"Are you watching the Hearings?" I asked patiently, with all of the offhandedness I could muster. I've become aware that my need to understand the political leanings, however scant or immaterial, is off-putting to most people, but I feel I am entitled to know how everyone feels about everything. In this way, I can judge them. I don't agree that it's a pathology, as has been suggested by those who have since not spoken to me. Yet the man next to me has not responded, so I ask again: "Sir, did you hear me? Are you watching the hearings?"
A labored grunt emerged from the silence, followed by a sound that reverberated through the otherwise empty room. It was a particular sound: one not unlike the sound of a large can of soup emptied from several feet above a concrete floor. "What? Did you say something?" The man continued to gasp and pant, but he'd clearly noticed my plaintive question.
I persisted. "Yes! I asked if you are watching the hearings?"
"Huh? I'm not watching anything."
"I meant on television, sir. The congressional hearings on the insurrectionist coup attempt on our precious democracy that occurred for roughly an hour on January 6, 2021."
"Are you talking to me?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
Another slow grunt emerged, followed by a familiar, coarse sound. "I'm not watching anything. This is the men's room of a Greyhound station. I'm trying to take a shit." As if to prove his point, another can of soup was emptied from on high.
"This is a perfect time for you to express your opinion of the hearings." I had been waiting in my stall for hours, and I did not intend to be discouraged from eliciting the opinions of every person who sat down to defecate between bus rides.
"What the ****. I came in here to take a shit and sit in the air conditioning for a few minutes. ****ing freak."
Suddenly it made sense: the man smelled awful, of sweat and body odor, as soon as he entered the men's room. He was homeless! I had to switch tactics, because I needed to ascertain how he was watching the hearings if he had no home, but resided outdoors, somewhere near the bus station. "I gather you're homeless, sir. So, for television, do you have a solar panel with a power inverter that permits use of your television? Or does your solar panel not provide sufficient kilowatts to power your television?" I felt silly, of course, because the homeless man defecating in the stall next to mine could also have a car battery with a power inverter that would absolutely power a small television, along with a laptop that he could use to live tweet his reactions.
"I'm gonna bust your ass if you don't shut the **** up with your bullshit. God damn, can't even be on the streets without getting ****ed with."
"Sir, I understand your frustration with the hearings, but if you recall what Te-Nehisi Coates said to Ben Crump on that Baltimore cable access program I can't seem to recall..."
"I don't know what the **** you're talking about. Come near me and I'll cut you."
Suddenly I didn't care how this man powered his television or how he received his internet signal. This was a Trump Voter. "I get it. Instead of watching the hearings, you're under your tarp out there, watching Beverly Hillbillies re-runs while eating buckets of fried chicken and loading your assault-style rifle."
"Mother ****er," the trumptard bleated, "I may be down on my luck, but you are ****ing NUTS."
After that insult, I left the trumpthuglikkan to consider MY final words: "Sir, I've been sitting on this toilet for nine hours, eliciting the feelings of my fellow citizens on the assault on our democracy. I am a patriot. You are a traitor. We have nothing left to discuss, other than for you to absorb one final thought that will haunt you until your final days: YOU ARE A TRANSPHOBE."
We exchanged no words after that. I stood and waited for the feeling to return to my legs, so that I could move to another stall. I hate Trumpers.
