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why i don’t like bendy buses :::
By warriorgrrl | March 6, 2008
So, last night I was on the number 12 bus travelling in to Soho to meet some friends for dinner. A man leapt on in Peckham, wild eyed and goofy, running up and down the aisle shouting things in a seemingly harmless, jolly manner. The driver, used to worse, rolled his eyes and drove on.
The man started to become more manic, approaching people and shouting odd comments at them, shoving his face in to theirs, trying to get a reaction. People stared past him, shuffling their newspapers and clearing their throats with an embarrassed air. We don’t deal well with mental illness in this country at the best of times, much less when it is paraded right in front of us on a bendy bus.
Things started to teeter on the edge of harmless in to ever-so-slightly scary. The man fronted up to a lone woman, engrossed in texting someone on an expensive looking phone. He swiped softly at the silver object, lightly touching it like a cat swatting a mouse in play. He wasn’t trying to grab it off her, just wanting her attention, muttering dark somethings and staring her out with a violent grimace on his face. Stricken with panic, she put her head down to ignore him, mumbling something or other and trying to look out of the window as if he just wasn’t there.
“Hey, leave her alone”, I said loudly, firmly, but not aggressively. I was parallel to the woman, sitting by the opposite window. The woman sitting on the aisle, next to me, started shaking her head and muttering. I ignored her. “Hey, I said leave her alone, come on.”
He walked over to me, twitching a little, his forehead furrowed and his eyes lit too brightly with excitement at the fuss he was managing to cause. A yellow metal bar separated us but as he muttered something at me, staring with wide eyes, he reached over to grab at my hands, which were resting in my lap. “Don’t touch me”, I said. “You can’t touch me like that.”
Suddenly audible, he stopped stock still, speaking slowly and loudly. “I’m going to touch you. I’m going to touch your tits”. “No you’re fucking not”, I retorted, furious, trying to stay calm, trying not to project all my previous experiences of being pushed in to ‘victim’ mode by aggressive men on to this one person. “What are you gonna do about it”, he leered, loudly, swaggering and swaying as he spoke.
I glanced around at the crowded bus, looking for a reaction to what had just been said. The woman next to me gazed absent mindedly in to the middle distance. NOBODY ON THE BUS SAID A WORD.
I ceased all eye contact with the man, repeating as calmly as I could “Go and see the bus driver. The driver wants to talk to you. Go and see the driver”, until eventually he moved away. I think the combination of a firm instruction and lack of eye contact must have done it, though it was all I could do to stop myself berating him for every time a similar thing has happened to me or a friend, or a friend of a friend, or any woman in London, or the UK, or the world. Regardless of any mental issues this man may have, that sort of attitude can’t be re-educated in the space of a 5 minute conversation on a bus.
Call me crazy, but I don’t believe I should keep quiet if someone near me is under threat from somebody else. I don’t believe it’s unacceptable for me to request that someone doesn’t touch me, if I don’t want them to. I don’t believe it’s acceptable that I can be threatened at full volume in a public place and that no-one says or does anything. I understand that people don’t want to ‘get involved’, that it can be dangerous, embarrassing, scary. But how hard is it to wander nonchalantly down the bus to tell the driver that a young woman is being threatened sexually by a man and asking if he’d mind pulling the bus over and dealing with it, please.
What happened is not ‘my fault’ for getting involved in helping out another human being. I regretted it soon afterwards, not because of what happened to me but because that woman didn’t even acknowledge my actions with eye contact, much less a smile or a word. That was what annoyed me most of all.
We bumble along in our separate lives in this city, wrapped in our cosy iPod worlds, getting in a huff if the crowded streets don’t magically clear for us to walk through because our journeys are so much more important than anyone else’s. “Get out of MY way”, people say, pushing and shoving more violently than is ever appropriate. Then, when someone’s behaviour frightens us because we don’t understand it, we shut down, not able to acknowledge our fellow travellers or do anything to help diffuse what could have become a violent situation. I don’t actually believe it would have become violent (Mum, if you’re reading this, I’m not silly enough to have a go at someone if I thought I was in danger), but I do wonder how far it would have gone before someone did step in. What if the man had grabbed at me, groped me, hit me even?
Londoners, sometimes you make me sick.
Topics: Feminism, Ramblings, Travel |
March 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
This is so embarrassing,even more in a crowded place…Routemasters are better (more safe) than bendy buses?
March 7th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
:/ That sucks so much, Laura… Fuckers!
(p/s - diego - it’s not the bus which is the problem, it’s the people riding it…)
March 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
It’s always hard to know what to do best but people are so unsupportive if you dare make a stand or point something out. I have had similar non-reactions when I have asked if an unattended bag on a train at Cannon Street belongs to anyone around. When I received no answer I proceeded to get off the train and inform the station staff on the platform of the suspect package. This had the unexpected result of my fellow passengers directing their anger at me should there now be a chance that their precious train would be delayed!
Yeah I agree…fuckers!
March 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
When things like this happen its like yet another reality check to everything that is happening around us… like you i’ve actually bothered to speak up in the past and everybody else seemed to just look away… it left me wondering why do i bother…
Hope you were ok (as you could be after something like that)…
March 8th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Thank you Jess!I didn’t understand!
March 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
A close friend of the family who was a Police Chief once told me, “People will most likely never help you out when you need it most. They will just stand and stare at you.” That’s what happened to you and you handled that situation perfectly. He obviously wanted you to fight him back. He tried to get a rise out of you and you refused to entertain him. I’m glad you’re safe.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Thanks all of you for your comments, it’s nice to know I’m not wittering away to myself! I know if any of you were on a bus with me when something like this happened you’d step up
March 18th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Full Kudos for stepping up, WG.
I think our city is just gripped by this stupid irrational fear that stops people from acting - you see it in people’s refusal to even smile or nod at each other - let alone when there’s a problem that a good bit of communal action could solve in 2 seconds flat.
Nice blog too, by the way.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Thanks Michael! You do see it everywhere, yes, it’s a sickness really. My friend experienced an extreme version of it yesterday; a drunk man was wobbling up and down the tube platform at Stockwell muttering to himself and going up to people to ask them to push him on to the track because he wanted to die. Everyone ignored him and then he stood by the edge, teetering over the platform. My friend stepped up to him and pulled him back sop he wouldn’t fall, then tried to engage him in conversation. Everyone else was just standing there. What would they have felt like if he had fallen?
March 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Argh, that is so depressing :S I’m glad you got back home well. BRRRR.
It’s noticeable how when the driver DOES stop the bus suddenly everyone’s eyes un-glaze because their journey has actually been interrupted now, and suddenly they know how to deal with the botherer. Fah.
Hm, I remember glazing over a lot myself when there was this guy suddenly starting to smash in the bus windows at new Cross Gate… everyone lumped into the back of the bus, like completely expressionless bunny-rabbits, and everyone tried to look casual about like like they’d meant to move seats anyway. It’s so weird how it didn’t feel at all like anything out of the order was happening, everyone was in their switched-off bus-traveling state anyway… Weird and unpleasant.