BUS STORY # 444 (A Foolish Thing)

Photo by Busboy

It’s just past noon when my bus comes. I board, and there’s only one other person on the bus. And he’s sitting in -- I laugh to myself -- “my seat.” I take the seat across the aisle.

He looks over, smiles, then asks if I’m just starting my day.

I tell him I’ve been up a good while.

“I’ve been up since six,” he says.

I ask where he’s been.

He points to the collar of his white dress shirt. “Court.”

There’s a pause, then:

“I did something foolish back in January. I got a DUI.”

He has a public defender, but until this morning, he didn’t think the PD was doing anything for him. He was ready to plead guilty when his lawyer starts firing off petitions for this, petitions for that... Nine of ‘em. He’s glad he kept his mouth shut.

So what’s next, I ask.

He doesn’t really know. But he’s got a plan when he does. “I figure I plead guilty to the first charge. That way, they drop the reckless and the aggravated.”

Then he’s gonna buy a car, put an interlock on it, and not drive it for a year. That way, when he’s ready to drive again, he can get rid of the interlock.

I’m thinking he means to take the bus for a year while the interlock does its time in the new car. But then I wonder what happened to the old car. Did he total it in that January DUI? Or does he mean to drive it instead of the new car and not get caught? I think about how getting the DUI, not driving drunk, was the “something foolish” he’d done. His stop comes before I can ask more questions.

“Wish me luck,” he says in the aisle.

“Good luck,” I say back, but inside, I’m shaking my head. It seems to me it’s the rest of us on the road that’ll need good luck.