Bus

The camera adds ten pounds. Or in my case, like, fifty. Which is one of the many reasons why I tend to avoid cameras – whether it’s the kind that tapes me moving, or the kind that takes pictures that could end up all over the Internet and on fetish porn sites.

So it kind of sucks when I’m standing around the buses talking to Ronnie with about half an hour until school lets out, and some kid shoves a camera in my face as if I gave him the okay to do so.

It’s blazing hot as hell outside, my shirt has sweat stains on it, and I really do not want to be getting filmed right now. And it doesn’t help that Ronnie laughs when the kid asks if I have time for a few questions. I narrow my eyes at him – he’s a few inches taller than me but a million times skinnier and his voice cracks when he says, “I’m doing something for the school news.”

“Like what?” I say a little more bluntly than I wanted.

“A short interview,” he replies. “Just one or two questions. We’re gonna put it on the news.” He holds the camera in front of him, like it’s supposed to be protecting him, and even though I know it’s not on, I still don’t rule it out.

My incoming beard itches and I scratch at it. “That’s not making me want to play along.”

Ronnie, smiling devilishly next to me (I sometimes think she’s a serial killer – her boyfriend’s in a Bon Jovi metal cover band and she rides a Harley, which does not suit her forty-something appearance) and elbows me in the side. “C’mon, Tater. Do it.”

Sometimes I hate how none of my acquaintances are my age.

I refrain from swearing in front of the damn kid (I have enough close calls on the bus) and instead say, “Okay, whatever. I’ll answer a question.”

He looks surprised to an extent. I would be, too. “Oh, um…great! Let’s see…” He yanks a tiny notepad out of his pocket, accidentally pulling out the actual pocket and having to readjust himself while juggling the camera and his precious notes. With a shaky hand, he flips it open. Then he turns the camera on and says, “Okay, tell me when you’re ready.”

I cross my arms. “I’m ready, I guess…”

He flips the notepad open, reading from it. “Uh, what’s your name, first of all?”

“Doug.” Plain and simple.

There’s a pause between us like he expected something more epic.

“Alright.” He rolls his hand as if to tell me to go on. After I shrug, he looks back down at his notes. “Next – why are you a bus driver?”

My response comes quick and flat. “I hated working at Mal-Wart and I needed something that paid better.”

Once again, the skinny loser behind the camera furrows his eyebrows together in a questioning stare. “…That’s it?”

I nod.

“You don’t do it because you love children, or…”

A snort rips from my throat and a cruel smile plays out across my lips. “That’s a laugh.”

Ronnie’s looking at me like I just stepped on a puppy, and the kid’s mouth has hit the floor. The dry and hot air around us is still. In the distance, there aren’t even any noises, it seems. It’s like that one little sentence was a nuke that wiped out everything within a five-mile radius.

And it didn’t bother me much.

“What?” I ask innocently. Or at least, the most innocent I can possibly make myself out to be, which really isn’t that much.

The kid snaps his camera shut and laughs sheepishly. “Um, I think that’s good enough for now.”

I don’t smile much, but right now I am. It’s a kind of boastful smile. Even though I don’t really know what I’m smiling about, I’m still proud of something. I half hope that he catches that grin on camera, since it’s not a real common thing for me to do. I look over at Ronnie. She’s kind of laughing, but not too hard; it’s like she’s afraid of getting killed or something for cracking a smirk.

A dry breeze wafts through the campus. It shifts the weeds sticking up from the dirt surrounding the school, lifting up dirt and carrying it to places around the rest of Yuma. For a moment the sweat evaporates off of my skin and I feel like I’m not under the blazing heat of the relentless sun. But it’s brief. Soon enough, when the kid turns away with the scrape of his heel against cement, I’m back to sweaty old Doug in my battered Yes shirt and years-old high tops standing next to a fellow bus driver.

“You know that’s gonna end up on the school news, right?” Ronnie asks, like she just doesn’t believe that I know what I did.

I shrug, still with a remnant of a smirk. “Yeah, I know.”

She shakes her head, but not in a disapproving way. Not much. “You’re a piece of work, Tater.”

