The cement bench was cold to sit on and it was hard for me to concentrate on the assignment because I kept reliving the aggravation of the previous morning. I was still upset at that crossing guard. I mean, who was she to call me out in the middle of traffic? Why didn’t she just mind her crossing-guard business and let me be late to work without causing a scene? Then that stupid ass-manager of mine had to change the schedule, so I went in to work for nothing. Turns out I wasn’t late at all.
The JagTran squealed from a short distance away, and my thoughts came back to where they were supposed to be. I noticed the Asian couple walking hand-in-hand and speaking in their native language. They reminded me of Icksoo and the story he told me about riding his bike to Wal-Mart all the way from campus and carrying his groceries in a basket on the front of his bike. When he finally did get a car, it broke down while he was driving back from purchasing it – in the rain. I told him I would have cried and gone home to Korea. The bus stopped in front of us and once again I tried to focus.
“Sounds, sights, smells…,” I thought. I was trying to take it all in so I would have something decent to write about and turn in on Friday. Everyone else was scribbling in their notebooks or taking pictures. I remembered to take a few videos, but my mind kept wandering. I guess I’m too introspective for these types of adventures.
The seats were surprisingly comfortable for a bus; nice and cushiony. Those seats were a great place to get comfortable and concentrate on writing. I can’t concentrate when I sit in the chairs in my dorm room because they are not comfortable at all. That’s why I usually end up on my bed to study, watch television, or just sit. I wish I did have a comfortable chair. I should have been smart like Kevin and brought my own comfortable chair. Kevin’s just particular like that, though. He even lays his clothes out before he gets in the shower. Who has time for that?
The bus approached the stop near the life sciences building, and once again my mind returned to the task at hand. “I have GOT to start taking some decent notes,” I thought. I watched as a few students got on, and a few got off. Observing the students walking toward the building reminded me of the class I have with Emily. I like Dr. Raczkowski. Emily and I didn’t even plan to take that class together.
I wonder what Emily’s doing right now? I hope she’s not alone in that apartment again. Prashant is always working so much. Did Anne ever harass Prashant again? I remember that one time I helped her sneak out and Anne rang my doorbell at 2:30 in the morning. I have never been so terrified of a friend’s parent before or since. I don’t see what the big deal was. It was only salsa dancing. Those were the days. I’ll always be a little mad at her, though, for the time she rolled my house. Ninety rolls is a ridiculous amount of toilet paper for one house.
How many times has my house been rolled? I remember when Emily was the culprit with Heather and Tiffany. Then there was Thea and Sara whose primary form of attack was feminine products. That’s right, they were the ones who stuck pads to bedroom window in the shape of a smiley face. Someone rolled the house to get at my sister once, too.
I snapped back to reality when we were turning off the traffic circle on the road that goes to Fraternity Row. I was desperately trying to pay to attention to the details around me, but it was so hard. “Okay, I can do this,” I repeated to myself a few times.
It looked like something out of a professional photograph to see the sunlight hit the paper on the notebook of the student across from me as and she wrote. I wish I could take pictures that turn out like postcards. I wonder if I could take one right now…
A sheet that was painted to endorse a member for homecoming queen flapped in the breeze and caught my eye. Speaking of which, I wonder when I get that e-mail. How do I vote, exactly? I should ask this girl sitting next to me. Crap, I don’t remember her name. Maybe she won’t notice that.
“When do we vote for homecoming?”
“You’ll get an e-mail because it’s online this year. There’ll be a link that you just click on.”
“Oh, okay. Do you have anyone in particular you’re voting for?”
“No, I don’t know anyone who’s running.”
“You should vote for Manaz, then. She’s an international student in my Spanish class who’s up for queen.”
“Oh, okay.” She wrote down her name, and probably spelled it wrong. It was okay though, because I had no idea how to spell it either.
Just then we stopped in front of the Deltas. I really just wanted to get off right there and go to my room and go to bed. All I wanted was a shower. I had to go to class smelling like chicken because that ass-manager screwed me over with the schedule. Who’s stupid enough to make a change on the schedule AFTER it has been posted without informing the employee? Stupidity does exist in the world, after all.
Then came the stop between the Deltas and the Betas. “Seriously, stop having a pity-party because you had a rough morning. It happens to everyone. Focus. You’ve got to do this.”
