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Right off the bat, it might not seem like a marital dispute between a couple of on-line personalities has anything to do with my commute.  And I admit it’s kind of a stretch, but let me explain. Sometimes during the six-and-a-half miles that I’m on the Greenway, I put in earbuds and listen to an audiobook or a podcast.  I’d prefer, in theory, to be alone with my thoughts, or to be grounded in the moment, observing the world around me, but sometimes in actual practice I find that I want to drown out my thoughts.  And then I will pop in the earbuds and listen to something.

After I discovered the There and Back Again podcast, I listened to The Lord of the Rings (checked out from RB Digital), and then listened to the podcast discussion about it.  It’s almost done — I waited until he finished The Two Towers before I started Return of the King. That was months ago now (it was cold and I was still biking before my accident when I finished it).  He’s almost done with the discussion — no spoilers, but there’s only a couple chapters left, to discuss.

The same guy was doing a Harry Potter podcast, and I listened to that with my daughter.  It was a great activity for car trips — when we drove down to Nebraska for the eclipse, and later up to Glacial Lakes State Park* last fall, we listened to it on the road, and it made the miles fly by.  When I went out of town for work, I called her from the hotel and we listened to it together. When he finished book four, I started reading Order of the Phoenix so I’d be ready when he started, which he did, just a few weeks ago.

And now he’s quit.

And I’m crushed; we both are.

His own statement is that he screwed up his marriage and his ex is posting lies about him, and that in response he’s taking himself out of the public eye.  Which seems unfair; why punish us for what his wife says, was my initial response.

So I read up on what she says.  She says he raped her. And she says he lied to her, manipulated her, psychologically abused her, cheated on her, had a secret life and used her nickname for him as the name of his podcast.  I’m not quite sure why that last is supposed to offend, but there it is.

Anyway, it sounds like he’s pretty bad.

But I do think it’s okay to weigh what a man says in public along with what he does in private.  If I learn that he’s a jerk — for now, I’m just talking about if a guy’s a jerk, and I’ll come back to the worse details later — but he’s still talking a good game — still talking about race and gender in the context of these books, and still talking about the social and political climate today in a positive and thoughtful way, does his being a private asshole negate the good he does?  Some people will say yes, but I don’t agree. I think we are all complex individuals — we contain multitudes, as they say. And since none of us is 100% good or 100% bad, I’m not going to judge a man solely on one aspect of his life.

But we’re talking rape and abuse, here.  And in my world, I believe when a woman stands up and reports a rape or abuse.  Law enforcement statistics (I don’t know how they get these numbers) tell me that false reports of rape are pretty rare (though not unheard of).  I don’t watch Cosby anymore because he disgusts me; do I want my daughter’s childhood to be spent listening to a man who is a closet rapist, the way I did?  I adored Cosby. We had two or three of his albums and listened to the, over and over; I had some of those stories practically memorized. Finding out the truth about him was like losing abig chnk of my childhood.  

So I went back the next day and read a little more about what Stephens’s ex-wife had to say.  And what I found is that in addition to her fourteen point manifesto or whatever, she also has posted a continuous stream of tweets exhorting her fans to call him out on social media.  But call him out with kindness, she tells her fans. Approach him like someone you care about, she says.

She says her husband gaslighted her throughout her marriage, and then she gaslights her fans.  She pretends to be a kind and forgiving person, who just wants to help him be a better person, while all the while organizing a barrage of online harassment that has destroyed his career.

I haven’t figured out yet what I’m going to tell my kid about all this.  

I’m really glad to be living in an era where women can stand up and speak publicly about rape, abuse, and harassment.  I’m glad to be raising my daughter in an error where there are words for the things that happen to women, and where she is learning tools to defend herself.

But not all abuse is equal.  Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby aren’t equal to Al Franken.  Lives are being ruined and careers destroyed on the basis of a word.  And when Lani Rich organizes a group of online vigilantes to systematically harass and abuse her ex-husband, and ultimately destroy his career, I don’t know that she’s making the world a better place.

Meanwhile, I’ve got six-and-a-half miles of straightaway ahead of me.  And damn, I miss listening to those podcasts.

Tips for other literary discussion podcasts welcome.

Thanks.

I asked my daughter the other day if she was interested in Viking.

I meant to ask if she was interested in going over to the hill by Celtic Junction on our bikes, but when I dictated the text, Google thought I said “Viking,” and then I tapped “Send” without reading it, because what’s the point of using the Google Assistant and Voice to Text if you then have to look down at your screen anyway.  

