Old Man on the Bus

Adam wing

To tired commuters. (Get home safe.)

AN old man stands before his workplace locker. His shoulders slump under the weight of twelve hours sold to his employer for an emailed paystub he never learned to open—as surely as his back bends beneath seventy-plus years traded for bad ankles and a basket full of memories. He slides out of his jacket and straightens it over a wire hanger, depositing both into the open metal cavity. He unclips and folds his tie—gently, careful not to crease the fabric—then sets it in place on the bent shelf above.

“Night, Ben,” a woman calls from outside the locker room. There is no door, only a partition of white-painted bricks, stained grey by countless wayfaring palms. The old man answers his colleague, wishing her a restful sleep. Then he turns attention to his collar.

His fingers are slow. Each button is an effort, but a gradual split grows down the front of his shirt. The Stallion Security logo embroidered to his chest vanishes as the garment falls open. Shrugging free, he stuffs it into a maroon laundry bag. Next go his slacks. The old man dons his street clothes as slowly and carefully as he undressed. He drops the laundry bag in a half-full bin, then steps out of the locker room. By the time he makes it to the elevator, up into the lobby, and out the side doors to the bus stop, his wristwatch reads 12:12 AM. Twenty-two minutes past the end of his shift.

The old man does not sit, but stands behind the stop’s bench. He offers a glance to the fresh stain puddled across its seat. Puddled over last night’s stain—over the previous night’s, and as many nights before as could well reach the Cretaceous. Resting forward on the seatback, he shifts from one foot to the other, watching for the lights of his homebound chariot.

The city is quiet at this hour. Few cars wander the streets. Fewer buses. The old man’s will be the last for its route. If it were scheduled to come a little earlier—if he got off work just a few minutes later—he could not have taken this job when it was offered three weeks ago; he would have had no way to get home. Lucky how things work out.

The old man covers a yawn with the back of his wrist. He offers three slow blinks, then yawns again. He continues to shift his weight, lifting and shaking each ankle as his body sways.

The bus arrives on time.

It stops in front of him, hissing as the door opens and the floor lowers for him to enter. Cautious as ever, the old man climbs aboard. He flashes his pass, then turns to face up the aisle. There appears to have been a game tonight; every seat is taken, and a number of travellers stand in the aisle. The old man’s gaze drifts to the first four seats on either side—priority seating. He eyes the six teenagers spread collectively on top of them, laughing and jawing without an upward glance. He turns a hopeful look to the driver, but the man’s attention is on the road, and by the fog in his pupils, whatever plans he has for when his shift ends.

The old man wilts inside his clothes.

Before he can turn back to the teenagers, perhaps to swallow anxiety and ask to be allowed to sit, the floor lurches beneath his feet. He staggers and dances comically to catch balance, kicking knees well above his belt. He hugs the nearest pole moments ahead of what would have surely been an injurious fall. A churl of laughter rises from the seated teens. Not at him. At some youthful gag borne among them. Still none has noticed the old man … except one, a boy draped in team colours. He paints the old man with a curious eye. But he says nothing, does not shift or offer up his seat.

The old man studies his shoes.

Walls hum as the bus rolls forward.

They cross the bridge and make their way north. Streetlamps skitter across fore-lit windows like orange and yellow spiders migrating to the rear. The old man clings to his pole against the sway and shift of inertia.

A woman appears before him—young, perhaps thirty—in a coral pea coat and grey leggings. Cinnamon-coloured hair, swept to one side, slides from her shoulder as she leans in to speak. “Would you like my seat?” She gestures to the middle of the bus, where an undersized backpack rides an otherwise empty spot. Before he can answer, she asks again. “Did you want to sit?”

The old man smiles and thanks the woman. He allows her to help him up the aisle. The woman grabs her backpack and gestures him into the seat. He thanks her again and says what a relief it is to be off his feet; he explains how his job requires him to stand in place for hours, how even for his younger colleagues it can be—

“Oh, it’s okay,” the woman says, just short of stepping on his words. “I sit all day at work; I could stand to stand a bit, you know?” She chuckles spuriously. The old man nods. “Have a good night,” the woman chirps before he can open his mouth again. She turns away, walks four paces, and pulls a phone from her coat pocket.

Seated, the old man leans back.

Minutes pass.

The man seated beside the old man pulls the cord to signal the driver. The old man shifts to let him by, but the seats are virtually on top of each other and he is forced to stand. He rises with some effort and allows the other man to pass. “’S’cuse me,” the man mutters, followed by, “thanks.” The old man drops back down and slides over to rest his temple on the inky cool of the window.

