Dear God: Am I Okay?

Religion… ugh. It has become a dreaded topic in my life. As a child, I was taught to love/serve “God”, not knowing what it meant. Half a century later, I am torn between a lifelong love of my “religion” while also having a healthy distrust of those who practice it. How did this come about?

Those taught to “fear” God seem to be the most harsh. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Resistant to anything contradicting their own beliefs.

The Bible, like any holy book, was written by man, not “God”. Anyone can say they are “guided by the word of God” and write whatever bullshit they want, feeling shielded by their own (sometimes warped) view of the deity they supposedly represent.

I was taught that “God” meant love, acceptance and the peace afforded us by being good to our “neighbors” Nowadays, it seems to mean everything BUT. Even the term “church” seems sad to me now, given its collective treatment of “others”.

If Jesus were to return today, he’d likely be shot while visiting an elementary school by a “Christian”. Or, he’d be persecuted, tried and put to death by those who so fervently believe in some perverse ideal of what He never intended it to be.

My “theology” is to love people for who they are, not as people, a most imperfect group, not to judge them. These “Christians” blather on about “love and forgiveness” while failing to show either in their own experience. Their hypocrisy is beyond blatant. Instead of providing warmth and shelter to the poor, they celebrate “idolotry” in the form of bowing to the richest of the rich, even in accepting the suffering brought about by such selfishness.

The “righteous” are so brainwashed by political ideology they would die of cancer rather than accept a cure by someone they deem “ungodly”.

Jesus simply preached that we should “love one another as you would me”, yet many today place restrictions as to who they deem worthy, ignoring the deity they so blithely pay homage to. They make such a scene of their prayer to their mistaken God it’s pathetic, yet they consider it their lifelong “mission” to be something their actions never realize.

I pray often and liberally. However, I do so quietly. By myself, on a level only between me and my personal deity. Who or what He or She may be, we have a solely personal and private relationship. My beliefs are often considered “agnostic” describing anyone who disagrees with today’s vision of “God”. However, the most decent, truly “godly” people are doing Holy work by respecting their fellows and caring for the less fortunate. Just as God asked us to.

If you’re not “white”, you’re not “right”, according to the most fearful, misled and mistakenly angry of America’s populace. Jesus however, was dark-skinned and spoke Aramaic, referring to God as “Al-lah”; crucified by those who eerily-resemble today’s most fearsome zealots.

“White-skinned” people have some strange Hitlerian concepts of superiority. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that one race or group is superior to another. When the Bible was written, “Caucasians” didn’t exist.

The “Garden of Eden” existed on the African continent, where the skin color has always been dark. White skin is an anomaly. How then, are “we” superior? Certainly not by our actions toward other races. We have no established birthright to superiority, yet it somehow grew to be “accepted” by itself as all that was holy and right. I’m embarrassed by this illusion. Total bullshit, to the intelligent mind.

As a white male, of the “Boomer Generation”, it’s embarrassing to be so… pale. The only “color” in my skin was placed there by a tattoo artist. I grew up through the 1960s and ’70s. Race riots, assassinations, a desperate battle to assert one race’s superiority over ANY others. The product of a father born in 1926 to hard-toiling Illinois farmers who accepted people for their work ethic instead of what others thought of them.

I was taught to honor people for the strength of their character, even though my parents did not adhere to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings of the same notes. It was confusing as a child, hearing/reading King’s amazing speeches and agonizing his pleas for equal rights. My own childhood was blessed by society’s twisted and centuries-old accepted of a caste society. “America” was a lie to those who had been owned by those of my race, considered 2/3 human, brutally murdered without any semblance of “justice” known as truth.

When MLK was assassinated, I cried. Only seven years old, I already understood his message. To me, he was the epitome of what it meant to be “American”. From that point on, I sought to find what was “right” in my soul. Our neighbors in small-town Arizona were black. We played together, listened to the same music, grooved together, grew together.. How could we be “different”?

One day, my next door ladybud found some reason to be angry with my buddy and me, chased us up a tree. Later, she told my father one of us called her the “N” word. I was aghast she would accuse me of such a horrible crime. I pleaded my innocence to Dad. He had taught me, through his example and words, to do so was beyond forgiveness. It was a crime I could not imagine, but he spanked me anyway for this alleged offense. Hard, and long. Bare-butt, even.

