BUS STORY # 223 (Shorts 17)

The bus stop where we’ve pulled up is by a gas station. The driver has just closed the doors and started up when a white car comes racing into the gas station alongside the bus and honking. The bus stops. “All right, all right, all right,” says our driver, and he opens his door the same time the passenger door of the white car flies open. A high school girl gets out and runs for the bus. “Thanks for giving me a heart attack,” the driver says to the girl when she boards, but it sounds good-natured. They talk for a bit before he starts up again and she heads for a seat.

***

Somewhere near the Emma Ferguson Library, we stop for a tall high school kid in a red hat with the bill at five o’clock and a tattooed vine winding around his neck. He’s holding a skateboard almost as tall as he is. He looks back down the sidewalk before boarding, then steps up to the till and says something to the driver. He hangs around the front and looks back out the window a couple of times, then takes a seat in the back. It’s a long minute before an old woman in blue denim comes into view from the curbside windows. She’s moving as fast as she can which is not very fast at all. She climbs aboard and thanks the driver several times between bouts of breath-catching. She sits on the bench seat behind the driver. She’s beaming like she’s won the lottery. The kid’s paying a lot of attention to his skateboard.

***

Cell phone conversation overheard on the bus: “I’m on the bus . . . Yeah, I know. You were hitting on my girlfriend . . . No, I’m not angry. You were drunk. ____ like that happens . . . Yeah, I know. I love her, too . . . Dude, I am. Not. Angry . . . Because you’re the only friend I have . . . ”

***

He’s an old guy, maybe 70, maybe more. Baseball cap with the bill curved around those old-fashioned glasses with the oversized lenses, striped polo shirt, jeans, and boots. You think you’ve got him pegged -- until he turns his back to pay the fare. Holy frog! He’s sagging like a teenager! The jeans ride low, and his underwear is giving proof through the night. Not the jewel-toned sateen or plaid boxers the kids sport, but a pair of classic tighty-whities. And above the twisted waistband -- Dude, check out that cleavage! 

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 The photo at the top of this story is dowloaded from Imger.