Riding the Rocket: Better than Springer

The 24-hour Yonge St. bus is endearingly known as the "Vomit Comet" to anyone who has braved the bar-closing rush. As a late-night server, I get to ride it regularly. Lucky me! For some people, this would be a very unpleasant experience. For me, it's often the highlight of the night. As an avid eavesdropper, I appreciate that my job is made that much easier by the way that people seem to lose control over the volume of their voices, once they've had a few drinks. Still, nothing much has ever happened, beyond getting to hear about people's crazy nights, embarrassing make-out sessions, and catfights.

Last night was an exception. Or should I say, EXCEPTIONAL.

When I approached the bus, there were two 21-year old girls arguing over fare with the driver. I scooched past them, flashing my transfer, expecting to be on my way north in no-time. Well. I arrived just in time. From my elevated seat at the back of the bus I had the perfect view of what nearly morphed into a riot.

The argument was small and not entirely important. The two young ladies (who inappropriately referred to everyone they spoke to as "sweetheart") insisted that they'd purchased 2-day passes earlier that day, but that whoever sold the passes to them, punched the wrong date, making their passes immediately invalid. The driver refused to let them on, because their passes were invalid. Now, for some reason, rather than either kicking the girls off the bus or just letting them have a free ride, the driver just sat there, as the girls yelled their heads of at her. "What an outrage! I'm a 21-year old girl and I have to make it home to Markham! I bought this pass TODAY! I'm not paying a fucking penny! I paid NINE DOLLARS for this!!" It gradually became more and more dramatic. They soon claimed to have no money on them. Then they threw in that they were approached/talked to by some dodgy looking characters on the street. Which soon became an insistence that they were almost raped.

The real excitement came when a surly looking 60-something-year-old drunk lady with clown-ish makeup and a rolling backpack jumped into the action. She was sitting directly behind the driver and took the role of the voice of the crowd, throwing out various complaints, spaced a few seconds apart, as though she actually was several different people. "Let's GOOOOO!!!" "Come ON ladies! Pay the fucking fare!" "I'm going to miss my connecting bus!" "What the fuck is the driver doing?? Just let the dumb bitches on! We've gotta get moving!" "That's it. We're alll witnesses. Let's all write complaints to the TTC. COME ON! Let's all write about what an outrage this is!!"

Carla (she looked like a Carla to me), prompted the remaining passengers to stifle laughs and give each other "what the fuck is going on?" glances at each other.

The girls kept going. Soon they turned on Carla.

Carla: "That's it. Let's kick them off the bus!! Come on everybody!"
Vocal Girl: "Ohhh sweetheart. Just try! Come on. Just try to touch me."

A few people suddenly stand up. Another bus is approaching. Freedom! But it pulls around us, and drives past.

Our driver makes an announcement: "This bus is now out of service."

The crowd is not happy. Now it is actually affecting their travel plans. Lots of grumbles as they exit the bus. One man is shaking his head at the girls and Vocal Girl attacks. The fight is spreading.

Carla continues her verbal assault from the street. "Get off the bus, you cows! Look at her, she's so ugly! She [Vocal Girl] looks 70 years old with her giant tits hanging down! What an ugly cow!" Hilarious comment. Coming from a woman who is actually nearing 70 and probably has very saggy tits.

"She's not a cow, she's a real woman," - gay Phillippino.

An off-duty TTC employee is quietly watching, refusing to become involved. Someone starts backhandedly criticizing him. "I'm just trying to get home, you know." "Me too," he responds.

Now we've been here a couple minutes. Some new, naive arrivals, shuffle past the crowd and try to board the empty bus. Three of them are a group of tipsy frat boys. They weren't born with a capacity for patience.

"What did these girls do? Obviously they did something really bad. Right!? They did something bad. Come on everybody! Let's get them off the bus. Hey you stupid girls! Get off the bus! We all want to go home!" Carla is loving this. They high-five her. At this point, several people are yelling. Frat boys are rallying, Carla is practically singing insults, and the girls are standing their ground, fighting back Springer-style. The rest of us were either watching silently in shock (like me), mumbling and grumbling to each other, or throwing some random shouts of support here and there.

I couldn't help think about what a strange community we'd created. Certainly not a peace-loving one. It made me think of Lost - what if you were put in a situation with complete strangers - and were forced to live together. Or go through some traumatic experience together. Usually I imagined it would bring you together, no matter your background. This certainly did not.

"Relax guys, stop fighting! Look, there's another bus coming, let's all just go home." - Gay Philippino.

Attention is diverted, for all but those directly involved in the shouting match. Two buses pull up, I run to the second one, which is nearly empty, along with about 4 other people. By the next stop, I can't even pick them out from the rest of the crowd that hops on. We return to normalcy.