Berkeley Sick Days

I have been sick all day today, and yesterday too, for that matter. It's whatever achey sickness is making the rounds among college students here. I've been basically hung over for the past two days, sleeping and wishing I could retch or collapse. On Sunday I stood around in the painful Telegraph Avenue sunlight while my buddy Nate's dad had several thin leather bracelets custom made for him at a sidewalk peddler's stand. Strident grrl-punk was blaring from the WICKED SMOKE SHOP and my head was throbbing. The very muscles controlling my eyes protested when I moved them the slightest bit. Inside I saw some guy with bedroom hair and ugly shoes walking around with a clipboard, no doubt the pinnacle of cool, no doubt the favorite pipe cleaner of the buxom girl-bots in their titanium bustiers painted on the front of the building. The peddler cut wire and remeasured and made small talk about the economic conditions in Shasta County in a thick accent. All was done for nine dollars after what must have been fifteen minutes of idle agony. Up the street two large ugly men in t-shirts with eagles and lightning bolts body slammed each other and knocked elbows like tag team wrestlers. Some black woman was screaming bloody murder about the government like we were supposed to take up arms.

I slept for four good hours when I got back home, almost religiously relieved that we had put off bug bombing the apartment until Monday. When I woke up this morning the ache was still with me, now also a satisfying tension in my legs and calves. One doesn't let something so minor interfere with his classes, though, so I was up and bombing the house at 10:30 and then out the door for a minimum of four hours.

I was a little delirious when I got back to the apartment at 4. The fumes didn't help any. I was the first person home, and so it was my job to air out the house just as it had been to fog it up in the first place. I held my breath as I leaned in, and staggered around opening windows. I came out with the same air in my lungs, and collapsed on the lawn for a while. Later I called the phone company and spent an hour trying to order DSL. I couldn't understand half the things the service rep was saying. I had a meeting on campus at 6, so it was back aboard the bus and back to campus for my failing legs.

After the meeting I was back on the bus, sagging and weary. I felt a renewed scratchiness at the back of my throat and hunched down in the seat. Behind me was an immense lump of grizzled black man. He was hacking up a lung. In front of me was a diminutive Chinese girl, also hacking up a lung. Fate was firing on all cylinders today. I imagined the hanging mist of microorganisms settling on me like the now sterile dander in my apartment. Then I heard it.

I AM NOT A HOMOSEXUAL. I AM NOT A HOMOSEXUAL. KEEP TRYIN' TO CONVERT ME BUT AIN'T NO WOMAN GON' DO.

A large black woman in an off white head scarf and some faded "in memoriam of" t-shirt was bellowing her preferences to everyone on the bus.

I DO NOT EAT PUSSY. WON'T NEVER FIND ME UP BETWEEN NO WOMAN'S LEGS. I FEED NO WOMAN NEITHER. TAKE MY PLEASURE ONLY FROM A MAN. IF YOU A WOMAN I AIN'T GOT NO BUSINESS WITH YOU, 'LESS YOU GOT A SON, OR A DADDY. OR A BROTHER, SO LONG AS HE OLD ENOUGH TO BE MY MAN.

The bus driver asked her meekly to calm down. She would not let him finish.

UC BERKELEY! UC BERKELEY! PAYROLL I'M PAYROLL AT ALAMEDA. I -- NO I TALKIN' LIKE THIS 'CAUSE YOUR PASSENGERS -- 'CAUSE YOUR PASSENGERS KEEP COMIN' UP AND TRYIN' HIT ON ME AND I AIN'T NO LESBIAN. I DON'T WANT NO TONGUE UP IN ME, SOME WOMAN LEANIN' 'TWEEN MY LEGS THEN NEED SOME MAN'S PENIS IN ME FINISH THE JOB. BITCH GET YOURSELF A DILDO, STICK IT UP THERE, FILL IT WITH HOT WATER JUST DON'T COME BOTHER ME 'BOUT IT.

"Ma'am, would you please get off the bus at the next stop?"

Y'ALL THINKIN' YOU CAN CONVERT ME. YOU CAN'T DO IT. AIN'T NO WOMAN CAN. AIN'T NO WOMAN CAN CONVERT ME.

"Ma'am, please quiet down or you're going to have to leave."

UC BERKELEY UC BERKELEY. PAYROLL I'M PAYROLL ALAMEDA I --

"Ma'am, please get off the bus. I'm not leaving until you get off the bus."

NOT UNTIL I RECORD A FEW THINGS. YOUR HONOR, THE HONORABLE DOCTOR M.D., FOR THE COURT TO HEAR PLEASE RECALL THAT --

"Ma'am, please get off the bus now."

WHAT'S YOUR BADGE NUMBER? I'M RECORDING YOUR BADGE NUMBER AND THE NUMBER OF THIS BUS. DON'T THINK I WON'T -- WHAT IS IT?

"One one one one one."

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER SIR?

"I just told you. One one one one one."

WHAT'S THAT NUMBER UP THERE?

"That's the number for the route."

ALL RIGHT I'M GON' GO RECORD THAT AND I'M GON' CALL 'CAUSE I'M ALAMEDA
PAYROLL UC BERKELEY AND I --

We couldn't hear anymore because the bus driver had shut the doors and
pulled away from her. She wandered off down a side street, still bellowing. We could only make out a few of her catchphrases. People snickered. The man behind me wheezed wetly and I hunched into myself again, hoping maybe I could just duck myself home.