I looked up the hill at the Betas and wondered if Meagan was home. If she was, she was getting ready for work. Hopefully she never told the secret about when Kevin, James, and I played with Maressa’s exercise ball and launched it from the second floor to see how high it would bounce. That wasn’t pretty. Amber might be there. Maressa is asleep, more than likely. Jordan is never there unless she is sleeping, and I wouldn’t doubt if she found somewhere else to do that, too. Speaking of Jordan, how’s Aaron doing? I haven’t talked to him in a few days. I bet he and Jared are having loads of fun counting hats at work. Is Missy still mad at Jared for hanging up on her Sunday? Gosh, it’s been so long since I’ve talked to anyone.
Then it happened – our last stop. The field trip was over, and I wasted it wondering about gossip and remembering events from high school. I could kick myself. “Oh well,” I thought, “I guess I just won’t have anything to write about.”
7 comments:
Paula Harris
Ride On the Jag Tran
Thankful that I don’t have to ride the Jan Tran
Sunny but cool (brisk), cold cement seats, no walls to block the sun or wind
Chipped paint
Spider webs for decor
People passing choosing a walk hand in hand to designation rather than stand and wait on the Jag Tran
The sun begins to beat on the back of my neck
I hear the roar of the Jan Tran approaching
The shrieking of the door of the bus opening to revel a driver equipped with no greeting,
Only those items that would deem him a authorized driver: a badge, a hat and glasses, and hands that are big enough to grip the steering wheel to ensure control
Music, speakers, unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar music (newfound appreciation for control of the radio in my car).
Lights, speakers
Posted reminders to be courteous to those who are handicapped and disabled
A SURE LOCK that ensures the security of those who are in wheel chairs
Parking Lot filled with cars, people choosing to drive instead of being dropped off to a designated area
Library pickup
Shemeda securing her book and notebook
Frequent riders state claim boring the bus with no particular etiquette ( loudly laughing and talking discussing plans for weekends and test that were finally over
Phone conversations, Conversations beginning and ending, coughing
As the ride continued the sights and sounds began to merge and fade into the surrounding air
The small point of repose was abruptly interrupted by a loud radio-like chirp I’m assuming it was a Nextel
A man with a heavy southern accent answered the chirp in a loud voice sipping from a straw between bumps
As I scanned his profile, careful not to rudely stare, my quick glimpse allowed me to spot a tattoo of a sun- like object that was bright green and orange and worn leather sandals that explained the crusty heels that were visible. It was cold enough for boots but he chose to wear sandals
Bracing my self for bumps and stops at stop signs that I noticed were never quite complete stops, this driver was without a doubt familiar with the route( maybe a little to familiar)
Riding the Jag Tran allows for a sort of tour
Swaying sheet signs decorate the campus, displaying upcoming events, Greek rush information, and campaign slogans for Homecoming Queen and King
Trees that seem to have an untold history
Passing the historic sorority and fraternity houses only available to a select group
Things I appreciate more
Thank I don’t have to ride the Jag Tran
I can walk if I want to because I am able to walk physically
I have my own transportation
The concrete looks like a skating rink of frozen sand. Trodden leaves litter its plane. Touching the sole of my shoe is a patch of squashed Marlboro butts, and judging by the number, the last passenger must have sat on this cold bench for a while. I stare at the butts, making pictures like children do in clouds. The remaining tobacco splayed from the filter offering a striking resemblance to the tail on a fish. Just another way to pass my time waiting on a bus.
The bus stop feels friendless. People sit, stare, and keep to their thoughts. As the sun falls, shadows from the cross-hatched side walls form a grid across the floor. They frame splotches of chewing gum trampled black and grey. It gives the image of a giant chess game, giving each passenger the opportunity to push a leaf, drop a butt, or spit some gum in order to make their move.
Brakes scream and a diesel engine stammers. A bus has made its arrival. The people all rise and instinctively form a line, waiting for the folding door to open so that they can again to take a seat.
Once on the bus, the loneliness resumes. The white in women’s knuckles glare as they clutch their bags to make sure the stranger beside them is not in the 3% of the population that might feel the urge to snatch. Some men sit with their knees spread wide, taking up enough leg room for a person twice their size. A student twists her high school ring around her finger. A lady methodically crosses her legs from right to left and left to right. Another vigorously text messages a lover. Thighs quiver and jump causing the bus to feel like it is shaking harder than the engine’s natural rustle. People sniff their noses. It’s been a cold day.
