by Clint Kelly
“Whoa there, boys,” Bill boomed. “We’re beyond the Ride Free Zone. Pay the fare, please.”
Not breaking stride, Tsunami said, “No can do, bus man. You get paid when I get paid, on Sunday.”
I wondered if the drug deal would go down before church or after.
“Then you can ride on Sunday.” Bill waited. The bus doors did not close and the bus did not move.
My guts were in a vise.
The boys flopped onto the bench seat at the back of the bus.
Tsunami ignored Bill. “What’s on yo’ play list, Marko, my man?”
The bus filled with a blast of rap music in which all the lyrics except for the shouted profanity were unintelligible.
“Bus regulations prohibit the playing of music without earphones. Put ’em in or shut it off.” Bill, jaw rigid, stood beside me in the aisle, facing down the passengers.
Tsunami snorted. “Keep yo’ boxers on, old man, and get this crate movin’.” Mercifully, Marko shut off the music, then turned his face to Bill and traced his jawline with the middle finger of his left hand.
“OK, that’s it! Out. Now!” Bill made a menacing move forward.
I laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Look, guys, our driver’s responsible for this bus, and his boss says follow the rules or no ride.” I swallowed hard before continuing. “I’ll cover the cost this trip but in future you need to bring money with you. All passengers have to be treated fairly and the same.”
Tsunami rose slowly, as if to show how greatly indisposed I had forced him to be. He was six feet five if he was an inch. He froze me with those darting, hopped-up eyes I remembered too well from the other day. Zombie eyes. “Do you see anybody else on this bus?” he said. When Marko pulled on the sleeve of Tsunami’s shirt, the taller boy nailed him with a savage kick to the shins.
Marko yelped and grabbed the wounded limb.
Tsunami turned his jumpy, dead eyes back to me. “This be the second time you stuck yo’ ugly nose in my business.” He pronounced it “bid-ness.” “I might like you less than I like fat boy behind the wheel. Yeah, you pay our way. I figure you got about three hunnert more years of doin’ that before we even close to even. And you tell yo’ friend that mouth’ll get him in bad with me.” He slammed back into the seat, and except for the now softly moaning Marko, the four were quiet.
“I want them off my bus,” Bill growled under his breath. The sinew in his arm was taut.
I handed him five dollars.
“It’s not the money, James.”
“I know that, you stubborn cuss,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I’m just trying to get us underway. You can share your concerns with Security when you get back to the barn. Show them the video. Get them to do a ride-along. Just don’t be a lone ranger. Now drive!”
It wasn’t until we’d gotten back into traffic and Bill stopped glancing in the rearview mirror every two seconds that I started to relax. When other passengers got on, out-of-towners dressed in floppy hats, loud shirts and blouses, and other touristy garb, the seats filled in and things started to feel normal again.
I was conflicted. Should I stay on the bus until Tsunami and his buddies got off? Bill didn’t need a nursemaid, but neither was he always Mr. Tact. Metro had plenty of contingency plans in place for things like this. In his long career, Bill must have dealt with everything from heart attacks to gang activity. Still, I felt uneasy.
The longer he was on the job, the less patience Bill had for “punks” like Tsunami. And punks were unpredictable. You never knew if they were all swagger or if they might try something.
If I wanted the Locks, my stop was coming soon. And with it, the Totem Pole Drive-in and its wicked-good fish sandwich.
Stick with Bill.
Unbelievable! I was trying to have a nice afternoon, looking forward to a getting-to-know-you-better dinner with Bill, and again God yanked my chain. Thus far, I had not received a call from the beyond while sitting on the toilet or in my dreams. Was that about to change?
I jerked on the bell pull.
“Here?” Bill said.
“Here,” I said. “Beautiful day for a walk.” He eased to a stop at the bus bench about a quarter mile from the Locks. But I hesitated.
“What?” Bill asked. “I’m already behind schedule.”
“Uh, I don’t know. Are you all right?”
“Whatta you mean, am I all right? You’re the one playing stop, don’t stop.”
