Riding The Line

Rosie McClusky loved to ride the bus. She loved the way it wound its way through the sleepy city early in the morning and she loved the way it meandered back to her stop later in the afternoon. Rosie always sat on the right side, next to the window. She never tired of watching the patchwork of anonymous people who waited to clamber aboard her bus. She made up tales about them as they shuffled down the aisle to the empty seats. Fantasy biographies, strangers with familiar faces, sometimes exchanging nods with her as they passed.

Rosie settled into hr usual seat and watched the city crawl past her window. Past the crumbling tenements, past the curbside clutter, past the trashcans dented from years of use and abuse. Past the drugstores and coffee shops with the fogged pate glass windows, fogged from the warmth inside and the chill outside. Past the diners and past the huddled souls bent against the cold, heading towards unknown destinations.

The door hissed open, injecting a shot of cold air onto the bus. Rosie watched the bus driver motion to someone in the stairway to hurry up. A gaunt man dressed in a stained gray jumpsuit and a ragged navy parka, it’s hood torn and hanging off his shoulders, climbed aboard the bus. He carefully removed a soiled glove and rooted around in his right pocket for the correct change while an impatient line formed behind him.

The bus driver glared at him, moving his eyes from the man to the coin box, delivering a silent command.

“How much is it?” asked the man.

“95 cents, same as it is every day,” the driver replied. “Come on, Jimmy. It’s cold out there and ya got people waiting behind ya.”

The man smiled and dropped the coins into the hopper, then sauntered down the aisle. He sat down in the empty seat next to Rosie.

“95 cents. 95 cents,” he ruminated. “95. Like the year. 1995. Not a good year. Goodyear. They make tires. Not tires as good as Firestone but good tired anyway…”

Rosie smiled, then turned back to the window. She watched a tall man gesturing wildly at a tiny woman who clutched a baby pressed to her chest, swaddled in a multicolored blanket, until they passed from view.

“Trinity. Got to get off at Trinity,” the man beside her prattled. “Trinity. Like the Holy Trinity. That’s why Ireland’s in so much trouble, you know…” He nodded toward Rosie. “I tell you, Trinity is trouble. Can’t get along, those Catholics and Protestants. Blowin’ themselves up all the time. Time. Time. Good magazine—Time-- but not enough pictures. Got to have more pictures. One picture is worth a thousand words, you know. That’s what they always say.”

Rosie nodded at the man and then returned to her window. The bus passed two young men who wrestled a striped mattress up the crumbling front stairs of a dilapidated tenement. Rosie supposed it was for the young woman hanging out the second floor window, gesturing at them like a sergeant to a batch of recruits.

“Words. Words are everything. But what are words anyway? Just a collection of letters. Letters. I like to write letters. I write letters to my mother. I write letters to my father. I write letters to the newspaper. But I never get any letters back. Course I never really mail ‘em. Costs too much money. Gotta buy stamps. Post Office sells ‘em. Used to be 10 cents, ya know.”

Rosie looked quickly at the man but said nothing. She shifted a bit in her seat to get a better look at a group of guys in olive army jackets buried to their waists under the hood of a battered brown Toyota that sat on blocks where the wheels used to be.

“10 cents. Used to be able to make a phone all for 10 cents. Cokes cost 10 cents too. Drop a dime in the slot and out popped a soda. Used to be a dime could mail a card to California. California. Crazy place. They say California is gonna fall off into the ocean and float away some day, ya know. It’s a matter of fact. God’s truth. Earthquakes. Bad things them earthquakes. Shakes things up. Makes a real mess. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

Rosie tore herself away from the window, reached up, and yanked the buzzer cord. She gently tapped the man on the shoulder and rose from her seat.

The man stood and Rosie passed into the aisle. “Now you have a nice day, ma’am.” He tipped his hand to an imaginary cap. “Be careful out there. It’s a real jungle. I like jungles. Lots of vines and things. Hot all the time…”

Rosie stood behind the white line that ran across the floor and waited for the bus to stop, placing her right hand on the chrome pole to steady herself. She bent slightly to get a better view out the front windshield. A young boy raced down the sidewalk and darted down an alley, knocking over a pile of discarded cardboard boxes that blocked his path. As she watched it all unfold, Rosie casually reached behind her left ear and turned on the volume control to her hearing aid.

“See you tomorrow morning, ma’am,” the bus driver aid. The door whooshed open and Rosie started down the steps. She stopped, turned, and waved to the driver. Then she stepped out the door and headed into her city.