BUS STORY # 324 (Tenderfoot)

In Pain?, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

When the bus pulls up to the stop, the driver opens the door and there is a pause.  Then he puts the bus in the kneeling position.

An old guy gets on.  He’s limping badly, and he’s slow.  He runs his pass through the slot, then hobbles with little steps toward the bench seat behind the driver.  The young guy sitting in the middle seat with his backpack to his left grabs the pack, scoots over, and invites the old man to sit.  The old guy thanks him and sits.

He tells the young guy he’s on his way to the hospital.  He’s either got a blood clot or a fracture, they don’t know which.  He thinks it’s a blood clot because he had one last year and his foot looks and feels the same.

You know those compression stockings they tell you to wear to keep the swelling down, he asks the young guy.  The young guy says he does.

Well, they’re a great idea if you’ve got the strength to pull them on, and don’t have to pull them over a sore and swollen foot.

This reminds me of my mother.  The fact that the stockings worked for her did not offset the discomfort of having them put on by someone else, and then keeping them on, and she eventually refused to wear them.

He recognizes a woman in one of the rows facing forward, and when we reach a red light, he little-steps his way to the seat across the aisle from her. I'm in the window seat right next to him.

He sits facing her across the aisle and explains his medical predicament. Then, after her expressions of sympathy, I hear him tell her he’s sorry to hear about her mother.

Later, he asks her about her bus pass. It’s a monthly pass, she tells him. He tells her he bought an annual pass.

You pay, what, twelve dollars a month for your pass, right?

That’s right.

That’s, let’s see, twelve time ten...a hundred and twenty...a hundred and forty-four dollars a year. I pay ninety. That’s a savings of fifty four dollars a year. Plus, you don’t have to go pick one up every month.

She tells him she will look into that. She gets off shortly afterwards.

At University Hospital, he asks me to pull the cord. The riders in the front who are getting off wait for him to hobble past them to the front, then turn and head for the rear exit.

The driver kneels the bus for him.

I find myself wondering who he tells them to put down when they ask him who to notify in case of emergency. Family or friend? In town or out? Who will know or care if it’s a clot or a fracture?