Though I do, I must confess, look at my screen sometimes when I’m biking.  My Endomondo app is set to keep the screen on so if I set it before I leave, I can just glance down at the screen and see how far I’ve come and how fast I’m going.  But if I leave that screen — if I want to make a phone call, say, then the standard time-out settings come into play, and I have to do the little double-tap thing that never quite works until about the fifth time I do it, and then swipe my security pattern and I have to swipe it correctly before the screen times out, otherwise I have to start tapping again to turn it on.  So then I try to get back to Endomondo right away to prevent it from locking again.

I have timed myself doing this.  It seems to take about eight seconds.

I’ve observed how far I go in eight seconds.  

Of course I look up a bunch during those eight seconds because I don’t want to drive off the road, or hit someone.

But let’s be real.  During those eight seconds my attention is split, and things are happening around me that I’m not noticing.  

If I’m approaching the place where the Greenway crosses Minnehaha, I remind myself to focus on the road and not be distracted by my phone, but let’s be real — even if I look up at the street and put both hands on the handlebars, some of my mind is thinking about the text I just got from my daughter, and not thinking about the traffic.  

If I were to die doing something as stupid as texting while biking, what would my daughter think of me?  So I swear I’m not going to do it again, but then, after I’ve crossed the Sabo bridge, and I’m back on the straight-away, I turn the phone back on — just to check my time.  And then, because my daughter texted me, and I want to make sure I’m accessible to her as she navigates her adolescence, I want to read it right away.

“Hey Google — read text messages.”

Samuel Hicks, they say, was looking down at his phone for eight seconds while driving down Highway 36 last March.  He probably believed that he was glancing up often enough to see what was in front of him. Especially since he was on the straight away.

Went to Rob’s funeral in Amery this weekend.  It was good to see family, to reconnect with some old friends, and meet some new people.  But wouldn’t a wedding have served just as well?

Don’t text and drive, folks.

There’s a woman who always eats breakfast on the bus. She doesn’t ride every day, but when she does, she eats breakfast.

She’s younger than I am — thirtyish, I’d say, and she looks like she’s been through some stuff. You know, kind of pockmarked skin, and healed up piercings, and a hand done tattoo on her wrist. Now she’s got spiky dyed red hair, and just a few earrings, and she’s dressed in scrubs. She always gets off over by Fairview Hospital, so I think she works there. An MA is my guess; I feel like she draws blood for lab tests, and checks blood pressure. No injections — she doesn’t feel like a nurse to me. More like someone who went through the MA program when she was getting her life back on track. Maybe she’ll go to nursing school later.

Anyway, a few times a week, when I get on the 67 in the morning, she is there, in the seat I like — the one right behind the back door, where you have a good view of the whole bus, and no one sitting right in front of you. She slips out of the sleeves of her parka, and spreads a dish towel across her lap. Then she gets out her breakfast. She is often finishing her boiled egg by the time I see her, spreading a little jam on her toast. She has fruit too — I’ve seen an apple core, and a few stray berries in her little plastic tubs. Other days she’ll have sausage or bacon with scrambled eggs on a plate, that she eats neatly with a knife and fork. I’ve checked — there are never any crumbs or stains on her towel.

When we get across the river, she takes one last sip of her drink, and then packs away her dishes, putting any trash neatly in a little pouch. Then she folds up the towel, slips her arms back into her sleeves, and zips up the parka.  By the time we get to the hospital, she’s bundled up with her backpack on.  She slips out the backdoor of the bus, and then I lose sight of her.

I’d feel good about her taking my blood pressure.  I think my blood pressure would be pretty low.  I’d be looking at her spiky dyed hair and pockmarked face, and be glad that she’s doing so well these days.

There was a drunk guy waiting for the #2 the other morning, down below the LRT stop on Franklin. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say he was drunk as though it’s a fact instead of a guess. I’ve been pretty unsteady on my feet since my accident, and people watching me totter across uneven pavement with patches of ice and snow might think I’m intoxicated too. But anyway, this guy, who was so wrapped up in winter gear that all I could see of him was his giant black moustache, dropped a backpack, a suitcase, and a plastic bag next to the bus stop sign, and then reeled over to a near by bench for a quick cigarette, but as soon as he got it lit, the bus came through the intersection, so he only had time for one puff before he pulled himself to his feet, and went to retrieve his bags.

I lost track of him after that, as I picked my way across the ice to get to the bus, and then pulled myself on to it. For some reason, all the #2 drivers I’ve encountered so far are jerks. A crabby subpopulation. Not saying it’s cause and effect; could just be coincidence. But there it is. He’s a crab. He never lowers the step for me, or for anyone else who needs it, whether they have canes or walkers, or piles of packages, or prominent limps. He has a long, narrow face, with a narrow frown, and his eyes don’t even flicker in response to a “Good morning,” or a “Thank you.” I always say “Good morning,” or “Thank you,” to him anyway; I quit saying it to one of drivers on my old route, but I always felt bad about that.

