ghost stories, bees and one pigeon

i'm not wearing a seat belt too often lately. i'm not sure what this says about my sense of mortality, lack thereof or sense of driving ability, but i've heard again from an on again, off again driver, a story that i've heard earlier, that the driver is in the most vulnerable positionin the bus, not merely because he sits in the very front, but in the way that the bus is designed, the structural i beams don't begin until the passenger compartment, the drivers position is simply an empty module designed so that it can be replaced easily, but there is no support for it. which means as in the case of the one fatality that this company has had, the drivers compartment crumples if you rear end something. manny was the drivers name and he dozed off and rear ended a semi or dumptruck or something big depending upon who you ask. the story seems to geta little larger with every telling like a good ghost story will. manny was supposed to be a nice guy, but he fell asleep and bingo. no seat belt will help there. alan, the on again, off again driver said that he doesn't wear his so that if he knew that he couldn't avoid something, he could leap out of the seat and get farther back in the bus. when its going to happen, i guess there is nothing further that you can do, so the hell with the captain going down with the ship. manny's bus was rebuilt like a frankenstein monster and exists today. drivers say that they talk to manny sometimes and always say hello when they get on board. i have yet to drive manny's bus, but i will surely say hey to him.
yesterday two odd things happened to me. i had slept the night in utica and was getting the bus ready at the motel for the morning run. sitting in the drivers seat i noticed a little yellowjacket buzzing against the outside of the window merrily or pissed off, its hard to tell with bees. why are you trying to get in here little yellowjacket? i told him, stay outside. he buzzed and thumped against the window. i continued with my pre-trip, the bus idling happily and walked around to check the turn signals, tires, potential trouble that could turn the bus into one of manny's companions, and then i heard a loud buzzing and something flew past my head. i looked up and there, swarming the bus were hundreds of yellowjackets, all doing the same cryptic dance around the outside of the bus, except that they were all concentrated in one particular locale, along the the entire length of just one side of the bus (my side...) against the lower half of the windows and weatherstripping. what this means in terms of an omen, i haven't a clue. maybe they were trying to go somewhere, but i wasn't taking any passengers then.
i ran over a pigeon yesterday too. not in manhattan, but along route 28 near mount tremper. almost in the middle of the woods, far from too much civilisation, far from sidewalks, people throwing them bread in a park, far from where a pigeon should be. i saw him, fat and grey and walking in the middle of the road. i began slowing down for my turn. i'm not one to take any cruel joy in running anything over. i go out of my way to avoid squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, toads, etc... but i thought, this is no dodo, this pigeon has wings, he'll see me and fly away. he bobbed his head and walked more in his stupid little pigeon strut and strutted more into my path, directly along the line that my right tires were going to take. i could hear him, coo coo, coo coo and walking, jerking his head, out for a walk. and then i was on him. he'll surely fly now... but he didn't. i looked behind the bus even as i felt the gentle thump and saw a great cloud of feathers billow into the breeze behind the bus. natural selection, evolution at work, i guess. maybe he was just a transplant here from the city like so many others in that neighborhood of my home. not sure where he was, wild instincts blunted by the city life and came here expecting it to be safer than the concrete of home. i'll just go for a walk today.

the fall of a dispatcher

bill is one of our dispatchers and by many means the friendliest of them and holds a special place in my regards for the simple fact that if he knows, he tells me what I am doing for that day when i call in. the life of many bus drivers on the extra board is one of confusion and mystery, never knowing where you are going next or when you may have to leave. some mystery is a good thing in life, but too much and all that you are left with is a magician standing on a stage with his hand in a top hat without knowing what he is going to pull out. that said, bill's friendly voice is a good thing to hear on the other end of that scratchy walkie talkie phone. i had gotten back from a charter a few nights back and dropped in at the office to return a video. bill was standing outside smoking, which is not an unusual thing to say the least, the man is a chain smoker, but he stood outside in maybe a 60 degree night and shivered violently holding both of his elbows. i asked him if he were feeling ok and bill, dressed in two coats wrapped lumpily over his bone thin frame said that he was feeling cold and dizzy. i helped him inside while he shuffled in the door and two paces in front of me, bill simply collapsed, fell over, passed out, not just fell to his knees but fell straight forward in front of me and before i could catch hold of him, he was on the ground. i had visions then of my father. my father, already diagnosed with cancer, but in that strange in between land where the doctors can only say, wait and see, had been better at the time, feeling better too, but things started to go downhill and he lost weight again and in those few times when he was left alone either by friends or girlfriend, he walked into the bathroom and fell, passed out, tumbled dizzily in much the same way that i'm sure that bill just now had. my father passed out, rapping his head against the side of the toilet and when i saw him next it was just after this event, in a hospital bed, thinner, ashamed of his supposed weakness, trying to hide tears as he told me that it was the worst feeling of his life, waking up, not knowing how much later in a thin pool of water left by the toilet tank that he knocked over, in the dark and not having the strength to get up and i knew then that that was the worst feeling that i had ever had, not being able to have been there to catch his fall, a strong man, now made thin and his old barrel chested bulk largely gone and knowing that it humilated and scared him. and then bill fell. i felt for certain then that he would not get up, that he had been dying of lung cancer all along or had had a stroke or heart attack. he woke up right away, said that he was just dizzy and i helped him to a sitting position and then into a chair. his complexion was blue, but joked that everyone has said that he looked good in blue. he refused help, an ambulance, a ride anywhere. bill is a hardhead and i had to leave him sitting in the chair before his board and wondering if i would ever see him again, at least behind the board or on the radio. food poisoning, bill was better the next day that i had seen him, cigarette in hand, of course. i hope that bill is around for awhile.