They come to the next stop, and the door opens. A middle-aged woman the colour of cigarette ash and tired denim steps aboard. Tossing a fistful of nickels in the slot, she scrapes up the aisle, swaying as she approaches the old man, eyes hooked to the only empty seat. Without a word or a glance, she plops down beside him.

The woman expands as she sits. Her body does not come near to encroaching on the old man’s—physically, she is scarcely larger than he—but the pressure of her closeness pushes him against the window. She smells like cigarette ash and tired denim too. The old man is careful not to look at her.

The floor jumps and their bodies shake in unison as the bus pulls them into parallel paths. Together, they sit. Side-by-side, they wait.

Here, it should be noted that along with movie theatres and battlefields, elevators and wakes, crowded buses stand among life’s strangest settings. A bus is less vehicle than journey, a party of travellers ceding control of the path they travel—ceding it to the path itself. They are connected by common experience, and in a trust that each will, in the end, arrive where they need to be. Together in transit. Together in stasis. A strangely intimate arrangement. Despite this—or perhaps because of it—passengers tend to erect walls as they bump and lurch their way across town, as strong and high as if they were besieged by enemies. It is a spell of sorts, lasting until each reaches their stop. Then one by one, they eject themselves like flies snapping free of a deadly web, leaving their companions, their walls, and the collective journey without a thought or care as it continues without them.

So it is with this ride. Passengers share each thump and tremor, every red light and overly-sharp stop. They share the mild distaste of an uncomfortable journey, and mild resentment of each other, of strangers pressed too close.

As the bus draws further from the city’s core and each stop sees more people exiting than stepping up to replace them, numbers begin to thin. Vacant spots germinate in scattered patches. Empty seats soon outnumber the full. The old man observes each free space as it appears. The ash-denim woman sees none. Her eyes are shut. It is impossible to tell if she is awake or asleep.

Conversation—sound itself—drops away as the air’s fibers seem to loosen; only the rising-falling growl of the engine remains. The bus sinks into a morose sort of calm. There are no more groups, only individual travellers and couples murmuring quietly among themselves.

At an intersection painted orange in the oily glow of a Shell station, and ornamented with a distant Safeway S and the stylized script of a Chinese restaurant, the old man reaches for the yellow cord. A chime signals the driver. They push forward through a terrain of low houses, apartment complexes, and condos, and the next stop soon appears ahead of them. The old man grips his pantleg and wets his bottom lip. Without turning his head, he allows his eyes to flick sideways and touch the ash-denim woman. She does not shift. He sniffs and clears his throat, but the woman takes no notice.

The stop grows in the bus’s front window.

The old man pulls himself up, twisting to face the ash-denim woman. A moment of silence, and he lowers himself once more. The bus slows.

“Um … excuse me,” he rasps.

The ash-denim woman’s eyelids crack apart. Her head rolls toward him. The old man bites down and offers an apologetic smile. Eyes close once more as she turns away. The stop draws closer.

“Could you just…”

A wave of inertia pulls them forward as the bus comes to a halt. The front light flicks on and the door hisses open.

“Um…”

A weighted silence. The night breathes cool air through the yawning door. No one else stands to get off.

The old man clears his throat once more, but the ash-denim woman sits a statue beside him. His eyes creep toward the driver; only a shoulder is visible, but the man could as well be a block of wood. The old man half-stands again. His knees bump the seatback in front of him. “Excuse me; I need—I need to get through.” His voice shakes. So do his thighs.

“Fuck off, man.” The ash-denim woman forms the words without moving her mouth.

“I–I—” He throws a frightened look to the front, an appeal to the only authority in this rolling micro-universe. A sigh—more like a grumble—from the driver’s seat. The door closes, and the entry light switches off. The engine’s rumble grows around them as the bus starts forward.

The old man is thrust into his seat. He watches wide-eyed as his stop passes beside him, half-visible between street lights, not ten feet from where he sits. His house can be seen just up the street, empty and dark, awaiting his return. A moment more, and it vanishes from sight.

The old man glances around him. The closest seats are empty. “I…” He lifts his voice to reach the driver, but no words follow. He rings for the next stop. “Pardon,” he says to the unmoving form beside him. “Please, could you… I have to get off here, or I won’t be able to…” The ash-denim woman does not appear to hear. “Could I please get by?” He holds his hand above her shoulder, hesitating a breath before offering a gentle tap.

The bus stops again. Another traveller exits through the back door. The driver does not wait this time, but starts them forward at once.

“Listen, please…”

Ash-denim eyes open. Sucking her annoyance, the woman splashes the old man with her gaze. “You want to get your hand off me?” She glares needles into the offending appendage hovering near her shoulder—though no longer touching it.

“Could you please let me by? I need to see if I can get out.”

