A quiet tragedy unfolds in the rain across Tuesday 4 March 2025
Fentanyl Folded Man on the E-Line bus as we barreled south down Aurora Avenue.
Fentanyl Man. Sitting on the Express bus. His head is way down just above his ankles. After I boarded the bus in South Shoreline, he was sitting halfway up in his seat. The man was weaving in place, nodding in and out, as he struggled to stay awake. Finally, inevitably, Fentanyl Man succumbed to the bliss of folding his body in half. Outside was late winter and a cold rain fell steady from low, gray clouds. The bus was cozy warm. Street traffic was light, and the bus wasn’t crowded. I was astounded, even alarmed, at how bent over the man was
Fentanyl is a nasty, deadly, destructive drug. Many, many times more powerful than morphine, than opium, than heroin. It relaxes the body’s Central Nervous System, respiration slows, and the brain can’t even command the body to stand or sit up straight. The body buckles into oblivion so deep the user is often unaware of anything including what position their body’s in. It’s too painful to sit or stand up straight. Body becomes rigid like that. Circulation gets cramped, even cut off, the organs stay squished up, respiration slows down further, the joints are damaged, lymphatic drainage is impaired, and the immune system becomes further compromised.
About 8-10 minutes later after the bus had surged down Aurora Avenue thru North Seattle, three security guards boarded the bus near Green Lake. They made the driver wait and “nicely threw Fentanyl Folded Man off” into the cold March rain.
The fellow was young, maybe in his 20s, with swollen red hands. Buzz cut, maybe for the lice? Hard to tell ethnicity. East Asian, Native American, Hispanic? I don’t know. Does it matter? Perhaps, especially if certain minority groups are targeted by the drug traffickers as more vulnerable prey. Two of the guards, the men, who boarded the bus were Black. The other guard, the woman, looked Hispanic. They were firm and no-nonsense. Two gathered around Fentanyl Folded Man while the third stayed in the back.
They shouted at him to get his attention.
“Hey! Are you OK? You Ok? Hey!”
No audible response.
They slapped him around the back, shoulders, arms – not too hard but hard enough to wake the addict up. He opened his eyes, started, and slowly bent part-way up. Mumbled incoherent babble. The three guards firmly and politely ordered him off the bus. He must get off – now. Now!
They allowed him a moment to gather up whatever belongings he had, all in a worn, crinkled-soft brown paper bag with crumpled aluminum foil drug paraphernalia atop. He got up blinking and grimacing as if everything was too bright, too harsh, and almost fell down. A transit security guard moved to help the guy, but he managed to step down off the bus like a crab scuttling sideways to keep his pants up. The man went off into the pouring down, cold, cold rain. Never pulled his stretch pants up so he waddled sideways around the bus stop to the little seat under the small waiting-spot awning. Fentanyl Man waddled spraddle-legged and sideways to keep his pants stretched up tight above his knees. Somehow his torso weaved as it on a spindle, but he didn’t flipflop over again. Not yet.
No, I didn’t dare take a picture of his bare naked ass. Just the side shot. Would blur his head out before posting to my website. Hard to see his head anyway. But Fentanyl Folded Man is still a fellow Earth Human. Uh-Oh, he’s beginning to fold. Uh. There he goes. He flops over in the rain and sprawlie-waddles over beneath the shelter. He continues to stand, but flops over. The bus pulls away. Driver has a route to follow. The three security guards stayed aboard till a couple of stops later. Didn’t hear them radio or call out for any help to get the man to a treatment center (where?) or to a shelter (shelters don’t allow drunks and druggies).
What do you readers think and feel about all of this? I took note there weren’t any drunk or drugged up homeless people on the bus or getting on the bus this time. The new wave of security guards was finally paying off. Was sick and tired of the out of control lawlessness aboard the bus. Got work about 15 mins faster, too. Early for a change! Still, these people need help, not just thrown off to battle hypothermia alone and drown in the rain.
Several different emotions washed thru my bodymind with varying intensity. First, I felt disgusted and disturbed by the very presence, indeed, the very existence of Fentanyl Folded Man. At the same time I was intellectually aware our entire local, national, and global civilization was so screwed up, absolutely so messed up I wanna spew F-bombs for how cruel and devoid of empathy we all are. I was also glad security guards were on the bus throwing those damn f’ing people off, too! It’s beyond about time! Long overdue, too! I am sick and tired of these messed up people f’ing it up for the rest of us busy working our asses off to make a living and raising families and creating value in the world. I wanted to run around with a big club and beat stupid, drunk, drugged out homeless robbing stealing garbage-tossing littering people up. Naturally, became mad at myself for feeling such primal anger at them and the world that allows these problems to proliferate. I don’t have an answer. What’s working isn’t working. Nothing seems to have ever worked because here it is all over again and again despite whatever happened somewhere here or there so wonderfully for a short time.
Time for something drastic and perhaps unpleasant. Stop letting these troubled, messed up, brothers and sisters and parents and children camp. Round them all up, by force, into temporary camps of tiny homes or big, communal tents staffed by security guards, case workers, and health care providers. They either get clean and sober and back on their feet, or they’re institutionalized into a postmodern facility where they’re cared for at public expense. Instead of building another aircraft carrier or a few bomber jets, build these facilities instead. It’s a national emergency, an epidemic, so bring in FEMA. Don’t abandon these human beings outside and let them run around doing whatever their damaged minds think they want to do. Don’t abandon them inside either. Inside is not some concentration camp where you throw away the key and let them cannibalize themselves on some remote island like the Soviets did once on Nazino Island in the Ob River. Stalin’s Communist dictatorship packed thousands and thousands of prisoners onto a swampy Siberian island in 1933 and then abandoned them with few supplies. The nightmarish horrors that resulted led to the Nazino Gulag being called Cannibal Island. Most of the people left there died there. We don’t ever want history to repeat itself like that, not in Russian again and certainly not here in America. Nope. We detain these people. Involuntarily commit them into temporary, staffed housing and institutional centers where we can help them as best as we can. So I felt sad when the man was forced out into the wretched winter weather or early March without any call for someone to pick him up and take him to a shelter. The man doesn’t even have a healthy brain any longer so how can he have a mind healthy enough to make decisions for his body, for himself?
STAND UP! There are many things we all need to stand up for. As fentanyl abusers will tell you, it often hurts to stand up.
William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 4 March 2025
Tuesday 21 April 2026
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Copyright © 2026 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.