Florida woman grabs a fellow bus passenger by the throat

I've developed a habit of talking to people on the street in Minneapolis. I've taken to calling them "street people." I meet them on the street or on the bus. Sometimes they're homeless, sometimes they're in a store, sometimes they work for Target corporate, sometimes they're just bored. So, "street people" is the current term to encompass them all--to imply, but not to limit. 

I do not wish to limit, but there comes a time to define.  What's the point of experimenting anyway .. unless I organize my data?

What is the difference between an encounter in the Skyway vs a conversation on the street actual? A person of color vs a person who is perceived to be white? Where are people nice? Who is the most fun? With whom do I grow uncomfortable--why?

I don't have as much data gathered on that last one. What I do have is enough for another conversation, so let's try to stay on track.

This hobby bloomed in the period between my short time with the Occupy protests and moving downtown after a divorce last year. I've been taking public transportation for at least a few years now. I was overwhelmed by the system when I moved here from suburban Florida seven years ago, but I cut my street teeth on an hour-long commute from Marcy-Holmes to the Mall of America via the light rail downtown. 

The conveniences and delays provided through reliance on others has assumed a second nature. I have grown to experience joy and contentment toward being transported in enclosed spaces with unknown local humans. Unsurprisingly, these people are frequently men I find south and downtown, though gender, as a factor, takes a backseat to location. 

Not long ago, I moved back to northeast. It's a short walk to work. Many members of my social group live north of me. It requires an active effort to go downtown or south. I am starting to pick up on the differences in encounters, and I can tell, for all the benefits to moving, I'm going to miss living downtown. 

Observation: people on the street in northeast are not street people. They seem to be uninterested in having an encounter; their street status implies they are already having a time of it and do not wish for more. Much to my chagrin, if the northeast person on the street has entertained engagement, it has ground my teeth. Raised high my hackles. 

[Make a note: northeast street people exception - bar patrons spilling onto the sidewalk.]

In most of my street people stories, I talk about people who are forward in their speech and actions--assumptive, we'll call it. I do not clientele with bitches who come at me with aggression. Or, I have been lucky to attract only a few. It would be inaccurate to say I am excited or interested to find out more about these circumstances, but there is a kind of curiosity to see:

(a) if and when I choose to assert myself

(b) if there are consistent indicators other than "white men" in "an urban residential area where the transition into suburban and rural lands beyond is almost undetectable and at an easy pace; the city diffuses from its center; out, like blood needs to move away from the heart; like the natural decay of a concrete and tempered glass echo that gives way to corn fields, American Legions and VFWs, tall grasses, and the Boundary Waters. Without barrier; unchallenged." 

xo - xo - xo - xo

Last night I was downtown, turned around. All these stops are unfamiliar now that Nicollet's revitalizing project has rerouted most of my major bus lines. 

There are palm trees at 3rd and 7th. Who knew?

Palm trees and John, the center of today's story. He'd been drinking. Who knew for how long, as a habit, I guessed. I don't think his drinking was done for the evening. He was level, coherent, but still restless. I asked where he was going, he said he'd been trying to get a room. I said I had some quarters, he didn't care about that. He wanted to talk about my beauty and that he liked my sociable nature, or whatever. 

He wasn't much taller than me, 5'8" maybe. I'm not good with stats. He was thin-framed and wore his shirt tucked snugly so his clothes hung full in the way they do on a man who is sick or hungry but carrying himself with pride. He started the conversation at a close proximity, but he moved slow, easy and fluid, with grace or femininity or something like that. We got to talking. 

"Can I call you?"

"We have this time to talk now and you're going to waste it by trying to talk to me later?"

"Oh, I like you."

"Haha, sorry. I do this a lot... you wanna hear a joke?"

He did.

"Why do fish live in saltwater?"

"Because... it's salty."

"Because pepper makes them sneeze!"

"I'm gonna tell you a joke now."

"Okay, get it."

He leaned close to give me a decently paced set-up about a crow and a pigeon flying home from the army. 

Somewhere in the long flight, the crow dips down to see what's going on down on land below and finds a field filled with corn, as far as the eye can see. He flies back up to tell the pigeon. 

It was unclear whether the pigeon or the crow flew down to verify. His tone rose toward the punchline. 

"We better quiet down or the farmer will hear us!"

"There you go," I said. 

Talking birds are funny, maybe. 

"Do you have any kisses for me?"

"Oh, no. Sorry. All out."

When telling someone this story, it was noted that I didn't step back when, in the conversation that followed, he leaned toward me. It's interesting to me because I tend to shuffle about when I am talking with street people. A practiced, slow, predictable movement, like swaying or pacing. 

So, he leaned into my space with his face, his arms at rest. I leaned back in equal measure, not unlike a dance. He leaned in another measure. 

"Nope, not for you," I said, and leaned back further. 

He leaned in a third time, and, I mean, I'm only so balanced and jokes work in threes. I could've put my hand on his face like a claw machine, to make a point. Or on his sternum, just to brace him, which seems now the advisable choice. But in that instant, the least resistance to his momentum was to put my hand at his neck. Like I'd grabbed a kitten by the scruff, I set him a-right. 

If there was a bristling in the 8-10 other people on the corner, there was none from him. If I'd done something aggressive, he didn't seem to notice, but he acknowledged the boundary. I got a sassy look, he made a comment, but he didn't cross it again. The conversation continued for a few minutes until our ride came, without a grudge between us. 

"There's my bus."

"Okay, Renae."

"It was nice to meet you. Have a good night!"

I joined the line at the door. Only then did I notice my posture, the steady drum of adrenaline in my shoulders, and realize that I had, by some accounts, just casually grabbed a black man by the throat in front of an audience. 

xo - xo - xo - xo

I'm sure you can imagine the complex set of thoughts that has followed. 

So far, it makes me feel a little better about something that's been nagging me about my behavior--that there exists a naïveté or affinity for risk that is perceived with contempt. 

Personally, I think "affinity for risk" is a little obvious; "naïveté," a minor slight. Sometimes, this ungracious interpretation is given to me by people who, in the next breath, deny me the lack of agency in my choices (often with them) during the follies of my actual youth. 

Listen, if you think I'm on the street because I don't know how or when to cross it, you are part of my problem. I greet my neighbors with the openness of a child, and you assume my choice to allow a measure of vulnerability with strangers means I think I am invincible. 

Son of a bitch. I'm not the fool here. I'm out there for you, too. I feel bad for you. Where has your great awe and wonder run dry? Have you managed to figure out all humans so early? You must be the smartest among us to have so much knowledge stored between your present mind and the tabula rasa of your impressionable young mind, before anyone hurt you or taught you bad ideas, before you had to decide that it was better to always cross the street than risk standing your ground. 

Let's end this digressive tirade on an obnoxious tease: I learned a lot during my impromptu train date with a gentleman named Larry Love, on January's famous Day of Three Dates. But that's for another time. 

To tell the end of this story, and finally get some regular sleep at the end of another busy weekend, John let me say goodbye to him. I got on the bus, my face flushed with exuberance, confusion, and embarrassment at what had just happened. 

He boarded behind me and went to a seat in the back. I assumed that was his natural inclination, but still I had my bag on the seat next to me as the universal sign for "I'm done with this conversation. I've got shit to do, things to figure out, and they're not about you." 

I do hope he found some good sleep.