“I mean, will you be OK?” I jerked my head to indicate the back of the bus.
Bill grimaced. “I never had any unruly children of my own so I’d have plenty of time for everybody else’s. Now get your butt out of here. I don’t plan on being late for dinner.”
I stood. “You’ll keep your lip zipped?”
“Operator of the Year,” Bill said.
“I mean it.”
“You just be sure to wear an apron tonight so you don’t mess up that stunning red-and-white-plaid shirt you’re wearing. Ya look like a walking tablecloth.”
…the bus…landed on the roof of an apartment building…no clear motive…worst bus accident in Seattle Metro’s twenty-five-year history.
Sheesh!
The lively clutch of tourists with thick accents peppered Bill with questions. They may have taken the wrong bus. How tall was the Space Needle? How much did it cost to ride the ferryboats?
I made my escape.
It felt good to stretch my legs in the warm sun. Clear my head. The rain promised by the thunderclouds had not materialized and the heat radiated up from the sidewalk. Yes, thank you, I would like some fries to go with that fish sandwich. Breakfast had been a glass of water and my heart medication.
Behind me, the 17 revved away from the curb and into traffic. A sudden squeal of brakes—bus brakes were made to squeal—and I smiled. I could imagine one of the tourists thrusting a city map at Bill when he was trying to drive. He would come to a complete stop in the middle of the street before answering a map question. Old school.
It made no sense to have my daily comings and goings micromanaged by God. That was not the God we worshipped together, Ruthie. That God allowed us to work with life, to take in all the information from sermons, teaching, scripture reading, prayer, and life circumstances to craft a way of ministry tailored to us and our interests. This God? Harsh. Edgy. Demanding…rude.
As the comedian says: if I’d wanted God to tell me what to do, I’d have gotten married. My apologies, Ruth Anne. No one’s going to make a reality series out of my life.
The sound of two muffled gunshots pierced deep into my solar plexus.
I whirled about.
The 17 sat crossways to the westbound lanes, its nose jutting partway into the oncoming eastbound lane. The four boys leapt from the bus.
Tsunami turned back, stretched out his right arm, and fired a pistol into something on the bottom step, hidden by the open doors. He sprinted after the others, who disappeared between the office buildings lining the street.
I sprinted for the open doors as the top of Bill’s head, face down, slid into view. Thinning gray hair. Blood, and worse, running in rivulets from a gaping wound at the back of his head. Arms at his side. Legs bent. Uniform ripped and darkening with blood.
Amid the screaming, I slumped to the pavement, my back to the bus, and cradled Bill’s head so that it didn’t swing unsupported above the street. I pressed the side of my head to the side of his and yelled my horror and rage. I left finger trails of Bill’s blood down the side of his cheek.
Tears come, and I weep as I have not since the day you slipped away, sweet Ruth.
I could not catch my breath, and if I ever did, I knew my body would tear in two. Were there others on the bus lying in pools of their own blood? I could not will my body to move.
I must have heard sirens before I was covered in a blood-red light that was all a piece of the roaring that came down and gushed forth from my ruptured heart. They pried Bill’s head from me, and on the per
iphery in the grass and leaning against telephone poles, I could just comprehend the shapes of inappropriately festive clothing.
“He was your friend?” The question came from a jowly Seattle police officer, by the sad, worn look of him, a veteran of massacre.
“We were having dinner tonight,” I babbled. “His wife, Roxie, wasn’t able to come, so it was just us guys and sports and meatloaf and rocky road. It was my way of making peace for having insulted him, hurt him really, but I never meant to hurt him. God told me not to forsake him, but I guess I’m not listening to God, you know?”
“Did you say his wife?” The officer’s sad eyes took me in.
I nodded.
“I’ve known Bill for at least twenty years, used to drive the bus on the same route,” he said. “Been to his house many times. Bill never married. Said he was a confirmed bachelor and would ask no woman to put up with the likes of him. He’s got a cat named Roxie and a vivid fantasy life.”
