My day was pretty hectic and tiring as I called out sick for a couple of days the week before. This in turn prompted my work to pile up. No matter the day was done and I was off to jump the bus at 6:30pm. I was to arrive at the library in a town to the west at approximately 7:35.
The bus terminal busy and as I approached the # 1 westbound, there was a line to squeeze on to the already crowded bus. Somehow I managed to get a seat in the front on the outside not close to the window. No bus stench, but there was the strong sent of ETOH (alcohol) coming from someone close, but I could not detect from whom.
The guy next to me was I presumed a college student and had earphones on. I was sitting in a seat that was perpendicular to the seating in front and the girl sitting in front of me was a younger Hispanic girl with purple hair. She had a few piercing on her face and a tattoo of a name I could not make out due to half it being covered by her spaghetti strap shirt and bra on her left shoulder all of which was directly in front of me hard to miss. She looked kind of bitter and was off and on texting and covering her texts. I had on my dark wraparounds so as to not be seen observing people.
The bus cruised westward and on the outskirts of downtown stopped and picked up what appeared to be a street person who sported black dirty shorts, a gray jacket and a black hat that covered his ratty gray hair. As he got on the bus he loudly told the bus driver “where ya been I called you an hour ago?” and abruptly cackled. The funny part was that the heavy set blonde bus driver indicated that they were a bit behind but otherwise on schedule, all of this with a flattened affect or rather no emotion. The man apologized and said he was only teasing, but again the driver showed no emotion. The man sat down between the purple haired girl and an older Hispanic lady. This seemed to irritate the purple haired girl and she rolled her eyes and put on her headphones. I couldn’t understand why until I got a whiff of the man who smelled like a mixture of bus stench and booze.
We continued west until we hit the city college and again the bus offloaded a bunch of eager young minds including the guy sitting next to me by the window. As he exited I scooted towards the window to make room for a passenger on the end. An eager young mind approached me and even though I was listening to Korn on my iphone, I could hear him ask “can I sit here?” as he pointed to the seat next to me. I replied with an “of course” and moved my backpack out of the way. I am always happy to see younger folk with manners (even though I really am not that old). The youngster stayed in the same spot even when other seats opened up until his departure.
About ½ ways through the trip a heavier Hispanic man boarded the bus decked out in an Army hat, shirt, lanyard and USA on his sox’s. If he was not in the army he sure fit the bill although he was pretty overweight. The thing that solidified my suspects that he was prior army was that he had 5 plastic grocery bags full of Top Raman which is often a staple of prior military, college students, people who are not able to afford much and for those who grew up in an era where those noodles were a hit and tasty. Mostly I believe they were tasty because of the excess of salt in them. When I was a child my mother would make the noodles for me and add an egg and some peas and it was tasty then. Unfortunately I grew allergic to eggs so I can’t have the egg or the noodles Top Raman uses for they are egg based. My recent way around this seeing as how I love noodles (really who doesn’t?), is to eat more Vietnamese noodles or Pho as it’s called, which contains rice noodles. I digress.
At the stop by the mall, the bus emptied a lot and the seemingly homeless man (or maybe he was just dirty like pig pen) got off. A younger man came on and sat next to the purple haired girl. She seemed more at ease with this. The guy that sat next to her was Caucasian, in his early 20’s and had a full sleeve of tattoos on his right arm. The striking thing about this fellow was that if he had a shirt on he could pass for one of those high end waiters you come across at extravagant restaurants. His hair was short and clean slicked back with gel. His facial feature were like something out of the mafia and the only thing I could think to call him was Bruno, for he looked like Angelino Bruno, a well known crime syndicate Mafioso boss who at one time ruled the city decades earlier. The man I tagged Bruno was also thin and muscular and sported very small traditional triangular dots in the middle of his left arm. These 3 dots have been associated with decade old Mexican street gangs with each dot representing a word = My Crazy Life. Again I digress.
As we continued towards my destination the bus trickled people out left and right at smaller bus stops between large stops. The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful and I arrived at the public library at 7:33 pm. So far the busing schedule coupled with my calculations have been fairly accurate = sweeeet!
As I left the bus I thanked the driver and a few others followed. It was dark out but I needed the exercise so I walked the 1.5 miles home and prepared for the next day’s commute.
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