After I settled myself in to my seat, about half way back (I know the seats in the front are designated for people with mobility issues, but the sideways jostling when the bus starts and stops is painful to my hip, so I sit further back), the driver spoke. It was the first time I heard him speak, not just that morning, but ever, but I had the feeling he was continuing a conversation that had already started. “You gonna pay?” he asked.

“I got a transfer.” This was from the person in front of me. It was a high pitched petulant voice with a little hoarseness in it from years of smoking, and I thought at first it was a woman. I didn’t notice the backpack and suitcase and plastic bag right away, so I didn’t realize it was my moustached friend from the bus stop.

“Bring it up here,” the driver said.

“I had a transfer but I threw it away,” the moustache man said.

“Well then you gonna get off,” the driver told him.

“I can’t get off, I gotta get to treatment,” Moustache said. “I’m starting treatment today.”

The driver was silent, but he opened the bus door.

“I been drunk 18 years. I start treatment today.”

“You either pay or get off,” the driver said.

“But if I don’t get to treatment,” Moustache began, but the driver cut him off.
“Oh, forget it,” he said, closing the door and pulling the bus away from the curb.

There was a moment of silence, and then the Moustache Man said, “No, you forget it. Just let me off this bus.” He started gathering his bags, and trying to get to his feet. The bus kept moving. He stopped to ring the bell, but the driver didn’t stop. “No, you want to put me off, then put me off,” Moustache said. “I ain’t gonna ride this bus. Guess I’m just not going to make it to treatment today.” He jerked at the rope to ring the bell again, but it’s designed to only ring once. “Put me off!” he insisted. The driver had passed two intersections without stopping, but now there was a passenger waiting. When he pulled to the curb to let the new passenger on, Moustache grabbed his bags and bustled off, still shouting, “I just won’t make it to treatment today, because of you!”

I wondered, briefly, why he was still trying to get off the bus after he won the argument. But then I realized just how much he was about to lose. Showing up for treatment would mean giving up that warm security blanket of boozed he’d carried with him for 18 years. Watching the bus door close, and that momentary feeling of, “Ha! I won that one! Now I’m on my way to treatment,” segued into a feeling of, “Dear god, what have I done. Now I’m on my way to treatment.”

I imagine him later that day, or later in the week, running into one of his workers who wonders why he no showed at the treatment center. “I was on my way, but I couldn’t find my transfer, and the driver put me off,” he tells them. “I would have made it, but the driver put me off.”

Sean answered the phone the other night to me saying I thought I might have wiped out on the Greenway. He asked where I was, and I expressed some surprise at finding myself at Lake and Cedar, waiting for the 21A.

I can’t swear to what might have happened, but the whole left side of my body is bruised and scraped, and my bike helmet is…well…I guess you could say it is bruised and scraped too.

Somehow, I got home. Me and my bike both. Actually, I went to Midway, and Sean walked over to get me. I remember he said he was going to leave me at CVS while he went to get the car, and I was terrified, so he took me over to Josh McCabe’s house instead, and from there took my bike home, and came back to get me in the car. Josh had me check for my phone and wallet, so no reason to think I’ve been robbed. The doctor asked me if the bike looked like a car had driven over it (which it didn’t). It’s a strange feeling to think I could have been mugged or in a car accident and not remember…although since neither of those things did happen, maybe I would have remembered.

I saw an anarchist running on the Greenway tonight.  He has long dark hair, faded black pants, and was wearing an enormous backpack and combat boots.

I watched him for a while — he was running pretty fast, heading east, the same direction I bike in the evenings, so I had plenty of time to observe as I approached him from behind.  My first thought was, “Why is that guy running dressed like that?” and then I thought maybe he was just in a hurry.  But he was running at a steady pace, relaxed posture, never checking what time it is.  Just running.  Running with excellent runner’s form.  I should try to run like him, except without the enormous backpack and the combat boots.

So I guess he’s preparing for the revolution, or the collapse of society or something.  Maintaining his fitness level so he can fight when needed.  I’ve never seen an anarchist running before — not in the 80s when the Rebel Anarchist Bowling League (RABL) was marching in the streets; not in the 90s, when they were occupying the Armory, demanding housing for homeless; not in 2001, when George W. Bush was in office and the Patriot Act was born.  I’ve never seen an anarchist running before, but these are dire times, and it’s good to be ready.

 

How does a car drive through a bus?  Through it?  Some guy on Charles Avenue — no, wait, let me say that differently:  Some guy on the Charles Avenue Bike Boulevard, where I bike, and tons of other people bike, and kids play in the street, was going I-don’t-know-how-fast, hit the median strip and launched across Dale, where he struck the side of a #65 and continued through it, and out the other side.

