People who commute on BART usually carry something with them to occupy their time. Some people read. Some listen to music. Some sleep. And some play on their laptops or engage in some other sort of pretentious behavior...like knitting. I'm sorry my little patouli-soaked dirt surfer, but knitting scarves and hats for the homeless with your recycled bamboo needles and your organic, pesticide-free vegan wool isn't going to change the fact that you feel guilty about your privileged upper middle-class childhood or that you are bitter at your parents for still being happily married and sending you to private schools. GET OVER IT! We all know you're headed home for a Will and Grace marathon with the rest of your granola-eating, bi-curious, cutter friends. Anyway, I listen to music and read the paper on the train.

Being a writer and a BART-observing enthusiast, I am somewhat conflicted by this. I'm virtually certain I have foresaken hilarious conversations just behind me for AC/DC's Stiff Upper Lip and the cryptoquip in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle. Luckily, sometimes the funny just comes to you. Like Friday morning. When a youngish family of three boarded my car huddled together and cowering in fear; followed closely by a drunk, yammering black man in an olive-green pin-striped suit with a pea-green collarless dress shirt, green and gray gator boots, a gray fedora, and a briefcase. This is one of those brilliant moments on BART when you fold your newspaper, slide off your headphones, sit back and let the magic happen.

The family of three--a young boy, his good-looking, olive-complected father, and his short frumpy unremarkable mother--slid quickly into the seats closest to the door (the ones for the blind and disabled) with a visible sense of relief. One got the sense from looking at them that they felt like the seats offered some sort of security and respite from the drunk guy in the olive suit. Boy were they wrong. The family sat in the one place that had the most open standing room of any place on the traincar. It was a Friday morning, so the train was at its typical less-than-full Friday capacity. This meant the drunk black man in the olive suit had a whooooole bunch of open area to work with. He was going to play the jester, and this was going to be his stage. I was giddy with excitement.

I can't really say that Olive Suit ever started talking in the context of this story because I could tell that he probably had never stopped. What I can do, is start with the first full thing I heard him say as he boarded the train on the coattails of the family:

Olive Suit: Yous all married? I used to be married 10, 20, 30 years ago HAHAHAHAHAHA but I gave that shit up! I's a playuh! Straight up man, I ain't gonna lies to yuh. I's a playuh! Sheeeeeeiiiiit, I's with two a my hoes last night. Yeah I'm still drunk so what HAHAHAHAHA cuz I's a playuh cuuuuuzzzzz

Wife: Yep, we're married. And this is our son. How long were you married sir?

Son: I'm five and a half!

W: Do you miss her at--

S: I'm five and a half!

OS: Daaaammmmnnn, you's a big kid. You keep eatin the way you do and you be like big man over here (gesturing toward me). Inn't that right, big man?!

Drunk: Yep, 20 more years like you're going and you can be big, unshaven and hungover too.

OS: HAHAHAHA you funny big man you funny.

The wife confused me at first. You would think as a mother of a young child you would try to shield him from someone like Olive Suit. You would cover his ears, ask Olive Suit to watch his language, move seats, something! Instead, the wife was actually sitting on the edge of her seat leaning forward and listening intently to what Olive Suit was saying. Her husband was slumped down in his seat the whole time either avoiding eye contact with Olive Suit or looking desperately to the other passengers trying to figure out what was going on. Her son was just bobbing up and down having fun with a big smile plastered on his face. I was waiting for him to tug on his mom's shirt and say something like "wow Mommy, this clown is funny. Do they have clowns on all the BART trains?"

OS: So this yo husband?

W: Yep, and this is our son.

S: I'm five and a half!

OS: Where you from brutha?

W: He's from Turkey.

The husband nodded in assent and gave Olive Suit a forced, awkward smile that belied the facts that a: he probably didn't understand half of what Olive Suit was saying and b: he just wanted him to go away.

OS: From Turkey!? Naaahh, yous a turkey girl? Why you give up on 'merican men? Whas wrong wit 'merican men? You don't like em no more? C'mon sweetheart, I'm all man and I am definitely allllll-'merican!

Drunk: Ohhhh shit. That's awesome!

OS: You know it big man. You know it big man.

Olive Suit stumbles over to me and runs me through his intricate Olive-Suit-Is-The-Man-And-Just-Banged-Two-Women-And-Is-Still-Drunk handshake.

W: American men are fine. We met when I was in Turkey when I was 21 and we fell in love. Then he came back to America with me and we had a little boy.

S: I'm five and a half!

That's when it hit me. SHE'S A MORMON! It all fit. Upon a second glance, she looked like Lazy-Eyed Mormon's younger sister. Bad, pasty white skin. Ratty hair. Squat, lumpy body. All she was missing was the lazy eye and the graying snaggletooth! I figured it all out in a span of like 30 seconds.

