Sweating on the 18

It's evening after a surprisingly hot day in the bay area, and Jack and I have just boarded a bus on our way home from a grocery run.  The bus is nearly three quarters full, and, though it is hot, the windows are open and to me it's bearable.  That opinion is not shared by the woman sitting across the two seats behind me, who is muttering to herself about the insufferably of the heat.  The bus stops in front of the Downtown Berkeley BART, and on climbs a small mob of people.  I don't hear the man ask the woman sitting behind me for the seat next to her, but I certainly hear her answer him.

"Hell, no!  Look, man, too hot in here.  You not gonna sit down.  Hell, I'm 'bout to faint."

The man was slightly older, wearing a baseball cap, and having none of this, despite the reasonable tone in his voice on reply.  

"Well, I'm about to faint too, and I wanna sit down."

The woman lets lose a string of profanities, to which the man replies with his own, and Jack, in what is probably an attempt to keep some sort of peace, stands up and offers the man his seat, leaving the man sitting directly in front of the woman and me between him and the window.  

Jack's gesture diffuses the immediate conflict, but does nothing to halt the underlying tension, with both parties muttering insults under their breaths, mixed with occasional bursts of yelling and threats of stabbings.  Apparently it really was too hot, as neither looks ready to make good on the threat.  It doesn't stop the small boy near the front from crying, and, though I'm not nearly as dismayed as he, I spend the ride leaning into the window, trying to look inconspicuous.  It's obvious that both of these people are slightly deranged, and though I'm not scared of the situation, I have no desire to be brought into the conversation.

After a few stops, the woman gets off, still ranting, and sometime later, so does the man.  After some shuffling around of other passengers, Jack again sits down next to me.  He leans in and whispers, "I have a story to tell you when we get home".

"I was sitting right here for all of that." I respond, wondering what he could mean.

"You didn't see it from my angle." 

Curious, I press for more details, only to be told to wait.  I wait only until the doors of the bus close after we disembark before making like Paul Harvey and demanding the rest of the story.

"Did you see him pull out his knife?" Jack asks.

I hadn't and am surprised to hear about this development.  "But she was the one who was threatening to stab him."

"Well, once he sat down, he pulled out a knife, unfolded the blade, and put it under his leg."

"Wow, I totally missed that."

So I sat on a bus next to a man who pulled a knife, and I had no idea.  This does not bode well for my urban survival skills.