the sickness of motion...

i've seen people at their worst when they travel. people get road weary, home sick and their nerves slowly start coming undone. especially if you have the misfortune of traveling cross country via a bus. i know, i've traveled across the country from new york state to the midwest to the mountains and plains of montana and north dakota and idaho dropping down to california and finally, back through the biggest littltle city in the world, reno and through the corn fields of kansas back to where i began on a seven day total saga, for that's the best way to describe it. a train is a civlised mode of travel long distances, a plane is nearly a luxury, but a bus conjures up the wagon trains surrounded by indians or an okie model t that just barely survives the dust bowl. it speaks of desperation because its the cheapest method, the one most readily available and also, i think, the one that most people can identify with. as opposed to the number of people who can drive a train (i'm not even sure if that is the proper verb for that action...) or fly a plane, most everyone can drive an automobile...
this past sunday i started a trip to new york city. there was a crowd of people swarming the bus and nothing resembling a line. in moments like this, i try to be blindly democratic and not favour anyone, but simply hold out my hand and let the nearest person in this crowd hand me a ticket and bingo! you're on the bus. the bus filled. people still came at me and i began to almost feel claustrophobic. give me another minute and i would have had to beat people away from the bus. one woman who spoke little english desperately pushed her way on. i had to start yelling above the motor into the crowd that there were no more seats left, that it did not matter who was here first or that they wanted to go now. this desperate woman tried to explain in broken english that she had to go to work and wouldn't i take just one more? i looked at her ticket. nanuet, i'm not even going to nanuet, lady, you want that bus over there. i felt bad for her, stranger in a strange land and i felt bad for myself. here i am supposed to be some sort of modern day shepherd and i can't even walk her to the bus because by the time that i'd get back, people would be sitting in the aisles like some sort of overfilled mexican bus. there was a last minute change of plans and i had to boot the one remaining non- new york bound passenger from my bus and take it direct to new york, no sight seeing, no side trips, just new york. i felt hesitant about even bringing it up, people were still eyeing me with the let's string him up look in their eyes. but i did and three women seized upon the moment to begin simultaneously arguing with each other and pleading their case with me. I explained that it did not matter to me who went. no good. i walked away three times hoping that they would reach some sort of mutual happy consensus while i was away, but each time that i came back it was the same picture. pick me, pick me! you pick who goes, mr. driver! i was here first, no, i was here first. the final time i said, look, i don't care, but pick someone or i'm going with an empty seat. i came back expecting some raprochement... pick me, no pick me, the third woman had given up and left. the old splitting the baby down the middle ploy didn't work. where are you when we need you king solomon? and it finally had to come to their solution, pick a number between one and ten. one woman chose two and the other six, i chose nine and i pointed at number six and said, let's go. a minute later, number two stepped up on the stairway of the bus while i was getting it ready and stated with a final desperation and a definite southern twang, you know, i'm trying to get back down to florida and get back to my home to see if the hurricane ripped it apart and i hope that that is on your conscience! sigh... she had to lay the ole natural disaster card down. i wanted to say that if she had told me this to begin with, i would have tipped the scales in her favour, but people get desperate and in a mob, its always the last flaming torch that you can throw after the monster or the outlaw or the epileptic that you are banishing that counts. i guess...
which brings us to something that i've always enjoyed that is printed in each and every driver's log book which we have to carry with us at all times and record the hours and places we've been. i'm guessing that it is some hold over from the cold war judging from its message and the typeface that it uses... (caps theirs...)
AS A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER, YOUR PEACETIME (the following is underlined for extra emphasis...) IMPORTANCE WOULD BE MAGNIFIED MANY FOLD (end emphasis...) IN A NATURAL EMERGENCY.
IN CASE OF BOMB BLAST OR RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT (this is a 'natural' emergency?) FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS
1. Wherever you are, comply with civil defense instructions to assure your survival.
2. When notified by local authorities that it is safe to proceed, contact your company or motor transport officer (who IS this?) for instruction or the nearest State Highway Department office of Highway Patrolman for routing to the nearest Motor Transport Dispersion Center. (i have a feeling that these 1950's era instructions for planning in the event of ivan dropping the bomb are mouldering away somewhere in an underground cavern facility...)
3. Proceed with your vehicle, loaded or empty to Dispersion Center, report in and follow such instructions as are given you by the Dispersion Center officials.
nice, but i think that the truth would be that everyone with a bus would be pushing aside the tiny suv's to escape the big cities and heading for the hills.
and lastly, though i know that it doesn't fit in with this topic, but it is a nice little anecdote that makes me feel like driving is all worth it. i was leaving new york yesterday on the new jersey turnpike, a road where the normal 55 mph limit is broken by everyone and i am the slowest driver when i do 70 on it and the normally unlit fluorescent warning signs were alight with a message 'construction ahead' this one said (and they have other messages that are formed by what is lit up, snow, rain, poor visibility ahead and a variety of speed limits...) and then it simply said 'speed.' maybe to the chagrin of a new jerset dot programmer, the word 'reduce' was not lit before 'speed.' i tried to follow the directions at least...

