I was on the bus downtown tonight. There was a scruffy guy across from me in an army green trenchcoat, army green pants, and a bright polyester sweater from the 80s. His face was gnarled, and he looked like he been out in the weather too long. He had awful, twisted teeth. And he was carrying two bags full of newspapers and magazines. Occasionally he would pull one out, flip through it, and snarl, "Fuck this." As the bus kept travelling, he got more agitated. He swore and ran his words together so fast I couldn't make them out. He sounded tremendously angry, but not an anger directed at anything in particular. "I don't understand any of this," he nearly shouted, and there was a real note of despair in his voice. "I've been trying for 36 years and I haven't understood any of it." He looked 56, at least.

The bus driver, a young woman, told him to keep it down. "No I won't," he growled. "You tell my landlord to keep it down."

"What stop do you want?" the bus driver continued.

"This one!" He stomped off the bus.

I told her she handled that well, and she said it made her sad that people got to that point.

On the bus uptown, a man got on, shouting and swearing in Spanish. He was younger, but weathered, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and dirty jeans, like a construction worker. He sounded drunk. I could make out "Lucifer" and "Policia" in his speech. One young woman scowled at him, her small, protruding eyes narrowing. "Why doesn't he just shut up?" she said to no one in particular. The driver got on his radio, and the bus intercom switched on. A transit cop warned the man that his conduct was unacceptable and officers had been dispatched to the bus. He left immediately, still swearing. People smiled behind his back as he left, laughing at him.

I transferred to another bus, and it was piloted by the first driver. I told her about what had happened, and asked if it was common, since this made two outbursts in one night. Her first response was curiousity: "What did he look like?" she asked me. Apparently there are 'types' the drivers know, for example a guy who's ridden the night bus for 20 years, tries to bum smokes off passengers, but will stop if you tell him his mother disapproves. "These people, they're mentally ill, they've got no families, no dignity," she said.

I told her how I used to work at a social housing agency, where we housed people who already had supports, but what happened to the ones with nothing? Where do they go after they get off the bus?, I wondered. They're released to the community without the proper supports.

"Yeah, that's capitalism for you," she said, and laughed. She said she was an activist in high school, part of Amnesty International and the SPCA, but it was harder when she got older; "You have responsibilities. And now look at me - I'm working for the government."

"But government workers don't set policy, capitalists do," I said, and she agreed with me. She told me she volunteered for a native outreach centre nowadays, and I said it was great she still an activist. That was my stop.

Tonight gelled two things in my head:

1) the workers - like I wrote before, service workers bear the brunt of cuts to mental health. Front-line employees are expected to handle outbursts - not social workers or psychologists, but baristas and bus drivers. I didn't like how the second bus driver called the cops, but it's not his job to talk the angry man down. The response of the other passengers disgusted me - watching someone else break down isn't funny, and I take no pleasure in knowing I'm functional while that guy is wandering the streets drunk and poor.

This is where being a leftist makes a difference; the first driver set limits, told the angry man to be quiet, but she didn't bring in the cops. She was respectful but firm. That wasn't due to her training, but her politics.

2) the angry men - The government just cut $1 billion from social programs; this hits the poor and marginalized. Some people can't handle the strain and crack. They've got no one to yell at but themselves; they're so wrapped in their own pain they can't even talk to anyone else. Our only response - I saw it tonight and felt it in me - is to back away, not get involved, hope they go away. And the angry men do go away, either by choice or by force, so we don't have to see them.

The fiction I read is mainly from the early 20th century. Jack London, Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos show the streets were full of angry, indigent, desperate people. Yet this is what the welfare state was supposed to alleviate. For all its problems, cradle-to-grave security provided supports so we wouldn't have to witness the sad spectacle of someone losing it, and we wouldn't have to become one of those people.

Maybe that explains the passengers' reaction: externalize their fears, laugh off how tight the fiscal and emotional rope we all walk is. Getting poor is like getting mentally ill: you lose social acceptance. The line between 'getting by', and yelling "I've been trying for 36 years and I still don't understand it" to yourself on a bus, isn't as thick as it might seem.

The bus driver was right. We could take care of these problems, provide people with the supports they need. But in these times, the money goes to the military, and the coffers of private companies, not social programs. It is a tragedy, but it's got a name: capitalism.