Eerie Ride Home

So I ride the bus home to and from school each day that I have classes. I always have my iPod plugged in and playing a little too loud - I just hate overhearing other's conversations. Plus the smell and atmosphere of the city bus leaves something to desire so I guess that by denying one sense I hope to dull the others as well. Does it work? No, but at least I get my music to take me away during that long, slow ride home. I zone out, music blasting, refusing to fret about school, work, life; I don't read, study, or even look at my cell phone.

Today was no different from any other day. Tuesday/Thursdays are my long class days, I'm at school from 9:30 - 5:15. I get a nice long swim in in the late morning during a break so I don't complain about these days. My only complaint is when I miss the 5:20 bus and have to wait until 6:00. By then I am cold, tired, hungry, and growing increasingly whiney and just want to be home. So today I scooted out of class as soon as the teacher closed his mouth and speed-walked to the busstop. Magic! I no sooner leaned against the busstop than the glorious 29 appeared. I was on the bus at exactly 5:20 and it wasn't even all that crowded.

I took a seat next to an unconspicuous guy who I figured would get off soon. About 5 minutes into the bus ride I grew uneasy. This has never happened before. Just uneasy. Like something was wrong. I wracked my brain, wondering if I was forgetting something. Was I supposed to be somewhere? Did I forget to turn something in? Did I forget something in the natatorium locker room? No, no, no, and no. What was it? I began to wonder if it wasn't a premonition, a sixth sense telling me to be on edge. I began to fidget, eyeing everyone on the crowded bus that I could, trying to get a feel for whether THEY were uneasy (i.e., were they about to cause trouble or do something bad?). I looked for unusual bulges in pockets, waistbands. I eyeballed backpacks, ankles, coats on laps. Gradually I decided that MY fidgety behaviour could cause OTHERS to grow uneasy and possibly cause some sort of reaction so I stopped. But I took off my sunglasses and turned off my iPod so that I could see and hear the best I could. If anything was about to happen I wanted to be able to react quickly.

I'm not joking about any of this.

After the guy I was sitting next to got off the bus, I moved over to the window seat. I jumped when the man sitting behind me yelled to the busdriver, "HEY! YOU STOP AT BARDSTOWN??" I turned quickly to him and said, "Yes we do." He looked at me blankly, I smiled and returned to facing the front.

A moment later he touched my shoulder and said thanks. I smiled and nodded. A few minutes later he asked me, "Do you write?"

I turned and looked at him. He was a large black man in his 30s. Quite heavy and non-descriptly dressed, jeans, black jacket, one of those tight nylon skull cap looking things even though he was completely bald.

I told him I write for school, but that was about it (lying somewhat but not really wanting to pursue a conversation.) He asked, "Do you enjoy your writing?"

I explained that since it was for school that I couldn't say I took particular interest in it.

He began to explain to me in his soft, quiet voice that I should write, because I have a story to tell, and what a big story it is. I looked at him puzzledly as he continued. He told me to write about my life, write about all those things I've done because people want to know. He asked that all I do is make sure I dedicate it to him, to LW. That I don't even need to know his name.

I then asked him if he writes. He said no, but proceeded to tell me the story of his life. Born in South Carolina, raised in the Bronx, selling drugs and witnessing murders. Hooked on drugs at 15, selling drugs in every state he lived in. These sentences and rambles were interspersed with pauses, moments where he would stop, look out the window in a mild fog as if searching for the right word, or perhaps pulling out of the increasingly apparent drug haze he was in.

Thankfully my bus stop came. He asked my name, I told him, "Ann". He asked if I wanted his number so that he could tell me, "more of the crazy shit he's been through, I tell ya'." I said, in the ultimate cliche, "No, I'm good." He said that I actually wasn't, but I was already halfway out the door waving goodbye to him.

I realized as I approached my apartment door (the bus let us off literally right in front of my place) that this was his stop also, but that I hadn't told him (he had been asking about the stop after all, showing that he wasn't familiar with the bus line.) I turned to look as I entered my building (half afraid he would follow me), and saw he was slowly getting off the bus. I smiled in relief and trotted upstairs to my apartment.

As I was putting away my things I glanced out my front windows that look out on Eastern Parkway, where the bus had just been, and I saw my Strange Sage wobbling around the sidewalk, edging slyly towards my neighbor's driveway. "What are you doing?" I wondered aloud (to the amusement of my houseplants).

He tottered two or three steps down the recessed driveway next door then leaned against the concrete wall. I quickly realized he was pissing on my neighbor's drive. It was a good long one too (I didn't stay to watch but I did see the results a few minutes later when I looked back outside.)

With a sigh and a good few minutes of laughter I had to start to wonder what it was I was supposed to get from that encounter. After all, had I not had the overwhelming urge to open my eyes and ears I would not have had that 20 minute conversation with my Strange Sage Drug Dealer from the Bronx.