She closes her eyes again. “Next stop’s like…ten minutes. I’m getting off then too, so just relax.”

“We passed mine—” the old man struggles to explain. “Maybe I can ask the driver to let me off before we get on Deerfoot…” He taps her shoulder again.

“Fuck off, will you?!” The ash-denim woman bolts upright, stabbing the air with dagger fingers from her splayed-open hand. “I said I’ll move when we stop!” The old man cowers back. He glances at the driver who is doing his best to ignore them.

The night scrolls on. Sharp angles and flat residential surfaces give way to a grassy ridge with chain-link stretched long atop it. They turn a wide arc, exiting onto Deerfoot Trail, the city’s main expressway.

The old man stammers a reply to the ash-denim woman. An apology first, then he tells her that he just wants—that he had just hoped—to get out before it was too late for the bus to let him off. Before it was too far for him to walk home.

The ash-denim woman listens without listening.

“Fine.” The word is a brick dropped on concrete. “I’ll sit over here—Jesus!” She vaults into a seat across the aisle. Shooting him a last venomous glare, she reverts to what must be her natural state—canted back, eyes closed. Still as death.

The old man turns from the ash-denim woman to a rush of buildings, powerlines and trees, flying now, beside them. Too late. There will be no getting off.

For thirteen minutes, the old man sits in silence.

They cross the city at highway speed, devouring mile after unscalable mile. The old man pulls deep breaths into his lungs. He blinks. He swallows. He scratches at his throat. The glass-and-marble pillars of the downtown core grow again in the window. They appear to rotate as the bus passes at a distance. The old man is now further from home than when his journey began.

The driver finds his exit and pulls them off Deerfoot. They pass a darkened strip mall, a haunted car dealership, and a soccer field fogged over with gloom. When they turn again, it is into the sour-sweet light of an empty terminal. The bus eases to a stop.

The ash-denim woman’s eyes open. “Getting off, then?” she asks, swinging up from her seat. She winks as she turns away to exit.

The old man rises. Doubt shades his features as he makes his way to the front. “Do you…” he begins. The driver sighs, failing to suppress a look of impatience. “Do you know how I can make it back to Coventry?”

“Back to Coventry?” The man does not quite roll his eyes. “Last bus back would have left maybe twenty minutes ago. Seven’s all that’s running through here after me, and it goes east; neither of us really connect with anything headed back up—not this late.”

The old man waits for more, perhaps for the man to give his problem a moment of consideration—even call dispatch and see if they can help. But the driver just clears his throat. The old man nods. He lowers his eyes and steps off the bus. The door hisses closed behind him, and the engine moans louder as the vehicle pulls away. He stands alone on an island of orange light, amidst a sea of shadows. The ash-denim woman is gone.

The old man shuffles to a lattice-wire bench and settles down upon it. The seat is cold and has no back. He sits forward, staring at his shoelaces, raising an occasional gaze to the darkness around him—and occasionally to the watch on his wrist. Another bus—the Seven—approaches the terminal and stops. It waits only a moment, then rolls away when the old man makes no move to board.

The night sings a hollow silence.

◦     ◦     ◦     ◦

WITHOUT a ride, phone, or strength to walk home, the old man will continue to sit, despairing at having to pass the night in this dark unfeeling space, tired, afraid, and alone.

But not for long.

When the next Number Seven arrives, a kind traveller will step down and take notice. The passenger will sit beside him and ask what is the matter. Listening, he will offer to call a ride-share for the old man, even pay for it. And less than an hour after the old man failed to get past the ash-denim woman and alight at his correct stop, he will find himself in a stranger’s Honda, homeward bound at last.

When the tears come, when they spill out, burning itchy wet lines down the old man’s cheeks and along his nostrils, it will not be out of gratitude or relief. His thoughts will not be of home. No, the old man will sob quietly in the back of an unknown woman’s car for most of the eighteen minutes it takes to get home, because that will be all that is left for him. He will cry for a life governed on the whims and wills of strangers. He will cry for autonomy he once took for granted, so thoroughly lost he would not recognize it if he saw it again.

The old man will make it home tonight, dropped safely at his doorstep. He will wash his face and hands in near-scalding water, and climb into bed. He will not dream of his ordeal on the bus.

In the morning, he will wake up to ride it again.

OLD MAN ON THE BUS

Written by Adam Wing (www.wingwriting.com)

Copyright 2019 by Adam Wing

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover art by Adam Wing

Inside art retrieved 18/10/2019 from https://pixabay.com/

Proofread by Charlie Knight (cknightwrites.com)

Published by Adam Wing.

ISBN

Kindle (Mobi): 978-1-9995187-3-8

eBook (ePub): 978-1-9995187-4-5