them + you

 

Got on the bus today and the bus conductor was commenting on a group of school girls. He was saying, you should hear it when there's a whole bus load of them to some clucking older women. Because the conductor was white and the women he was speaking to were white and the schools girls were black, it was hard to know who exactly he meant by them.


But it reminded me of the other night. I decided to sit upstairs on the bus. I often sit downstairs when it's dark, even on the 15 route which seems v safe coz it often has loads of tourists. At first we were upstairs but I said I wanted to move downstairs because I get bus-sick sometimes. I really wanted to move downstairs because there was a guy behind us who made me nervous. That he was black with a long straggly beard was among the reasons I felt nervous. It was also because he was youngish and alone and staring. Funnily enough, he actually got off at my stop and went into my building in front of me. He seemed perfectly normal then.

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