I feel this when I think about it.  I literally feel it.  I feel myself flying through the air, not know what’s happening, just me not on my bike any more.  I told Sean I’d like to think that if I’m killed in a horrible accident, my last thoughts would be of him and R., but I’m pretty sure if I get hit by a car going 70 miles per hour on the Charles Avenue Bike Boulevard, my last thought will be, Huh?

On my way to work today, my subconscious took me on another route.  I think my brain couldn’t face the scene first thing in the morning, and it took me down Edmund instead, which I didn’t even realize until I was trying to cross Lexington and there wasn’t a curb cut at the intersection.

On the way home this afternoon barriers were up to block cars from Charles, and folks were setting up tables and chairs.  Just as I rode past, they started up the sound system, with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”  A white guy from Minneapolis comes over and plows through our street? Yeah, I call that violence.

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today.

Guy got on the bus with his pants so low he had to do the splits to keep them on while he was looking through his pockets for his transfer, and he almost fell over when the bus pulled away, due, I think, to being high. I watched when he got off the bus, humming and dancing, and I was thinking that if he’s going to dance in the middle of Rice St. in this weather, he should really put gloves on, and then just as I had that thought, his pants fell down.

One of the international student was late this morning, but her friend said she was coming, so the driver waited. We could see her coming, two blocks away, running down the middle of the street. She slipped on the ice, and fell once. Cheers broke out among the passengers when she got to her feet. The streets are narrow; cars were lining up behind her. She started to move towards the sidewalk but the driver — it’s the Laid Back Rage Man — shouted at her to stay in the street. “The sidewalks are too slippery!” He pulled out to block the intersection so no one could come at her from the other end…

And she made it!

Standing ovation from the passengers!

This is too much for me first thing in the morning!

Sarah has said she loves my bus updates…so I am taking that as encouragement: 
 
The story begins downtown, at a busy stop.  A sweet faced two year old girl boards alone, and makes herself comfortable.  She is followed by several adults who have no apparent interest in her or attachment to her. And finally, Mom boards, struggling with a stroller. The stroller proves to contain an infant, who fusses a bit beneath her many blankets, but is easily soothed, and the toddler nestles in next to her Mom, and closes her eyes.
 
Next stop: a man boards, holding a cell phone up to his ear, his head tucked down in his coat. I can’t see his face. He is tall and thin.  I form no opinion of him at first glance; nothing in particular stands out about him.  He is followed by a woman who flashes a Metro Mobility pass and sits down next to him. Driver asks for ID. She shows hers, but driver says, “What about his ID?” 
“He doesn’t have one, says the woman. “He’s my client.”
“If he doesn’t have ID he has to pay,” says the driver.
“He applied, but it hasn’t come yet, says the woman, henceforth known as the PCA. The driver drives off, but repeats his insistence that the passenger must pay.
 
He’s right, I know; this is stated clearly on the website.
 
The PCA repeats that he applied and it hasn’t come yet. “He’s retarded. Slow.” she says. “It isn’t his fault.”
 
“Yikes!” I think, but client is laughing now. Still has the phone to his ear, and his back to the PCA and driver. I wonder if the phone call is making him laugh, or if he’s laughing at what the PCA said?
 
Driver repeats his insistence on an ID, but is losing credibility as we are now about four blocks from where they boarded. PCA begins to berate driver and ask for his name. He ignores the question, and she berates him further. She pauses, and when met by another silence, begins a foul mouthed tirade.
 
Client laughs uproriously.
 
Another pause.
 
“Please stop talking,” says the driver. “I’ve stopped talking, and you should too.”
 
I love him now. 
 
“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry,” she says.
 
“What!?” I say (but only to myself). Is it an Epiphany Miracle? A peaceful resolution! Rejoice! She takes her seat again, and all is quiet on the bus.
 
Whew. 
 
Now back to our previously mentioned small family: Mom requests a stop. She rouses the dozing two year old, telling her it’s time to get off the bus. When the driver opens the door, the little girl runs off the bus, and disappears into the night. “No!” cries the mom, as she struggles with the stroller. “Wait!!”
 
Now the Client leaps to his feet, and jams his cell phone into his pocket. “Go,” he shouts, and grabs the stroller. She runs after her daughter, and he carries the stroller gently down the steps, and waits, one foot on the bus, one hand on the stroller, for her return.
 
Passengers move towards the door and windows, watching, but it is clear that Client has things under control. Mom returns with toddler by the hand, and retrieves the stroller. Client waves, and returns to his seat. They ride a few more blocks, then PCA requests a stop. As she departs she thanks the driver and assures him she will have Client’s ID next time. 
 
“Client?” I wonder.  Am I the only one wondering?