My tears were not expressed merely for the pain, but mostly because he believed me capable of such a horrid thing. I could not lie to my parents; it was something they taught early and often, that dishonesty was more horrible than any sin I could ever commit. Sharon, I hope today you realize I suffered for that false accusation. However, I forgive you when I realize it pales in comparison to what you suffered in much horribly-drastic consequence than my spanking. Dad’s punishment taught me a valuable lesson, one which remains still 50 years later. It taught me R-E-S-P-E-C-T, in more ways than I can describe here.

This carried on as I saw even more persecuted for loving those not accepted as normal. Gay folks, especially. Who are WE, as “God loving” folks to judge who others love? Don Henley wrote “find somebody you love in this world you better hold on tooth and nail… the wolf is always at your door”. That wolf today is hungry for blood it should never thirst for, yet it does.

Although I have carried Dad’s ill-conceived punishment for five decades, I realize his intent was to teach me that “word” was too horrible to repeat in any context. To this day, whenever I hear it uttered, even by those who “earned” the right to claim it by the horrid treatment their family members suffered via its use, it makes me shudder. And that’s how, folks, this white kid learned to respect people for their character, no matter who they are, love or believe.

Now we have many factions fighting for the soul of America. One, which our Founding Fathers fought a Revolution to avoid, and others who seek to unite all in a loving union of strength in which the world looks up to as a “shining beacon upon the hill”. Neither is always right or wrong, but the power of working together is far beyond what either could ever hope to achieve singularly.

We should never back away from our history. Our nation is guilty of many crimes against humanity. From murdering the Great Native Americans throughout their ancestral lands, to importing slaves from Africa and considering them fractionally less than human, to persecuting those who love beyond expectations, the grand USA has much to accept and apologize for, let alone to make exemplary attempts to repair.

Whilst we lampoon other countries for their own misgivings, we have yet to address the high crimes America has committed. We are, and have been for centuries, a nation of utter hypocrisy. In our religiously-erroneous crimes upon many, for the crimes against humanity we have preached against whilst simultaneously refusing to admit our own guilt thereof, the time is NOW to atone for our horrific sins.

In my experience, I have found some “religious” people the most nasty, least-Christian of all. Our crimes against humanity equal Hitler’s. Yeah, that’s a heavy statement, but when you consider what we have done as a nation, it rings horribly true. We have assassinated our own; those who preached peace over hate, those who envisioned a better tomorrow while hate exploded all around them, have routinely been murdered for their love.

I’m so sick of hearing about this mythical “American Dream”. It’s utter bullshit. Those with fair skin, often already-adorned with previous generations’ wealth, are lucky enough to rise above the horrid doctrines of yesteryear’s atrocities against others to “pull up our bootstraps” through “hard work and perseverance”. The rest of us are here to serve, period.

Once we all realize we’ve been had will we ever find the magic which our Founding Fathers imagined. America has always been a caste society. There are those who “have” versus US servants. YOU know in your sould how true this rings. Anyone in between had to kiss the golden ass to rise above the bottom feeders. There are a few who rise regardless of the odds stacked against them to achieve “financial freedom”. I respect their chutzpah but reserve the right to mistrust them, for they almost always learn to prey upon the working class in their rise “to the top”.

I pray to a deity, but I’m no longer sure who or what that is. Mostly, my prayers are to ask comfort for those forever living hell on Earth. “God” doesn’t seem to care when we suffer. If He/She did, little kids wouldn’t die of cancer or get shot in their school. Families would not die in car accidents. How can anywhere other than living a wonderful childhood with parents who adore them be “a better place”?

The Bible/Quaran/Torah. Written by man prior to major scientific discoveries. If “God” created us in His image, then the dude is one helluva scientist. The Creator of the Atom, the Cell, the building blocks of “life” of all forms, is truly badass. Kudos there. However, this deity can also incredibly cruel. To be so “loving and merciful”, this deity would also be powerful enough to help us avoid the myriad of illnesses/plagues/inhumane indecencies we suffer. To tell me a loved one’s cancer, which may have been easily cured by a treatment shelved because it wasn’t “cost effective”, is “incurable” is the exact opposite of mercy. To create a “master species” of greedy beings shows an obvious lack of spiritual foresight. Especially if that deity expects its dominion to be blindly obedient while convincing others to follow such cruel dogma.

