The Number 10 Bus

It must be a skill you learn living on the streets - keeping a cigarette in your mouth even when fast asleep. Or perhaps the man leaning at an almost impossible angle against the plastic interior of the number 10 bus only looks fast asleep. We bump along, and I recall a documentary I saw once about a 24-hour bus line back in California where homeless people sleep each night. It seems people also get some rest on the number 10 in Indianapolis; two of them are asleep across from me. I try not to stare at the miraculously unmoving cigarette. It is so still.

*     *     *

"You got the fare or not? We gotta get going."

Getting going on the 10 is a sort of ritual. Would-be passengers linger in the doorway, talking with folks in the street behind them, rummaging for their tickets or their change. We sit for several minutes while a woman tracks down her bus pass, occasionally shouting at some people in a gas station parking lot. She's agitated. She drops her things. A couple people get up to help her with her stuff while she cusses at the imperturbable bus driver, and I silently chide myself for underestimating the kindness of my fellow passengers. After a few tense exchanges she settles into the seat in front of me, with her feet on the seat in front of her. I watch as she fidgets with her hair.

A lady across the bus aisle asks if she's hungry. If she wants a coffee. She says yeah, and leans into the corner. Maybe she's going to fall asleep, too.

Later that day I see her in a news clip, walking away off camera as a police officer mouths something from the window of his police car. The disembodied voice of the news man drones on about crime and trouble and cops while the camera lingers on shots of familiar sidewalks, of the bus stop where I catch the number 10.

*     *     *

"I'm hungry! I'm so skinny, like those celebrities! Those famous women are all so skinny!"
A woman is talking loudly to everyone and no one on the number 10 bus as we head into town. She's going on about wanting to get free coffee somewhere. I have a chuckle at her joke about skinny celebrities, silently congratulate myself on my ability to appreciate the sense of humor of a poor, hungry woman on the bus, and then chide myself once again for thinking I'm such a goddamn saint.

A man tells her there's free coffee at the Wheeler Mission. It's a shelter behind the dance studio where I work as a receptionist. People checking in for their dance classes sometimes tell me they're nervous walking by.

*     *     *

"You coming or not? We gotta get going."

Different stop, different driver. Same ritual of getting going on the number 10 bus. Three people linger in the doorway, figuring out whatever it is that needs to be figured out. Saying whatever it is that needs to be said. They eventually come aboard. One man reeks of alcohol when he plops down in front of me, but he's a happy drunk. He's bringing the party. I'm rather relieved.

They realize they are on the wrong bus, and hop off at the next stop. They are replaced by a tiny old woman meticulously clipping CVS coupons from unbelievably long receipts.

I guess they weren't coming after all.