Every morning, when I actually go to the methadone clinic that is, I have to take a muni bus. It's fair to say that the San Francisco muni system is currently the bane of my fucking existence. To make matters worse the bus I have to take, the 9 san bruno, is arguably the worst bus in the entire muni system. My friend Crys referrs to this bus as the 'methadone charlie' because of the sheer number of ward 93 patients who ride it each morning. In addition to meth junkies you will find several elderly can collectors carrying giant trash bags full of filthy cans and bottles, loud, intimidating, crack-dealing gangstas from 16th and mission, filthy crazy homeless folk, and a few normal people trying to survive the bus ride. I dread getting on this bus every morning, which is why I frequently decide not to go to the clinic. I am still extremely anti-social without heroin as a buffer and it is very hard to hide from people on the bus. The drivers on the 9 do not make the situation any better, several times I have been standing at the bus stop to have these drivers simply refuse to stop, they look me in the eye and speed right past the bus shelter without pausing. Yes, a lot of people get on the back door without paying, and yes I frequently do this myself because I cannot afford the bus having no source of income. That is not an excuse for the drivers to refuse to stop altogether. Here are a couple of things I have witnessed or been personally subjected to whilst riding the 9 san bruno.
Myself and another female methadone patient board the 9 on our way back from ward 93. The bus is packed. Towards the back there is one empty seat, but a middle aged black lady is blocking it with her purse. I glance at the seat and decide not to attempt to sit in it because the lady looks intimidating and I want to avoid a confrontation with her. The other girl from my clinic apparently has larger cojones than I do and she bravely approaches the seat hogging woman.
GIRL: Excuse me can I please sit there?
LADY: (ignores girl completely)
GIRL: Excuse me Ma'am can you please move your purse so I can sit down?
LADY: (continues to ignore the girl)
GIRL: (raises voice slightly) Excuse me Ma'am can I please have that seat?
LADY: (mumbling) Nah. I don't feel like being crowded.
GIRL: Pardon me!?
LADY: I don't feel like being crowded.
MAN: (sitting next to the seat hoggers' purse) Here hon you can have my seat.
GIRL: Thank you.
WHAT!? You don't feel like being crowded?! Here's an idea, DON'T GET ON THE FUCKING 9 SAN BRUNO! Did this woman seriously really think she was so important that she was somehow entitled to TWO seats on a notoriously crowded bus? Apparently so. Myself and several other riders were noticeably shocked by this scene and this womans' audacious sense of entitlement, but in an effort to avoid a scene, her rudeness went unchallenged. She rode the rest of her way taking up two whole seats whilst multiple riders struggled to maintain their balance standing all around her. Ridiculous, but displays like this are not uncommon on the 9. Another example...
I am riding in the back of the 9, the bus is relatively full, an old man sits next to me. He sits a little too close to me and keeps putting his arm in my lap, I have to push him away several times and move closer to the person on my left to avoid physical contact with this man. A young mother and her little girl, probably around eight years old, board the back door of the bus and sit a couple of seats ahead of me. The old man immediately gets up and sits beside them. I am initially relieved.
OLD MAN: Hey there little girl.
LITTLE GIRL: Hi.
The mother feigns a smile towards the old man and begins to read a book to her daughter in an effort to distract her.
OLD MAN: (says something nasty to the little girl)
Both mother and child look shocked, mother picks up her daughter and places her in her lap facing the front of the bus, old man continues to stare at the little girl in a creepy, leering way. The woman directly in front of my leans in towards the old man.
WOMAN: Hey. You don't talk to little girls that way.
A homeless man across the aisle sees this as an opportunity to get some attention and perhaps make himself look like a knight in shining armor to the other muni riders.
BUM: Yeah what the fuck is wrong with you, are you a child molester?
OLD MAN: NO!
BUM: Yeah you are. Child molester! You got a dollar child molester?
OLD MAN: Not for you I don't.
BUM: What about five dollars? Why don't you give me five bucks, child molester?
At this point everyone on the bus rolls their eyes in unison and looks away. The man sitting closest to the bum starts to get noticeably angry.
MAN: Why don't you shut up? You're just using what happened as an excuse to beg for change. Mind your own business. That little girl can hear everything you're saying.
BUM: I'm just trying to protect the little girl!
MAN: That woman over there and the girls mother did a perfectly good job of protecting her you're just trying to get some money, why don't you just shut up?
The argument continues and escalates, the bum is provoking the man, the man is threatening the bum.
MAN: This isn't even my stop but I'm gonna get off here so I don't crack your fucking skull!
The man exits the bus, once outside he reaches through the open window above the bums seat and attempts to grab the back of his head, the bus speeds off just in time.
BUM: Jesus what a psycho.
What would we helpless females do without these white knights riding muni? Clearly the best way to protect little girls is to get into physical altercations with homeless people inches away from them under the guise of protecting their innocence. Never mind the individual who actually started the incident, everybody hates bums, let's yell at the stinky bums! Of course the original issue that got completely obfuscated here was the fact that their are perverts constantly in attendance on muni vehicles, perverts who by all appearance have their own houses and showers, making them less easy to spot right away. I guess it's easier to rail against a more visually apparent 'threat' than to confront those that are less glaring. Screw you homeless guy! Gettajob!