I cringe hearing phrases such as “it was God’s will” or “God has a plan for each of us”. I cannot believe in a deity which allows such a horrifying range of terror to befall its most loyal subjects.

My religion can be found in the Bible. It’s a simple statement: “Love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” How is this working today? It’s not. Lately it’s “love one another, unless…”

If this God commands that we follow some ancient text to its tiniest detail, then it’s not up to us to encourage the sheep to make exceptions. Sheep are incapable of logical, independent thought. They follow their shepherd. If they’re told to turn right, go straight or left, they simply do. However dull and unintelligent, they don’t possess the ability to disobey a dog nipping at their heels. They do not possess independent minds. Many humans are so brainwashed by words written thousands of years ago, they refuse to take into account a human’s ability to reason or question that which was put forth prior to anything past some biblical passage.

If God gave us an incredible mind, able to glean millions of terabytes of information and make individual decisions based on logic and proven facts, why would anyone choose to remain stuck in quicksand with a ladder within reach? Because of an unproven hypothesis they insist upon: faith.

I have faith in my ability to think, to work, to love and find joy. I’m “faithful” to my wife, to whom I promised “God” I would always be true. It seems impossible to be faithful to, or “love”, something so invisible as an assumed reality we are taught to “fear”. If I fear someone, it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to “love” them. It’s not logical to expect a being to be faithful to anyone who would allow us to suffer in hopes of some mythical “kingdom” beyond. It just doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry, but logic isn’t imagined, it’s learned, it’s proven. Proven fact is easier to believe than any religious doctrine. Faith, to me, is simply fallible; beyond belief.

No, I’m not “atheist”, nor “agnostic”. Having been indoctrinated into religion from birth as a baptized “child of God”, I’ve found reality too humanistic to fit within the reality as it has been proven to me.

God didn’t teach me to walk at 2.5 years of age. My mother did. She researched my brain injury and found logic where little treatment was available. She had “faith” in her ability to overcome the prevailing “wisdom” of the era our problem existed within, and she was victorious through her perseverance and dedication to me. Here I am today, the living example of “bullshit” Mom pronounced when they told her my case was “hopeless”. She may have prayed for support, but it was her fierce determination to find answers that helped her will me to walk. Since then, it has been my own strong will, gleaned from Mom and Dad, which constantly propels me to reach beyond what others expect.

When you ask me to pray for you, I promise to. My love for you is as “God” asked of me from my first breath. Please do not question the motives from where my devotion to you springs. It likely does not jive with your own belief. Isn’t it just enough? I hope so, because I love you all just as I was taught.

Peace and love be with you.

New Roll or Old Wheels?

October 5, 2022

Here it is. Nearly 10 years now since I became a Bus Operator. I remember time just sluggishly passing as I trudged into a new career. Again. Journalist/Editor, Radio News Director, Typographer, Print Salesman, OTR Truck Driver, IT Desktop Support Tech, Bus Operator. Seven careers in one lifetime, perhaps one or two to go. If my story ever finds its’ course, perhaps my final career will be as a novelist. Maybe between now and then, I’ll give up this gig to train other poor suckers to do it. That’s a BIG step, getting so close to those who hold the reins to our jobs. CAN I allow myself the heat of being so close to those I have lambasted for nearly a decade?

It’s a precarious position, again. After a decade of blasting management, I’m tired. Very few followed my lead. Only dozens “Banded Together” this year, its fifth. A few years ago in the heyday of FTDS, it seemed we had formed a following. Then it fizzled away like the disappointing release of gas from my recycled soda bottles.

My blog should have died peacefully three years ago, but I stubbornly held on. It just wasn’t to be. FTDS served its purpose, then the passions of my blog gave way to humanity’s habit of passing into uncertainty. I no longer hold a place amongst relevant voices.

