Muni Memories #2

The 14 Mission

Muni’s purpose is transportation. It is incidental that a Muni bus can also be a vehicle for unusual stories and memorable experiences. As a passenger, when you board the bus you board it with your own story, joining people who are already on board with their stories. And when you exit (through the back doors, please) you leave with your story while others are just getting on.

It’s the nature of Muni transportation that, more often than not, you’ll board a bus with a good story already in progress, or reach your stop before a story’s conclusion. You may never know what started a particular Muni story or what the outcome was. A Muni story is often just a slice of surreality between the realities of your origin and destination. The following memory is a perfect example.

The 14 is a crowded bus that follows Mission Street for miles, from San Francisco’s southernmost suburban neighborhoods to the towering skyscrapers along the Embarcadero. It passes through El Corazón de la Misione (the heart of the Mission), one of San Francisco’s largest neighborhoods, populated primarily by families from Mexico, Central, and South America.

The sidewalks of Mission St. are crowded with people and lined with produce stands selling delicious and inexpensive fruits and vegetables freshly harvested from area farms. The walls and buildings are festooned with flags, banners, and brightly painted murals. There are taquerias selling burritos the size of footballs on nearly every corner. In a city of microclimates, it’s one of the sunniest and warmest neighborhoods. And like many San Francisco neighborhoods, it possesses a unique flavor that hearkens to its immigrant history.

It was a typically warm, sunny Summer day in the Mission when I boarded the 14 at 26th Street. I was going downtown for a movie and had wisely brought a jacket. I could already see a thin plume of chilly fog flowing through the breaks in the hills and hovering among the skyscrapers of the Financial District.

The bus was crowded. There were about a dozen people standing towards the front, but I found a seat facing sideways near the back. When the bus stopped in front of the Sun Fat Seafood Market at 23rd St., a pair of Latino fellows took the last remaining seats, one across from me and the other in the rear of the bus to my right.

The thing I noticed right away about these two guys was that they had crabs. One each, to be exact, held in their hands between folded pieces of wax paper, kind of like you’d hold an Éclair... or a pretzel. But they were crabs. Big ones. Their bodies were about the size of a DVD and their legs extended from their bodies several inches in every direction. And though I didn’t want to stare or appear too interested, I had to confirm what I thought I’d seen, or more precisely I wanted to prove that I hadn’t actually seen what I thought I’d seen, coming from between those folded sheets of wax paper: motion. But my eyes had not deceived me. Those legs – they were kicking. These two gentlemen had, apparently just before getting on the bus, made a purchase at the Sun Fat Seafood Market of two live crabs. And now they were holding them in their hands on a crowded bus that was lurching through heavy traffic down Mission Street.

I’ve always been a sign reader. When I regularly drove I-80 in Nebraska, I used to know every sign between Lincoln and Grand Island by heart, even the little signs. Rest Area Next Right. Beaver Creek. High Winds On Overpass. Weather Info: Tune Radio to 1430 AM. Exit 312.

So as a sign reader and a Muni passenger, I’m pretty familiar with the posted Muni regulations. It is a felony to strike a Muni bus driver. Front seats are reserved for seniors and persons with disabilities. It is against the law for anyone under 18 years of age to have in their possession a permanent marker with a tip greater than ½” in diameter. Food and drink are not allowed on any Muni transit vehicle. Radios must be turned off. Pets are allowed, but dogs must be leashed and muzzled. And of course, above the driver’s head, the eternal, and almost lyrical message: Information gladly given, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation.

Given the clearly-posted rules, one must conclude that the crabs these men brought on board the 14 Mission were not food (which is forbidden), but pets (which are allowed). And thus, it was on this very bus ride that I, and many other mortified passengers, learned first-hand, in graphic detail, of an unfortunate loophole in Muni’s regulations, for nowhere is it posted that one is not allowed to eat one’s pet while riding in a Muni transit vehicle. Well, these two good men began exploiting that loophole in earnest.

I suppose you could say that I was just a little bit flabbergasted. They tore into those crabs and sucked and gnawed the meat right out of them, cracking the exoskeletons and spitting bits of shell onto the floor as they chewed. And those legs just kept wiggling. Try as I might, I couldn’t not keep from avoiding staring (I employ a quadruple-negative here, ladies and gentlemen, in an attempt to depict how truly difficult it was not to stare).

As if the crunching and spitting weren’t enough, the fellow across from me decided to break his crab in half - I guess in order to get to the really good stuff in the middle - but the main shell proved to be a little tougher than he expected. He strained for a moment, then really put his weight behind it and with a sudden loud crack and a well-timed pothole, launched half of his crab into the air. In exquisitely slow motion, it spiraled in a downward arc, losing bits of that delicious center as it spun, two remaining legs rotating around the chewy middle, crossing the aisle as I watched with a growing mixture of alarm and dismay. My eyes grew wide and a little squeak that only I heard escaped from deep in my throat as it struck me on the inside of my left calf and landed with a thunk right between my feet.

My first thought was, “Wow, that made quite a thunk.” My second thought, “Don’t look at it.” And my third thought, upon looking at it, “My god, the legs are still kicking!”

The funny thing is, if I’d been riding a crowded bus with a live crab that I’d just broken in two, flinging a living, writhing portion of it through the air and striking another person with it, I’d have looked up at that person and apologized profusely. However, I never looked up to receive the apologetic gaze of the half-living-crab-tossing Muni passenger across from me, so I have no idea if he felt even a little embarrassed. I just kept looking down at the half-crab at my feet, watching its two remaining legs extend and then curl inward, over and over again.

I touched it with the tip of my boot, wanting to kick it from underneath me. But for some ridiculous reason I thought that would be rude. Yes, I’d just been hit in the leg by a flying chunk of half a living crab, and I was afraid that kicking it away from me would be rude! I’m such a Nebraskan sometimes.