public transportation...or the royal baby.

Public Transportation; or, People Are People

The first time I moved a long distance from where I grew up, I thought people would somehow be different. Like going from suburbia Ohio to Chicago--nope Midwestern through and through. Go to a spendy restaurant in Chicago and the waitress/waiter looks just like the one off interstate 71 and route 18's Big Boy.

Ok, Midwest is Midwest...so California, here I come. The Romanian family downstairs and across the courtyard resembled my friend's family in Valley City whose dad could be seen in the neighborhood with a beat up old pick-up truck piled high with scrap metal. In Anaheim, the Romanian family, the Moise's, it was a beat up old mini-van and it was stuffed each weekend with scrap cardboard.

Growing up in Ohio people would drive by and hate on you—a finger or a scowl—demonstrated that it wasn't you they hated but their own lives. In Florida once, when I was riding over the Harbor Bridge on my bike, a guy in a pick-up threw a McDonald's medium sized soda at me. I flew the bird at him and as I crested the bridge and began coasting down the other side, I could see the guy in the pick-up who'd just hurled his drink at me standing in the parking lot at the bottom waiting. That's some typical mid-west shit, but instead this was "paradise," as I'd heard so many people refer to Florida.

The first time I saw a homeless person was in Toronto. I was like ten, our family was spending a couple days in town and it was our first night in the city. We'd just left a Chinese restaurant and walking back to our hotel and I was lagging behind everyone, generally being amazed by the Toronto night and saw a raggedy looking guy sitting against a building begging. I turned, flipped a quarter to him and he winked at me and smiled. When I lived in Long Beach I met and befriended a guy named Pedro. He had a dog and liked Popov Vodka. I used to get him a pint every weekend. I was poor, he was homeless. He was always just outside a drugstore every Friday night and every Friday night I'd get him a pint and we'd talk. In Portland, I knew Jimmy, he hung out in the Park Blocks and I'd smoke him out whenever I saw him. By the time I moved to Florida, I was becoming as old, or older than the homeless people I'd run across. I knew a couple guys who'd set up home behind a tiki-bar down the road from where I lived. I would go get a drink, stop by the liquor store and walk back behind the strip mall and sit under the stars with French and Bongo, like those two guys from Of Mice and Men.

This is one of the things I miss about speaking fluently, I can't indulge in my past-time of getting to know a guy. Here in Berlin, a guy sits on my street corner in a wheelchair with signs strategically placed on his person and chair, "bottles," "change," "cans," etc...I often wonder what he would do if I grabbed his change and ran. Most beggars kneel on a rug or mat, and hold out their hands in front of them in an ascetic and submissive pose. I don't get to talk to these people because I can’t convey subtleties. At the park where I read a lot, a guy comes by frequently and stops and talks to me in German and I try to understand him but it's an uphill struggle and despite my, "Ich weiss kein deutsch," he continues to talk to me, as if I'm not telling him the truth. I'm glad he persists—it helps us both.

In Prague they kneel and lean their upper bodies forward with their foreheads pressed upon the pavement in front of them, arms outstretched cupping a hat or cup in their hands, in a tortuous devotion to their unworthiness. In LA, they approach you aggressively. In Portland they are in packs and don't really ask for anything, the kids do, but they all have homes and family who love them. In New York and Chicago they always try to provide a service, wash your windows or shine your shoes. In Florida, they sell you crap, like bags of oranges. Everywhere though—they hold signs, people laugh and are more generous with the honest ones, "need a beer."

I've taken public transportation in every place I've lived. Public trans in America, with few exceptions, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, and New York, is relegated to the people who can't afford their own car. In LA, if you're standing at a bus stop, you endure a stream of down cast and condescending glances and stares. You wait in the heat next to a pole that may or may not have a sign, likely doesn't have a bench, and almost certainly no shelter, and the schedule is more like a cruel hoax than a tool for punctuality. Waiting for a bus in LA should be approached in a Zen way. Having to rely on the bus means you have nothing to do that needs to be done on time. If you have a job and use the bus, you pretty much have to afford two hours each way for travel time because most of that will be spent waiting for a bus to arrive. And the people who are on the bus are miserable creatures and bat-shit crazy.