I stared at the cop, uncomprehending. “But the wedding ring on his left hand…”
The sad officer for a split second looked infinitesimally less sad. “Yeah, that. Bought it at a pawnshop. Said he didn’t want women always hitting on him.”
“He asked me to come dancing with them.”
“Yep, Bill was some character. Set in his ways, but a good fella. Give ya the shirt off his back. Those thugs took a good man.”
“Operator of the Year.”
“What’s that?”
“He told me today he was awarded Operator of the Year.”
“Again? I’m not surprised.” He leaned in. “After we get your statement downtown, anyone I can call for you, buddy? You don’t look so good.”
“Maybe a ride home?”
“Sure, sure. We’ll have the paramedics give you a going over first. Say, I know where I’ve seen you before. Aren’t you the same guy that saved all those lives in that attempted bus bombing? You’re James Carter. Man, you lucky or what?”
I felt supremely unlucky.
Stick by Bill.
I tasted the nausea. “I don’t save people. Only God does that. What about the others on the bus?”
He looked at me like maybe I’d been hit in the head and was in need of a brain scan. “Traumatized, but not shot. You, though. You’ve had enough trauma for a dozen people.”
I shrugged. “Just a ride home, officer, please, just a ride.”
12
Too numb to cry, I returned the meatloaf to Lillian Pryor and stayed in bed for two days. During that time, I heard no voices, received no messages, ate little, slept as much as the flashbacks to the bus bombing and Bill’s murder would allow, and celebrated not at all when Tsunami and the boys were apprehended with their hands in the till of a coffee shop they did not own.
What’s there to celebrate, Ruthie? Five lives ruined and I’m not yet sure about mine.
Some people told me I needed a good priest, so on Monday afternoon I went to see Chase Lafferty at The Antique Trunk.
I gave him the condensed version of my out-of-control life, and he introduced me to Cavalier, a wooden musketeer of sorts, a three-foot marionette uncracked and still in possession of most of its vivid original paint.
“Old Lady Estelle came through,” said Chase. “The rocking horse, circa 1887. Wasn’t here two hours before it sold to the Four Seasons Hotel for a Christmas display. They paid top dollar too, so I’m closing the shop next week and heading up to the lake cabin. Sun, trout long as your forearm, and steak on the grill is what a commission like that will buy.”
“Sounds nice.” I ran an appreciative hand over Cavalier’s shiny epaulettes and golden belt buckle. He wore a pair of wooden boots of particularly fine workmanship. “He’d be perfect for the mission’s charity raffle,” I said. “Would you take $400 for him and $250 for the box of toy trains, the dollhouse, and the miniature pirate ship? I’m itching to get some real toys into the hands of our Safari kids.”
“Hmm.” Chase “hmmed” five times more before dancing Cavalier onto a glass display case filled with rare first editions of books I’ve never heard of. How many people have ever read The Keelhauling of Frederick Rochard?
Chase huffed on Cavalier’s finely carved face, complete with rosy cheeks and goatee, and polished the already highly shined countenance with a shirtsleeve. “What would you say to $500 for our young adventurer here and $350 for the rest? I could get a lot more if I sold the pieces individually, of course, but I know you will find them good homes.”
I did my share of hemming and hawing and contemplating the ceiling before saying, “I could go $450 for Mr. C and $300 for the rest. Charity, my good Lafferty, charity.”
“Done.” We both did well in the deal, although Ruthie was the best haggler. She’d bat her lovely peepers, and before Chase knew what happened, he’d come down thirty percent and thrown in the lamp belonging to Aladdin himself.
Time stood still and the elephant in the room shifted weight. “I’m sorry about your friend,” Chase said. “I’m glad you’re OK.”
At least he hadn’t said he knew how I felt. “Am I? When I ignore these—these promptings and things turn out for the worst, I’m unhappy. And when I listen and act on them and things turn out for the best, I’m unhappy. I feel manipulated like this wooden puppet I just bought. For it to come to life requires strings to be yanked. My strings are being yanked but I don’t want to be anyone’s Pinocchio. How can I willingly go with the program before I know what’s being required of me? And will others die while God and I argue?” My voice had steadily risen. The shop door opened, I finished with a near shout, and the last question reverberated in the air.
