Bus

There are kids who take the bus without paying. They walk in through the back door. that bothers me. i don’t care about the company losing money. it just seems disrespectful to the driver. plus all us suckers who pay fare even though i guess technically we don’t have to. (Then again, if we all stopped paying, none of us would have a bus to ride home). What bothers me is those kids can trust this total stranger enough to safely take them home. but not respect them enough to make up some story about how they’d lost their wallet. most bus Drivers would still let them on. i would. the company that owns the trains and buses in this city has gotten tough on what is apparently the ultimate crime. Now more cops gets stationed at the most crowded stations. there are posters all over, even on this bus, begging for money, blaming fare evasion. service seems shittier every year.

doing anything as a 40 hour job puts a damper on it. However, if i had a good route, i don’t think i’d mind transporting bodies much. part of me would enjoy being that dude they depend on to get from home to work from work to home from home to work and from work to home. the one thing i’d ask for is a nice straight trip through the outskirts of town. a journey with not many, if any, tricky turns or tight streets. it took me 3 tries to pass my road test. the 1st time i sped down the wrong side of a 1 way street. the last time i woke up late and groggy from smoking too much the night before, though got a good vibe from the exam dude. he looked and sounded like a ken doll.

this bus starts at the foot of a bridge leading off the island. it goes down a long busy road. under miles of train tracks that cover the sky with a rusty brownish green. when it gets dark it gets really dark. at least it never rains. the 24 hour fitness on the corner closes earlier than i’d like. an asian man without a helmet rides past us on his e bike. this bus ends at a community college — on the opposite edge of heroin needle beach. the kids who get on without paying deserve to be driven home safely, wherever they’re coming from. yet so do us suckers. kids at heart. scared of breaking rules. a parent’s punishment. being a bus driver on an easy route would make it much less likely o f freaking out. like i did during my 2nd road test. some car behind me kept honking. so i hit the gas and almost drove in front of a bus mowing down the street.

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