Destiny drives a bus

I drove for the city bus company in Denver for a while.  It was a good gig.  The pay was ok, it was steady work, something important to me and my creditors, and it was a study in relativity; that is, comparing where I was sitting to what my passengers were navigating at the time.

There are different kinds of routes.   With an Express you pick up a busload of passengers at a station and take them from A to B without stops in between.  I preferred driving a Local, where you drive through downtowns or neighborhoods and have a lot of passenger interactions.  They come on board, feed the farebox, and then go and sit down.  Sometimes they have a lot to tell you, other times they don’t have to, you can just look at them.

Some people, alone people, will tell you all about the new steady job they’re starting today, and now they’ll be able to afford this or that.  I liked hearing that from people I recognized from recently dropping them off at the Day Labor Pool, at 6:00 AM.  

The early morning commuters were an interesting flow of service uniforms and business attire with either a spring in their step ready for the day; or dragging and spent figures going home or to the bars that open early.  Welders smelled like burnt steel, kitchen worker clothes were food stained.  Some sat in stoic silence, others conversed among themselves about either being happy with things, resigned to their circumstances or were planning a breakout.  We drivers had nameplates on our uniforms and some people would address me by name.  I silently named some of my passengers by their characteristics or demeaner:  Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis, Tennessee Tuxedo, et al.

Once I thought I had witnessed the supernatural.  It was snowing, and I pulled up to an older woman at a stop and I opened the door.  She stepped forward, I blinked, and then she disappeared.  Vanished.  After a few seconds I stepped outside, and still didn’t see her.  I looked under the bus and there she was.  I asked her if she was hurt, and she said she wasn’t.  I pulled her out by the collar and helped her upright.  I told her she should have screamed or something, I might have driven away and squashed her with my rear duels.  She said she was embarrassed for slipping on the snow, and “let’s just go please.”

I found it interesting when I was a component in one form of transportation to another.  An excited kid home on leave from the marines taking the bus crosstown to pick up his new motorcycle.  The mom who took my bus downtown to The Greyhound Station to rendezvous with her little boy who had been away.

It was company policy if a passenger had no money they could ride anyway.  Someone would board and be all anxious with an explanation and I’d tell them “Relax, pay me next time, have a seat.”  Most people were pleasantly surprised.  Once my farebox quit working, so per policy, I stayed on route and told the subsequent passengers “Free ride today.”  Public transportation was never meant to be a serious money maker.

Growing up I rode the bus a lot.  I swore when I became Mister Independent Wheels I would never board one again.  But over the years, while pursuing other passions, I was at times a bus mechanic, a bus driver, or a bus garage manager.  I have worn many different hats, but somewhere in the cosmos it was destined that I connect with buses periodically.