The middle-aged customer in the khaki shorts and light blue windbreaker looked torn between whether to release the doorknob and stay or cut his losses and flee. He rolled the dice and stayed.
Chase helped him select an antique turquoise brooch for a sister’s thirtieth birthday present.
I took the time to calm down.
The sale made, Chase went to put away the brooches not taken and the customer again placed his hand on the doorknob.
This time, the choice was between leaving without another word or doing what he did. He turned toward me and said in a loud, clear voice, “Jesus didn’t heal everyone who was sick. He did not raise everyone who died. He does not save all who are born. Cherish those He has given you and be ready when He calls.” And then, as if shaking off a trance, he said, “Excuse me,” and left.
Chase and I stood rooted to our spots.
Be ready. I seriously wondered if we should seek cover from flying glass.
“Coffee?” Chase set two paper hot cups on the counter, poured one cup, poised the pot over the second, and waited.
“Pour,” I said.
He shook hardly at all.
The coffee was extra stiff and stilled my entrails. “So what say you, wise one? Am I cracking up?” I backed away from the glass display to heft a nineteenth-century cannonball.
Chase popped a presumably twenty-first-century pistachio nut into his mouth and proffered the bag.
I declined.
“Depends. You’re not interested in being a Cavalier with strings attached, who looks commanding but can only do his master’s bidding. That’s why the Pinocchio story enthralls us. We want to be real boys and girls, free to make bad choices as well as good. But to do that, all strings to the master must be severed. That prospect frightens us, as it should. Evil likes to get its hands on those who think they are the masters of their own souls.”
A cannonball in each hand, I felt anything but free. I felt weighed down.
Chase’s expression said, “Please do not attempt to juggle them in my little shop of breakables.”
“What you seek, what ultimately I think we all seek, is best expressed by a sweet-water spring.” Chase continued. “The everlasting water of life flows from God through us, and people should be refreshed and sustained by their encounters with us. Think of it, James. God wants you t
o give the living waters of life to others as you and Ruth did together. He has given you an opening into heaven, a glimpse into the seen and the unseen.”
I put down the cannonballs and picked up a sand dollar. “Is this an ancient sand dollar?”
“No.” Chase smiled. “It’s just a sand dollar. Kids who rarely get out of the city sometimes just want a piece of the wild places. So I keep sea stars and agates and driftwood around, simple objects that can sweep them away on imaginary discoveries.”
I thought about that. “So what went wrong? Why is God waving red flags at me? Why did Bill die on my watch?” I gestured toward the door. “What was Brooch Man’s point?”
“Brooch Man?”
“Yeah, sorry. A habit of riding the bus. I give riders names based on what I know about them or their habits.”
“I see.” Chase studied me. “I don’t know all of it, but you admit to being more detached from the divine since Ruth’s death. Maybe heaven’s saying, ‘James Carter, you and Ruth were one flesh for a long time and for a good reason. What would Ruth do? What would you and Ruth do together? Keep doing that.’”
“And an innocent man had to die because of my spiritual struggle?” My voice cracked. “Bill didn’t deserve that.”
Chase placed a couple of fashionably dressed satin dolls in the box with the trains I had purchased. He added a box of interlocking wooden logs, a kaleidoscope, and three wooden biplanes from the First World War.
“Bill was no innocent man,” said Chase. “None of us are. You didn’t make Bill and those young toughs enemies. God worked in Bill’s life same as everyone’s. I think that’s what your Brooch Man meant. Jesus healed and resurrected and saved to serve His Father’s higher purpose. Moses and Noah, Sara and Esther, Paul and the disciples—some pretty outrageous events occurred in all their lives while doing what they were created to do. Each was intended for a specific purpose. It was God’s great pleasure to show them how to partner with Him to fulfill that purpose. So instead of getting down on God or yourself, honor Bill’s memory by staying open to how you can be a more compassionate man.”