A man next to me has a tattoo on his ankle. My mother always told me it was impolite to stare, but when on a bus, what else can a person do? It looks like a pear shaped leaf. It must be old. The colors are starting to fade and bleed into each other. I wonder what the story is behind the leaf. Wild youth? A memory from home? A hieroglyphic for strength and power?
The brakes cry out again, and my stop is upon me. I grab my satchel and take great care not to spill my seat mate’s Dr. Pepper lodged at her feet. I walk into the alley way and can feel the treaded flooring through my thin shoe soles. I look across a first aid kit and a wire fan to give the driver a smile and a nod. I have arrived.
Short ride on a slow machine
It was unusually sunny and warm last Friday. As I watched my classmates hunched over their notebooks under the universities Jag Tran stop, I paused to appreciate the weather.
We all looked so focused, so concerned as we scribbled furiously the details of our short trip. My instructor, Mr. Alford was speaking aimlessly, but as our pens pressed the paper we were all lost in our own thoughts.
“How lovely,” Mr. Alford said, pointing to a couple holding hands and aiming their downhill walk toward the parking lot. Then he paused and looked west. “Here's one coming now.”
A small white bus arrived at our stop, and together we entered, armed with digital cameras (or photographic memories). I slid into a gray seat and noticed how much more comfortable the green and blue line buses were compared to the lurching, rumbling ride of the red line that commuting students are subjected to.
Our driver had the radio tuned to 95 KSJ, and country music blared through the speakers. Mr. Alford, seated with us, pointed at the emergency exit. “When would you use that?” he asked.
My class laughed, and someone joked that if the bus took a nose dive to the lake, we could crawl out through the roof. By this time, we had arrived at the library stop, and a passenger arrived. She sat amongst us, and looked slightly put off as Mr. Alford asked her for her name.
“We're in a class,” he said. And she nodded silently.
The lunchtime crowd from the cafeteria crowded the bus at our next stop. My classmates and my self moved down a seat and squeezed together.
“Oh that was cool,” said a student as she took her seat, referring to the simultaneous motion we all made as we moved down the row. “'To the left, to the left,'” she sang, imitating Beyonce. The bus then took a sudden turn into unfamiliar streets. We drove past what I thought was the health sciences building, and down a narrow street on the other side of the lake.
This part of campus was so new to me that I felt as though I was on a field trip. The lake looked so much larger from where we were. It seems strange to have such a swamp-like lake in the middle of a college campus.
I looked for Herons on the tree tops, like the ones I saw there years ago. Driving past was like living in the marshes of south Florida all over again. The marshes were shallow, and the alligators would come out every day to sun on the banks. This was such a problem that all the kids were taught alligator safety before they learned their first names. My mother was creative and turned her lecture into a song. I was reminded then, of how much geography and identity are related.
We passed another lake.
“Water's low,” Elizabeth, on my right, says.
“Oh?” I say.
“Yes you can tell by the trees,” she says.
I try to look again but we've dived into the hilly circle, and into the dorm area. Eric, on my right, starts to sing the lyrics to a country song.
On the last few stops, three students get in, one of them a girl with an afro and large red beads adorning her neck. I'm surprised that they have not noticed our notebooks and digital cameras, but as we glide back to the Humanities building, one of them jumps up in his seat when Mr. Alford prompts us to leave.
“Is this a class?” he asks to his friends, who shrug. Before any of us could answer we are back where we began, and will remain a momentary mystery to some jag tran passenger.
Empty Seat
The dark, mid-afternoon sky can be seen through the bars of the tran stop. It isn’t threatening, simply dull, steel gray. Nothing moves; there are no clouds to drift by. It is an uneventful sky.
The breeze is gone now, leaving only stagnant, cold air. The rain hangs just above my head, daring to fall. I can smell it.
Twenty minutes into waiting, the tran lumbers to a halt moving the air around me, changing the smell to that of exhaust, completely assaulting my senses. I board.
The first four rows on both sides each have one person on them; four rows, eight empty seats. Five of these people sit by the window.
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I was sitting on an airplane somewhere above New York State completely absorbed in the brand new Vogue I bought in the airport. My father sat on my left; we hadn’t spoken since we left Atlanta.
