Bus Battle '11

Every Monday and Thursday evening I am very far from my apartment. Three other almost-men and myself gather at our shanty little studio space nestled deep in Daegu's industrial district to make noise and backsweat together. I have to take two buses to get there, which isn't really a problem, unless antics ensue. Which happens. It happened on Monday.

My first bus back to the far stretches of eastern Daegu is hassle free. I have my choice of not one, not two, but three buses that stop immediately in front of our door. I mosey over the the stop while Kyle and Daniel make mad dashes to their respective points of departure (Kyle runs when he sees his bus, Daniel crosses the street at the same point where I got nailed by a scooter. Both mad, you see). I have such a low regard for the first ride that I don't even sit down. It's a time for my shirt to dry.

The second bus, however, is a fifty minute ride. Luckily for me only the foolyish of the foolish live as far away from anything substantial as I do so I am always guaranteed not just a seat, but a seat where my knees are not at my own personal eye level. This is typically the second seat from the front on either side of the bus. Here is where I park myself, turn on some soothing tunes, and doze until I am blasted awake by the two immediate stops made by the driver before my stop.

On this Monday, however, a few stops after departure, our bus community was joined by two very drunken adjosshi. They stumble onto the bus and one of them immediately empties his coin purse onto the ground. Baek wons everywhere. As the second man faceplants to the floor in a futile attempt to pick up the coins I decide it would be best to help him collect as to shorten the length of the scene happening. In hindsight I wouldn't have done this. If there's one thing a drunk adjosshi loves to do, it's harrass a male foreigner. Let alone a tall male foreigner. Helping this man to clean up his mess only made him aware of my presence, and as his friend lifted himself up from his earlier tumble, they appeared to be in total glee of their new discovery.

These two are immediately hung over me shouting, and I do mean shouting, and waving their arms. My first thought is that they want my seat, which is bizarre because there are two of them and also because there are open seats in the back meant for two people to sit next to each other. But I suppose they never made it that far back, anyway.

I moved to another seat, eliminating my legroom but, alas, they followed. Man-wearing-hat begins to light a cigarette. This is where the bus driver has no more and began shouting at the men. This greatly upset man-in-hat and he shoots forward to the glass box that encases the driver and begins pounding on it and shouting. Suddenly the bus is stopped and the bus driver is out of his cubicle, face-to-face with man-in-hat. He motions at me two levers near his steering wheel. I'm not going to lie. I know exactly what the levers do. My typical second-row seat gives me direct vision into a bus driver's cockpit and I study that area. I imagine that someday I'll be in a Speed 2-esque situation, except with a bus instead of a boat. I'm obviously not the ideal candidate in his eyes, but I'm the closest, and this is a matter of urgency.

He points to me, points to the exit door, points to the man, points to the lever, points to the exit door again, rolls up his sleeves and charges forward like a soldier in the Civil War. He grabs man-in-hat and drags him to the door. My instinct kicks in and I flip that lever like it were the switch to turn on the god damn sun in the morning. The driver, quite literally, throws the man off of the bus and shouts at me. I hit the lever again and the door closes. The bus became eerily quiet as the driver walked calmly back to the driver's seat. Can I give him a high five? We were just a team. A damn good one at that. But it's all too late. He's already driving again.

What happened to the other man? He fell asleep on the floor in the back of the bus during this fiasco, and that's where he remained as I got off at my stop.

I'll ask for the video footage the next time I'm on the 618.