There's a lot of bad behavior on Seattle's Metro buses. There are a lot of folks mouthing off at beleaguered drivers; there are drivers who do not preserve order on their buses. There is racial tension aplenty, and lots of generational stuff, too.
Most of the antisocial action takes place later at night, and a goodly percentage of acting out occurs between 2:30 and 4 in the afternoons when the "kids" are dominant as they exit their schools.
But occasionally you can see some pretty cool folks doing some pretty cool things.
On one of the 70s heading downtown from the U District the other day, a few students got on at the last stop before Eastlake. The kids were Ethiopians and they were anything but boisterous.
The bus was crowded, and the one young man waited until the three girls in his group took seats, then started to sit down in the last empty seat on the bus. Next to a well-dressed, bespectacled white man about 50 years old.
"No, you can't sit here," the seated man said, pushing the African student out into the aisle.
"No n- - - - -s," the man said.
There were a few African-American kids on the bus, and the rest of us waited for one of them to act. But none of them said a word.
The driver, an attractive young blonde, obviously did not want to assert herself but must have felt she couldn't just do nothing. So she pulled the bus over to the curb.
The well-dressed racist did not move. The young Ethiopian, befuddled, stood in the aisle. Salvation for those of us trying to get somewhere on time came from an unlikely source, if you believe in bourgeois platitudes like "Clothes make the man."
A tallish (6-foot-1), 170-pounds-or-so white guy, about 40, sporting a long, just-short-of-scraggly beard and a diamond earring, got up from his seat in the back of the bus and tapped the kid on the shoulder.
"Sit there, man," he said.
The African student scurried to the back and sat down. The bearded man walked up and sat heavily next to Mr. Whites Only.
In a clear, deepish voice the bearded guy said, "Don't say one f- - - - -word to me or I'll beat your ass."
The bespectacled bigot turned redder than a Hawaiian sunset and busied himself looking out the window.
The ineffectual driver turned and stared at the bearded fella.
"It's OK now, lady," he said. "Drive your damn bus."
"Is everything OK back there?" she said, evidently more interested in saving face now that trouble had been averted, than doing her job. A chorus of "Drive, lady" finally jostled her into gear.
I watched ground zero all the way to town. The bearded guy, a tight little smile on his face, was staring at the guy with the glasses who had mistaken a public conveyance for his own personal transportation, subject to his own Alabama 1955 rules.
Finally downtown was reached and the Ethiopian contingent stood up to exit. The kid who had been refused a seat stopped at the shoulder of his bearded rescuer.
"Thank you very much, sir. May God bless you," he said.
For the first time, the bearded guy looked nonplussed.
He shrugged his shoulders and nodded. Then extended his hand. The youngster shook it earnestly, like a salesman closing some kind of deal.
At the next stop the bearded guy rose and got off. He used the back door and never looked back at anybody, including his recent seatmate.
It was everything I could do not to stand up and lead a cheer.
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