The Bus
by Liz Perkins
Waiting for the bus – in today’s American society it’s about as everyman as you can get. So as I stood in the cold October air waiting for that yellow and black monstrosity of human engineering to come barreling down the paved path roaring and shuddering like some kind of stampeding prehistoric beast towards my vigilant and shivering body, I stopped for a moment to appreciate exactly what I was partaking in. Across the Northeast at this very moment were thousands of other bus riders anticipating the pick up, the climb up three steps, the money drop, and the search for a seat next to a person whom they do not suspect of thievery, sexual perversion or psychotic delusions.
It was 7:27 and the bus was exactly seven minutes late. Or perhaps maybe it had been early or I had missed it – did it matter? The bus would come again as it always did, like the first slide always came back up on my favorite toy when I was a kid - one of those red Fisher Price 3D viewers that looked like red binoculars. You always knew that if you clicked it enough times that first picture would appear again before you, looking exactly as it did the first time, brighter and larger than life and that’s just how busses are. They are all big and bright and they all look exactly the same.
But the bus was still not in sight and I wished I could click through the approaching Squash truck **click**, the minivan on its way to the Junior High packed with pubescent boys **click** and the Toyota Corolla captained by an spiritless day time cube dweller **click** and just skip ahead to the bus slide **click** **click** **click** so that the proliferating anxiety in my gut about being late for work could be deserted on the sidewalk next to the bus stop sign.
Then, just as I was about to lose hope, I heard a low rumbling in the distance, a grumbling from low to high and then low again as the bus pressed towards me and my fellow bus waiters, finally reaching us after much struggle, pulling over to the curb and letting out a final and dramatic exhalation - it could not have gone any farther without this brief sojourn. The beast rested for a moment and then its doors opened to us willfully and we boarded one by one, thankful that it had finally arrived to ship the human product to where it could be used in the most economically sound way. I worked my way to the back of the bus searching for a seat and procured one between a fat and bearded man who looked like a bizarro world Santa Claus with a long peppered beard and a drab circa 1949 brown tweed suit reading an old Wonder Woman comic and one which was occupied by some opaque human byproduct, saliva I hoped.
I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible and pulled out my bus-ride reading material, Logical Atomism by Bertrand Russell, and instantly began to wish I had brought something more colorful, Lolita perhaps, although I had already read it too many times to count. I knew Russell, with his dry language and mostly logical lines of reasoning would offer little refuge from the monochrome atmosphere of the bus. Just as he was finishing attributing most of the ideas in his book to Wittgenstein, I realized with abject horror that the tassels of my scarf – or rather my mother’s scarf that I had stolen in haste to make the bus on time – had malingered its way into the mysterious pile of gelatinous goop that resided on the seat to my left. I shuddered as I lifted it up to inspect it and wiped it with the napkin from my lunch.
As I continued to read, the bus continue to fill with people, its bellow becoming progressively desperate as it pulled away from each stop, its load growing heavier and heavier. I offered my seat to a middle-aged woman who turned down my offer with vehemence, insulted perhaps that I thought her incapable of standing for the duration of a bus ride. I tried to continue reading but found myself more taken with the other passengers than with Russell’s paradoxical conclusions. It was a motley crew of white and blue collars, businessmen and construction workers, nurses and window washers, teachers and welfare recipients.
SHHHHWOOOSHHHH, the bus’s breaks kicked in a moment later the doors parted and a final passenger boarded. The bus was packed and the new comer made her way down the aisle weaving and dipping among the other passengers in her gray sweat suit, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, listening to her IPod, eating a sandwich and heading straight towards the tainted bus seat next to me as if she sensed it before it could be seen. I knew then, I would have to warn her about the mysterious liquid in time to save her ass from base contamination.
As she approached I made eye contact with her. “Oh, no,” I said, “You don’t want to sit there.” She looked at me and shook her head, saying something to me but her mouth was full.
“Mmm wam mm,” she said. I looked at her perplexed and understanding my confusion she pointed to the edge of the seat and to my surprise, sat down on the ledge hovering just above certain disaster as the bus heaved and shuddered along as I watched terrified at every bump in the road, sure that she would fall into the unidentified matter and into ruin. But she just sat there serenely, as if she were not teetering on the brink of catastrophe and ate her sandwich and listened to her IPod without concern.
I marveled not only at her unabashed bravery but also at her ability to keep her balance in the grumbling rumbling beast in which we rode and hoped that someday I too could feel that comfortable on a bus sitting next to a pile of no-one-wants-to-know-what.
