a rare day in new york

i had one of those rare days yesterday when i was in new york... and not so rare that i was standing around waiting for an assignment wondering how did the bus bays and the dispatchers desk, these bastions of dimly lit concrete alleyways that used to be incredibly hot in the summer become so cold now? it was a slow day. i was told when i got in that i would probably stand around and be bored for about three hours before getting the pleasure of being cushioned home, that is, driven home on another drivers route. being cushioned always make feel like i am riding a school bus again despite the fact that i drive one of these for a living now and the fact that if the other driver wanted to get up and hand me the wheel i would have no problem. that was a story that i heard once from a driver. driver said to the guy cushioning, hey, i have to go to the restroom, take the wheel and unbuckled his seatbelt and started to get up at which point the other driver took over, cursing his name. i was cushioned on sunday and had a different version happen to me. halfway to new york in the dismal section of the thruway south of harriman when even the signs taunt your boredom, fatigue, etc... "15 more miles to new jersey!", i had to get up to relieve myself. the last seat in the back next to the restroom was inhabited by a sleepy man laying beneath a new york times. as i opened the door he woke up, probably only just realising where he was, the bus is till moving and what?! there's the driver walking by me opening the restroom door... what?!? i saw the look of oh my god, this thing doesn't have autopilot on his face as i shut the door.
when you get four or five drivers together with hours to kill and a new york city dispatcher who has seen the port at its height of squalor when you couldn't even leave a bus door with a padlock on it for ten minutes without it getting broken into and all of your belongings stolen, you get to hear alot of stories about thieves, catching them, unruly passengers, practical jokes, the cops, drunks, break downs and ways to fix them. i had this honour yesterday.
people are still asking me how to find buses to philadelphia and when the bus to tampa leaves, but i've picked up a few things. i made a reasonably convincing answer to where to get a cab yesterday... but last week i was in new paltz when a delivery driver came up to me with a delivery order sheet and asked me how to get to a certain address. i looked at it with a certain amount of savoir-faire for someone who had lived in new paltz for a few years. i had no idea where it was. i couldn't give him the answer. what is the world coming to?

car miles

so the other day, i got the typical and boring job that many a go for gets... pick up the boss at the airport. aw gee... one of the dispatchers hands me a slip of paper and winks, i got a special assignment for you. the way that he said 'special' told something was very, very wrong. i looked at the paper, handwritten directions to the albany airport, a flight number, arrival time and beside it all, the name... mr. b. it didn't take rocket surgeon to figure it out that it was the owner and not me being referred to as mr. b. at first i thought that they wanted me to take a bus to pick up one man. ok, a little bit of overkill, but a whole bus to pick up one man...? where was i going to park it in short term parking? i could see a problem reaching out for the little automated ticket that stands at car door level from six feet up in the bus. it turned out that i had to drive mr. b.'s own suv there and pick him up. special assignment... don't worry, the dispatcher said, he'll want to drive his own car back home. i was somewhat unimpressed by the man that i had met, having never met him before, you expect the millionaire to be debonaire, suave, three piece suit and a killer attitude... the man that i met was a tired middle aged man who looked if he could not be the millionaire owner of a bus company, then he would still be content to live in his parents basement. frumpy, in need of a haircut and carrying a sports bag, he looked like bill gates in need of diet pills. i handed the keys back to him, here you go, guess that you can have these now. oh no, he said, looked at me, I'M exhausted, been flying back and forth from florida since this morning. i looked at him, the man still had salt from his in flight pretzles sprinkled on his sports coat... tired? did he know that i had been awake since 6? dying in that chair in the drivers room? waiting through it all for an assignment... he didn't even change time zones, how could he be jet lagged? or tired...? did he even think what if i had been just driving all day... that i had been sweating over passengers back and forth from new york for the last nine and a half hours and now i was way beyond my limit, especially after his uncomfortable suv... did he ask? no... he yawned, too many complimentary cocktails and that baggage line, gee, enough to tucker you out for good. so, i drove back... and my paycheck reflected the extra sacrifice... in a separate little column were the words 'car miles' for the service that i had performed... and oddly enough, car miles paid more than driving a bus.
this past sunday, i did another long island trip. it was a new one and one that the owners are trying to drum up a little support and recognition on, get the ole college kids to give it a try. so much so do they want this to work that i was met at the park and ride in mt. sinai by not a man walking up to get on the bus as i first thought, but the snappier dressed mr. b. junior with a bunch of flyers, 'just stopping by to see how it will work... maybe you could pass these out to the kids?' when i began this run in new york, i had never driven it before, in fact, i didn't have a routing guide, maps or directions. it was all faxed into new york for me and i had a good ten minutes to read it and try to absorb it. i was a little hesitant about the trip, i did, in fact, get turned around twice, but hey, whats a trip to long island without missing a dinky little street sign or two or missing the starbucks that is on the other side of the road, hidden within some shrubbery and trees that is supposed to be your guidepost? not a real trip to long island at all, thats what i say! mr. b. junior asks if i've done this trip before, if i have all my directions, yep, still hot from the fax machine, etc... and then he asks... do you know how to get to the roosevelt field mall stop? at first, i wonder if he's testing my memory, but then i read him the directions as typed on my page... he doesn't know either. at least i wasn't the only one lost on the island.
i realised an interesting thing as well... odd, but horses are not allowed on the long island expressway. go figure. i wonder what horse miles would pay?