“Oh, I know that, too.”

~~~~~~

It’s buzzing in my head, the remark. It’s not like I really regret saying it – that’s like being sorry for saying the truth. But as it rolled off the tongue, I said it so effortlessly, and that was probably what was bothering me.

I didn’t normally care about what people thought about me. But it’s kind of different when your job’s on the line…like, Yuma…isn’t exactly the most job-abundant place in the world. Google that crap. We suck when it comes to giving jobs. I’m desperate, see? I don’t even have a gig picking up elementary school kids or high school meatheads. I’m lucky to have such a shitty job, and like that incident when I was stuck putting a sub in my shoes, I’m kind of scared.

I don’t wanna be jobless.

I don’t want the school board to think I’m an asshole. There.

The last thing I need is to be fired, kicked out of my apartment, and subjected to pain and torture while living on my enormous fat reserves on the street while begging for change from the Latinos who have it better than me. Then I’ll die a quivering pile of pathetic skin and bones and hair, all alone and even more depressed. Not a very dignified way to go. Although I suppose it’s nobler than driving the bus off a cliff. Anyways…that’s…never mind.

Point is, like a million other times in my life, it’s hard to fall asleep that night. Even in my most comfortable pajamas (old boxers and a shirt that’s a decade old), I’m still tossing and turning. I hate anxiety. I hate emotion. Anytime I get riled up over something, good or bad, I can never think straight. And I tell myself to get my hopes down to the ground but they always go sky high, and in my head there’s always this conflict back in forth about whether or not things are going to be fine. A little part of me says, “Yeah, sure, everything’s alright,” while the smarter part of me goes, “Shut up and accept it – life sucks.”

It’s annoying, really.

Especially when I’ve got those two little demons fighting battles in my head when I’m trying to sleep.

I just wish for once that that little glimmer of hope could come true once in a while. I’m sick of having the same old shit go down with that pessimistic side. But on the other hand, I got off scot-free with the substitute incident…maybe things are looking up. Maybe things are changing. Maybe the kid who recorded me deleted the footage off of his stupid camera the second after we were done filming and it’ll never reach the eyes of anybody else.

Or, maybe he found it so utterly disturbing that he decided to share it with his classmates, when the teacher saw it too and reported it to the principal, who told it to the school board, who are already putting together my pink slip, sending me on that long journey to death…or North Carolina, provided that Carrie will let me stay with her…

I throw a pillow over my head. The covers on my body are enclosing me in their hot embrace, making this night even more uncomfortable than before. My ceiling fan does nothing. My apartment never felt so small and I feel like I’m suffocating.

A heavy volume of air flushes from my lungs. I try relaxing every muscle in my body – from my head to my toes, just concentrating on that. Then, I’m finally exhausted, I can finally relax, and for once, I sleep calmly.

~~~~~~~~~~

The morning bus drive is a blur to me. I drift in and out of everything, and the only thing I can really feel is my throbbing headache and the faint sting of that black eye that Andre had given to me what seems like ages ago.

The bus is still quiet. Way too quiet for me to be used to, but it’s nice. Pleasant. I’m almost glad today that something has gone right and I’m not being subjected to countless dirty words being strewn across the aisles. I’ve already got enough of those rattling around in my head.

I try to sigh again, but instead of having the magical healing powers that you always read about in the books, this sigh just makes me feel lightheaded. Too bad…maybe I could’ve crashed into a house and killed us all.

At least if they fire me, it won’t happen in the morning since I’m pretty sure that their school news airs sometime after all the buses flee the loop and go back to the county parking lot. And by that point maybe I’ll have another job lined up. Well, probably not, seeing as how Yuma sucks when it comes to that, like I explained earlier. So if I lose this job, I’m screwed, and if I keep it, I’m….still screwed, ‘cause I hate it.

I’m quiet through the whole ride, kind of like the kids I’m stuck with.

It wouldn’t be the first time I was scared over losing my stupid job. That doesn’t really make it any better, though. It’s weird. With some things, I’ve just been exposed to them so many times that it doesn’t even phase me anymore – hey, another loved one died? Ha! What else is new? And other times, even if it’s happened a thousand times, it can still terrify me.

In my first year driving the gauntlet, within the first month I already had the school board complaining that I used the word “shit” around the precious ears of those oh-so-innocent children. The brats were conspiring against me already, I swear. So yeah. Already, I knew that it’d be a battle to keep my mouth shut. But at least I’ve come this far, only to have it possibly all thrown away by a simple kid and his camera…

