Bus Report #290

How often do you see people fighting up against the outside of a bus that had been in motion a minute before?
Until this morning, my answer was never.
After a relaxed, ordinary bus ride with Carmen and the other regulars (QSAM, the woman with the inappropriate frilly dresses, the creepy dude with the red beard, the man who looks familiar from the back, etc.) I got out of the 22 Fillmore at Bryant and 16th Street.
I was barely off the bus when I noticed that two guys were fighting each other, one of them having shoved the other one up against the side of the bus. He was trying to strangle him.
I stood there for a moment, with the man who looks familiar from the back and the woman with the dark sunglasses, watching and wondering what we should do.
The bus knew what to do and took off.
The two men lurched, still locked together, towards the trash can. The more aggressive of the two punched the other guy in the face. They kept struggling.
I thought someone should maybe call the police but the man who looks familiar from the back and the woman with the dark glasses were already drifting away.
I called 911.
"Hey," I said, when an operator answered. "I'm at 16th and Bryant and there are two guys fighting, and one of them is kind of half-dressed at this point."
The guys were still fighting so I crossed the street, keeping them in my sights while I talked to the operator.
"Any weapons?" she asked me.
"Not that I can see," I said.
As I neared the Potrero Center, the guys stopped fighting. The one who had lost his shirt put it back on, and they walked in opposite directions.
"On second thought, don't send anyone," I told the operator.
She told me to call back if I needed anything further.