Bus

In my first year as a bus driver, I had a few reality checks. One kid accidentally choked on a damn sandwich that he wasn’t supposed to even be eating on a school bus, and I discovered that they don’t make you learn CPR for nothing – I had to frickin’ Heimlich maneuver the kid. This other time, a girl hid in her seat and I ended up driving back to the bus loop and sweeping the whole bus aisle before seeing her crouched down in obscurity. The terrified scream I let out definitely shook her up, that’s for sure, and God knows I got a stern talking-to from the county.

Over the years, I’ve been exposed to just a shit ton of annoyances. I’ve written plenty of referrals without the involved brats ever learning their lesson, I’ve dealt with pissed-off parents who brought those assholes into the world, but just in the four-year span I’ve had this godawful job, nothing too serious has happened. Nothing that has gotten me fired or made me truly want to work at Mal-Wart ever again, anyway.

It’s not very often when I hear about fellow bus drivers “missing a kid.” That’s what they call it when you accidentally leave a kid on the bus when you’re supposed to drop ‘em off at school or at home.

So of course, if there’s a God, He’s got it out for me, making the worst things happen when I just think about them.

I take attendance on the bus, like, twice a year. Once at the beginning of the first semester, and once at the beginning of the second semester. Over time, I learn names, depending upon how often I have to yell at them – take someone like Andre or Craig or Jack, for instance. They never sit down or shut up and so I have their stupid names burned into my memory for the rest of my days. The quieter ones, like Hector or Keke or Sara or James, also get etched into my brain, but that’s only because they don’t always annoy the living shit out of me and I can actually hear other people call them by name, since they’re so reserved.

There are a few weird kids on the bus. One kid smells funny, and one’s got such a thick accent you’d think he was just dropped off in the middle of the English language to fend for himself. I mean, I was a loser when I was their age, but even I could tell other kids hated me.

Case in point, there’s a strange little waste of space named Mikey who sits in the very back half-seat every single day. Most of the time he’s screaming and trying to participate in whatever antics the other troublemakers are up to, but he doesn’t even try to hide his own little ticks. Half the time when I pick him up from his stop – he’s the only one who’s supposed to be there – he’s talking to himself or running around making jet noises. He points out random things to people, like when he told Amy she had a pimple on her forehead last week and she slapped him right across the face. I don’t think he has any friends. He probably lives in his basement. Whatever.

Well, the thing is, even though he’s the strangest thing (I don’t even know if I can call him human), the one rule he doesn’t break is falling asleep on the bus. Now, I’m speaking generally here. Something in particular happens today to shatter that generalization. Normally he’s wide awake while talking like he’s in dreamland, but today, nobody – not even me – realizes he’s knocked out sleeping in his usual seat in the back of the bus.

That’s why I don’t give a second thought to speeding out of the bus loop this morning, waving halfheartedly to Mercedes, who’s standing at the fork with a walkie-talkie in hand. After it seems all the kids have started their journeys to their first classes of the day, I look back in my rearview mirror to make sure they’re all off. If I see someone’s head poking out, I’ll yell at them to make them get off so I can go home and do nothing. I don’t see a sign of civilization and instead I head back to the county bus loop as a part of my daily cycle.

When I park good ol’ Bus 0634 in the bus barn, I turn it off and unbuckle myself, making my way over to the broom to sweep it out for good measure. Dirt is a constant where I live, and it’s just a fact of life that kids are gonna track it into this stupid bus, creating paths of sand where their grubby little sneakers stomp. I start at the front, making my way further back, sweeping up little candy wrappers and bits of paper too. (I have a trashcan at the front for a reason…)

The county doesn’t like it when we open our emergency backdoors for anything other than emergencies or drills, but every other bus driver I know just sweeps the dirt right out the back and onto the asphalt where the smelly yellow beasts sleep during the day. That’s why I’m heading towards the back, and it’s also the reason why I almost shit my pants in shock.

