“Just Ride, Mama” by Dan Grossman
Shutterstock AI image of San Diego Trolley
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Just Ride, Mama
Miriam Stokely boarded the Blue Line trolley at the H Street stop. She looked out the window as the trolley passed through downtown San Diego on its way north. Her destination was the VA Medical Center, where she worked as an emergency room nurse.
Per usual, she was thinking of the day ahead. She needed to get on Housekeeping's case, and she needed an updated inventory of the supply room. Last shift, there hadn’t been enough disposable gloves to go around. Whoever had mopped the floors during that shift had mixed Clorox and ammonia in the mopwater. Miriam was sure of it.
Seated facing the sliding doors, she watched a bicyclist enter at the City College stop. He set down the bike. Allowing its spinning back wheel to protrude an inch across the yellow line, he sat down. She glared at the man. She noticed other things about him besides his being Black, of course: his frayed camouflage jacket, the deep scar on his brow, and his general unkempt appearance.
But it was the bicycle wheel that focused her attention as the trolley started moving again and gaining speed. At the same time, she knew what her daughter Alli would say to her right now. Alli, a nurse herself in Pasadena, would say ‘Don’t mess with this guy.’” Miriam took some pride that she had raised a daughter with common sense. But what daughter listened to her mom and vice-versa?
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I just noticed that your bicycle wheel was over the line. I was wondering if you might move it.”
He stared at her with wide eyes in a way that made her know she was in for it. “Just ride, mama, just ride,” he said.
“Just so no one trips over it,” she said.
“Right up your ass,” the man said. “Just ride the fucking trolley, mama.”
“That’s very rude.” Miriam glanced around but nobody in the trolley—not the tall bearded man in a black sweatsuit across from her, not the young woman with a baby in her lap speaking Spanish into her iPhone—betrayed any awareness of what was going down. What was about to go down.
The man stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “All your life, that same thing is right up your asshole,” he added. He licked his top lip as if savoring the moment. “Because you won't listen to anybody else. All of your profanity, all your hostility, and all your anger locked in your head. Just let it be, mama, let it be and you'll have a more peaceful life.”
“Shut up, you jerk. You’re the one using offensive language.”
“You want to argue and fight and go into profanity and everything else,” he said. “Just listen to your language. All of your past, and all your names. Do you really think you have the world on your side? Well, it ain’t. You want to argue and fight and go into profanity. Look at where you're going. I got on your case because of what you are doing with it. You want to argue and fight and cuss me out.”
“Shut up,” she spat. “You know nothing about me. You’re just an argumentative asshole.”
“Just bear with me, and you might learn something,” he said. “You want to argue. You want to live your white class existence. You want all that. From your mouth, yes, then we will look at it. I want to explain. Do you want to get past your head, your argumentation, and anger?”
“Please, please shut up, and while you’re at it … “ Miriam, feeling a surge of defiance, then shouted, “MOVE YOUR FUCKING BICYCLE.” She pictured her daughter shaking her head at her. Her daughter had marched in the George Floyd protests. They had argued a lot. Miriam, while no fan of racist cops, repeatedly told her daughter that George Floyd was a thug. She had met enough Floyd types at work to know that.
The bicyclist shook his head and stared at her in a way that, absurdly, reminded her of Dr. Phil, and seemed—for just a fraction of a second—almost sympathetic. “Do you wanna get past your hostility and anger? Just live and be mama.”
“I'm not your mother.”
“That's respect,” he said. “You are a mother. You’re a woman. You're everybody's mother and we all have the brain to understand this.”
“I’m a mother, but I'm not your mother!”
“You don't get it,” he said. “You need to fight, and that's what's ruining you all your days. I called you mother, out of respect and you can't even get it. You will not allow yourself to be a human being. You’re an old racist bitch. Yell and scream. That’s right. But I'm giving respect. Look what you give. Look what you give me.”
“You’re the one who talked of my ‘white class existence’ but you call me racist.” She wasn’t expecting a reasoned, or reasonable, response, but she couldn’t help herself. “That’s rich,” she said. “You should look in the mirror.”
“I called you mother. That gave you respect, and were you able to receive it? No. You are an old racist bitch that's only gonna be a broke up, wounded fucking whore. Do you see what you're getting because of what you gave back? Look at what you gave back and look at what you get for what you give. That's all you're ever going to receive. Now, when are you going to learn your lesson? That's what I want to know.”
“You are just a resentful ni—” She caught herself. “Black man.”
“Go ahead and say it mama. Get it all out.”
Miriam brought her hand to her mouth, knowing she had crossed a line. So did the woman with the iPhone, with the baby drooling in her sling. She had been directing the smartphone camera lens straight at her for some time.. She made eye contact with the young woman for the briefest of moments. The woman just smiled and shrugged her shoulders as if saying “That’s what you get.”
Knowing what she knew about social media, she saw that this video would go viral. Not only that, but segments and stills of the video would be cut and recut in memes and TikTok videos. There would be captions like, “KAREN SAYIN’ WHAT ON HER MIND.”
A gender-neutral voice over the speaker announced; “Now Approaching: Fifth Avenue.”
Scenarios swirled in her head. The snickering in the halls of the Veterans Hospital. The side-eye glances from the Black nurses. The page over the intercom calling her to the HR office. She could foresee the frantic call with her daughter. She could predict her angry questions.
“You know how badly you want to say it, mama, and everyone needs to hear it,” the man said. “The world needs to hear it.”
Despite the seeming prescience of his words, the man betrayed no other awareness of his forthcoming status as a celebrity. As the trolley slowed to a stop at Fifth Avenue, he lifted his bike by the saddle and the handlebar. After the sliding doors opened, he wheeled it out into the scattered sunlight.
“You’re a woman and a mother.” The man rocked his head rhythmically, without even glancing back. “That's exactly what you are, you old racist. Stop being racist.”
“I’m not a racist, you asshole,” Mirian cried out. But by that time the sliding doors were closing. Then, after a few precious seconds, the Blue Line was on the move once again.
