I’ve never regretted anything so quickly in my life.
I was sitting on a crowded bus, my four-year-old daughter on my lap, and among the standing-room-only riders were two shirtless twenty-ish males sporting a blotchy calico of suntan and dirt. The loud one stood in the front where there is more space between the seats, while the louder one stood behind me and next to the back door. As the bus began to roll, the louder one began planning their afternoon by yelling possibilities across the 15 feet of bus space, punctuating most of his nouns and verbs with curses the way a child does when they want to sound like a grown up:
“Let’s go to Tony’s. He’s probably f’in’ asleep, but he’ll be home. That f’er never gets up this f’in’ early.”
While I’m no prude when it comes to cussing, I strongly believe they should be used out- of- earshot of children. As the half-dressed man continued his cuss-riddled plotting, I recognized two possible responses: endure the loudness and the language and hope they exited the bus quickly, or politely ask the man behind me to mind his language. Normally, I would have opted for silence, because these guys didn’t seem like the types who were seeking an etiquette lesson. But this was also an opportunity to demonstrate to my daughter that there was room for reason in the world, even on a crowded TriMet bus, so I opted to speak up:
“Pardon me, but can you watch the swearing? There’s a child here.”
As I said, I’ve never regretted anything so quickly in my life.
“Welcome to being in f’in’ public, man!” the louder one bellowed, getting the attention of his traveling companion as well as the rest of the bus. I cringed as he continued: “It’s called the f’in’ first amendment, man, the f’in’ right to free speech.” By this time, some brushed-hair hippie kid was nodding like a bobblehead, taking sides as if I was some Orwellian force bent on squashing the joy from life, one f’in’ word at a time. The shirtless man went on with his defense: “I have the right to say whatever the f’ck I want, man, and there’s not a f’in’ thing you can do about it. This is what freedom sounds like, man. If you don’t like it, stay the f’ck home.”
As he picked up speed, I imagined exactly what I would be demonstrating to my daughter that day: How to stand up for public courtesy? Or how to get beaten up by two shirtless, foul-mouthed chumps? I looked around and saw that most of the riders were averting their eyes, trying to avoid getting involved; I heard the hippie kid say “Damn right!” to no one in particular; I saw the grin of the loud guy up front who seemed to sense something was about to happen.
When the shirtless guy finally took a breath, I turned my head so I could look at him, and quietly but firmly clarified my request: “I’m not trying to infringe on your constitutional rights, dude. I was simply asking a favor.” I turned back to my daughter, whose expression was somewhere between curious and concerned, and gave her a smile that was meant to mean, “Nothing’s wrong, dear. Everything is fine.” But I didn’t believe that myself. I listened to the surging bus engine and prepared for the guy’s retaliation.
But all I heard was the sounds of the bus: the brakes as we approached a stop, the commotion of people boarding and exiting, the roar as we accelerated into traffic. After a minute, the louder one yelled to his friend again: “Hey, let’s hop off at Killingsworth and visit that chick at the coffee shop.” The two continued their planning, making a point of not being quieter so that it was clear that he was not going to let me silence him. Yet for the rest of the ride, his cross-bus hollers were completely curse-free.
As the crowd dissipated with each stop, he gradually moved up next to his partner in grime, and I began answering my daughter’s questions about Portland’s bridges. Before I noticed, the Constitutional defenders had left the bus. I was certainly glad that the verbal bout had not continued, and that they hadn’t opted to hop out at my stop to demonstrate their frustration with my rebuke. All in all, it ended well, except for one gnawing disappointment: I never had a chance to thank him.
It’s probably just as well. Bringing it up with him again might have generated another outburst. But that fact is, he could have stayed on his high f’in’ horse and cussed his f’in’ way to Killingsworth, and he chose not to. And for that, I would have liked to have said, “thank you.”
Story contributed by Bill Reagan (@williamreagan). Read more of Bill’s writings at www.WilliamReagan.com.
Welcome to the joys of mass transit.
It is dangerous to confront people on this topic, obviously they have no sense of public manners, which is obvious.
But when you confront them, especially if its a group of teenagers, you provoke the “you can’t tell me what to do” impulse and that can escalate into really really ugly.
Pick your poison basically, the swearing or some sort of violence, that’s the risk.
A shame but true, I deal with this all the time.
I’ve had the same kind of interaction on occasion and made the same point William did. I pointed out that I was asking a favor. I wasn’t in the presence of any small children however, I said the language offended me. The kid backed down completely in this case, once it was clear I was asking him to be cool. I was serious, but not especially angry and it gave him the space to comply. The sense of relief from the other passengers was palpable.