Thread by @FitzTheReporter

/thread
Last night I saw a raw, truly human moment from someone who almost took a dark path on #SFMuni.

It started with some rowdy teeangers in the back of a 38-Geary, mouthing off just past Gough street. I was in the front, and all I could hear was shouting.

(1/?)

The driver was quick to take care of things. He stopped the bus, walked outside and to the back. I got up too, ready to help if things got physical. This has happened more than once in my lifetime riding Muni. It's part of being a community.

I needn't have worried.

"I don't care who started it! Some of you will come to the front, some will stay in the back. I'm not driving until there's some peace," the driver said.

Eventually the teens decided to get off the bus. That's when one man moved up to the front and sat next to me.

Caucasian, close-buzzed brown hair, maybe early to mid-30's. He was shaking. Rocking back and forth. Hands clasped.

That's when some of the teens walked up to the front entrance (we hadn't moved yet) and shouted at him. They spat obscenities. Called him weak.

"I could take you, b****! You're soft! F****** soft! Come at me!" one gangly looking caucasian-appearing teen shouted at him, while his fellows walked off behind him also shouting taunts.

The man just sat there, stared the kid down. The teen got off and the bus moved.

The guy was still shaking and rocking. "That kid didn't understand," he told me. "I could've cut him. I could've taken him. I could've taken all them out."

That's when he told me his story: He had been in prison for 8 years after knocking out 4 people trying to beat his friend.

He was on parole, he said. One wrong move, and he's back in prison. He has two kids he supports who live with him and his partner. "One mine, one not" he said.

He spent all his time in prison learning to code, he told me. Now he has a good tech job downtown. He's an SF native.

He was still shaking, still rocking. I could tell he had all this energy in him, raaring to fight. He said it was hard to clamp down his instincts from prison.

"You fight to survive there. Every instinct is trained to survive," he said. Fighting that instinct when the teens ...

... started baiting him "out of nowhere" was incredibly hard, he said. I told him he displayed maturity and coolness under pressure not to cave to their taunting. I told him about my time working in a high school, how teens regularly bait adults, it can be part of the age.

He said he knew they were just being knuckleheads, but every instinct in his body made him want to hurt them. He knew it was the wrong move in every way.

The only way he stopped himself was by saying his head, over and over, "I can't go back. I can't go back."

We both got off at the same bus stop. It turns out, we're neighbors in the Inner Richmond of SF.

I'm glad my neighbor kept his cool in a hard situation. I'm glad he didn't go back.

/end thread

@munidiaries @SFTRU