I hate New York

My thirty-nine minutes in the city went just the way they always do: angry recriminations, missing the necessary train, subway ticket machines not taking my debit cards, being surrounded by a depressing underworld of grime, coming out of the subway and immediately getting lost, and the inevitable meltdown on a street corner, roaring “I hate New York! I hate this fucking city!!!!!!” at anyone or anything who will listen, and care, and think of a way to get me out.

Nine times out of ten, that person is my lovely friend Daniel, who gets all excited to see me and makes all kinds of plans and then is always on the receiving end of my livid telephone invective. Daniel, I’ve apologized and I’m always apologizing for this, but I hate that I do this and I’m going to apologize again. While your city returns me to a primal state in which I am the embodiment of anger (and then I always end up crying a little bit – every time!), seeing you for three minutes as we hustled to the Bolt bus was one of the higher points of my trip.

Now I am on the bus and Mr. Taylor, our new angry bus driver, is much more fun than the last one. Excerpt.

Ladies and Gentlemen: there is no smoking and no alcoholic beverages on the Bolt bus. If you’ve already had you a little nip of something, just take you a nap and go to sleep so you don’t disturb nobody.

Also, there are two trashcans on the bus: one in the front, one in the back. The last crowd of folks on the bus, maybe they didn’t understand English so good. There is now Chex Mix on the bus, and I’m quite sure that there are passengers sitting in it. Think of the people after you. Clean up your trash.

And one other thing: I will be stopping once, at the Maryland house, for 20 minutes. You need to get back on this bus in 20 minutes, or you will be chasing me down 95 to board.

But after all that gruffness, he let a girl on the bus as we were coming around the corner to leave New York; she ran up waving her ticket, terrified she was going to lose her place on the chariot of fire and lightning bearing us all out of that festering hell, the city that never sleeps. He opened the doors. That was my first experience this weekend with grace.