the king has left the building...

i'm still wondering about the inevitibility of my promotion to the king of breakdowns... i was talking with kim the other day (or little kim as smurf calls her, he has a nickname for everyone, though i've yet to hear mine...) and she said that she was the queen of breakdowns, well, i said, here's your king. in addition to the blowout on the lie, the brake fire, the ezpass flying from the top of the bus way back in training to hit the upper window with a dull crack that had convinced us that it was a bird flying into the bus until the first tollbooth ezpass sign read bluntly and mysteriously, 'contact ezpass...' a few weeks back i had left the garage with the best intentions of just driving down to new york when the twin warning lamps that you don't want to see on a bus panel illumined themselves, check engine and stop engine... the bus took the decision out of my hands when five seconds later the bus decided to shut off and nicely come to a cruising slow halt on a median before the thruway entrance.
buses decide to take their fate into their own hands often apparently deciding that the operator cannot see fit to not run them into the ground. i think that its a wise choice. i had another bus stall out on me at the garage parking lot as i was setting it up for the inevitable trip to new york. no, the bus said, i don't feel up to it and stalled out ten minutes into its idle like a troublesome child who decides to fall asleep at the breakfast table. that was a bus that i was bringing to the terminal to relieve a driver whose bus had a serious oil leak from a hub. i showed up with a second bus to discover the oil leak was a good twelve inch puddle. if i hadn't started out driving this before the mechanical failure i at least chalked it up on my scoreboard as yet another broken/ breaking down bus that i got to drive back to the garage.
i'm still being asked the questions that i thoroughly cannot answer. maybe it is something about the way that i look, that i seem to be a good candidate for know it all. i stood near the dispatchers gate doing a crossword puzzle when in the space of three or four minutes i was asked how to get to silver springs, maryland, syracuse, binghamton and where to get change for a dollar... i almost had an answer for that last one...

freedom...?

i made it. finally, i made it from the confines of the concrete prison of the port authority, partly due to a clerical error. i should have been in and out of the port earlier on, but i ended up with a three hour break with nothing to do, nothing expected of me and i walked towards penn station... or maybe it was madison square garden, i'm not too sure which, my nyc geography is still dizzying. it really is as though i were released after ten years imprisonment and forced onto the streets with no map. and then i blissfully walked through the shaded parts of the sixth avenue to byrant park and sat, dranks some water, read the village voice, smoked, watched the carousel and a young asian boy swat flies on the concrete handrailing separating this end of the park off from the grassy part, and then his ancient asian grandfather came along behind the boy with a pair of chopsticks, carefully picking up the flies with the chopsticks and placing the lifeless bodies in a long glass jar. no punchline here. some mysteries are best left as mysteries. but it was a time out of jail, my company phone still on, i half expected to get called back by my lo-jack on my waist.
walking back, i thought that briefly i saw the electronic times square message board zoom around the red letters that spelled 'the end of the world is near...,' but i figure that this was a product of my already overactive imagination, the same one that tells me that i am reading the words 'student driver' at the bottom of the gauges on this one particular model of bus rather than 'stewart-warner,' the manufacturer... and then, this sort of summed up of the day, without being to say why, it did. i was standing in front of the jackie gleason statue (our patron saint) with his beatific smile and hand on hip, ready to do anything sort of contraposta and a man, (i imagined him as cuban, but...) wearing a bright hawaiian shirt and white floppy fishermans cap walked by me, looked directly at me, pausing and smiled broadly 'hey, man...' he said 'how ya doin'?' i smiled back, 'good!' that was my day in the big apple.