Waiting for the bus – in today’s American society it’s about as everyman as you can get. So as I stood in the cold October air waiting for that yellow and black monstrosity of human engineering to come barreling down the paved path roaring and shuddering like some kind of stampeding prehistoric beast towards my vigilant and shivering body, I stopped for a moment to appreciate exactly what I was partaking in. Across the Northeast at this very moment were thousands of other bus riders anticipating the pick up, the climb up three steps, the money drop, and the search for a seat next to a person whom they do not suspect of thievery, sexual perversion or psychotic delusions.
It was 7:27 and the bus was exactly seven minutes late. Or perhaps maybe it had been early or I had missed it – did it matter? The bus would come again as it always did, like the first slide always came back up on my favorite toy when I was a kid - one of those red Fisher Price 3D viewers that looked like red binoculars. You always knew that if you clicked it enough times that first picture would appear again before you, looking exactly as it did the first time, brighter and larger than life and that’s just how busses are. They are all big and bright and they all look exactly the same.
But the bus was still not in sight and I wished I could click through the approaching Squash truck **click**, the minivan on its way to the Junior High packed with pubescent boys **click** and the Toyota Corolla captained by an spiritless day time cube dweller **click** and just skip ahead to the bus slide **click** **click** **click** so that the proliferating anxiety in my gut about being late for work could be deserted on the sidewalk next to the bus stop sign.
Then, just as I was about to lose hope, I heard a low rumbling in the distance, a grumbling from low to high and then low again as the bus pressed towards me and my fellow bus waiters, finally reaching us after much struggle, pulling over to the curb and letting out a final and dramatic exhalation - it could not have gone any farther without this brief sojourn. The beast rested for a moment and then its doors opened to us willfully and we boarded one by one, thankful that it had finally arrived to ship the human product to where it could be used in the most economically sound way. I worked my way to the back of the bus searching for a seat and procured one between a fat and bearded man who looked like a bizarro world Santa Claus with a long peppered beard and a drab circa 1949 brown tweed suit reading an old Wonder Woman comic and one which was occupied by some opaque human byproduct, saliva I hoped.
I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible and pulled out my bus-ride reading material, Logical Atomism by Bertrand Russell, and instantly began to wish I had brought something more colorful, Lolita perhaps, although I had already read it too many times to count. I knew Russell, with his dry language and mostly logical lines of reasoning would offer little refuge from the monochrome atmosphere of the bus. Just as he was finishing attributing most of the ideas in his book to Wittgenstein, I realized with abject horror that the tassels of my scarf – or rather my mother’s scarf that I had stolen in haste to make the bus on time – had malingered its way into the mysterious pile of gelatinous goop that resided on the seat to my left. I shuddered as I lifted it up to inspect it and wiped it with the napkin from my lunch.
As I continued to read, the bus continue to fill with people, its bellow becoming progressively desperate as it pulled away from each stop, its load growing heavier and heavier. I offered my seat to a middle-aged woman who turned down my offer with vehemence, insulted perhaps that I thought her incapable of standing for the duration of a bus ride. I tried to continue reading but found myself more taken with the other passengers than with Russell’s paradoxical conclusions. It was a motley crew of white and blue collars, businessmen and construction workers, nurses and window washers, teachers and welfare recipients.
SHHHHWOOOSHHHH, the bus’s breaks kicked in a moment later the doors parted and a final passenger boarded. The bus was packed and the new comer made her way down the aisle weaving and dipping among the other passengers in her gray sweat suit, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, listening to her IPod, eating a sandwich and heading straight towards the tainted bus seat next to me as if she sensed it before it could be seen. I knew then, I would have to warn her about the mysterious liquid in time to save her ass from base contamination.
As she approached I made eye contact with her. “Oh, no,” I said, “You don’t want to sit there.” She looked at me and shook her head, saying something to me but her mouth was full.
“Mmm wam mm,” she said. I looked at her perplexed and understanding my confusion she pointed to the edge of the seat and to my surprise, sat down on the ledge hovering just above certain disaster as the bus heaved and shuddered along as I watched terrified at every bump in the road, sure that she would fall into the unidentified matter and into ruin. But she just sat there serenely, as if she were not teetering on the brink of catastrophe and ate her sandwich and listened to her IPod without concern.
I marveled not only at her unabashed bravery but also at her ability to keep her balance in the grumbling rumbling beast in which we rode and hoped that someday I too could feel that comfortable on a bus sitting next to a pile of no-one-wants-to-know-what.
This entry was posted by Ben Myers, on
Tuesday, October 24, 2006.
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7:31 PM
Nice....brought back old memories of riding from Lynn to Salem, and of course always being late....especially for rehearsal....Oh and I liked the line with the sevens....Eric egordinas@hotmail.com