The best is yet to come undone

Part III

I sat in stony silence as the two men yakked and yammered in the humidity of the day. I endured 15 minutes of the talk and smelly cigarette smoke, before an outbound Cleveland bus came and collected the baking pair. I took off my jacket and wiped my sweat slicked forehead with a sigh. My bus had an hour and a half to pull up and rescue me.

As I got comfortable on the wooden bench(or as close to comfort as one could get), I wished the sun would duck behind a cloud or two for half an hour and ease up. Suddenly, through the noxious haze, my friend began to jog across the street to join me under the shelter. I averted his gaze and pulled out my cellphone, fully prepared to be abruptly caught up in a meaningful phone call. Luckily, it never came to that. He pulled out his cellphone too (in a counteraction I believe) and was talking to his mom within seconds. I put my phone away and relaxed abit. Big mistake.

A young man on a bicycle appeared before long. His hair was twisted in kinky braids and the bike was clearly not his own. I could picture a 12 year old pedaling down the street on the thing. He pulled up to the curb and propped the bike against the bus stop sign post. The heat of his gaze was much worse than the 90 degree heat surrounding us. It didn't take long before he was asking my date of birth, my marital status, cash or charge...all the annoying questions that a pestering 5 year-old would ask while suctioning themselves to your hip, willfully.

Mid-conversation (interrogation really), he pulled out a brown, hand-rolled cigarette and lit it in cupped hands. I looked away, embarassed by his brazen display of nonchalance. It took only a moment for the scent to waft my way, and I was reassured that it was mary jane. He smiled and continued with his increasingly intrusive questions, and I grinned and maintain a quirky, smart-ass type attitude to each one he shot off. His eyes grew more and more crimson in color as we spoke.

"You smoke?" he asked, jerking his rolled delight my way. I shook my head no and watched with amusement as a doubtful look crossed his face. "Yeah you do. I can tell. See how you keep squinting up your eyes? Why your eyes so chinky?" I sucked my teeth and glanced up and down the road, wondering how long the bus would really take. "It's sunny out," I needlessly protested, "Why shouldn't I be squinting? That don't make me a pothead."

He shrugged, unfazed by my protest and licked his lips, tucking the cig into his palm. I watched him, unaware as a cop car cruised past the shelter and headed down the block. My newest friend hissed and laughed, bouncing on his heels alittle. "It's a good thing I'm con-ser-vative wit mah shit. Pigs wanna catch a nigga out there. Wooo." My original friend chattered away on his phone, watching us both and wondering (I bet) if he should've talked to me first.

The "bus" was 10 minutes late, to my dismay but all three of us climbed aboard the pathetic van, friend One still on the phone and friend Two determined to find out what the ring on my left hand signified. "You married?" he asked, boldly, a purple grin playing at his lips. "About to be." I said. "So this the one, then?" he asked and I hesitated to respond. The question was ridiculous and I'd have rather been cleaning my ears with glass shards than sitting in that broken down, poor excuse for public transportation. The driver found she couldn't to take us over 50 miles per hour and she informed us (Mr. Cellphone, MJ lover and me) that we may not make our final connection. I felt like I was trapped in the Twilight Zone, and kept wondering when my host, Rod Serling, would appear with some clever narrative on the situation. The van was much too small for the three passengers it flipped and bounced around in it's flat, vinyl seats and suddenly, and quite acutely I wanted to be home.

Luckily, I made my connection and came a little bit closer to home. This bus that I caught at the connection point was slightly larger. It was the cousin to a midsized school bus, painted white with green and yellow stripes on the side. There was no air conditioning here, just each and every window open as wide as it could be. The driver was a dumpy,angry looking woman who waved you away listlessly and barely spoke above a whisper to anyone with a question.

The experience that startled me was looking around at my fellow riders: their faces were so expressive, and yet quite dead pan. I could almost hear their souls meekly crying out for something. What, I had no idea. They were the walking dead of Lorain County, I knew. Barely existing, but for their lungs doing their perfunctory work. Within a half an hour, I felt like I had absorbed a lifetime of pain and agony. All those heartbroken people... huge layoffs, mass-production plants closing, cancer empidemics. It was then that I realized: I had to get the fuck out of there. Posthaste!

The rest of my trip (which did involve one other bus ride) went off without a hitch. I walked a short distance after the fourth bus let me off at a dead intersection. I wondered where the past 4 hours had gotten to. I guess you could say I learned my lesson, though. I'm never, ever, ever taking the public tran again. Not if I have anything to say about it. *arms folded, lip poked out*

Why can't NY public transportion be the protocol, huh?