The Last Stop

There's something about the bus, and in general all public transportation, that inspires some type of unity in me. The enclosed spaces, the silent staring. This was made abundantly clear to me when I took a job between second and third shift, and had to pull out the schedule to make sure I could time everything out perfectly. Said schedule was a bit too confusing for me, but one of the receptionists at the front of my building was happy to oblige. This is when I discovered the virtue of being the last stop.

There were regulars and there were people you'd see rarely. The latter were mostly young people returning from parties, too drunk to stand, much less drive their own cars, but this was mainly during the end of the week. Revelers rarely showed up on the Monday night drive, and that's why it was my favorite. You see, on the long stretch of road between the last stop and the one immediately before it, there were never many people, and none of them were too open to conversation. That's what attracted me to them.

The first one I talked to was a seemingly successful businessman who had buried himself in work. He had a wife and two children, but apathy gripped his brain after years of sameness and monotony. He pulled twelve and sixteen hour shifts until his near-omnipresence at the office caused him to become indispensable. He theorized that if he were let go, the entire place would fall around the owners' feet. He might have been right.

Homeless people are fairly common on buses, especially in large cities and such where vagrants can find temporary shelter in disused buildings or park benches. Or the bus, as it were. Some of them had romantic tales of self-sacrifice or adventure to spin, though I'm not sure exactly how many of them were true. One woman claimed she had come from far west of here, carrying everything she owned on her back and in her pockets. Fate intervened in a way she didn't expect, and she was robbed blind by this city. She was forced to stay. She was a regular when I started riding, but all at once I never saw her on the lonely Monday night ride again. Perhaps she found the better life she had set out to look for. I like to think so, anyway.

There were the bar-hoppers, men and women who left their homes in nice dress and sharp haircuts. They were still accompanied by these traits when they began to drift home, but their manner of dress was juxtaposed by the melancholy expressions they wore. Not many of them wanted to speak to me. I'd wager the women just thought I was hitting on them, the men too lost in thought about the mistakes of the night to be bothered.

In every story, there's an end, though, and eventually I managed to get bumped up to a better shift for more pay and more visibility, working more "normal" hours. I even managed to move into an apartment that offered me a garage, and driving to work became a welcome possibility. But I kept riding the bus. Even late at night, for no real reason except addiction. Addiction to the unity I felt with all the other patrons. Every night I fell in love with each of their stories, I fell in love with all of them. And when we stepped off at that last stop, they were all just people again, busily brushing past me. Perhaps this is why I never had motivation to start a family in my life. I had the bus. For all their flaws and all their pain, problems, and frustrations, I loved all of them, for fifteen minutes at a time.