Redline (Part 1)

My daily commutes on the Metro Red line end up being my vehicle to putting a lot of things into perspective. Everyday, I wake up and take the bus to Twinbrook station. Luckily, my bus stop is directly outside my front door, so it’s a pretty easy walk. Once I the bus arrives, I start my morning rituals. The first one is a folksy comment to the bus driver on the way into the bus. It has to be something quick and old timey, so not to upset the people waiting behind me to get on the bus
Ex. Hot enough for ya?
Cold enough for ya? Rough game on Sunday, huh?
How’s the (wife, old man, mother, partner, cat) doing?
Bitches is crazy, huh?

My theory is if I make a connection with them, they’ll love me. That love leads directly to my Ride-on driver thinking twice the next time I’m running behind the bus screaming for it to stop and take me to the station/ home.

En route, I search for a discarded newspaper on the bus so that I can read a little and begin my daily crossword puzzle. Both of these things are essential to the illusion of unfriendliness, but I’ll come back to that later. I try to sit in the middle of the bus because I favor the chairs that point forward over the ones that put my back against the side of the bus. I have a waking fear that if the bus were to be attacked by, lets say, ninja assassins, they would enter the bus via super kick to the side windows and then what? I would just look foolish with an open back to a ninja assassin’s super kick and ninja stars If there’s one thing this Trinidadian doesn’t do, its look foolish

to a ninja assassin.


Once I get to Twinbrook station, I play it polite and let one of the old ladies or men get off the bus before me. Why only one, you ask? Because if you give a mouse a cookie, it’s going to fuck in your house and leave mouse babies everywhere. If you let anymore

than one senior citizen off, they’ll ( all of the old people on the bus) will sense your weakness and push pass you. Even worse, one may walk with you from the bus to the station and precipitate a topical conversation about the “weather” or “ the way things use to be”. No thank you, elder statesman or woman! Hence the strategizing my exit from the bus. I let the one pre-baby boomer off of the bus and promptly pop in my head phones. As I step off the bus, I turn on my “Aggressive “ playlist and turn it to the red. Not because I enjoy listening to “ Smack my Bitch up” in the early morning hours or potentially surrendering my hearing to Apple, but because it makes me seem completely insane to any

one around me for the rest of my commute. Remember, the goal is for all strangers to stay away by maintaining the illusion of unfriendliness.

As I make my way into the Station, I start to channel the Matrix ( the first one, not the two crappy ones that followed) because of the eternal newspaper war that is fought at each and every station the Metro services. Is it going to be the Express or the Examiner? Red pill or Blue pill? Blonde or Brunette? Boxers or Briefs? Jacob or Edward?

The Express Lady and the Examiner Lady stand about 10 feet away from each other every morning and they are cold and they are calculating and they are evil. They make you choose which poison, which pill. So sometimes the pressure of my impending choice gets to be too much and I breakdown, right there in the middle of the two increasingly bewildered ladies, and I sob. I sob for missed opportunities, for lost love, for broken hearts but most importantly, I sob for these ladies. Frank Lucas and Nino Brown over there are dealing their drug of choice to the people and the people like it. Fives minutes, 60 confused stares, and one concerned station manager later, I pick myself up and get an Express from the lady on the left. I like their Celebrity News section in the back and its been waay too long since I’ve had an update on the who Tiger Woods is fucking…..