"This is the last stop."

Many of my bus rides end at the Burien Transit Center, where I switch to a different bus and ride away. Riding the same routes in reverse on my way back, that line also ends at BTC, where I get onto the bus for home.

When either route reaches the end of the line, an announcement plays over the internal speakers: "This is the last stop. All passengers should deboard at this time."

Hearing that announcement twice on every errand, going and then coming, I have it memorized — a dozen words, the mechanical intonation, the time between the first sentence and the second.

Sometimes I recite the lines along with the recording. Other times, I try to anticipate the moment the recording will play, and ask the ether, "Is this the last stop?" just before the recording says "This is the last stop." Then very quickly I'll ask, "Should I get off here?" before the announcement says "All passengers should deboard at this time."

This I do to amuse myself, but very quietly, so's I'm the only person who can hear me. On a particular ride on the #F bus, though, I was seated near the front, with no passengers near me, so I said my shtick at a normal speaking volume.

The bus driver heard and thought it was hilarious, and who am I to argue with a bus driver? We ended up talking for a minute, even after everyone else had stepped off the bus. High point of my day, it was.

Imagine that — an interaction with some stranger, who didn't annoy me.

♦ ♦ ♦

On a different day, I was in another uncommonly good mood, because I'd found five dollars blowing in the wind. When my bus came, I climbed on and noticed a middle-aged white-ish guy, diagonally opposite my seat. What got my attention was, he seemed inordinately happy, like me.

Avoiding eye contact, I faced out the window, but actually I was looking at this weirdly happy man. He sensed he was being watched, and flashed me a thumb's up. Well, at that I had to smile and actually look at the guy, so I said, "How ya doin', man?"

He smiled a little larger and said something I couldn't understand, couldn't even approximate. Being hard of hearing, by habit I instantly replied, "Say what?" And I do wish I hadn't.

The smiling guy said nothing, kept smiling, and I understood. He's weary of the language or accent barrier, and this particular morning he didn't want to climb over it. Gotta be tiring when it happens every day, right?

So I smiled back at him, then looked out the windows again.

♦ ♦ ♦

Northbound on the #C bus, there was an old, bald black guy sitting in one of the sideways seats up front. There was nothing noticeable about him, except that he babbled briefly — something about the rain. Then he was quiet. Then he said something else about the weather forecast, talking to nobody and everybody.

From my seat halfway back in the bus, he was the most interesting thing to look at, so I watched, and listened. 

At the next stop, a 30-ish white lady got onto the bus, pushing a baby stroller. She sat near the black guy, same side of the bus, and parked the stroller between them.

The black guy waved at the baby in the stroller, while the kid's mom bent over to lock one of the stroller's wheels, so it wouldn't roll away while the bus moved. The stroller's other lockable wheel was closer to the babbler, so he bent over and said, "I'll lock this wheel."

He locked the wheel, the lady said thanks, and for the next mile or so he smiled at the baby, and chatted with the lady, and that's my report.

People can still be decent. Ain't that something?

♦ ♦ ♦

Another day, another bus. I stepped aboard and recognized the driver. He was the same old guy who'd laughed at my rendition of "This is the last stop," but he didn't recognize me.

Which makes sense. He drives a bus, deals with hundreds of people every day. I'm a hermit, having no interactions with anyone for weeks at a time. So I remembered my moment with him from a week earlier, but he didn't remember his moment with me.

And by the way, I ain't sad about being forgotten. Usually I prefer not being noticed. Being forgotten is the next best thing.

A couple of miles later, the bus was idling at a red light, and the driver whistled the first few bars of a song. I recognized it, and shouted the title like Name That Tune: "Toys R Us!" I said, too loudly, and the driver laughed at me again.

"That's right," he said, "but I don't know why I was whistling it. A song from a long time ago."

He's an ancient white man, pushing retirement no doubt, so we're of the same time. "A saner time," I said.

"You're right about that, and with better music."

I didn't say anything else, because the man has a bus to drive and I'm a distraction. I was thinking how evil advertising is, that five years after Toys R Us liquidated itself, me and the driver still know the company's theme song.

Half a block later the driver said, "You're that guy." I looked up, and he was looking back at me in the rear view mirror. "That guy who said, 'This is the last stop'."

I confessed it was me, and we talked for a few blocks about Toys R Us and Christmas and some of the troublesome characters he sees on the bus. Then the conversation ebbed away, because I was tired of talking and also because I don't really know how to keep a conversation going.

We said nothing else except, "So long," to each other when I got off the bus. I don't know his name, which is OK with me, but it's beginning to feel like maybe I'm in the process of having a buddy who's a bus driver.

11/19/2023  

 itsdougholland.com
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