(3) Lesson 1: Bus Fenomenology

In an old friend of mine's room, back in my Uni days, there was a sign, bearing the two Rules of Communication: 1) Be there, 2) Say it. A toast to my old friend John and to his wall's wisdom. Oh well, the first rule stands alone, "being there" is easy, in my field of competence "being there" is everywhere. The second rule is the one that needs you to train yourself, since these are not only the Rules of Communication, but also the rules of urban survival, and the two cornerstones of this manual.

Once upon a time, and by that I mean some 15 years ago, like most part of this planet's dwellers, Mario and I were younger. There was no way to misunderstand: I never looked exactly "young", nor did I look decrepit too, let's say I was your friendly neighborhood average guy, and when I walked in a shop unmistakenly the guy (or lad) behind the counter did address me with a friendly "you", and not as "sir".

Now, when that happens, I get upset and ask myself, "Do we know each other? Did we have breakfast together some time in the past? Do I look like that old cousin of yours?...", and unmistakenly enforce Rule #2 stressing my "Good morning to you sir" - just to be crystal clear, a place for everyone and everyone at their place. But not 15 years ago. 15 years ago I did embody the very stereotype that if you look young, you are young healthy and undestructible. And you will be, forever.

Actually, as a huge sport practitioner in those years, I had some problems with my back and ankles, and the very fact of standing up was a bit hard for me at times, so yielding my seat to some old lady was really an excercise in heroism, if compared with your everyday average egoistic Italian guy. And the very fact that you should sit or stand, depending on your anagraphic age, is silly: please show me your last blood text, and some x-rays too please, here, you see? My cholesterol is higher than yours, please ma'am walk by and check out that man in the back, he seems to be 70 but he also has hands like anvils, legs like stone pillars, and he ran after the bus along the last three blocks.

Well, as a matter of fact, 15 years ago I was 15 years younger. More or less. Now I'm crawling towards my 40es, and since I hold my Dante dear (because it was printed in my mind in burning typos that drooled blood, back in high school), I know that he was born in 1265, wrote the Divine Comedy in 1300, beginning it with the words "In the middle of our life's path", which we can translate in numbers as 35. That is the halfpoint. So let's do some waiting-room math: those before that edge stand up, and give their seats to those who are already after it. If we both are on the same side, let's call it a truce.

I mean, I never take the bus in the first place. It usually does not go where I need to go, unless I roam around the world like those guys in the book. More that that, I still think a bus is the best vehicle for infections, topped only by Emergency Rooms in public hospitals. You must also understand that, like many obsessive-compulsive individuals, I am also germophobic, which does not help in many situations, for example in almost anything happening outside my home. God created paved roads, and gave us cars to drive on them, so I like to take a stroll if my destination's close, else than that, I have a driving licence for a reason.

There is still a limited number of emergency situations in which a public mean of transportation is a need, even for me. Usually, if the bus is almost empty, I dont bother to seat from the beginning, 'cause it will fill up after a while, and I am thus spared from the "oh please, have my seat" liturgy. And here we meet the problem we all have, all of us who were so unlucky to have been given an education, instead of thrown in the streets and courtyards, or herded to the closest mall like goats. We are domesticated. And Mother Nature says, the predator usually eats the prey, the selvatic eats the domestic. Unless the latter learns how to defend itself from the former.

We are slaves to our own education. That is why I talk about urban guerrilla: a war on "urbanity". Jump out of the schemes and take everyone by surprise, since the domestic ones are quiet, but it is the selvatic one that runs off if it hears a bang, or is thrown a light in the eyes.

You need a vaccine, which must be taken in small quantities, and usually hurts. Take a bus, sit down, open up a paper, or take a nap, whatever, just force yourself not to stand up until you reach your destination. You feel uncomfortable? Of course you do. But you may also have noticed that the average jerk on the same bus does not. People don't care, they just laugh, joke, swear, phone, but they just don't pull their sorry asses up from those seats, not even when the bus is dead broken (they are the ones who usually say, while still seated: "Oh come on, what's up? Do we really have to step down and change bus?"). So: do like they do, once.

It surely is distasteful, it is not a good habit, and should not be taken up as customary, nonetheless it is a therapy, and usually you dont ask your doctor if the medicine tastes good, you keep swallowing it until you feel better, so why should this be different? I don't care if you feel guilty afterwards, buy someone a coffee, make a public donation, run to a church, that is your business and yours alone. Just step on that fucking bus and be seated till the end, and I mean, till the end.

You done? Good. You just learnt two things.

One: at the end of the bus run, you had a feeling of adrenaline, with a shiver too, a sensation of French grandeur, just like you felt the first time you stepped down from a rollercoaster, and you felt like you climbed the Everest. The massiveness of the shiver, and of the adrenaline surge, is directly proportional to the degree of conformism and pshychological repression that you desperately need to get rid of.

Two: you walked off the bus without being arrested, no pending procedures, no consequences. Nobody even noticed you (which, often, gives the adrenaline surge a backtaste of disappontiment).

Don't worry: at the end of this manual, you will keep on yielding your seat to old ladies, and taking home little birds with a broken wing to cure them. I do not intend to kill the Saint Francis sitting inside of you. But I intend to take control of it, oh yes. This is my life, this is my space, I am driving. And that includes the bus.