The plain started its slow right turn that would take us out over the Atlantic. We would land in Gatwick at 8 a.m.
Somewhere just past the shore of the great ocean, my father became extremely ill, going through four paper bags in a half hour. Eventually, he fell asleep; sweet relief from his bitter bout of flight sickness. I clamored for the call button.
“Are there any other seats available? I don’t think I can sit here all night with these bags and not be sick myself.” Disgustedly, I stared at the paper bags lined up in a neat row on my father’s pull-down tray.
“I have a seat in the back, will that do?”
“Anything.”
Describing the area as “a seat” did not do it justice; it was an entire row of seats, deliciously alone. The bags did not bother me in the least; that was merely a lie. Solitude is what I craved.
For four blissful hours, I found pure enjoyment hurtling through the night sky toward England. Complimentary headphones over my ears, I watched The Hours on the little screen built into the back of the seat in front of me. I turned on the light and read Vogue, at one point inviting the stewardess to sit with me and read. I was delightfully isolated unless I didn’t want to be; the choice was mine to make.
Two hours before landing, the stewardess brought a young man back to my little world built around a row of airplane seats. He had given her some pathetic excuse as to why he couldn’t remain in his assigned spot. I stared at Pathetic as if a roach had just crawled across his face. The last two hours of the flight ruined the entire experience.
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On a June afternoon in London, I made my way to the South Bank. South Bank is really a wonderful area: the Globe Theatre, quaint shops of craftsmen at the feet of sky rise commerce, the brown flow of the Thames.
By early evening, I was exhausted and found it entirely impossible to walk back across the river to my hotel in the city center. I waited on the corner, completely lost in my day’s wanderings, until the majestic red double-decker, scrolling “Piccadilly Circus” in neon green on the windshield, interrupted my thoughts.
The working day had just come to a close; there was one seat left on the bus. With my feet killing me, I took it, sitting next to a man in a badly fitted suit reading the Times. He glanced over at me uncomfortably.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as I brought my bag to my lap. His discomfort changed to disgust. The man whipped his paper sharply and positioned it as a barrier between the two of us. It was obvious I was from the States.
The public transit system of London is where the Londoner and the tourist are forced to interact. Against their will, London citizens must suffer the stupid Yanks and the tawdry Parisians who flock to the city on holiday. They love tourist money; they hate tourists.
How dare this man make any assumptions about me because of my accent? How dare he flatter himself in thinking that just because there were no other seats on the bus, I was going to attempt to engage him in conversation? I could not give less of a damn about his dismal, unfortunate little life pushing papers until closing hour when he would go home to some horrid walk-up in Queens Head.
I got up from the seat, completely enraged. I grabbed the overhead bar, typically only used when there was nothing left but standing room. I held so tightly my knuckles turned white. Paper Pusher folded his Times and scowled at me.
His suit was ugly.
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One week before Christmas, I arrived fifteen minutes late to the Atlanta airport to retrieve my brother from his Los Angeles flight. The plane was still circling despite my behind schedule planning.
The woman at the information desk clacked her artificial nails across her keyboard to come up with an approximate time for the plane’s re-adjusted landing. Her greasy, cherry hair was pulled haphazardly back in a clip, and her nose ring reflected the florescent lighting – delicious bohemia; abhorrently unprofessional.
“It will be about twenty more minutes,” said Nose Ring to the computer screen.
Hazelnut latte, The New Yorker, and a starkly sterile airport seat of cushioned comfort: all of which construct a completely enjoyable, absolutely fabulous twenty minutes.
A disheveled holiday traveler, dizzyingly frazzled and overwrought, apparently arrived at her destination – my little solitary row of seats. Seven seats, industrially welded together, six of them vacant. Frazzled sat in the seat right next to mine.
I went to wait at the arrivals gate. Reading while standing was the better of the two evils.
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The girl sitting in the third left row stares blankly through the oversized emergency window (entirely practical should the tran ever spontaneously combust). I stand at the front, make eye contact with her, and smile.
Dropping my eyes, I walk to Blank Girl’s row and reach to un-shoulder my bag. I look up at her and smile again, holding the gesture for maybe five seconds. Then, I re-shoulder my bag.
I walk all the way to the back, slumping into the last row…alone.
