BUS STORY # 388 (In The Wrong Seat Today)

ABQ RIDE Daytona Garage Tour - 6905 Interior Maintenance 3, a photo by wastemanagementdude on Flickr.

Old guy boards, stops at the fare box, hangs his cane on the hand rail, sets a twelve-pack of Coke Zero on the floor, starts looking for his bus pass.

He’s got a Billy Gibbons beard, big-lensed glasses, a gray baseball cap. Long dark greatcoat, no gloves. He’s wearing Z-Coil sandals with socks. It’s somewhere in the low 30s and breezy outside.

He locates his bus pass in the left pocket of the coat. He tilts back his head to bring his glasses to bear on the pass, making sure that’s what it is. Then he swipes it, and takes a seat in the first forward-facing row, in front of the bench seats.

Next stop, another old guy in a blue jacket gets on. He swipes his pass and takes the bench seat in front of the first old guy.

A conversation ensues, but I cannot hear what the first old guy is saying to the second. But I sure can hear what the second old guy says back:

“Well, I’m gonna have to disagree with you about that. But whatever.”

And he crosses his arms and turns his head toward the windshield.

The first old guy replies, “Maybe you’d feel differently if you’d been sent to prison for something you didn’t do.”

The second old guy doesn’t acknowledge the response. He pulls his feet in under his seat and crosses them at the ankles. He holds that stare at the front windshield.

I’m sitting two rows back and across the aisle. And wishing I’d been the one sitting where the old guy in the blue jacket who doesn’t want to hear any more is sitting. There is a bus story here that I’m just not going to get because I am sitting in the wrong seat for today’s bus story.

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The photo at the top of this story is titled "ABQ RIDE Daytona Garage Tour - 6905 Interior Maintenance 3" and is posted with the permission of wastemanagementdude. You can see wastemanagementdude's Flickr photostream here.