seat in the reclining position and he figured that meant space.

helpfully, i warned him that once we were underway, i would be pushing my seat back, so if that factored into his move, he should, perhaps, recalculate.

the seemingly-oblivious-to-his-size giant pouted something along the lines of, "you don't care if someone is behind you?"

my answer, perhaps verbatim, was, "that's correct. i don't care." i told him i had paid for a ticket and that i planned to attain the maximum comfort available.

he moved again.

except for the bathroom smell, which didn't bother me much, it was a wonderful ride.