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New York Moments and Pixel Dust

I love New York Moments. They drop into your life when you least expect them. You can't find then when you want to. You never anticipate them. But just when you are completely absorbed into your daily routine, with not a thought of a New York Moment, one will descend as if from heaven

So it was for me last Friday. The end of the working week. Same old, same old. On the bus up Third Avenue to the weekend and home.

I was sitting in the back of the back section of the bus - it was one of those long busses that look like two busses joined tend-to-end. So I was a long way from the driver. It was this, and the fact that I was absorbed in my book, Sarah Water's Affinity, that I didn't hear the New York Moment begin.

We seemed to be stopped at a red light for ages. I hadn't looked up, being too deep in my novel, but I could sense the bus was stationary. And then, raised voices started to intrude into my mind which had been happily immersed envisaging the heroine and her Crivelli angel lover.

Now raised voices are not unusual on a New York bus, but this, plus the fact that other bus commuters were stopping their New York bus activities - stopping the clipping of toenails, the talking into cell phones, the twitching to the stimulating rhythms of their Ipods, the reading of the Wall Street Journal, the applying makeup, the drinking of coffee - forced me to take note.

I asked the man next to me what was going on. "Nothing much, just a lunatic having a fit," he answered. So I decided to find out for myself, and joined the growing number of the bus's passengers who were either leaving by the back exit, or making their way up the bus toward the driver.

Apparently the bus had swerved slightly to avoid a car that had cut it off. A female pedestrian had been forced to step back off the curb, and had become irate. She had not been hit but had decided it was the bus driver's fault, and had halfway boarded the bus and verbally abused the bus driver. He couldn't leave with half of her in and part of her out of the doorway, and so she continued to abuse him, threatening to sue him blah blah blah. She'd then called 911 and left.

I thought it was over, but no. As 911 had been called we all had to get off the bus and wait for the police.

About fifty tired New Yorkers on a sidewalk. A bus blocking traffic. What was there to do but the New York thing - DISCUSS.

By the time three stressed-out police officers arrived it was on for one and all. Particularly voluble was a wild-looking young black woman, her braided and beaded hair sticking out at all possible angles. She was arguing with another ex-passenger as to the rights and wrongs of the 'Moment'.

I admired her. Such energy and commitment to her cause. The bus driver was collecting names to support his case. The police officers were looking for an injured woman. I was talking to the elderly woman next to me who was annoyed that she was missing "America's Most Wanted" on the telly.

"She's gone, she's gone, she wasn't hurt at all!" shrieked the wild young woman. She could not contain her excitement and was jumping up and down at the end of each hurried sentence.

All three policemen were enthralled by her. Even the crowd quietened.

A middle-aged woman interrupted her flow, and commented, "Well if the bus driver hadn't refused to give his badge number ..."

Clearly annoyed by the interruption, one of the officers turned and snapped, "Were YOU involved in this incident?" "No, well yes, I was at the front of the bus and heard it all and I am in fact a witness FOR the driver. I just think ..." she answered. The bus driver butted in, "I don't have to give anyone my number!" And it was on again.

The crowd was divided into two groups. The yes he should have given his badge number" group and the "no way should he have given his badge number group".

The police officers were getting nowhere. The wild young thing had turned her attention from them to argue with an aging hippie. The elderly woman was arguing with the middle aged woman. A passer-by lost control of two dobermans she'd been walking and a small poodle had decided to take them on. Three 'brothers' were advising the bus driver, also black, on how to compose himself in order that he would be even halfway respected.

"Was any one actually hurt?" one officer managed to be heard above the din. "Oh no", we cried in a surprising display of solidarity. "Nothing really HAPPENED!"

The policemen stared at us. Nonplussed. And left.

As did I. I walked home. But on the way, I looked back a few times. They were all still there, arguing now about the attitude of the police, commuter rights, Iraq and god knows what.

New Yorkers. Gotta love 'em!

Pixel Dust

Well I HAD been going to write about the travesty of pixels. But perhaps I'll leave it till next time. You might want to check out www.australiabypixels.com. Personally I am sick and tired of pixels. I spend all week looking at them. Enough is enough. I am all pixelled out. And so ....
Till next time,

Kate Juliff
New York
January 2006