by K. Marvin Bruce.
The image of that bus sinking in the winter Hudson haunts me. Too many cameras are too ready to catch any tragedy, and the thought of all those passengers knowing this was their final commute shudders me down to my very breath. The chill water spraying in, screams of those not ready to die, the panicked fight for individual survival. Air runs out, the lights dim and vanish, and the numbing silence of eternity. No one knows why. Every driver knows the Palisades are dangerous in the fog. I lay the paper aside like a funeral shroud.
Through the darkened, silent streets of Neshanic the colossal bus lumbers, like a beast in the night. Squeezing between rows of parked cars, at rest after a day of battling New Jersey traffic, the behemoth keeps its ominous watch. While the windows of town remain unlit and normal residents sleep, the giant courses its way past them, a low growl emanating from its mechanical throat. Almost pacing, ready to deliver weary passengers to the greatest of American cities, the gothic heart of Manhattan.
On the bus, there are the regulars, of course. Those who rub bleary eyes awake at 4 a.m. day after restless day so that they might reach work before the traffic intensifies, as it inevitably does. Then they might leave New York before the witching hour of 5 p.m. when every tube, tunnel, and bridge becomes engorged with commuters seeking a few hours’ respite before starting it all over again. Without my Driver, it would never be possible.
I am one of those regulars, but I don’t know my Driver’s name. His nameplate is empty, and he never says a word. He’s as silent as the sepulchral hour at which he arrives. My stop is dark and secluded. The last stop in town. From there the bus roars up 206 to highway 22, stopping for those brave enough to stand along a major roadway in the dark and flag down a monster.
The streets are mystically silent so early in the morning. Street lamps, paced far enough apart to allow the imagination to run wild, bleed feeble light into the overwhelming blackness that rules before dawn. Occasionally a furtive raccoon will lope quietly across the street, or I will smell a skunk before I see it poking insistently around the houses of the slumbering. Human beings, however, and their cars are absent. Like an abandoned monastery, or a church before a funeral, all is still. Not even the birds sing in such profound darkness. The nearest houses, Victorians from a more prosperous age, quietly add to the atmosphere merely with their moody presence. One that stands across the tenebrous street, just grazed by the dying rays of the nearest streetlight, reminds me that I’m not as alone as I suppose. The ghosts are awake. This morning as I walked by on soft-soled shoes I saw a small hand, child-sized, pulling back the gauzy curtain offering privacy behind its beveled glass panels. What child watches the street before the sun rises? What’s she seeking? When I reach the walk directly opposite, the hand drops the curtain and once again I am alone. But not truly.
By their nature, buses are fickle beasts. Should one not start at its scheduled run time, its replacement, if any, will necessarily be late. If, for reasons known only to the gods of dusk, the traffic congeals early, or a confused driver causes an accident on the highway, I’ll arrive late at work, despite having stood on this bleak corner before the sun can even rouse itself.
Neighbors claim commuting is easy. “You don’t have to do the driving,” Mike says one sunny weekend when optimism is abundant. Mike drives way up past Watchung every day. “You get to relax. Fall asleep if you like.” What Mike doesn’t realize is that you’re not in control on a bus. You go where the driver takes you. And my driver may not be what he seems.
We regulars know him by sight, of course. Hunched over the wheel, he doesn’t return greetings. Just glances at your pass and grunts. Practically one with the bus. Name plate always missing. Who has an identity at 4:30 a.m.?
April is another regular. She’s never actually spoken to me, but I hear others address her with respect. She’s dainty and proper and she’s been commuting for nearly a dozen years. She always sits in the seat across the aisle from me. Two rows back from the driver, opposite side. Hangs her bag over the handgrip of the seat in front of her, suspends a mirror, and flips on the reading lamp. She undertakes the delicate task of applying her makeup on bumpy roads. Although the sign warns not to, she speaks to the driver while the vehicle is in motion. She’s especially concerned that no one gets left behind. “O driver, my driver,” she says, “there’s someone coming.”
If the driver doesn’t respond immediately to her invocation, she repeats her alarm, her rising voice quavering with emotion. I glance in the mirror. The driver is not smiling. His eyes are staring back. Meeting mine. His knuckles are white, fingers of steel pythoned around the enormous wheel.
He knows the woman who’s always late at this stop. Pink-faced and heavy-set with straw-colored hair cropped short, she waddles to the bus. Even though she knows he won’t talk, she begins to tell her life story to the driver every morning. I see him in the mirror, staring straight ahead. Her accent is Russian. Deliberately so. She heaves herself into the first row seat, reserved for the elderly, and turns to chat with April. In my mind she’s known as the Spy.
They sit and talk about the taciturn driver, literally behind his back, April and the Spy. As if he can’t hear them. “Is ahead of schedule,” the Spy huffs.
“Yes,” April replies in her prim voice. “I told him he’s ahead of schedule.”
“Driver never listen to passenger,” the Spy laments. Is that growl from the bus or the driver?
Being here in the dark is like being Jonah in the belly of a metal whale. “O driver, my driver,” April calls out, “there’s a passenger at the next stop.” I press my overhead lamp button. Like the first day of creation, there is light. There is also chaos. I pull out a book and try to read. Is it only Tuesday? Neshanic is home only for the night. In the first gloom of dawn, I’m on the bus.
“Why he never talk?” the Spy asks, as if our nameless driver is an object, incapable of hearing.
“I do not know,” April answers crisply. Not a hair out of place.
It’s still a long way to New York. I try to read my book.
“O driver, my driver—there’s someone there.”
Instead of slowing down, the bus speeds up. “O driver!”
“You miss passenger,” adds the Spy, loudly.
We’re barreling down the highway. It feels like we’re hitting 80.
“You left passengers behind,” April scolds, her voice overloaded with emotion. She’s the law-giver on this bus, and the driver an unrepentant infidel.
The Spy begins to kick the driver’s seat from behind. “You miss passenger!”
The bus slows. I hold my book higher, so that I can hide behind it. With his mirror, the driver sees all. I’ve hated the roadside lecture since I was a child. These two regular passengers have gone too far. The air on the bus is tense. Instead of pulling to the side of the road, the driver makes an unexpected turn. “No!” howls the Spy, “we be late for work.”
I try not to engage with work until the last possible minute, but I’m worried too. I may despise my job, but at least I have one. Even if it means this hellish daily commute, I have a purpose.
This spur we’re on is one I’d never noticed before. April has her cell phone out, dialing the bus company, her makeup only half finished. The Spy is fumbling for her phone as well. “I telephone police. FBI!” The driver says nothing.
I see Manhattan from the right-hand window, feeble lights speckling the near horizon. For me it has become my own salt mine, desiccating my very essence. My eyes connect with my Driver. April is clearly enunciating her complaint, deliberately citing each digit of the bus identification number over the front window. The Spy continues kicking the driver’s seat. “Turn bus around! Turn bus around!” she insists.
On this side of the Hudson, to the north lie the Palisades. The Spy is kicking frantically and April’s thumbs are flying on her phone. Red and blue lights slash through the bus from behind. Hundreds of feet below the unfeeling Hudson flows. I put down my book. I won’t be going to work today. The bus is seaward bound, its voyage closed and done.