You always feel like you have a great deal of unused energy that you haven’t turned to your advantage. Waking up early to catch the #65 lets you read when you would otherwise be driving. You assure skeptical others that it’s the only time of day when you feel like royalty, being driven by someone else. And you truly enjoy the shifting sensory adventure that the bus offers each morning and evening, and often feel dissatisfied when hemmed in by the limitations of a car. On a bus, you recognize strangers and develop relationships without language; you feel infinite and connected, expanding.
You don’t floss as often as the dentist recommends, but who does? On cold mornings, you like to linger too long in the hottest water your skin can withstand. You’re sometimes appalled by your eating habits and think you should get outside more often, but you don’t reapply sunscreen according to the manufacturer’s guidelines when you do.
Overall, however, you feel that you really compensate for all of your flaws pretty well—except one. You despise your bus driver.
She’s never harmed you, as best as you can remember, in any direct way. You always make your next stop in time for the transfer, right? She is violently punctual, always. She seems able to part traffic, a Moses of the morning rush hour. You don’t think it’s her driving skills either. Unlike that other fellow from North Dakota, she understands how to use a brake pedal, and your neck rarely hurts after a ride with her. No, there must be something else.
It’s not that her face looks like wilted iceberg lettuce, soggy and colorless. And it’s definitely not her Cruella Deville hairstyle. In fact, you imagine that a silver crown of hair surrounded by long, ratted black hair could maybe someday turn into a fashion trend. Why not? Besides, you’ve seen much uglier on the bus, at least one or two people more hideous, and you pride yourself at finding beauty in the grotesque. You’re an aesthete, but not shallow.
It’s not that she refuses to use the bus speaker to announce her stops. You’ve grown accustomed to her screeching, professional-sports-fan-air-horn of a voice. At least you know exactly when to plug your ears. And you glean some small pleasure watching the unfamiliar and unsuspecting traveler startle from their seat the first time she squawks, “COLFAAAX!” or “M-L-KAAAY!” You’ve seen her on her breaks, giving fellatio to her menthol cigarettes, so you understand the condition of her vocal chords. Anyone would sound that way if they started smoking at birth. You try not to judge a book by its cover.
You long ago forgave her for being a racist. Well, not so much racist, but more so a giant flaming bigot. So what if she hates everyone? The high school kids. The Africans. The African Americans. The wealthy white women. The Sikhs. She even hates babies—you’ve never seen anyone else kick a baby off the bus before—all infants except that really odd-looking one that Blind Suzanne adopted. You think it’s a little funny that she always gives the newborn troll a candy reward when it screams. When you really think about it—other than the ugly baby, that is—she really does treat everyone in an even-handed, albeit contemptuous manner. That’s reasonable enough. If the word didn’t already have a positive connotation, you’d probably just call her a humanist, someone who abhors all humans. And you understand that, considering all the trouble she encounters each morning.
You know you should feel sorry for her; you’re at least moderately certain she has a soul. You know you should soften your heart when the Pimp-Limp snatches a ticket from her hands and scowls, “Gimme that transfer, bitch.” You remember her first morning on the route and how furious he was when she refused to let him board without proper fare. You remember the chubby supervisor that rode between them for nearly a month, and the furious dialogue that clattered against the windows each day. That’s no reason to despise her.
Do you really hate her? Perhaps you’ve been influenced by passing comments, by the popular consensus of her status as a revolting banshee. Do you hate her because everyone else does? Even the Skeleton Smile said once, “She a very bad lady.” It’s the only time you’ve ever heard him speak. She must be awful, right?
You remember the first time you realized that the Skeleton Smile, the tiny, elderly man, was not always smiling—but that starvation long ago consumed his lips, leaving sun-bleached teeth and hollow cheeks. You still hold your breath when his beaded fingers stretch from their arthritic curves and curl themselves around the Stop Request line. When you close your eyes you can still remember an image of when he wears shorts, the sinew of his knees, and the bulging rope of his striated Achilles tendons below the space where calves once were.
Every day, a crescent of white light encircles his face for a few seconds when you turn east into the morning, and you see him for his name—Skeleton Smile. It’s a moniker you would never share with others. You know how the George Washington kids would use it against him, twisting the affectionate title into a derisive device. You don’t believe anyone else would wield it with such gentle reverence. So, you are the only one in the universe, for at least that one moment as you round a street corner, who sees this glimmering god of death and resurrection.
She, the bus driver, builds walls around her reality, entombing herself in that space immediately behind the steering wheel. She only looks out. She never considers seeking solace from the mysterious beauty that she transports each morning. Maybe you hate her because she never turns around. She never recognizes herself at the mother-helm of a disjointed family. Perhaps you hate her because she seems to finds so little value in what you consider such precious, priceless cargo. Maybe you hate her because you cannot yet find her brief instant of illumination, her moment of truth and beauty.
But maybe you will look again tomorrow, for some tiny winsome quality that justifies her existence, as she pulls the bus along the street curb just before sunrise, and swings the doors open for you, stopping to let you in.