more of the same that is more of the same

or how to use a title that has already been used when this post seems like more of a fitting one than the previous one. summer is definitely over and i am not driving as much, that is, until yesterday... but alot of the sweetness of the ac has gone out of the flavour of fall. not as many stories, not as many bums riding the rails of my buses wheels. maybe i am (gasp!) getting used to this and becoming more and more acclimatised to the rhythms and a bumpy herky jerky momentous rhythm they are of a bus drivers life, like a broken jack in the box, that comes popping out, jerks back a pace and then pops out again. or the constant static that flows from the speakers of many a bus radio. all of the buses had radios to begin with and now whenever i need a radio while deadheading to keep me company or help me from falling asleep late at night or early on (a duran duran song became my best friend one morning out of utica) there is only a blank and missing faceplate to greet me, or static because the radio itself cannot be tuned or there is no antenna. but i am getting a little bored. ralph kramden whereever you are, patron saint, i need sustenance.
my bumper fell open yesterday on my drive to oneonta. i pulled up beside a car on my way there to see the astonished look from the passenger and driver. they pointed at my front end with terror and hilarity on their faces. i pushed open the window and they yelled, 'you're bumper is about to fall off!' i knew what they were pointing at immediately and wasn't at all shocked which, i think mystified them with my cool indifference to it. thanks, i said. at the garage the same thing had happened. so i had expected it. some of the buses stow a spare tire in back of the front bumper which is hinged to swing down and reveal the monstrous tire. it must have been almost comic if you looked at it right. the bus, a big grin on its face with its lower jaw opened... 'i've swallowed a tire and your little chevette is next!'
i had the pleasure of fielding this question on my way to new york yesterday as well... ' what time do you want to get to the city?' i said, well, i'd like to get in on the sceduled time, but without a crystal ball, we'll just have to wait and see.
but then again, i've had many brilliant moments driving a bus. i think the mind can play wonderful tricks on itself that go far beyond seeing mirages on the road ahead... it can drift and bring you into some surprising territory. i've had the beginnings of a novel sprouting from the initials on a semi in jersey and my deep subconscious came up with these little gems of absurdist bumper stickers... smile! i'm a republican!, there ain't no shit on this ducks ass..., and (thank you click and clack...) 20 drunks can't be wrong. maybe my mind wanders too much or maybe the passengers are not amusing me as much as they used to. i think that i will come out of this funk when the days and the road fly by me again.

what i heard the other day

older gentlemen can be a vocal problem on the bus. older people especially in general, but usually you find that if you address them with a sir or ma'am, it irons things out or help a lady with a bag getting down the stairs, etc... but then you find just plain strange questions, like:
an older man got on my bus one day and held me up and the line behind him, when he began asking, as he was getting up the stairs, which side of the bus will the sun be shining on on the ride to nyc? i don't know, but he apparently thought that this was valuable information. perhaps, i'll take note of that one day.
and this happened yesterday, i pull into new paltz and this older gent asks if i am going to new york city. yes. manhattan? yes. where in manhattan? the port authority. which one? which one?!? the one and only port authority in new york city. is it the one near the bridge? i mean, my nyc geography is still hazy, but as far as i know there is only one pa in the city, even the two sides are connected and that i would say makes it one building. i mean, in fact, manhattan is an island and so if you ask me if something is near a bridge, chances are it is, everything is near a bridge in manhattan.
this one bus gives a few odd beeps now and then. its nothing too serious, a few crossed i think somewhere but it seems to happen when someone enters the restroom. the odd part about that is that the transmission gear selector beeps. someone asked me what the beeping was all about and i told them, but i had really wanted to tell them that it was my alarm clock but not to worry, i had just hit the snooze button.
which brings me to one of my favourite bus driving jokes. two men in a bar. one man says to the other, you know, i've been thinking lately. about what? says the other. oh, about when i die, that i want to die like my father did. oh yes? how's that? he went peacefully in his sleep, not like his screaming passengers.

