A Beat on a Bus

I am a sensitive person, which just means that I think things happen to me not due to coincidence, but because I am the only one paying attention. 

I got on the bus and noticed a nun sitting directly across from me. She had a plastic shopping bag in her hand and her legs dangled from her seat above the wheel well. I felt lucky to see a nun on the bus in San Francisco, but then she got off and an older gentleman sat next to me on the half full bus. He started singing “Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison. He snapped his fingers and smelled like he was pickled from alcohol and stale cigarettes.

Soon after his rendition of Orbison subsided he began to talk and it became what I could only understand as an excellent example of Beat poetry. He was speaking in free verse, saying controversial things, all in the vein of personal expression. No one else on the bus seemed to care, but no one else was sitting next to him. Below is the transcription because I recorded it and hope others get a kick out of it and see it ripe with material. (you can listen to it here)

Mailman.

God made the woman for, not animals.

God made the woman for man, yeah. Yeah.

God made the woman for the man, not the animals.

Yeah I said it, you got a problem with that?

God made man first, then he made the woman from the man.

Sometimes the reason I can’t breathe right because the woman came from me.

And sometimes the reason the woman can’t breathe right is because she came from me.

Uh huh ya. It don’t make no sense?

Look, I was born with a dick. 

A penis if you will.

You know I am a doctor and I talk straight.

You can go to the hospital and they will let you out with no paperwork,

But you’re in the system.

And they tried to let me leave without my ID they came back and said, ‘here you go’

I’m like, ‘okay, I know you have my ID. You want me to tear this hospital down to find my ID?’

Seriously.

Seriously.

And then the person says, ‘here you go’

I’m like, ‘well thank you’

Thank you.

Now back to this other part.

I was born with a penis, aka a dick.

Don’t worry about my dick, my dick is good.

Yeah, oh yeah.

I’ll have you feeling like superwoman.

Yeah I said it.

Women want to fly.

You want to fly and I’m looking at you like ‘oh really’

Do it, come on fly.

You can do it.

Anyway so, this where we are.

This where we are.

Where we are is where we gonna go.

And guess where we going?

Past the oceans,

Past the oceans.

See, in heaven the only ocean you have is a holy ocean.

Oh my goodness.

Really?

No disrespect, she will break you off.

Anyway, laughter is a medicine.

I’m a tell you a joke.

Okay, I’m a ask a strong question and guess what you’re not gonna get it.

What’s the strongest number between 1 and 9?

Let me reiterate, what’s the strongest number between 1 and 9?

What’s the strongest number between 1 and 9?

So the strongest number is 1.

1, 2, 3, 4, 1.

I’m just messing with you.

How many 1s in 3?

3, come on.

This is easy.

You know everything in life has movement.

It moves in life.

Not Fillmore.

No.

Fillmore, there’s a hill in Fillmore.

There’s an alley.

And guess what there’s a safeway over the hill.

And guess what?

Is safeway still there?

So, I was child and my grandmother said, ‘Go buy me some cigarettes’

I’m like, ‘okay’

And then I got myself smart, I took one of the cigarettes out of the pack, I smoked it.

I’m like 7 damn near 10.

I smoked that cigarette.

And then when I got back I gave my grandmother the pack she said, ‘why is the pack open?’

Her and her daughter, my mother, asked me I’m like, ‘I don’t know’

This was a lie I told, I said ‘Someone asked me on the street ‘can you have, can I have a cigarette?’

Because you could buy a pack of cigarettes, you know 20 cigarettes in a pack 67 years ago you could do that.

Right here in San Francisco in the Fillmore.

And so when I told my Grandmother the lie, she said ‘no, no no no’

Okay so I said ‘please forgive me.’ 

So I like Fillmore.