Mobile Series 5

Monday evening rush hour, 5:15 PM on a 21 Hayes outbound bus from San Francisco's Financial District, started off civilized but quickly devolved.



Near Sixth and Market Streets, a wheelchair user demanded to be let on the bus even though the vehicle was already packed with commuters going home. The passengers in the rear couldn't see what was happening in the front of the bus, but we could hear the action as people started screaming, "You're running over my foot" and "Ouch! What the hell are you doing?"



Then we heard a woman's voice yelling, "Get out of my way! Don't touch me! I'm disabled," which was answered by another woman's voice that shouted, "That's probably because you were down on Market Street smoking crack!" The response was, "Shut up, you motherf---ing white bitch."



The cacophony continued for another six blocks until we reached Van Ness Avenue and Hayes. A middle-aged man in a wheelchair with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips also demanded a ride. The scene felt like an outtake from a John Waters film and quite a few of us got off and left the movie early.