She went to Turkey for her mission. She met a guy. He was receptive to her mission and to her advances. She saw in him God's plan for her. He saw in her GREEEEEEEN CAAAAAAAARRRRRD! It made perfect sense. He probably did understand everything Olive Suit was saying, he just didn't care. I mean look at her...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

There was a bit of a lull at this point in Act 1 of Theater on the BART Tracks. Olive Suit was swaying gently and drunkenly with undulation of the moving train. Suddenly, he drops to his knees, flattens his briefcase, flips the locks--I see this and I'm getting ready to jump behind my seat Boyz n' the Hood style--and he pulls out a fabric swatch (his briefcase had 3 Sports Illustrateds and the fabric swatch. That's it).

OS: This is gonna be my next suit. You like it? I think it's HOT! I gotta question fah ya though. What color fedora you think I should get? (the swatch was royal blue with thin silver and purple stripes running vertically and horizontally, respectively)

This is one of those instances where, if you are uncomfortable in a situation with a stranger, you beg off by showing no interest and saying something like " I don't know, whatever. I'm no good with that kind of thing." Instead, Mormon Wife TAKES THE SWATCH AND STARTS EXAMINING IT! When she showed it to GreenCard Husband my eyes lit up with glee like a 6yr old on Christmas morning. THIS IS GREAT! YOU COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP IF YOU TRIED!

W: Well why don't you get a blue one like the color of the suit

OS: HAHAHAHAAHA. No bayyyy-beeee, you can't get blue wit dis! You gotta get a purple one, like the stripe in there. I was testin' you, girl! Yo man can dress, he look good. Ask him to teach you what's up.

Olive Suit had been standing a good 15-20 minutes at this point and I think he was getting a little tired of bobbing and swaying everytime the train took a turn or slowed to enter a station stop. He picked up his briefcase, sat it down on it's bottom edge, and took a seat on it. Unfortunately, his weight wasn't centered and the briefcase fell to one side. He went the other. Hard. Everyone in that part of the train stopped. Everyone but Olive Suit

OS: Come ooonnnn big man, help a brutha up! I know you been drunker'n me befo' big ass white motherfucker. Shit.

I helped him up in spite of his disgustingly sweaty hands and the forcefield of Eau-de-Degenerate-BudLight-Swiller perfume he was shrouded in.

OS: I used to be a boxuh! Over in Oakland, 'n Hunters Point 'n shit. You could be a boxer one day too little man. Show me you jab!

Olive Suit leans forward toward the family with his hands extended. The little boy's eyes light up. His parents--both of them this time--recoil in horror hoping he either doesn't fall on them or puke on them or both. Well Olive Suit is having a hard time keeping his balance at this point. He's leaning forward in an awkward position, the train had just entered the underwater tunnel connecting Oakland to San Francisco, and the conductor had just accelerated the train to it's 71 mph cruising speed.

Olive Suit is a problem solver. He grabs the kid under the armpits, lifts him up from between his now petrified parents, and plants him in the middle of the open floor space. The kid is loving it. Olive Suit puts his hands out:

OS: Okay little man, show me yo' jab. Gimme a combination. Hit me wich yo lef' now da right now the right again now da lef'

Little Man is doing everything he said and swimming in the attention. I've seen Special Olympics medalists look less happy. Olive Suit wasn't pleased with how Little Man was punching though

OS: Naw, naw, naw you got no balance. You gotta setcho' feet. Drive witcho' hips and bring yo hands through.

Little man didn't get it. He's five and a half, what the hell does he know. Like I said though, Olive Suit is a problemsolver. He picks up Little Man again, spins him around, plants him in the floor, bends over, moves his legs how he wants them, grabs Little Man's balled up fists, tells GreenCardHusband to put his hands out, and starts guiding Little Man's punches firmly into the outstretched palms of his father.

IT WAS AWESOME! Combine the visual with the now overpowering stench of sweat and Bud Light oozing from his suit-sheathed pores and you have quite possibly the most tragically funny commutes in the history of BART.

The train started to slow as we approached Embarcadero Station--the first San Francisco stop. It's where I get off everyday and, apparently, where Olive Suit gets off everyday

OS: Well, dis me. Yeah I got my own business. 17 years. I'M DA SHOE SHINE KING! I got me a little stand right at the top of Embarcadero by the Hyatt wit the turnin' restaurant on top. Dat's MY business. I own that shit. Remember that...you too big man. Dat's MY business. I'M DA SHOE SHINE KING!

Posted by nils at 9:05 PM

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