Perro Tramposo and Aseo Timida is up ahead, the last stop of the morning. Hector and the brat who destroyed the sign, along with some loser who screams about physics all the time get on. There are only eighteen kids who ride this bus, minus the four who got suspended, but today it feels like it’s crawling to the brim with people, and I almost can’t breathe.

~~~~~~~~~~`

After a few hours of nothing, I crawl out of my apartment and venture back to the county bus loop at about 2:30 to pick up the stupid bus and drive it to the Yuma Middle loop, only to be subjected to more torture and probably get either ridiculed or fired over that incident with the camera kid.

I’m not looking forward to this.

Better go ahead and pack my bags and ask Carrie if she’ll let me stay with her.

I’m standing outside of Anita’s bus. She sounds like she’s stoned out of her mind, but that’s just the way she talks – slow and “wise,” probably because she’s old as hell and can’t talk too fast or else she’ll throw out a hip. I don’t want to talk about the damn yesterday incident. I just want it to be off of everybody’s minds and out of sight. I wonder if anybody even saw it.

It’s only the latter half of sixth period for these morons and they’re bound to be out and about in about half an hour, so soon enough, I’m gonna know anyway.

“I still hate how you were able to get Andre off your bus. It’s not fair. I had to deal with his entire family and you get to have two weeks of salvation,” she says, not even looking me in the eye when she says it like she’s so disgusted with everything.

My arms are crossed over my chest, my default pose. “I know. Join the club.”

A quiet sinks in between us. Anita doesn’t talk much. And when she does, it’s the sort of thing where you just have to listen to her, since it’s usually important. (Unless she’s just complaining about children.) So I don’t really take this seriously, since a silence between Anita and anybody is never really awkward.

Suddenly she pushes past me and gets onto her bus, struggling up the steps and plopping down in her seat. “Sorry,” she adds hastily when she gets into the driver’s seat, “I’m sweating too much and I don’t want people seeing.”

I look at her funny, but just accept it. Not to be mean or anything, but she’s probably twice my weight, and I’m fat, man. I just nod and turn to go somewhere else. Either to Ronnie or Sharon…they’re probably standing by each other, near their buses since their routes are pretty close to each other, and then I wouldn’t have to think about being shitcanned…

Since Anita’s bus is way in the back of the bus loop, one or two behind my bus, I have to walk all the way around to get to Sharon and Ronnie. Which means having to nod at my other fellow bus drivers who I don’t normally talk to, and that’s weird for me since they’re all seasoned vets like Anita but they’re not as nice. There’s a loud guy who still has a soul patch in the year 2011, some loser who lives with his weird-ass brother, and a New Yorker who looks like he walked right out of 1986, among others. They’ll be the ones laughing their butts off when I’m fired over admitting that I hate my job.

Only a few more steps. I can make it. Then I won’t have to be the awkward idiot looking like a lost kid wandering around the bus loop. Jesus, just anything to get my mind off of things.

“Hey you!” somebody calls.

I ignore the accented and slightly masculine voice. I figure whoever just yelled that is talking to somebody else, so…

“In the gray shirt!”

I look down at my attire. I’m in a gray Minnesota Vikings shirt and plaid shorts. Hm. So I turn around and try to see who may have just called me out, and lo and behold, it’s the lady who yelled at Andre for hitting me in the eye with that football the other day and gave me an ice pack.

She’s speedwalking over to me with a little smile plastered to her confident mug. And it doesn’t look like the kids in the gym class are doing much of anything, so I doubt anybody’ll mind if she strays for a bit, and I think she knows it too.

I squeeze out a smirk and wave a tad.

When she gets closer, within maybe twenty feet of me, she says, “It’s Doug, right?”

“Yeah,” I confirm.

“Okay, good, I remembered your name,” she sighs heavily. Then she looks up at me, a mischievous look in her eyes. “But it probably helped that you were on the school news today…”

I slap my forehead hard. “Oh, God.”

Her laugh is loud and unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. It sounds genuine. It’s the same one she let out when I told her I wasn’t a pedophile, but bigger. “Your reaction! Oh my lord!” she gasps. “So you know what happened?”

“I basically said that I hated my job in front of every child in the school?”

“Aw, I’m sure not everybody took it like that,” she assures, reaching out to pat my shoulder but stopping short and pulling back when she seems to realize that we’ve only met once. “I thought it was really funny.”

“Now, in a pathetic way or a ha-ha funny way?” I tilt my head.

“In just a funny way,” she smiles. “I almost spit water everywhere when we were watching the news during lunch. Oh my goodness.”

…This girl is nuts.

“Wait. What’s your name again? Not to be rude or anything, but…” I trail off. I realize the asshole-ness of that statement and regret saying it almost immediately, rubbing the back of my head.

