A Seattle urban vignette in seconds
Heavy traffic along the Seattle/Shoreline border. Construction, motor vehicles, regular pedestrians, and, sadly, fellow humans who appeared homeless and mentally ill. Early this Saturday afternoon as I pulled out from Walgreens onto Aurora Avenue heading north, to my right noticed a strange looking human being sitting on the bench at the bus stop there. She was an enormous White woman, simply gargantuan. All she had on was a teeny tiny black swimsuit, and it was all stretched out around her torso as she reclined upon that bench while she took slow, calm drags on a cigarette. Had been hot. Today’s temperatures were in the mid-70s outside. Her pasty white flesh overflowed out of that super tight, stretched out everwhichaway black swimsuit. Right next to her, on her right side, crouched a teeny tiny old Black man with bad hair all mashed up and pulled out jaggedly in all directions. He squatted next to her upon the bench like a scrawny little bear cub doggie boo. He wore dirty gray and blue clothes, and jabbed a cigarette in and out of his mouth every other second as he puffed jerkily with high, agitated anxiety. As traffic opened up, I darted out into the lane and rocketed north.
A whole month later, on the morning of Monday the 30th of September, I witnessed in seconds as I drove along Aurora Avenue again more people endangering themselves and others. At the same bus stop as before, a youngish Black man bounced around hunched over and swinging his arms wildly. He seemed to be screaming and singing at the same time. Couldn’t tell what the hell he was doing. Except he never stood up and at times he raced and skittered quickly about like a giant spider. There were three piles of clothes and bags and random possessions around the bus stop, and he tore thru each one in turn. As he did so he snatched and flung items up in the air and out into the street. He’d zip out into the street, stop and shout, all while hunched over, then spider back to the bus stop. Two women tried to stand there to wait for the bus, but they couldn’t take any more of his blammy nuttery and in less than a minute ran away. Maybe he was hunched over due to Fentanyl, but he moved as if cranked on speed and meth. Three other guys stood nearby ignoring him as they stood over a mound of clothes and luggage debris.
Returning back to my apartment complex after refueling my Subaru, I passed a man doing yoga in the streets. Youngish White man with an unkempt beard. He squatted on the edge of the median strip between the north and southbound lanes glaring at people. He caught my eye and made crazy faces. Scary faces. At me. While trying to do a one-legged yoga stand while in a squat, but couldn’t get one leg in, out, and up far enough. His body jutted out into traffic, too, and a red light stopped traffic southbound. For a second, as I braked to a stop behind other cars at the red light, I truly thought he was about to chase after me like a psychotic tiger. Felt fear, the fear of someone so utterly lost to madness he wants to attack anyone and everyone for reasons known only to him. Felt like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft story. Sometimes it seems those with certain types of hallucinatory illnesses are actually experiencing true reality without the normal filters our brains use for discernment and interpretation. Our brains, however, can’t handle what exists there, and our minds break.
The light turned green, and I shot on down the road. There strode a tall, slender Black man nearly 7 feet in height. He wore a flouncy, pale blue miniskirt and twirled a matching pale blue umbrella. This person, however, stayed on the sidewalk and didn’t run out into the streets. What is about deep mental illnesses that compel humans to race recklessly out into the middle of traffic? Is it an unconscious, desperate cry for help, love, and attention? A yearning to be touched safely and held without fear of abuse?
Still, I felt overwhelmed by the societal, politco-economic forces in play. People argue endless over what the solutions are, claiming to have answers, but none of us do, really. We’re all so busy, myself included. Still, am so glad my wife and I don’t behave like those people did. Glad we ain’t them. Yet we’re all fellow humans down in this mad, mad world together. May the Divine, whatever the Divine is, bless them all, yes?
Sometimes people remark there is no way I witnessed all of those events while driving safely. I either must be a careless and therefore dangerous man behind the wheel of a horseless motor carriage, or I’m making up those stories. Been accused, too, of exaggerating the truth, too. Falsely accused, that is. All is true, however, as true as a sunny, clear sky appears as the color blue. Besides, I hate lying with a passion. Been lied to and hurt too many times.
Can’t diagram a sentence for squittles, tend to be too verbose, get my tenses and pronouns all mixed up, drift into run-on sentences…and I’ve a natural feel for language. I use adjectives to convey a richness of description. Started writing about age 3, according to my late Mother. It’s as if I was born to write. If I were forced to stop writing, I’d shut down, wither away, and die. As a birth trauma baby, I am both profound HOH or Hard-of-Hearing, and have multiple neurodivergent issues and learning disabilities from ADHD to dyscalculia. Over my life, especially as a young man both hard of hearing and a natural born writer, I’ve trained my powers of keen and rapid observation into a super power. Others have noticed these gifts and skills to comment upon this superpower. Took me longer to jot down my notes in my iPhone once I’d parked the car than to observe the scene as I also looked both ways before pulling out into traffic. Ahead of the bus back at the stop light, too. Like that time observing a flying, shapeshifting UFO/UAP while driving in heavy traffic over a big bridge in Seattle one afternoon. Yes, observation, perception, and creative writing are among my superpowers. Does not mean I’m an expert or a genius, means only my brain developed in a certain way as a response to trauma, in ways some label “superpowers.”
What superpower do you have?
What superpowers did any of those mentally ill street people possess?
William Dudley Bass
Saturday 31 August 2024
Monday 30 September 2024
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Copyright © 2024 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.