psychology, traffic,evolution, bmw's, new jersey

the agony and the joy of driving a bus has come and gone. been overnighted twice last week, once in new york, but stayed at a hotel in secaucus, new jersey, the land of the little more than strip malls that ever i see when i am in jersey... and the room was surprisingly pitiable, small, no amenities, nothing nearby the hotel to walk to. it felt like being on a deserted island surrounded by the seas, but this was only the seas of traffic and roads that are inhospitable places for anyone on two feet, and surprisingly, maybe? not as luxurious as the overnight stay in utica, places to walk to, a wendy's next door for my junk food dinner experience, plenty of parking, the barge canal a five minute walk to stare into at sunset and think of my dad doing the same things as i when he stayed at hotels. he would get up early in the morning and take a walk somewhere and discover the town in its prisitine, quiet expanses. utica was an experience and the train/bus station was as a mini grand central, having been designed by the same architech, vaulted stone ceilings and pillars and murals.
there's a certain psychology to traffic and the passing of cars and the flows and ebbs that comes with it. it's like a large game of chess that you can look down on, literally as you are in a 10 to 12 foot high bus and study the interesting next moves of the cars in front, the merges, the cut offs, the accelerations and the turns. it gets predictable, you know that this pontiac grand am will pass the mercedes and then the mercedes trying to regain a bit of lost honour will cut the next smaller car down on the food chain off. its all a game of evolutionary proportions and being in a bus you feel like a brontosaurus, not very fast, but certainly large enough that few people want to fuck with you and when you want to merge into a lane, you just start and someone will have to let you in for fear that you will simply flatten them into a pancake against the retaining wall. tempting, yes... but hardly acceptable. but there is also another aspect of this passing game that works noticeably on the thruway and it resembles the ole bigger fish eating the smaller one and a bigger fish in turn eating that one and it is pretty basic as far as the fastest, biggest, baddest vehicle gets to pass. when you start signalling and change lanes the game begins and if you begin slowly and the prey catches the scent of what is to come, it will inevitably run, accelerate a bit faster, but if you are still faster than they and you begin that slow inexorable moment when you catch up to their bumper and then they usually give in and just begin to fall back. i think people unconsciously ease off the gas pedal then and begin slowing down and they disappear down the gullet of the bronto... i call this a psychological game and it is all about power and control and yes, i'd like to think that i am beyond that, but no one really is as far as driving goes. driving is pretty basic when its boiled down to its innate construction. its a huge, 'i've got a bigger dick than you,' wrestle on the playground in the hunt for the pecking order on the highway.
quiet passengers make me nervous. usually people talk amongst themselves or the poor unlucky passenger next to them, with the exception of morning commuter runs to new york when i expect people to sleep on the way there, but when people are quiet, it makes me nervous, because i'm wondering just why they are quiet, are they nervous? angry? about to slit my throat? its not what so much is wrong with them, but what do they think is wrong with me? but a good healthy amount of chatter is a good thing. its white noise and helps me to relax while driving. its just something else to tune out and deal with and so that gives the ole brainbox something to deal with and not just another ok, i've driven this part of rte 17 how many times? ah, you can probably do it with your eyes closed... bet you can't. bet i can. bet you can't. yeah, i can... ok, prove it... sort of experience... i do want to live beyond my 33rd birthday. and why is it that every new jersey driver seems little more content to sacrifice his life, his front bumper and a good insurance rating to be first in line (if there is such a thing...) on rte 17? i hate to make up stereotypes, but it seems as if rte 17 is the only major thoroughfare in jersey. even the turnpike and the garden state doesn't get this sort of, lets get to ikea now traffic, but i guess that that's the problem, traffic and shopping together can put anyone in a trance with a lead foot.
hey, i've discovered a source of fresh drinking water at the port authority that doesn't cost me a dime. a clean water fountain that doesn't look like every heroin addict in five boroughs has put his/ her lips to it, spat on it and pissed in it! its a new source of joy for me, like when tom hanks found wilson the volleyball on the beach in castaway. a whole new reason to not hate the concrete slab that i'm stuck on six days a week. at least i get to go home most nights and i have a day off unlike that poor fed ex guy.