Route 33A

6:14 AM, Monday morning. Bus number 2903 prepares to leave the garage, ready for another day. The driver, stalky, clean-shaved, dark hair, and wearing sunglasses. He starts up his vehicle. The controls come to life. A bright-orange “Sorry…Not In Service” lights up outside above the windshield. There is a dank and dingy smell inside the bus. The Driver hangs a small pine air freshener over the door control as if it would make a big difference. He pushes the door control forward, “Psssss…”, the front door wings slide shut with a slight squeak.

The driver edges the huge vehicle forward. He turns out of the garage and onto Williem Street. There is a stop sign at the corner. The Driver reaches up to a control panel located just above him. He presses a few keys, “Beep, beep, beep, beep”, The destination sign changes to “33A Westwood Ave. via Pinedale to Downtown”. He drives this rush-hour route every day. Sometimes he wishes he didn’t. Sometimes while driving through the rain, snow, ice and cold, he dreams of a sunny beach somewhere on the Virgin Islands. Sometimes he wishes that all the passengers would drop off the face of the Earth.

He reaches Williem Street and Crestwood Drive. He turns right onto Crestwood, and immediately sees a huge group of students waiting at the first stop.

“Oh…..Sh–Crap”, the driver whispered,”What the hell are these stupid students doing out so early? School doesn’t start for two and a half hours.”

The Driver reluctantly pulls up to the stop. “Psssss…”, The door slides open, and a bunch of high-school students begin to pile in. Noise! Noise! They were all talking (Yelling) at once. Damn it, shut up! How can you be so active at this time in the morning? When I was in high school, there was no bus. I walked to school every damn day, in snow up to my ass! These kids have life too easy!

One kid shoved a Student ticket into the fare box, “Excuse me”, said the Driver,”I need to see a Student Card.”

“Isn’t it obvious that I am student, dumbass!”, the student yelled.

“Wise-ass little dick”, the Driver muttered.

Students were talking very loudly, and one was playing some God-Awful music really loud.

The automated stop announcer kicked on right at that moment: “Hallendale Boulevard”

The light changed to red just as the bus began into the intersection. “Hoooooonnnk!”, Some snooty little butt-hole leaned on her horn.

The Driver continued along Crestwood Drive.

“Triller Street”

“Forsyth Avenue”

“Hampton Estates”

Its odd, except for the noisy students, there was nobody else boarding this bus.

Upon arriving at the next stop, a woman pulling a shopping basket boarded the bus. She was an older lady. Every day she boards this bus with her empty shopping basket. Nobody knows where she lives, or where she goes, nor why she pulls around an empty shopping cart. The lady sloppily pushed a Senior ticket into the fare box. The fare box beeped happily, as if to say ‘thank you’. The woman looked at the Driver, as if to ask a question. The Driver already knew what she was going to ask, because she asks the same question every morning, “Do you go straight down Westwood, or do you go through Pinedale?”

The Driver said, “Miss, I go through Pinedale”.

“Oh”, she said in a disappointed voice,”I want the bus that goes straight down Westwood”

The Driver sighed, “You want the 33, this is the 33A.” The 33 runs all the time, you just walk over one block. It will be here in about five minutes”.

“OK”, the Old Lady said, then proceeded to the back of the bus and took a seat as she always does.

“Prichard Street”, the automated stop announcer blurted.

The Old Lady was giving the Students a dirty look. I guess it is one of those Generation Gap things.

Just past Prichard Street, the Driver noticed police cars and a fire truck. As he got closer, he notice there appeared to be a serious collision at the intersection of Lafayete and Crestwood. Traffic was at a standstill. “Crap”, the Driver whispered,”Why is there always so much traffic this early?”

The Students started to get rowdy, and began to talk loud and use some language the Old Lady did not appreciate.

“Watch your mouths,” she said.

The Students just looked at her, and then continued their loud conversations.

The Driver looked into his mirror, and saw a woman with child in arms, running for the bus and waving her hands. Why is she running? We aren’t going anywhere, the driver thought.

“Pssss…” the door slid open, and the Woman walked in.

She throws some coins into the box, “I need a transfer! “, she bellowed.

This passenger was new. She had not been on this bus before. The Driver noticed that she was twenty-five cents short on the fare.

“You need to put in another twenty-five cents”, the Driver said to her calmly.

“Why?”, she bellowed. “The fare is two-seventy-five. That’s two-seventy-five, the last time I checked.”

The driver calmly looked at the Woman, “The fare is three dollars. It hasn’t been two-seventy-five in two years.”

“What!”, the Woman screamed, “I’m not paying no damn three dollars for bus fare!”

“Pssss…”, the door opened, and the bus driver calmly said, “…Then you will have to leave the bus.”

At this point, the child the Woman was holding began to cry.

“Oh, see what you did, you made him cry!”, the Woman barked, “You are a very, very bad man!”

The Woman fumbled around in her purse, and produced a quarter, then proceeded to try to slam it into the fare box. It somehow bounced out of the fare box, rolled across the floor of the bus, and out the door!

The Driver snickered.

“Go ahead.”, he said as he motioned for the Woman to take a seat with her screaming child.

After a few minutes, the bus was able to edge foreward, as the air brakes’ pressure released.

“Lafayete Way”, the announcement system said.

The kid screamed, and the Students began to speak louder in an effort to drown out the Woman’s kid’s screeching.

The Driver’s head began pounding from all the noise, and the traffic. Horns blaring, sirens waling, kid screeching, students yelling, siren, kids, horns…The Driver turned around and yelled,”Shut the hell up all of you, or you can get off my bus! That’s it!”

The vehicle became dead silent, even the Woman’s kid stopped crying.

“It works”, the Driver whispered to himself.

After a few sweet minutes of silence, a police officer waved the bus through.

The bus’s engine happily roared, and the vehicle passed through Lafayete and Crestwood like a butter knife through water.