My hold on readers slips. In bits and swells. But frantically, I tried to bring the magic back, even as my soul kept pushing me away from it. However, Mom’s wise words kept coming back. “Don’t look back.” Just like the old Boston song. She constantly reminded me we can’t go back to where time was fresh, because once we arrive again everything has changed. It’s been a stumbling block for me an entire lifetime, because my past was so magical I just want to preserve it. Forever.

On my birthday, still my favorite day of the year, selfishly indeed, I (like everyone), look back on the most important ones of my life. And invariably, I cry. Mourning my youth, for the faves come from long ago. My 8^th, when Dad flew me in the Aeronca Champ ’47 to Rooselvelt Lake, where we fished and then slept under the wing. As we flew back to Mesa’s Falcon Field, the plane’s engine failed. Dad didn’t tell me until I was about a decade older, that he glided back to a safe landing that day.

My 11^th and 12^th, spent at Sunset Valley Ranch and attended Bonita Elementary… trying to forge a way through childhood as my soul fought its’ best to keep me there. We’re all children at that point, dreaming of becoming “older” while forgetting the magic of that moment in time. When we try to recall what we were once so determined to leave behind, we are often sadly successful.

Where am I? In this pic, I’m “7th”.

I MUST go back to the Ranch. Even though I’ve enjoyed the gifts of being the father of three and the husband of at least ONE selfless soul, when reminded of my happiest times on Earth I’m invariably transported back to “The Ranch”. Dad. Miss Pat. Doc. Rod. Piece of Cake, Samita and Sig. Getting off the bus, or a year earlier, Mrs. Monzingo’s ’64 Lincoln with “suicide doors”, to be greeted by the dogs and the great open spaces of the Galiuro Foothills’ intense serenity. Dropping my books in the cabin and always finding something interesting to explore. Pestering Miss Pat for a game of Monopoly, or one morning finding her down the road sifting through recently-falled snow and proclaiming it “weird”. The barn, the great expanses of the Galiuro Wilderness across the road, having to unhook the wire from the fencepost to enter its’ wondrous majesty, walking into the woods and hearing the birdsong above the breeze. Sitting on a rock, waiting for the next breeze to whisper the next unforgettable moments of a soul I didn’t realize even existed.

Oh, such magic I didn’t know was even there. At 11, I had an entire universe at my footsteps. Whether scaling the 600-foot rattlesnake-infested hill at the base of our cabin to take in the majestic beauty of the Sulphur Springs Valley reaching toward the Pinaleño Mountains or turning around to gaze upon the nearby Galiuros, I could revolve around 360-degrees of brilliance. Craving a longer hike, I could traipse deep into the woods of the Galiuro Foothills with all three dogs as my guides/protectors. No leashes required. Just me and my pups. Any sign of danger, they would alert/protect me. Those foothills were full of bears, cougars, rattlesnakes. My protectorate sensed my youthful naiveté, always on the alert for danger while always begging me to throw a stick for them to chase and fight over.

It’s been 10 years since I sat on a rock for an hour just inside the gate of the Galiuro Wilderness Area, breathing in the invigorating breeze of my youth. That sat-upon rock now graces my Oregon front porch, just to remind me of those wondrous moments as an adult 40-years past, feeling a mistral breeze ruffling my aging hair refusing to give way to full-grey. I remain convinced my youth refuses to give way because I remain connected to that place in time where my childhood found its greatest magic.

That moment is forever etched in my soul. My Ranch witnesses are now all gone. Miss Pat was killed in a 1974 accident, a tragedy which nearly saw me take my own life shortly after her death. Doc Tovrea died nearly 20 years ago. Dad passed in 2018. Pat’s husband (and Nina’s) Rod died last year. They were the only witnesses to my massive prank on Doc’s Chickens. That’s okay, because it happened. Horribly cruel then however intensely amusing to everyone remotely connected. Doc didn’t get the chance to pay me back, but that’s okay. I suffered guilt for embarrassing him, and still do. Still, Rod, Pat and Dad never backed down from their refusal to protect the honor of this cantankerous 12-year-old’s prank on a Midwesterner’s attempts upon being a Southwestern farmer.

* * * * *

I was immensely blessed to have parents who went far above the realm of providing wondrous lives for their children. They gave each of us the ability, the encouragement and support we needed to succeed. The only blocks we encountered were those we place in front of our success. With their example, we have been able to blast above and beyond our greatest expectations.