I am riding the 9 from my house to the clinic. I take a seat in the back of the bus. As I am shifting to make room for someone next to me, I accidentally step on the sneaker of a black guy sitting behind me.
ME: I'm sorry, that was an accident.
GUY: Psssh. Yeah sure. Fuck you bitch.
ME: Are you serious?! I said I was sorry!
GUY: Yeah keep lying bitch, that's all you know how to do anyways. Why the fuck did you have to sit next to me anyways. Whore.
ME: (stuttering, unsure of what to say) Jesus Christ it was an accident. Chill out.
GUY: (spits in my hair) Stupid bitch.
I get up and quickly try to move to the front of the bus before I am further assaulted. On my way I trip over a giant bag of cans that a diminutive asian lady is blocking the entire aisle with. I fall. The guy laughs at me from the back of the bus. The person I fell into gives me a dirty look and shoves me as I try to stand up again. I quickly find a seat near the driver and try to make myself invisible for the rest of the bus ride. I am terrified and embarassed. I wipe the spit from my hair.
As you can see riding muni is not only uncomfortable, it is also dangerous. The local news is full of stories describing robberies and assaults on muni. The bus is just chock full of crazies and the city does nothing about it. This is how I begin my day every morning, when I am actually able to get on the bus. Muni expects me to pay for this bullshit?! No thanks. I'm going to keep getting on the back door without paying. I have more than a few issues with paying to be treated like, and subjected to, the worst of human garbage. I also cannot currently afford it (LOL.)
In other news, I have been applying for General Assistance this week. My last appointment, in which my eligibility will be finally decided, is on Tuesday. I have a feeling I am going to be accepted, so please keep your fingers crossed for me. This is a big step, I desperately need this financial assistance now that I am no longer (hypothetically) committing crimes to make money. I have also been referred to a case worker who will help me apply for my SSI. Though I know I am eligible and most likely need to be on disability, it is a source of conflicted emotions and personal disappointment for me. It is hard to accept that my mental issues have wreaked such havoc on my life and my potential for success. It feels like I am giving up on myself and my future. I would like nothing more than to get and maintain a job and work hard, but my history has shown me that I am most likely incapable of doing so, I may never be able to hold down gainful employment. That is a very hard pill to swallow.
I have been attending local AA meetings and I got myself a sponsor. For purposes of this blog I will refer to her as M. M approached me after a meeting in the Haight and we exchanged phone numbers. The following day she took me to a meeting and offered to be my sponsor. I have been to meetings in the past but this is the first time I have had a sponsor. I have mixed feelings about this added accountability. If I blow her off I feel like a total asshole, this makes it more difficult for me to hide from reality by turning off my phone and pulling the covers over my head in my bed. I guess this is a good thing. M is a very nice person and I like the meetings she has taken me to so far. I still feel very vulnerable and socially awkward. M assures me that this will get better with time. I have decided to have some blind faith in the program because I know for a fact that it works. Theoretically there is no reason that it should not also work for me and I need to stop putting myself in a separate category from everybody else. This will help me challenge my self-imposed isolation and also add some much needed structure to my sober existence.
I have also decided to detox myself off of methadone. Going onto the maintenance program I knew that I wanted to be on it for as little time as possible. The physical effects of methadone are terrifying to me, and I don't like the idea of wearing 'liquid handcuffs' that prevent me from leaving SF. The last time I was on a clinic I got thrown off the program without a medical taper while I was on 50mgs. That was the most hellish experience of my fucking life, physcially speaking. For weeks I was wracked with horrible cramps and spasms. The pain felt like it was coming from inside of my bones I am not exaggerating when I say that it was excruciating. I would puke until nothing came up but neon yellow bile. I would dry heave so much I couldn't breathe. I got maybe two or three hours of sleep every night, only when I would pass out from the pain and sickness. I had to move my mattress into the bathroom of my apartment to accommodate my incessant vomiting and diahrrea. (How the fuck do you spell diahrea?) After three or more weeks of absolute torture, I relapsed. I cleared out my $3,000 savings account in a matter of months just to feel normal. I lost my job. I have never experienced a worse pain in my entire life and hope never to again. I pray to God that my detox will not be like that this time. I am going very slowly, right now dropping a milligram a week, in an effort to avoid having to relive that nightmare. There is no such thing as a painless methadone detox, it is significantly more difficult to kick than heroin. I feel like I completely fucked myself over by getting back on a program but I know that I never would have stopped shooting dope without it. NA and AA are very anti methadone. According the the program, methadone patients are still active users, so I have accrued zero clean time in their eyes. Because of this I have not yet told my sponsor that I am on a clinic. I feel like it will soften the blow if I tell her I am currently detoxing. I am terrified of being alienated from this new community and of being told that I am not clean. I know that I need to focus on how I feel and define my own sobriety. It should really be up to me whether or not I am considered clean. Methadone doesn't get me high and I am on a very low dose. I absolutely do not consider taking methadone the same as shooting heroin, to me, I am no longer using. I need to be very careful and focus on my needs first and foremost here. Detoxing too quickly would have catastrophic physical results. Still I am petrified of rejection.
More later. Thanks for reading.
You are brave, Erica! All the best to you
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