poetic justice part two

i drove a short charter to the woodbury commons shopping outlet, a nightmare of gross proportions that draws shoppers from the entire northeast (and world too, apparently, noticing the throngs of Asian speakers) to park their SUVs in a frenzy of consumerism, wildly swinging their DKNY, Gap and Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bags into your knees as you pass them. its not like the place is small, but its crowded, even at 11 in the morning. and no one likes to apologise for bruising your knees either. but on to the point... i found a parking spot, wondering how well it was going to go over with security. a rent a cop patrol passed and didn't stop. fine, i thought, maybe this will work out fine. enter the harriman town police... i thought that he would say something about the parking spot, so i asked if it were ok to park here. i have no idea, but would you follow me to a DOT inspection across the street? now, a DOT inspection is a common thing, especially for truckers, they get weighed and safety equipment is checked, lights, brakes, the whole nine... and common for buses too, but not as common. and this was my first one, (and the first of the day, he confessed...) and so it felt like a little bit like being led in front of the spanish inquisition, not knowing what to expect. would i have to prove my innocence? my faith to the bus drivers credo and to our patron saint, ralph kramden? i wasn't sure. it turned out to be about an hour long inspection with a couple of DOT employees who also confessed that this was their first bus inspection...(sort of like a priest who absolves you on your deathbed telling you also that he never had his communion, you wonder how worthwhile this absolution will be...) but they were alright guys, one of them lived nearby to me. but i did feel an odd sense of being on public examination. it was in a school parking lot and was being viewed by a large group of students with not much else to do but lean against the wire mesh fencing on a saturday and in full view of the main road next to the shopping plaza and accompanying all of this were a continually rotating assortment of harriman town police and state police prowlers...
i was passing with flying colours, brake lights, turn signals, low air warning buzzer, good looking engine and good looking bus, it was an xl2 after all... hey waitaminute, i don't have akey for this door yet. oh well, shouldn't be a problem. right? and then i am asked to open the auxillary door on the drivers side that masks electronics and the steering linkage. its locked. its locked and try as i might it isn't going to budge. i have a poorly cut key, see, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. they understand, but still have to flunk the bus. flunking a DOT exam can be grounds for immediate out of service status for a bus and its driver depending on the severity of the problems found. this was minor and surprisingly well met and understood by the DOT guys. i suppose the company wouldn't have been too happy to have to drive another bus down to pick my group up if i had been put out of service, but it did fit the poetic justice category nicely. there is of course paperwork for them to fill out to that great beurocracy in albany and the bus was indeed out of service when it reached the garage until the red tape could be cut through. oh and i did get a newly cut key a week later.

poetic justice

so there is such a thing as a small bit of poetic justice after all. buses are like most vehicles... doors, windows, steering wheels and door locks. with mounting hysteria over 9/11, terrorists and the republican national convention, we were given specific and very clear orders (through another fabulous waste of paper memo...) to always lock our buses up, at our garage, at the terminal and especially at the port authority. who knew, maybe some evildoer would choose to train, much like mohammed atta, at a cdl drivers school, hijack or steal a bus and use it for whatever nefarious purposes. no more hijacking a bus (or plane...) to cuba. i suppose that terrorists have seen the movie 'speed' and know that it is very easy for a madman to rig a bomb capable of blowing a bus apart if it falls below a certain speed limit. so who knows what may happen? my happy world like many other people has disintegrated into locking buses in our garage parking lot within full view of a twenty-four hour garage mechanic staff and emergency evacuation procedures of the port authority. when i started out we were given door keys for the buses. we have about five different models in our line, give or take alot of variation in modifications, condition and lengths, but the one rare bird that i didn't drive very much as it was and is a sought after close to the top of the line (and new, an important consideration with some buses out there having a million miles or more on their clocks...) was the prevost xl2. a nice bus, sure, but lacking in some common sense aesthetic and design, but its a good tourer, has a nice turning radius and like i said, its new. so my key that went to the xl2 doorlocks wasn't used often at all. when i had the opportunity to try, i found that my key fit in the lock but wouldn't turn the tumblers and i invariably had to walk back to the garage and shamefacedly ask a mechanic for the use of his key. what was wrong here? was it me? did i not know how to open a locked door. i've had practice, even a monkey could be trained to that, any mammal with an opposable thumb at least. and i had two, but couldn't get my key to open the door. but then i began to hear from other drivers hired newly like me who had trouble with their keys opening the xl2. and then the mechanics began to say that they thought that a new bunch of freshly cut keys had been cut poorly and were responsible. they sized the old one and my key up and it looked close, but not quite right. i approached the dispatchers. i had solved the mystery. i wasn't the only one with bad keys. generations had been given faulty keys and we had to have new ones made. wasn't there a key or two at the main dispatchers desks? the heart of the operations and driver supervision and instruction?
no, and then i had to see someone upstairs, at a desk, with no connection to the garage or a bus or a driver. huh? to get a key? yep, but this person wasn't in on that saturday, in fact wasn't in on weekends at all and if it were a weekday, well, then i more than likely wasn't anywhere near that office, but sitting on a bus at the terminal on protection or if i was in the office, it was at night after a long day. was she there now? no, gone home for the day. and so it went. assigned to locked xl2. ask mechanic for key. open door. stare dumbly at the two keys in my hand. wonder why even the mechanics at the garage were closely guarding their key. it became a holy grail. out of touch, but so close, so easy, yet so far.
and then one day, the straw came that broke the back. i asked again if it were possible that the woman were in the office. no, it was sunday. any keys here? no. but there was the matter of the key given to me by bill, the dispatcher on a trip from new york to utica. i had to stay overnight and with no key, i was hesitant about leaving the bus in a motel parking lot open. he volunteered the office key. was this it? it looked exactly the same as mine and unfortunately, performed the same. as in not at all. it was from the same batch. so there i stood. n., one of the dispatchers, said, what happened to that key we gave you? it doesn't work. yes, it does, n. said, i've used it myself dozens of times to open doors. i was flabbergasted. i knew that it didn't work, but here i was, being looked at like an orangutan with opposable thumbs.
flash forward to a week later. i am trying to use a key in a slot of an xl2. nothing doing, when n. walks up around my bus. hey, he says, can i use your keys, i forgot mine back at the office. no problem. i walk around to the bus he needs to get into. an xl2. i say, this is an xl2, yeah? well, you can use my keys, but they won't work. huh? he says. i try. it doesn't turn. i hand him the keys and watch with delight as he grunts and pushes and pulls trying to get my key to turn. how did you get yours open? the mechanics key, i say. part one of poetic justice.