Of course the one kid – Mikey – who I swear I saw get on (and I didn’t see get off) is sitting in his usual half-seat in the back, right next to the door. And of course he’s sleeping. It’s pretty much a given that he’s got his backpack behind his head as he slouches against the metal walls that keep everybody from being tossed into the wilderness, and despite the fact that I really have no reason to be surprised, I still scream like a (very manly) white girl in a horror movie.

Mikey’s wiry hair sticks up in every which way when he wakes up from my terrified shriek. His eyelids slowly open, and while I’m stuck in the seat opposite him with my hands shaking, the broom on the floor, he pauses and blinks a few times.

Then he screams.

His voice gives out like any adolescent’s would, and after he has that little bout of horror, he starts laughing. I mean, what the hell? I already had plenty of hunches about his sanity before, but having to be one-on-one with the kid isn’t helping my opinion of him. He’s all snorts and giggles, and once I get my nerves under control, I ask him a question that I’m pretty sure everybody on this bus has asked him at least once.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He slaps his knee, still caught up in laughter.

“Why were you sleeping on the bus? It’s against the rules! And this is the exact reason why it’s against the rules!” I continue, standing up again. “You need to be at school, and it’s your responsibility to be there – I shouldn’t even be telling you this.”

His laughs eventually die down, and at that point he’s just curled up in a ball on his tiny seat, a skinny kid with a shit-eating grin still plastered to his face. “I’d say you’re pretty silly for not noticing me not get off, Geronimo.”

Every time I ask him why he calls me that, he never answers. So I don’t bother this time.

“That’s not the point,” I grunt through a locked jaw. “The point is that you’re going to be late to school and if the county finds out, I’m putting all the blame on you.”

He yawns, stretching his arms up to the window. “Why you gotta blame me for just having a nice little nap?”

“You don’t care about the fact that you’re missing school, I take it.”

“Not really,” he speaks. “I can walk there. I’ll just tell ‘em my stupid bus driver didn’t see me in the backseat and drove off before realizing I was still on.”

I open my mouth to give him yet another rebuttal, but then I remembered the fact that the school board would take his reasoning over mine in a heartbeat. A strange little kid walking in the Arizona heat just to make it to his middle school would be painful for him in the moment, but easy for him and torturous for me in the long run.

“Why don’t you just drive me to school, buddy?” he squeaks, crossing his arms. He tries to get me to lock eyes with him; I think eye contact with him would make me go insane, so I shift away. “I’ll keep my mouth shut if you do. I’ll lock my lips an’ throw away the key, pal.”

I’m not quite sure why or how I end up driving back to Yuma Middle School with Mikey in the front seat next to me. My old Taurus and its rickety frame take us back to the place I only ever drive to in a bus, and before I know it, I’m circling around the parent pick-up loop while there are no cars, and Mikey jumps out before I even put on the brakes. He lands on his leg and rolls on the ground before springing back up again, and all the while I slam on the brake pedal as he does it, at a complete loss for words for what he just did.

The passenger door is still open, but Mikey pokes his head back in my car.

“You remember that picture I drew for you at the beginning of the year, Geronimo?” he asks.

How the hell can I forget it? It’s still crumpled up in a ball in the alcove right below the bus’s radio. “Yeah, I remember it,” I say grudgingly.

“Welp, it’s still true. You’re still a fat douche bus driver.”

He slams the door, still with a goofy smirk all over his asshole face.

I don’t really know what to do, so by default I just sort of press my lips together and raise an eyebrow at him, watching him turn around and swagger right on up to the front office of this shithole of a school, and right then I roll down the passenger window and tell him, “I hate you,” just loud enough for him to hear.

Mikey looks over his shoulder for a whopping millisecond before continuing onwards and doing a fucking leprechaun kick out of nowhere.

Either I’ve completely lost it, or that kid gets weirder every time I have to interact with him.