Coomer Boys gathered for Bill’s wedding to our lovely sister Luly in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

My own greatness lies beyond what I believe is possible. I hold myself back only because I have  doubted my own capabilities. Beyond their graves, Mom, Dad, Miss Pat, Rod, Doc Tovrea, and countless other mentors in my life beg me to keep seeking that which my own limitations have kept me from achieving.

Now I’m 62, decades older than those who shaped the happiest time of my life. Each encouraged me to surpass my dreams. Why do I keep waiting for success to catch up to my refusal to accept it? I have been urged by many to do what my soul has begged me for seven decades. I have begged a poet’s soul; I have not yet written it. I keep trying to reach the expectations of others, rather than just writing to those truly waiting for me to speak this inner truth. It’s not a voice I expect everyone to feel. Someday though, perhaps these words would reach a bit higher if I only stretch a bit more.

My body is aching. Gardening is a young man’s chore, yet it is one I’ve always loved. Growing beauty is as vital to me as crafting sentences into ideas which YOU can relate. My vacation list is more full of “home” work than literary creation, yet it will give way to next spring’s bounty. Writing has no such guarantee. If I could harness my waning physical energy into that which my soul begs to create, the perhaps I could actually “retire into a novelist.”

Billy Alsheimer, of Rhode Island transit literary artistry, has a dream of turning a bus operator’s life into a television dramedy. I’m there with him. The time is right to video-splain our lives and give transit workers our deserved voice. If I could only concentrate enough to finish my own novel, then perhaps I could simultaneously help Billy make his dream come true as well. It’s one of the topmost things on my mind as I make the six wheels deliver my valuable payload. It’s very difficult for me to concentrate on one goal; I’m constantly busy. I’m afraid that if I solely work on one project, others will suffer.

Still, I’m taken back to that 11^th birthday long ago and far, so far away. I had no idea whatsoever where I would be so far into a future half a century distant. I hadn’t even begun to “write” other than what some teacher demanded upon my middle-school curriculum. Right now, I’m digging into that age-set to craft a story that reaches deep within that long-ago creative well. It brings up fun. Pulling me deep into a childhood that is all but a distant dream. Yet it’s there, begging me to come back.

Here I am, at this unforgiving keyboard. Having written one not-so-well-received book about driving a bus, wondering how to entice a wider audience to read a novel I dreamed up driving a bus across Portland’s newest bridge. It’s a far-fetched fantasy, but no less than many books you might have already devoured. It’s fun to craft a story from the ether of “nothingness”. It allows me to delve into the wonderful past I have lived to date, to change history to my own liking while telling a story that never was before this warped mind imagined it. With your support, I might actually finish it before someone steals my thunder.

Today I begin my 63^rd year. I’m growing weary of driving a bus for a living. I’d much rather be helping Billy write a hit TV series while enjoying the success of my first novel. I have another novel I began writing 25 years ago which nags my consciousness. Whether I’m “good” or “not” is for others to decide. Meanwhile, I just need to keep writing. It’s what I do. I’m a writer who drives a bus for a living.

So, Happy Fucking Birthday to Patrick. For the 62^nd time. Maybe I’ll finally stop chasing the buck and have it chase me for once. Hopefully I still have a chance to do what I’ve wanted to since 4^th grade. After aimlessly rolling along, it’s just about time I gave it a decent shot.

My Three Heroes… gone now. RIP, Dad, Dan, Mom

Our Baby Brother Moves On

Daniel Monroe Coomer 5/27/1963 — 6/18/2022

M first vivid memories of Dan are hazy with age. Only two-and-a-half years old when he was born, I had my own struggles to overcome. My older brothers are the most likely to remember when Mom and Dad brought our new little brother home. He was different, but not to be treated as such. 

Children born with Down Syndrome back then were treated as an anomaly by the medical field. Not by our parents. He was the baby of four sons, subject to the same fierce love of our parents as the three of us. 