if x+y=c, then the square root of the hypoteneuse must be equal to or greater than the sum of the odometer at noon

i just drove back from a two day charter to keene, new hampshire. a nice little idyll in the mountains amidst the fall colours and the tranquil little towns of northern massachusetts, southern new hampshire and vermont. but my head is ringing for all of the wrong reasons and it wasn't the peal of the simple white church bells in the middle of these little new england towns. rather that as i had expected and now truly know, bus driving for a living is insane enough, but the details within our contracts with management, ie. the little details in which the devil hides and the owners and the lawyers lurk, where every aspect of our tenure with the company lie, from how to dress, how to shave, colour of socks to the most esoteric details that i had to figure out today. as a driver on a charter, you are entitled to a meal allowance from the advance given you in case any unforeseen event should arise, such as a blown tire or the need to refule, motels, etc... but figuring this out takes the moral and spiritual blankness and stubbornness of a bartleby. in short, the nearsightedness of lawyers, who i am sure enough, (having been in the privy of many a union rep), hash things out to minutae. sort of like dividing a half and then dividing it again, ad infinitum, until all you can see is nothing, but the lawyer is sure to say, there it is, in black and white in front of you, can't you see it?!? but, i can't. it took bill and i and a conference call to figure out what i have to claim for a meal allowance... 21.50 and i am still surprised that it isn't 21.49 or 21.48 because i came back twelve minutes before the cock crowed the bells at six. thats the sort of logic that is at work here.
but it can work in your favour as bill reminded me that i am entitled to a little known and arcane right to book off twelve hours if i come back from a multiday charter, effectively putting me to the bottom of the board and probably a few more hours off on a sunday morning than i am accustomed to. but i am still afraid that i will never solve the riddles contained within our contract. it feels as if years went by in unions and managements hands continually going back and forth making small and smaller concessions until you have our mile determined payrate calculated to the thousandth of a cent. don't get me wrong, i am all for the union and know that through our reps, we withstand being screwed and it takes all types. one is a man who i think was pushed into the job and took it on, feeling a need to fulfill his german attention to detail, one is an (almost...?) fanatical crusader for us. i've heard him speak and he loves a cause, but hey, that's what the union is for and one is just truly a nice man, wouldn't hurt a fly, except if it landed on the heads of one of the company lawyers, then i think that he would consider a sledgehammer as a flyswatter. but i am still confused about our 70 odd page contract and i fear that i may never figure out how protection pay is allotted. it seems that i am always on it at $8.86 per hour, but there is also some clause in there about being paid only after the first twelve and one third minutes if its the first day of february or the new moon, but "in the event of a blue moon, the operator shall receive the full rate of protection pay up to/ and/ or including the last three(3) and four-fifths(4/5) of his or her lifetime that is spent sitting on his or her rump in an uncomfortable chair (to be specified as a black chair and as "the chair" from hereon...) at the terminal in the driver's room wondering when it will all ever end" endquote. but i'm kidding... sort of...