Portland was the first place I took public transportation with which people used and relied on as a form of transportation. They have buses, trains, and trams that all pretty much run according to schedule. I used to marvel at the number of conversations I would get into with people on the bus or train. Most definitely there are some loons on the bus here too. One time I saw this couple, a fat black mama was cuddling a small, a tiny little white man in a beard, he nuzzled her bosom and she cradled him as a mother does her child. She wore a spaghetti strap tank-top and Daisy Dukes—they looked, together as one, like a tube of soft cheese had burst at the seams.

I remember once waiting to catch the last line out of the Portland Bus Mall out to Southeast. It was fall, and the wind cut through the mall catching autumn leaves and trash alike. The marquee was flickering on and off and I couldn’t discern the time table. I waited and waited until finally I determined that I'd missed the last bus out for the night. It was two AM, I walked the 28 blocks and then some to my place.

I was living in Portland when they began the remodel of the Bus Mall, they were also adding a couple lines to the tram and train system. Everyone, no matter where you live, bitches about construction. By the time Portland was refurbishing its transportation I was fluent with the system so figuring out the detours was a matter of a slight, easy adjustment. I've visited Portland since the renovations and it's impressive. But in Berlin where construction is a way of life, reading the detours is considerably more challenging and frustrating. However, familiarity has made it relatively painless. Especially since I've realized that construction is less of a reaction to something broken and more a proactive approach resembling upkeep and maintenance. In Berlin, they don't "repair,” they maintain on a schedule. They don't wait for it to break, they keep it in good running condition on a rotating schedule and little spots are shut down and re-routed. In the major stations there are signs in English and German, even workers who speak both languages are standing around waiting to help, albeit, resentfully, should they have to speak English.

The resentment is tiring. Especially since most Germans are wearing American-style clothing, listening to American music, and saying American pop-signature idioms, like YOLO. One thing I find particularly disturbing is the Johnny Cash shirts sold at Primark...do they even know who Johnny Cash is?

German public transportation is amazing. I can get by train or bus to any location in Germany. Any small town or village anywhere in Germany is accessible by train or bus....anywhere! And, if you compare any public transportation system in any American city, or for that matter, any other country in Europe, the German system is remarkably dependable. And yet, all Germans bitch about it. They all hate it. You see it in their faces as they ride...and they all ride...everyday, everywhere.

And yet, it's as if they have no idea how it works. Some stations are busy, others not so busy, and in all of them it’s as if all the people are riding the train for the first time. You come to a stop and the people waiting to get off have to activate the doors, otherwise, if no one is getting on or off, the doors remain closed. At all stations, the people inside the train are generally the ones who press the button to open the door. People pile up at the doors upon approach and incessantly press the button until it opens, even before the train has come to a complete stop, and then rush out stepping on old and young in an effort to get to the stairs first. Meanwhile, the people waiting to get on the train are shoving into the cars. In busy stations it's a comedy to watch—an epic battle to be first...to where? god knows.

The thing that's most strange about this entire battle is that this is not an automated system. The doors need to be activated by people getting off or on, and the conductor, a human, is monitoring this back and forth. If the station is very busy, the conductor watches and waits for the transition and if you're standing there waiting to board, you really don't have to worry, the conductor will wait. Yes—if you are dashing down the stairs and the platform is clear, and you are hurling your body at a closing door, the conductor will laugh inwardly and watch as you curse and flail obscene gestures—and away the train will go. But, if the train is packed, and you’re lodged behind a stroller, a couple bikes and an old blind wizard, you will have to "entschuldigung" your way out of the train, and some people who are not intending to get off but are close to the door, will have to step out and let you through, and then those boarding will shove the people who generously stepped aside back into the train as the battle continues. But, this is not their first time on this trip. Everyone has been the person shoved away from the door—felt the desperation as they try to get out. So why, for god's sake, why doesn’t everyone just relax and let the system work. A pile of people standing on the platform, patiently waiting for off-loaders, will not go unseen by the conductor. He will wait. The people who want to get on—just wait until the off-loaders get out, so fear doesn’t strike their hearts every time they want to get out of a crowded car.

At times I find myself getting caught up in it, and it's embarrassing. There are stops that I am very familiar with and I know whether or not I should be at the front or back of the train in order to gain access to the best exit from the platform. I can tell if the train is short or long, which cars will have more people, and how to maneuver a bike on and off in Neukoln or Kreuzberg during rushour. I have a tremendous bell on my bike and when I'm in the mood I use this bell, and it sounds like that Dukes of Hazard horn muscle cars of my youth used to blow obnoxiously throughout the neighborhood. I smile broadly and people stare and scowl at me and I revel in my glory.