Leaving the classroom, we walk down to the first floor, out the double doors and across the breeze way, slowly making our way to bus stop. It's cool and sun is shining. The stop, even though it is new already looks run down. I notice spiderwebs and trash. While we wait, I hear talking, "Hmm, which one should we ride?" The talking continues as Mr. Alford decides the red route will take us on our trip today.
The Jag Tran arrives, and I prepare to step on. As I grab the railing, and climb the stairs, I hear music playing. More specifically, I hear the tune of "Old Macdonald". As I look for a seat, I begin to realize that the temperature is drastically warmer on the bus. The gray seats line both sides of the bus. It is not a comfortable ride.
I notice that our class is the only group on here right now. As we drive off, I realize that many others are simply walking. I can't help but think to myself, they they have the right idea. I'm sure that they will make it to their destination, long before we will.
At the student center stop, a large group gets on. Someone's cellphone rings and there is lots of chattering. The tran is finally full. The girls next to me are talking about their classes. I smell cigarette smoke.
Finally, we make it all the way around campus and back to our beginning point. It has taken almost 45 minutes. I'm glad I don't have to ride the Jag Tran.
New Keys
It’s a Friday afternoon in Mobile, AL. I have a project due. Well, it’s not so much a project, but an experience. I have to have an experience. And write about it. The rest of my classmates went together last Friday and took notes on a bus ride around the campus. Since I didn’t make it to class last Friday, I have to go alone. I approach the bus stop behind the Humanities building, and note how cold the wind is. The bus stop is completely open to the elements. “Wonderful” I think. I shouldn’t have worn sandals. My toes are freezing.
I climb on to the bus and take a seat. There are only two people on the Green Route today. Sweet. I really like to write in solitude, even though I know it will make my paper different. Part of the experience was supposed to be writing with the group. I try to concentrate on the window and the people on the sidewalk. I’ve taken a couple of notes, but I am completely off in another world. I can’t stop thinking and laughing about last Friday.
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It was around 10 o’clock when the radio alarm went off on my alarm clock. It took me a while to get my focus. I had been dealing with an eye infection and had forgotten to take my contacts out. My head was killing me. I shuffled to my feet and turned off the alarm.
“What in the world happened last night?” I asked as I turned to face the rest of the room. My couch was pulled halfway from its normal place on the wall, the coffee table was in the doorway, along with my clothes, and my mattress was on the floor by the bathroom.
“I’ve got to call Shawn to see what the hell I did last night,” I said. I shuffled through dirty clothes and blankets. I couldn’t find my cell phone anywhere. I ran over to the couch and started checking under the pillows, uncovering a small world of potato chip and Little Debbie crumbs. No cell phone. I felt a little panicky at first, but I tried to relax. I thought, “Where are my keys, maybe my cell phone is in my car.” I re-searched everything in the entire apartment, and there wasn’t a single key. At this point, I was in full panic mode.
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I look up to see the bus come to a full stop. We’re about to pick up some more passengers. I look around to see the library. I know I recognize one of the guys that just got on the bus. I think I’ve had him in a class. He and his friend are decked out in ripped jeans, ball caps, and T-shirts. I think they might even be wearing the same brand jacket. It makes me wonder, “Do my friends and I dress exactly alike?” I try to get a mental picture of all of us together. Can’t tell. One thing I find hilarious is that they are wearing rival ball caps. Auburn University on the left. Alabama on the right. How do these two get along? I’m reminded of last Saturday.
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After searching my apartment for the rest of the day, and finding nothing, my only option was to email my parents. They were really the only ones that could help me, and my dad was going to be picking me up for the Senior Bowl, anyway. I hated having to come clean and tell my parents I had lost everything during a blacked out drunken night, but I had no other options. My dad emailed me back several times to plan out the Saturday. Once he made it to my apartment, we would both look for the keys.
I woke up around 9 o’clock on Saturday. I couldn’t sleep. Being trapped with little communication and no form of transportation had my nerves completely shot. Dad showed up at about noon. I had completely cleaned the entire apartment in the hopes that either the keys or the cell phone would turn up, but there was no luck. At least dad would see a clean apartment. I would’ve been very embarrassed for him to come to an apartment where the couch, table, and mattress were spread out in random spots.
When he walked through the door it felt great to have human contact again. I immediately asked for his cell phone. The first people I needed to call were friends I had started Thursday night with. I walked outside and dialed Shawn’s number.
“What’s up lil’ Kenny, you make it home alright last night?” he laughed.
