I had an awful bus ride home, The buses were running slow, and I waited around 20 minutes for one. The bus was filling up, but I got a seat in the back, across from a black lady and her boy friend/spouse, who was taking up one seat with her luggage, I dragged out my book and read. A couple of stops later, a couple of Spanish ladies got on the bus and asked her if one of them could sit there, so she moved over next to her friend so they could both sit. She was then sitting in the very back row of the bus with her luggage on her lap. The bus kept filling up, and when the person next to her got off, she put her luggage in the empty seat.
A middle-aged white woman asked if she could sit there and she refused to move her luggage, The two Spanish ladies broke in and told her she should move her luggage, and her friend finally said "I'll hold it" and the luggage passed over to him. The lady didn't fight with the Spanish ladies, but she started in on me - by not talking to me but talking about me loudly - and started making comments on my "eye rolling." Well, I don't think I rolled my eyes, but I know I looked surprised when she refused to let the lady sit next to her. I said "I didn't roll my eyes," and I continued, "But if you want to know" and she told me to shut up. What I was going to say "If you want to know what I was thinking, I'm wondering if you paid for a seat for that bag."
From that point on, my life was hell. I got an earful of speculation - she wasn't talking to me or her friend but to the air - about my character, my sexuality, my clothing, Trayvon Martin, her waiting for her 40 acres and a mule, her having to put up with my shit and on and on. This is the second time in 33 years of living in New York that I've been put through hostility over my race, and it scared the hell out out of me. As soon as I could transfer, I got off the bus and I'm still pissed off.