My oldest brother John was perfect, as the oldest brother usually is. He walked, talked and achieved every milestone at or before he was expected to. He continued so throughout time to now and forever forward. Then came Bill, who later developed asthma and required our sudden move from Northern Illinois to Arizona when he was 10. After Dad carried him to the car when we moved, six weeks after we arrived in Tempe Bill fell while running a race. “I was winning, Dad!” he cried out, oblivious of his pain.

When Dan was born, I had just begun walking. Mom had her hands full with this toddler who was still struggling to overcome a brain injury when she became pregnant with Dan. Mom studiously researched methods she could use to force my brain to re-connect with the nerves instructing the muscles in my legs. After doctors who told her I would never walk or talk, to put me into an institution and forget about me, I suddenly stood and began running around like a psycho kid. High five, Mom. She must have felt like like an NBA All-Star winning his first ring when I finally stood and walked on my own.

The next month, she delivered a baby who would require even more love, dedication and research to ensure his success. 

Perhaps Mom’s age of 36 was one of the reasons why Dan’s fetus developed with an extra set of the 21^st human chromosome. Then, little was known about the causes of this genetic anomaly. Doctors routinely gave parents of these children zero hope for their babies. Once again, the doctors advised Mom and Dad to… yeah, NO. I can only imagine Mom’s likely-vulgar response to yet another gloomy outlook for one of her sons. HELL no, is the most likely retort, given her linguistics. She would not be one of those who accepted this horrific life sentence for a child conceived via incredible love and devotion.

Where my cognitive abilities were mostly intact (John and Bill might disagree here), Mom forced my brain to re-wire itself to allow me the ability to self-locomote. My speech center required a bit of work via therapy, but I eventually became verbally competent.

Dan’s condition sentenced him to the adult life of a seven-year-old. Still, Mom and Dad refused to accept the medical community’s status quo regarding people born with this chromosomal anomaly. Once again, Mom scoured medical research, finding tips and methods to stimulate her infant’s “retarded” brain.

As Dan grew and he exhibited the typical Down’s traits of a protruding tongue, Mom would flick it with her fingers and tell him to keep it in his mouth. As he began to speak, we all worked with him to make his speech intelligible to others. 

Dan was not treated any differently from his three brothers. When he succeeded he was highly praised. When he misbehaved, he was disciplined. Although he was afforded a greater deal of leeway where behavior was concerned, we accepted that. Each of us brothers worked to ensure Dan learned the basics of Coomer behavior, constantly tutoring/mentoring our brother who needed as much as we could possibly give this gentle, loving soul.

Oh, how Dan brightened our young lives! 

I remember the very first Arizona Special Olympics in early May, 1968. Just shy of his fifth birthday, he was deemed too young to participate. He was angry, upset and sad because he wanted so desperately to compete. I remember consoling him, because he was crying having been left out. Here were kids, just like him, running/jumping/throwing… competing. And he was not allowed to. It broke our hearts to see him so sad. Perhaps it might have been better to skip that event, but I’m proud to say we Coomers were ALL there at that very first Special Olympics in our new home state. I still admire the Kennedy family, no matter anyone’s political bent, for having the loving foresight to initiate an institution which celebrates people with disabilities in worldwide competitive games in which ALL are winners.

And yes, I’m very proud to be part of a family who were pioneers in ensuring people with developmental disabilities were afforded the rights of all of us who enjoy the luxury of “normal” folks.

Shortly after our arrival in Arizona, Mom and Dad helped found the first preschool for children with developmental disabilities. It was then called MARC (Mesa Association for Retarded Citizens), and remains a hallmark center providing care and guidance for those with disabilities. As the years progressed, Mom and Dad refused to rest. They both advocated for those who could not do so for themselves. Mom was appointed to the first Governor’s Council On Developmental Disabilies by Arizona Governor Wesley Bolin in 1975. Mom also became Arizona Special Olympics Pinal County Coordinator. This led to my becoming the youngest Spring Games Coordinator when we hosted the 1978 Pinal County Spring Special Olympics Games at Florence High School. Later, our brother John was hired as Director of Arizona Special Olympics. 

We were all invested in our baby brother’s success, and also of those who shared any type of disability. It became the family focus early on, and we celebrated each success Dan achieved as a Special Olympian. I remember our living room chandelier festooned with several of Dan’s medals in our Florence home. Recently, I asked brother John what has become of Dan’s likely hundreds of medals/ribbons/honors from his 50+ years as a Special Olympian.

