“I hate crowded buses.”
A road-weary man and woman are seated on the right-hand side of the bus, close to the rear. The man is sitting next to the window. Both he and the woman have long black hair, pulled back in bushy ponytails, secured with colorful elastic bands. He’s wearing a red flannel jacket with frayed cuffs and missing buttons, she’s dressed in mismatched hand-me-downs – a shin-length dress and last-year’s Nikes.
“We couldn’t go back to her place because of stupid Steve,” he’s telling her, “so we camped out that night. This jacket I’m wearin’? I used it as a blanket. She fell asleep. ‘I’m goin’ to the store,’ I told her, ‘you just sleep.’ ‘Ok,’ she said. We camped out that night.”
The woman is looking away from the man, out the window on the other side of the bus, the passing scenery, stopping and going. An unrepentant hippie sitting across from the couple is wearing a brand-new white t-shirt with a slogan printed on the breast in clear/capital letters: “LOVE & THEFT.”
“Remember those stupid people living in that room downstairs?” the man asks the woman.
“Are they still there?”
“No. But that one guy left his glasses. I tried them on and man, he must have a big head.”
A herd of middle-school students in varying states of puberty boards the bus. They’re all wearing hunter orange t-shirts, “SUMMER OF FUN” emblazoned across the chests in puffy white screen-printed letters.
“What is it, Kid Day?” the man asks the woman.
* * *
“She’ll only be gone two or three weeks,” he continues. “She hates living with her mom. Can’t drink. Can’t smoke. Can’t do nothin’. Have to go to church. Have to wear dresses. She hates it.” The woman self-consciously pats at her lap, smoothing the wrinkles in her second-hand dress.
The bus stops in front of a twenty-four-hour chain diner. “Some Denny’s are really, really good,” the man says, “and some Denny’s are really, really bad.”
The raucous crowd of young people exits the bus, hollering and poking and sneering and guffawing.
“They all got off the bus,” the woman observes.
“Yeah, it’s quiet now. I don’t know how to act,” the man says.
The doors of the bus close and the bus hisses, lurching slowly back into motion. It’s an impoverished section of the city – condemned buildings, people walking along quickly with their heads down. A large construction site offers a glimpse of progress.
“Wow, that’s a deep hole.”
* * *
Throughout the city, as part of a public arts project, horse-sized polyurethane pigs have been decorated by amateur and semi-professional artists and set on pedestals in prominent public places.
“What is it, Pig Month?” the man asks the woman. The woman doesn’t answer, the question being rhetorical in nature. The bus continues on its route, stopping and going, stopping and going, making its way downtown.
