On Tales of the City (Bus)

As seen in the GDP newsletter

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I have a theory that before you can tell stories, you have to learn to see them. And you can’t see them until you know where to look.

“But Zoey,” you say, “how the hell do I do that?!”

First of all, do not speak to me in that tone.

Second, what if I told you that, for the low price of $2.85, you have unlimited access to hundreds of narratives? That there’s an epicenter of humanity—a veritable cesspool of stories—rumbling past your door every 8–10 minutes?

Naturally, I’m talking about the San Francisco City Bus. 

Though I’ve dabbled in other lines, the 49 is my chariot of choice. It still has that new bus smell. Plasticky and fresh, it lacks the impenetrable layer of grime and human misery that’ll never be fully scrubbed out of the 38. It zooms up and down Van Ness, passing all the cars stuck in rush hour traffic (suckas), and delivers me from Union Street to 16th and Mission in the amount of time it takes me to complete my New York Times games. 

But what I appreciate most is the fact that, as I try to figure out the insane Connections categories those freaks at the NYT came up with today, life is unfolding all around me. 

Consider this my official pitch for a hot new limited series, Tales of the City (Bus).

“We open on the 49 during a crowded morning commute. Brakes shriek. Sun streams through smudged windows….”

A woman confidently applies liquid eyeliner. Someone in the back argues with their dad on speaker phone. A young man with the haircut of a newly shorn lamb fidgets with his blazer. A mom with a baby strapped to her chest closes her eyes.

Two German tourists wear matching seafoam-green Vans. When I compliment them on their shoes, they laugh ruefully. “It’s so California… we had to.”

A man wearing a mask is busily doing something with his hands. Upon closer inspection, I see he’s peeling a head of garlic. Some of the translucent skin drifts to the floor of the bus. The rest, he gathers in his fist. When we stop at Bush Street, he tosses the garlic skin through the open doors—all over a woman in a black peacoat. “What the actual….” She’s horrified. So am I. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s just garlic skin.”

An older gentleman stands in the aisle, clinging to a pole. I hastily offer him my seat. He declines. “This is my daily exercise,” he tells me. “I stand on the bus for an hour every day. How old do you think I am?” I tell him he doesn’t look a day over 35. He smiles at that. “I’m 80. You want to know the secret to a long life?” I tell him I do. “It’s simple. Stand on the bus.”

Across from me sits a young guy who has the unmistakable look of someone in a tough spot. He’s thin and hunched in a dirty hoodie, his backpack wedged between his feet. He cradles something in his hands, looking down at it tenderly. He raises whatever it is and, before he presses it lovingly to his face, I catch a glimpse of this likely much-needed source of comfort. Nestled there is a bright-green chameleon. And I swear it was smiling.

Most of us spend our lives surrounded by people who look like us, work like us, and think like us. But in a city increasingly divided by net worth, ZIP code, and square footage, public transit is one of our last remaining, truly shared experiences.

My much-griped-about time on the bus has taught me that the best stories start at the intersection of strangers and circumstance. And if you take a break from Wordle and start paying attention, those stories write themselves.