A.
A large transportation vehicle, the school bus was made
for function rather than fashion. The signature yellow color,
sometimes with black stripes on the sides, diesel engine, and boxy
design made them easily identifiable.
A school bus had large side mirrors as seen on tractor
trailers to enable the driver as much visibility as possible. A
bi-fold door at the front of the bus on the passenger side opened to
the set of three of four steps that passengers had to take to enter
the vehicle. The driver's seat was at the top of these stairs,
typically a large black, cushioned chair behind a large steering
wheel and within easy reach of all necessary controls. Those included
the lever, positioned to the right, used to open and close the door.
To the left of the driver's seat was a panel of switches and buttons
that control lights and signs on both the interior and exterior of
the bus.
Various cautionary signs and instructions could be
found over the windshield and above windows directing passengers to
buckle their seat belts and alerting them to the position of
emergency exits. In many school buses, a security camera was
positioned inside the bus, above the windshield – a box with a
flashing red light that debatably indicated its working order and a
two-way mirror on the front that reflected the double rows of
vinyl-covered seats that were bolted to the metal floor. Each seat
was black, blue, brown, green, or a mixture of these colors and was
equipped with multiple nylon seat belts that were usually crammed
into the seat or left to swing, unused, above the floor.
Both sides of the bus were almost completely bisected
by double-hung windows with metal frames, two of which were
designated as emergency exits and were capable of separating entirely
from the rest of the bus frame with the pull of a small lever. Two of
the remaining emergency exits were plastic hatches in the roof of the
bus and spaced evenly down its length. The aisle between seats was a
long strip of ribbed rubber secured to the metal floor for traction
and extends all the way back to the rear emergency exit door that was
also operated by a metal lever. Small lights spaced periodically down
the length of the bus interior over the windows provided a degree of
visibility inside the bus at night.
B.
I wedged the door open and paused for a moment, tucking
some wayward hairs back up into my sweat-soaked bandana and off of my
sweaty neck. I was trying to prolong the illusion that I was letting
the bus cool off a little before climbing in but the previous six
buses and steadily rising sun had shown me that nothing was going to
cool these tin cans down today even if I opened all the windows,
doors, and emergency hatches. I had been soaked through in multiple
places by the time I got half way through the first bus. I squinted
up at the sun, trying to remember and internalize the feeling of air
conditioning before stooping down and collecting the stained red
buckets of cleaning supplies – warm plastic bottles jostling each
other as I stepped up into the yellow solar-heated oven.
It took exactly eight seconds for my eyes to adjust but
the stench was immediate and inescapable. You'd think that if you'd
smelled one bus you'd have smelled them all but you'd be wrong. The
years of sweaty, sticky children and forgotten PB&Js flooded my
nose in different mixtures each time but always with the full-bodied
undertone of well-worn vinyl. This particular bus had another scent
in the mix. Someone had thrown up. I gagged a little at the putrid
aroma, reheated from hours left in the hot sun. I made sure to keep
my lips tightly closed though; inhaling through my mouth would only
result in a second mess for me to clean up.
I took deliberate breaths as I clomped up the stairs,
willing my lungs to harvest oxygen from the oppressive air. The metal
shell reverberated under my boots and echoed down the bus's interior;
loose windows rattled like industrial wind chimes. The driver's seat,
molded to some overweight, aging woman's behind with cracks in the
black upholstery where tufts of padding poked out, making their bid
for freedom, served as my center of operations where buckets and rags
were deposited until called into service. The bottles of cleaner
clattered against each other as I dug for the 409 with the dependable
nozzle and the least amount of drip. I hooked the trigger through a
belt loop and tucked a roll of paper towels under my arm before
shoving a spare trash bag into my back pocket. First things first,
that vomit had to go.
I crept down the aisle like a hunter of safari,
approaching my prey with caution, not for fear of scaring it, but to
take care that it didn’t take me by surprise. I found it about
two-thirds down the bus on the right side. The kid had hit the siding
under the window before emptying his lunch onto the floor. Lines
showed where the sick had run down the metal sheeting to pool with
the rest by the sloppily welded leg of the seat in front of it. It
must have been a big kid, or a big lunch. I was just grateful that it
wasn't the chunky kind. Thankfully, the plastic tabs on the window
above the seat weren't broken and it slid down without argument, a
halfhearted breath of air meandered through it and stirred up the
rank smell, making my stomach roll. How was I going to survive
nursing school if a bit of vomit made me nauseous? I pulled my
bandana down around my nose and mouth, ignoring the gritty damp and
the limp strings of hair that fell again on my neck in favor of the
relatively refreshing smell of my own sweat.
It took almost the whole roll of paper towels to move
the sticky pool from the hot metal to my trash bag but those scuffed
rivets almost looked shiny when I had finished. I tossed the vomit
bag onto the dusty ground at the foot of the stairs – a small puff
of dirt and grass carcasses lifting itself around the bag. I moved on
to wiping down seats, the classic western shoot-off trill ringing in
my ears when I drew my trusty 409 from its denim holster and took aim
at the cracked and graffiti-ed seats.
Lemon-scented cleaner splashed across seat backs as I
rolled back and forth across the aisle from seat to seat wiping away
the drips and grime, dodging bandit fire until I had cornered the
phantom scoundrels behind the very last seat. Nowhere for them to go.
“Ha!” I yelled, ambushing the back window with a
fantastic wash of chemical. I watched the yellow fluid race itself to
the rubber casing in little rivulets before I took a rag to the
window, scrubbing off some of the film that had built up from dusty
air, dirty kids, and the secret cigarettes of high schoolers. I'd
seen Megan Klein passing out those thin paper cylinders on the way
home from school on Friday, a weekend celebration that I didn't get
an invitation to and now here I was cleaning up some other kid's
unwinding session.
