The Wheels Go Round (Bum on the Bummer)

by llscotty

as related to me by my husband who drove for 25 years. Bummer is a bus driver's term for the last run for the night.

It was my last run of the night and I had already picked up the downtown crowd which included two ladies who sat across from me because this trip went to the end of the line in the far reaches of the East Hills Section. We went through some tough neighborhoods and they just felt more comfortable across from me.

Just to explain some of this story I have to describe these women. The one was an older black woman who dressed impeccably in her wool coat and matching hat. The other was a slightly younger white woman who wore a more casual fluffy quilted coat and a fur hat dyed to be the same off gold color. Both were clean and both spent the ride talking with me or sleeping their way to their individual stops.

On this particular night as I got into the seamier part of town a disheveled man got on carrying a large paper bag from a grocery store that was pretty full. He sat right behind me in the seat across from the ladies.

It soon became apparent that he was more than a little inebriated when he started conversing with the white lady telling her that her appearance was not as appealing as the black lady’s. Both ladies ignored him like any well-mannered lady would do. But, his prattle continued on and on over several city blocks.

Finally, I stopped the bus and told him to stop making those remarks. He proceeded to tell me that he had been a sergeant in the Army and to just go on my way and leave him alone. By this time, my patience had run thin so I turned around, got out of my seat, looked him straight in the eye and said, “I was a Lieutenant and I’m telling you to sit there quietly until you get to your stop or you will be leaving this bus early.”

It worked he sat his bag on the floor and never said another word until he started to get off. Before that though his bag tipped over and a semi-empty bottle of booze rolled to the back of the bus. He never noticed and when he went to get off it was still rolling back and forth in the rear of the bus. Thankfully, one of the ladies retrieved the bottle after he got off and we deposited it outside the bus so that I wouldn’t get into trouble and lose work time because of a DUI.

This is the funniest part of the night. As he descended the steps of the bus, his pants fell down around his ankles and he fell off the bus right into a big bush. He got right up, pulled up his trousers and trotted off, which saved me all kinds of paperwork. The ladies and I all got a good laugh at the sight of his shorts though.