Drunk #3

As I'm pulling out of the bus loop, I see out of the corner of my eye a guy on the sidewalk giving me the finger. I do a double take. Sure enough, I was imagining it, he's just walking down the sidewalk. Wow, I must be really tired. I come to a stop at a red light, waiting to turn left. I see the guy (the same one I thought had flipped me the bird) walk over to the driver's side window of my bus. I never open my window to talk to someone. I've made the mistake before. More often than not, all they want to do is insult you or yell at you. I assume he wants my bus so I point to the bus stop and tell him I'll pick him up there. He gives me the finger. Maybe I wasn't hallucinating before? I look away - it only provokes them if you make eye contact. Suddenly he starts pounding on the window. He's hitting it so hard, I'm afraid it's going to break. All the while he's yelling that I'm a fuckin' bitch and a whore and he's going to kill me etc, etc, etc. I look over at him and see he's got the crazy eyes. You know, the ones that are so insane, they probably would kill you or do you bodily harm the first chance they get. The light turns green and I immediately start accelerating, hoping to put as much distance between myself and this psycho as possible. 


As I'm starting to make my turn he decides to start crossing the street. I come to a stop and wait for him to finish crossing. He also stops and motions angrily for me to proceed. I wave at him to cross first but he flat out refuses to move. Seeing as the light is about to change again, I start turning. Of course he moves further out into the crosswalk. My front end has cleared him but if I continue turning my back end is going to end up clipping him. (It's called off-tracking. Large vehicles turn differently than cars. Watch a bus or tractor-trailer make a turn sometime. The rear tires will never follow in the tracks of the front ones.) 


On top of this, I got stuck on an insulator. (Whenever the overhead wires cross, one set is insulated. Which means there is no power. We can't accelerate through these sections, we're only allowed to go 15kmh and we have to cover the brake. If for some reason you stop with your poles directly on the insulator, you'll have no power and you'll have to switch to EPU mode...battery power. Once you're past the insulator, the battery power shuts off and you have to stop and switch back to the regular power source. Essentially all I'm trying to say is it's a pain in the butt to get stuck on an insulator and it takes a fair bit of time to get past it.) Needless to say, I wasn't too happy with my current situation. By the time I've switched to EPU, he's approached my window and has started hitting it as hard as he can (and swearing, threatening to kill me and intermittently giving me the finger). I get the bus moved up a foot, past the insulator when the bus stops moving. I stop and switch back to the regular power source. I look over at the stop and see people waiting there. I could stop and pick them up but at this point I'm terrified that this psycho is going to try and get on the bus and to be honest I want to put as much distance between him and myself as possible. So I choose to not stop and keep going. As I start driving, this man grabs hold of my side mirror and starts running alongside the bus. FUCK!!! Now I have to stop. He's super drunk and if he falls and I run him over it's going to be my fault...My supervisor will string me up by the flagpole! I reluctantly come to a stop. He lets go and stumbles into oncoming traffic. Seeing my golden opportunity, I floor it and drive away. I park the bus a few blocks later and call communications explaining what happened.


A supervisor shows up ten minutes later and asks if I'm okay to keep driving. I reply "Yeah, I'll be okay. I was a little shaken up but I didn't hit him and I wasn't hurt so it's all good." The police arrive a few minutes later and get a description of this guy. A couple hours later communications calls my bus and says "How you doing? I just thought you'd like to know the police caught the guy and threw him in the drunk tank." "Hey, good stuff. Thanks for letting me know." I reply. Man, my company is awesome!!!