She doesn’t pick up on the rudeness and instead shifts her weight to her other leg, putting a hand on her hip. “Mercedes,” she tells me. “You said you wouldn’t forget.”

Damn. Okay, I shrug in defeat, feeling my face bake. “Uh, sorry…”

“No, it’s alright,” she reassures, waving the statement away with the motion of her free hand. “We’ve only talked once and that was because Andre hit you in the head with a football, and I see the aftermath is still there.”

My eye still hurts, but only when I touch it. Which I’ve learned not to do, might I add.

“But after seeing that little episode on the news today,” she laughs, shaking her head knowingly, “I think that’s gotta change, Dougie.”

“Please don’t call me ‘Dougie,’” I deadpan.

People don’t normally go up to me and say, “Hey, let’s be friends.” So I don’t really know what the hell to do when Mercedes basically suggests it. I watched enough TV to know that most of the time, friendship didn’t work like that. According to the box with the moving pictures, you crashed into someone in the hallway, helped them pick up their dropped books, and then became best friends. And then everything gets to be all sunshine and rainbows, and everything becomes beautiful and nothing hurts.

Mercedes cocks her head. “Why not?”

I don’t say, “Only my sister can call me that.” No, I say, “’Cause it’s a stupid name.”

She snorts. “Well, who names their kid after a car?”

“It’s better than naming their kid the same thing as a cartoon character.”

“They called me ‘Vroom Vroom’ in grade school.” Her almond-shaped eyes look almost pained.

“They asked me where my girlfriend Patti was all through junior high.”

She narrows her eyes at me jokingly, but smiles and purses her lips. A sharp whistle cuts her off before she could add anything else, though. Turning back to the gaggle of middle schoolers gathered way behind us, she says, “Oh, I gotta go. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Sure,” I say. A slight grin works its way over my face, but not too much.

Mercedes, as she walks back with a spring in her step, smirks at me over her shoulder and waves that little princess-wave all girls do when they say goodbye to their “besties.”

Students file into the locker rooms to change out of their no-doubt sweaty clothes and be released from their prisons into the world of after-school life. In a matter of minutes, the bell will ring and I’ll be back on the bus, back to Hell, and probably being even more ridiculed now that I know for sure that I opened my mouth on the school news…

But surprisingly, I’m not as terrified as I was before. I don’t know. I’m not wishing death upon myself right now because I’m kinda sure that I’m not gonna get fired. I mean, if Mercedes didn’t take it the wrong way, then somebody on the school board shouldn’t, right? And if it was that terrible, wouldn’t somebody – like, a teacher, or something – have spoken to me by now?

See, I wish Carrie could see this. I’m not always a downer. Most of the time, I am, but now…after that little chat with Mercedes that ended up spinning off of the incident and morphing into some weird discussion that I think means that we’re now acquaintances, I don’t feel so bad.

In fact, when the bell rings as I’m walking to my bus, I feel light. Lighter, I mean. I still have all the fat on my bones, weighing me down, but still.

I fly up the steps and take my eternal seat in the bus driver’s seat, turning the radio on and awaiting the flood of monsters that are bound to come soon. Two trickle in, Sara and Keke, the two seventh graders who caused me not to sleep the night that Carrie came over. Sara goes to her usual seat near the middle of the bus, but Keke stops in her tracks in the front.

“I saw you on the school news today,” she points, laughing quietly.

“So I’ve heard,” I grunt, pressing my lips together.

She snickers a voice-cracking laugh, her usual, and adds, “I thought it was kinda funny. You know, in a weird sorta way.”

Thus starts the comments.

Every time somebody gets on, they throw a glance my way and say, “Saw you on the news.” None of them cuss me out for it, and nobody seems to really take offense for it.

Cadence got on as one of the last people, and when he did, he held out his hand. “Hi-five, man. That was killer.”

I just look at him funny, not understanding the move.

“Alright, whatever. Just leave me hanging, man. That’s cool. Doesn’t hurt,” he says mockingly, maneuvering his stick-thin stature through the plastic seats to his usual seat in the back. Amy sees him and smiles slightly and he flashes a grin back. I peel my eyes away from the rearview mirror.

As I start the engine and my life comes to a rumbling start, the last kid gets on, that little weird dude who faceplanted out the back of the bus that one time. With his hair sticking out in mussed deformity, he sees me and cackles.

“Nice one, Geronimo,” he teases.

“Doug,” I mutter under my breath. I swear on all that is holy, that kid had to have been dropped as a baby.

But that’s it. He gets on, I close the doors, we shoot out of Yuma Middle, and I drop everybody off at their stops. We don’t speak of it anymore. Nobody asks me about it, and nobody from the school board even mentions it to me ever again. It’s like it never happened. It’s like everybody knew what I thought about the bus anyway and didn’t even try to question it anymore.