The Revenge of the Busness Gods

Late as usual to work, I get in the car. Yesterday I gladly took the bus, but this morning I had already missed the 8:04 bus into downtown, so I proceeded to embrace the auto alternative (AA) (how many countless times since puberty have I quote embraced the auto alternative unquote?). Turn on AC , drive down the avenue, mail the subscription invoice to The Economist magazine with the word Cancel in purple ink written twice on it, via my work-supplied tres au courant Uniball Vision pen. I think The Economist is a terrific and first-rate 'zine, especially the weekly obit, but during my trial run I did not find time to read it; I barely have time to read the cartoons in the weekly issue of The New Yorker I subscribe to.

Rewind the narrative. Leave car running, walk six to eight steps to mailbox, insert mail, return to idling car, which is locked! All doors are locked, with cellphone sitting in plain view on the front seat, passenger side. I have never done this. Until now. It briefly reminds me of the time Violet G., in Dover, New Jersey, left her car running in her in-house garage below our apartment and almost killed us all with carbon monoxide, including newborn One and Only Son. (This was one time FirstSpouse's tendency toward paranoia proved invaluable, infinitely so. I owe her thanks for that. Infinitely so.) Walk up the avenue, and I mean uphill, in the heat, wondering why, and how. And fretting slightly over being ever later to work. Knock on our door. Fortunately, CurrentSpouse is not asleep yet from night-before work. She opens the door.

"What happened?"

"I was at the mailbox, and . . . "

"You mailed your keys," she replied in the fashion that longtime partners have of finishing each other's sentences.

"No, left 'em in the car, running. There's something wrong with me neurologically. I've never done that."

"You're just getting old," she said evenly and without rancor.

Grab her spare key off the rack of keys near the door (just about the only steadily organized aspect of our household). Walk fast and jog part way down the hill. Feck it. Slow down, I tell myself. Enjoy the whole episode. Roll with it. I feel light, almost laughing, not scolding myself for this lapse. "No judgment," as the beloved late Anthony DeMello pronounced frequently in the tapes I used to listen to in 1993, driving anywhere.

This is grace.

No ticket on the car. Nor is it towed away. (Glancing thought: In some cities this would look like a looming terror threat; such are the times.) Open door of idling car. Enter, sweating. Crank AC to max. Soothing.

Drive to work, with good success on the several traffic lights.

Manage a smile, upon entering work, greeting Mary V., at 10th-floor reception desk.

This is my little secret with the world. No high drama, no "poor me," no endless and tedious recounting to co-workers. The grace of anonymity.

Just gratitude to be in The Game (although the bus does indeed beckon me to return).

P.S. Didn't you read "busness" as "business"? I would have.

P.P.S. Change "gods" to "goddesses" if you are so inclined.

(Photo credits: Bus is in 'Yeats Country,' with mystical Ben Bulben in the background; and Pawlie Kokonuts walking in Sligo City.)

Bus Stop Diaries

I'm already late, so what's the diff, try and catch the bus, save some gas, save some cash, feel good about it, go green, all that. I don't know the schedule but I know the buses are not too frequent; nevertheless, I walk down the hill on a chilly morning with birds in my ears. I'll take the chill any day over the sweltering throb of simmering morning heat. Turn left, no bus and no one waiting for one. Go down toward the Ukrainian church (well, Ukrainian but Roman too) with the five gorgeous emerald onion domes, each topped with a glittering gold cross, where I caught the bus last week or was it the week before? No bus. Keep walking. Go through the alleyway, a one-way street, against the permitted way for cars but okay for pedestrians, head toward the busier (nice oxymoronic pun) thoroughfare. A bus passes 350 to 500 yards before me. Missed it. When's the next one? Hope it's not an hour. I reach the bus stop and stand there. Dandelion leaves and blades of grass strewn like a toddler's battlefield give evidence that a weed whacker's been here. I hate them, especially their sound. Do I stand in front of the little concrete barrier, closer to the traffic? Sure. Bus Stop. That was a movie with Marilyn Monroe. (Speaking of tragic celebrities with billowing breasts, blond hair, and ruby lips, Anna Nicole Smith's diaries in the news today give evidence of horrible spelling and bad grammar. That immediately lowers my libido. My tail stops wagging. For her.) At the bus stop, you see more litter, you see the grim faces of drivers, you see people who are complaining about the price of gas flooring it to get past the intersection in big-ass vehicles, en route roughly to where I'm headed, two miles away or less. Hey, isn't that what's her name? Hi! The bus stop is handicap-accessible and has a sign posted that says NO STANDING ANY TIME. I chuckle. File that for blogging. Can I stand here now? Please? What if I sit down right here on the weed-whacked limp shrapnel of greenery gone to its grave? Then the Downtown-heralded bus comes. The driver is a serious but amiable African-American fellow with sunglasses (but I don't really know his lineage; he might be African-British or Jamaican-American or Canadian-American; after all, I know a guy who's white, has an African name; his folks are from Cameroon; and he is as white as the cliffs of Dover, mate). I put in my wrinkled dollar; the machine takes it. The lone passenger is an elderly woman; she's reading a magazine about birds. I want to tell her about last night's post at my blog. I want to tell her I wrote about bird sounds, but I resist. It's not beyond me to strike up a conversation like that. Half a block away, a teenage girl with a backpack flashes a pass or ID, and gets on the bus. She looks stressed, unsettled, in a hurry. I feel bad for her. She obviously forgot something, for school or work. She's fumbling in her backpack. She pulls the cord. The bus stops. As she turns toward me before exiting the bus, I give her the most compassionate smile I can muster because I really sympathize with her; it reminds me of losing that twenty-dollar bill a week ago Sunday. Maybe she's the bus driver's daughter (but obviously isn't or he would've greeted her. He would've said, "What's the problem? I'll help you out.") Outside on the sidewalk she is still searching her backpack. Several blocks away, two more people get on. So now it's a bus "filled" with four people. "Price of gas price of gas price of gas" is the mantra of the bus's engine. The two that get on: a young guy with a filthy baseball cap, looks depressed, not from Cameroon or Africa or even Bakersfield or Cedar Rapids. She, she's got blond hair pulled back and bling earrings (large and trashy) and ghoulishly long fingernails that I stare at and loathe as I endure her shouts to the driver asking if it's the usual time he's here. He solemnly and evenly intones, "I'm supposed to be here at 8:27." We arrive. I thank him. He wishes me a good day, as I embark into the haven of cigarette smokers and litterers and walk the two blocks to work, late but already entertained, if that's the word, but it really isn't. The word is Bus. Full Stop.