“Well, that’s why I called you. What happened last night?” I said.
“Well, we left the bar at about 2:30 in the morning and you didn’t want to leave.”
“What? Why? You were my only ride home.” I interrupted.
“Dude, you were with Kasey in the bar last night. You told me you were going to go home with her. I left you because you had a ride,” he said in defense. This information killed me. Kasey is my ex-girlfriend, and I didn’t even remember seeing her Thursday night. I didn’t remember Kacey’s phone number, so I figured I would trying calling MY cell phone. I thought I might hear it ringing, if nothing else. I dialed the number, and to my surprise the third ring was cut short.
“Hello?” a female voice asked. ‘Great,’ I thought to myself.
“Hey, this is Kennon. I’m looking for my cell phone.” I said. She paused and laughed for a minute.
“You don’t remember anything about last night, do you?” I didn’t.
“This is Neice, the bar tender. You left your cell phone on the bar last night when we called you a taxi. I knew it was yours, so I brought it home. The guys at the bar like to keep these.”
“I went home in a taxi last night?” I asked.
“Yeah babe, you were pretty drunk, and your friends had already left. Your keys weren’t on the bar, so you might want to call Yellow Cab. They were the ones who took you home,” she said. I couldn’t believe I was the drunken guy who took the taxi home. How embarrassing. Neice came by the apartment to drop off my cell phone about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I couldn’t believe she had gone to so much trouble for me. I felt a little better after getting my cell phone. It gave me a little confidence back. Hopefully I would find the keys after the Senior Bowl. I walked back inside to tell my dad the news about the cell phone. He laughed and poked me in the ribs. We decided it was time to leave for the Senior Bowl. To my surprise, dad had called Yellow Cab. The same drunken mode of transportation from the previous Thursday night would be our transportation to the Senior Bowl. I soon decided that I was never going to drink again.
Around 2:30, a van pulled up with a couple of passengers on it. We wouldn’t be taking a taxicab after all. We loaded our jackets and ponchos into the middle seat and slid to the far side of the van. On the row in front of us, there was a couple. Both were in their late fifties or sixties. The man wore a crimson jacket with the word “BAMA” stretched across his shoulders. His wife wore a khaki sweater with a blue and orange pin. Her garden hat was accessorized with a blue and orange feather and wrapped in ribbon that said Auburn. Alabama on the left. Auburn on the right.
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I find myself almost laughing out loud as I realize there are four more people on the bus and we’re somewhere near Greek Row. We stop to pick up some sorority girls. How exciting. Why is it that I always think about sex? I mean, I’m not always thinking about the actual act, but I’m doomed if an attractive member of the opposite sex is in my view, and these girls are very pretty, every one. One turns just enough to show me the letters on the front of her sweater. Wow, these girls are in Kasey’s sorority. How wonderful.
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Saturday night, me and dad were eating with my mom and sister. They met us at a steak-house across the bay. Between the drunken Thursday night, the Friday night of complete isolation, and the Saturday afternoon of wet Senior Bowl, I was completely exhausted. Unfortunately, that didn’t keep my mom and sister from wanting to be completely filled in on what we had found out. Halfway through dinner, I realized I had a text message on my phone. I thought that it might be someone who knew where my keys were. It was Kasey. I looked down with a mouth full of food and read,
“So what about those free sex coupons? LOL!” I nearly spit the food out on to the table.
“What is it?” my mom asked, “Did someone find your keys.”
“No mom, it was Shawn. He was just telling a dirty joke. I’m gonna step outside and make a phone call, I just remembered someone who might can help me.” I left the table before anyone could ask me any more questions and walked outside. Kasey answered the phone laughing.
“Did you get that?”
“Yeah,” I said, “What does it mean?”
“You don’t remember Thursday night?” Once again, I didn’t. “You walked up to me and asked me, ‘When can I use my coupons?’ I kept asking you what the hell you were talking about and you just kept laughing.”
“What? How late was this? What in the hell was I talking about coupons for?” I was pacing the parking lot.
“Well, after about two hours, I came up to tell you bye. You finally told me that when people break up, they each get two free sex coupons. We laughed for about 30 minutes and we were dancing and flirting. I asked you if you were gonna take me home and you said sure. Shawn left right after that.” I couldn’t believe it.
“You know I didn’t have my car, right? How’d you get home?”