I shook myself and jogged to the front of the bus,
feeling the bounce of the suspension under even my meager weight. I
gathered the buckets and rags, moving them outside by the vomit bag
before grabbing the broom and dust-pan that I’d left on the ground.
I swept my way down the bus, attempting modified pirouettes in the
narrow aisle and dipping the broom with grand flourishes. It was the
best partner I’d ever had.
The honk of a car horn pulled me up short in the middle
of a perfect jazz square and I squinted out the window to see a car
full of teenagers staring at me, necks craned around as their car
drove past, their faces warped by laughter I didn’t hear but knew
on site. I stuck my tongue out at the back of the car, wiped some sweat out of my eyes with the back of my hand, and finished collecting wrappers and string from the floor in
silence.
C.
Keltsie felt like someone had left a puddle of
quick-dry glue at the top of the stairs. She couldn't move her feet.
The bus driver, an elderly, weathered man had nodded in reply to her
tentative smile when the door had creaked open at her stop and now he
swung the door shut behind her and put the bus in gear without
waiting for her to find a seat. The roar of the diesel engine
startled Keltsie and she tripped down the aisle when the bus jerked
forward down the road.
Keltsie’s fingers gripped the blue seat backs, sweat
forming instantly between her hands and the vinyl upholstery as she
scanned the rows for a place to sit. There were no familiar faces and
no one looked her way long enough to tell if there were any friendly
ones.
Why had she thought this was a good idea?
She took a few weaving steps further down the aisle,
holding on to each new seat like a life-line as she tried to swallow
her nerves. Something crunched under her sandal at her next step and
she looked down to see the floor was littered with wrappers of all
kinds, not to mention several pieces of gum. She looked up again with
a jerk, trying to ignore the thoughts of germs and disease that were
crowding into her mind.
The bus was packed. Each seat was packed to, and in
some cases, beyond capacity with sweaty kids vying for the breezes
that swept through the open windows. One boy sat alone. His long
hair, several shades darker than Keltsie's own, hung in his
half-closed eyes. Keltsie wondered if he was hot, wearing all black
and sitting next to the window like that.
“Excuse me.” Her voice was barely a whisper and was
easily drowned out by the bus's engine.
The boy made no move to indicate that he had heard her.
“Excuse me!” Keltsie tried again, her voice raised
to a volume that alarmed her.
The boy's eyes turned in her direction and slowly
widened and then narrowed as he registered Keltsie's presence. In one
swift motion, much faster than Keltsie would have thought he could
move, the boy had grabbed a torn, black bag from the floor and
deposited it beside him on the seat, taking up the rest of the bench.
He held one pale hand firmly on the bag and turned his head to stare
out the window with the same half-awake look as before. Taken aback
at the sudden and unexplained rejection, Keltsie blinked. She tugged
at her backpack straps to keep her arms from locking over her chest
in a wasted defensive gesture. The boy had been sitting by himself
already. Maybe he acted that way toward everyone. It wasn't personal.
The next bump of the school bus threw her off balance,
her hands no longer anchored to the seats, and she toppled forward,
crashing into a seat on the right and its sole occupant. The girl
looked up from the book she had been reading and glared at Keltsie
before she yanked her backpack out from under Keltsie's own and
dropping it into her lap. The girl propped her book against it to
continue reading.
“I'm so sorry!” Keltsie said, as she tried to right
herself in the narrow space. The seat's split seams carve ragged
edges into the bare skin below her shorts and she winced. The girl
only tucked her curly black hair behind one ear and rolled her eyes
at her book.
“I'm sorry.” Keltsie whispered. She leanedg forward
until her head hit the seat back in front of her. The warm, damp
upholstery clung to her forehead. She didn't move to take her
backpack off, in case the girl decided to kick her out and her books
sat heavily on her back. She could hear her pencil case shift with
the turns of the bus. Someone had drawn an elaborate dragon on the
seat back, black pen on a blue background. Keltsie studied it as she
thought over the morning's encounters thus far and the horrors she
was now sure awaited her at school.
The girl by the window snapped her book shut which made
Keltsie jump and turn to see if she had done something inexplicable
to offend this person as well. The seat did not part easily
from her forehead and Keltsie felt a stinging mark where the two had
adhered. The girl was stared at her with what Keltsie thought were
conflicting emotions on her face trading back and forth between
irritation, pity, and apathy. Finally, the first two won out and she
spoke.
“You're new.” It wasn't a question but it wasn't
quite an accusation either, though the girl's knit brows did not seem
to approve of this fact.
Keltsie swallowed and tried to sit up, hampered by her
backpack which wedged between her and the seat. “Yeah, I mean, yes.
I am. New.”
The girl eyed her and smirked slightly first at
Keltsie's forehead and then her backpack but her eyes were kind. “You
know, it's easier to sit if you take your backpack off first. Also,”
she continued as Keltsie scrambled to remove her arms from the
backpack's straps, “people are less prone to push you out again if
you don't fall on top of them.”
Keltsie looked up from her backpack, alarmed, but the
girl was smiling now. “I'm so sorry about that! I didn't mean to,
honest. I just lost my balance and-”
The girl shrugged and waved away Keltsie's apology.
“It's whatever. Don't get bent out of shape about it. My name's
Brenna. What’s yours?”
Keltsie heard the dutiful tone in Brenna's polite
questions but it didn't bother her. She smiled. “I'm Keltsie. This
is my first day at a public school.”
No comments:
Post a Comment