Tigger

"If I was married to her I would slit my throat." He draws his hand dramatically across his neck, apparently referring to a homeless woman resting at the bus shelter. The redheaded man is sitting behind the driver with one arm stretched across the seats as I step on the bus. He seems engaged in a conversation with other passengers, but I quickly realize it is more the performance of a bad stand-up comic, with an audience that squirms and grimaces rather than laughs.

As I head to a seat near the back, he continues his routine, accented by rough voicings that might be chuckles. He peers over his mirror shades as if challenging the voyeurs to respond. A green bandana, spike leather wrist band, mustache, ample tattoos inside a muscle shirt give the appearance of a Harley man, but he probably can't afford a bike.

A grizzly bear Straight Outta Van Nuys, abandoned when Busch Gardens closed in '79, he now survives on the fumes from the brewery and dull sexist remarks that remind him of his manliness.

At the stoplight he suddenly turns and starts pointing at people in cars. He chortles and holds both arms high with the peace sign--or more like the classic Nixon victory wave--triumphing over those poor schmucks in their Landrovers with surround sound and leather seats. His disc player may be scarred but his earphones work and at least he can look down at you and stick out his tongue.

The electricity running through his limbs won't allow him to stay in one place. He moves about the bus eventually settling down in the seat directly in front of me. His shirt is frayed to near nothing, but I decipher "House of Pain" above a series of tour cities and dates. The tattoos might have been done by an equally hopped up friend after the dates. One reads "Rock N Roller" as if he looked down at the beer soaked floor, saw a chewed up pen and asked someone to scribble on his shoulder to remind him what he was. Another is some sort of animal wrapped in a spider web. Is it a tiger or perhaps a tigger, Straight Outta Winnie the Pooh?

He pulls the cord for the Noble Av stop, gets up and snaps the door open. Walking down the street with his chest thrust out, Matthew McConaughey's brother heads out to meet his fans.