“Well, we looked for your car in the parking lot for a while, and we lost your keys. My friends were leaving and we were already double stacked, so the bouncer offered to call you a cab. The last I heard from you, you were on the floor of your apartment. You were saying all of this crap about crawling through your window and falling from the second story. I came over to check on you, but you were passed out with the door locked.”
“Thanks, babe, I’m really sorry I don’t remember anything. I didn’t want to lead you on or anything. I was really drunk,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it, I was drunk too. I would have been so angry at myself if I would have cheated on my boyfriend with you. He already gets mad when your name comes up.” We bounced around some nice words before saying goodbye. Finally, some closure. But what in the world was I going to tell mom and dad? The truth had worked pretty good so far, so I decided to keep it real. I was already embarrassed enough. Surprisingly, they respected my blunt explanation, and we finished dinner. It was finally over.
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I look up to see that I’ve made it back to my starting point. Right back to the Humanities building. I don’t remember when I started the tour, but it’s been almost perfect timing. I’m not even going to be late for class. I check my pockets one last time to make sure I have my cell phone and keys. Monday morning I had my car towed to a ford place to get 180 dollars worth of new keys made, so I have to be careful with these.
Paula Harris
Creative Nonfiction
Thanks for the Ride
Today, I would attend a one time course, Jag Tran 101. With no course description, only preconceived assumptions, I agreed to attend. Equipped with pen and notebook, I was ready for class. This was going to be great. No walls, no desk, a mobile classroom!
Stepping outside immediately I’m kissed by the briskness of the cool breeze. I inhale, pulling both corners of my mouth upward. A childlike manner invades my persona. I’m goin’ on a field trip. I’m goin’ on a fieldtrip. My eyes dance rhythmically taking in stimuli, trees dressed in fall leaves with hues of gold, rust, and amber leaves flirting with those trees, vibrant with lush green leaves, that seem to already be dressed for spring producing just enough shade to make patterned shadows on the sidewalk for my entertainment as I stroll by. Chirping birds and dancing squirrels agree that it is a perfect day for a field trip. I try to focus. I began to quickly jot down important trigger words that will jog my memory later: sunny, chirping birds, peers, cameras. Action! The Jag Tran is coming. Quickly, I glance around the pickup station. There are no windows, cold cement seats, and clustered debris and spider webs for decor. Nearby, the roar of the bus engine steals my attention. I glanced left and watched as the bus with tinted windows, decorated with USA logo, strips of red and blue paint against a white background, approaches. Instantly, I realized that this Jag Tran was more than a bus; it was a private, selective means of transportation, for those within the University community. As the decorated steel-on-wheels came to shrieking halt, the door squeaking folded back to reveal a man who offered no greeting and seemed to telepathically say, “Get on already and find a seat would ya”! As soon as the class boarded the bus, we were on our way. I found a seat and realized that the music was not at all inviting; it sort of resembled the attitude that I concluded from the “no greeting is necessary”, which hung like a neon sign, on the face of the driver. But how much could you expect from a guy who takes the same route, on the same bus, seeing the same people day-in and day-out, every week. Very soon, we were already to another pickup station. Here, there were those who seemed to have frequented the Jag Tran. They boarded the bus with unruly chatter, chirping cell phones, and syncopated slurring from straws. This reminded me just how much I appreciated having my own vehicle. Looking from the windows allowed an escape from the Jag Tran, that had now become somewhat congested, being that I prefer to ride alone. The sea of cars in the parking lots were testimony that the University makes a lot of money, why not provide free transportation? Some people chose to walk. I wanted to remind them that the Jag Tran was free; that they could go to any pickup stop on campus a hick a free ride. But maybe they were already familiar with this decorated metal contraption called the Jag Tran, maybe the beautifully landscaped campus was not repose to combat the uncontrollable laughter, coughing, the beginning and ending conversations, the loud, smoky guy pulling the straw in and out of the cup making sure that he has drunk every last drop of what ever was in his cup. As the Jag Tran to pick up passengers and let others off, the sights and sounds began to merge and fade into one another. I guess that I could get used to this. After making a sort of uncommitted absolution, it was time, the fieldtrip was over, I was back where I had started from. Although I the Jag Tran never left campus, I discovered things seem a lot different when you observe them From the Jag Tran. So, as I exited the bus I thanked the driver for the ride.
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