Dan, through his competition via these incredible games, has met and been celebrated by the likes of Muhammad Ali, Arnold Schwarzenegger,  Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Jon Bon Jovi and many other celebrities. He has participated in decades of Arizona state games events, as well as International Games.

He did not know he was becoming part of Arizona Special Olympics history. But as we lay him to rest today, his accomplishments as not only a decent and loving human being come with the honor of being a Champion of half a century. A pioneer where before our parents and those like them, worked with the fierceness of those dedicated that these SPECIAL people be granted the love and respect they have all earned.

Throughout your life, little brother, you drew love to you from everyone who met you. In Florence, the whole town came to love you and collectively watch out for you. If you strayed from home, our dogs Hobo and Bashful dutifully followed, giving neighbors and beloved friends the hint that perhaps Dan might not know his way home. They would call our home with reports on his whereabouts. Our small town became a safe haven for a brother who could not understand the world as we did. Dutifully, one of us would venture out to find Dan and guide him back home for dinner.

Many of our childhood friends have chimed in, describing how their love for Dan helped them understand better those with developmental disabilities. 

One of Dan’s earliest friends was Mikey Granillo, who lived just down Willow Street from us. They were tight, even though Mikey was not afflicted with Down’s. Their early bond helped me finding Dan when he strayed from the family home. Linda and Kathy Turner, Sheree and Loree Spooner, Mimi and Terry Spencer and others helped keep tabs on Dan, along with so many of our fellow classmates.

When we first moved to Florence, Dan was cared for by the angelically-sweet Mrs. Nowlin. She lived just a block from the elementary school. The first few years of our residence there, I was charged with collecting Dan there and walking him back home where my brothers and I would look after him until the parental units arrived home from work.

Others might have witnessed our family with disdain, or with sympathy, at having a little brother with Down Syndrome. We, however, considered it not only our responsibility, but as I look back on it now, it was more like an honor. He was no different than any of us. He was simply our baby brother, and we all loved him as such. We have done so his entire life. Losing him now is a pain none of us have the appropriate words to describe.

So Dan, as we lay your ashes with those of our parents, I thank you. My tears at your passing intermingle with those which are grateful your pain is no longer. Each of us had the opportunity to show our love at your final bedside, begging you to not linger painfully any longer.

You chose to leave us the day before what was surely our beloved dad’s most wonderful Father’s Day. We lost Katie and Mom in 2006, and all of us were inconsolable. Yet you were calm and accepting when John told you Dad had died, explaining how we would all be reunited with him as it eventually happens to us all.

I don’t know how you knew this, other than some deeply-ingrained sense of faith, when you told me “I will see Mom and Katie again in heaven”. This caught me off-guard, because I didn’t realize the depth of your understanding of faith and religion. Yet it was one of my life’s most-intense lessons: “Don’t let loose of your faith, Patrick”.

So here I stand, Daniel’s next oldest brother, delivering his eulogy. This is the hardest I have ever had to write. I was mean, I was cruel to you, Daniel Monroe. When we were kids, I was sometimes angry that my baby brother was disabled. I suffered unmerciful teasing for this fact, but I stood up for you despite my scrawny weakness. I was proud of you then, and remained so the entirety of our lives.

To my remaining brothers John and Bill, we will meet our loved ones again someday. Meanwhile, let us endeavor to live long and happy lives in honor of those who have departed. Dad was nearly 92 when he left us to be with Mom, who was just 79 at her passing. While I’m sure none of us will consider it a competition, let us first be together to celebrate Mom and Dad’s 100^th birthdays together. May we live nearly as long as that, celebrating our brotherhood, our descendants and beloved wives as long as God allows. As Dad always told me, “have fun EVERY day.” May we be blessed to do so for at least a few more decades. Each day, we must honor those beloved family members and friends we so fondly remember by celebrating our incredible love for one another. Just as Dan loved us, let us honor his memory by continuing this family tradition.

Rest in peace, our baby brother. We are all so proud of the life you lived, and how you clung to this earthly existence despite the odds so horribly stacked against you. I am sure John, Bill and Al will agree that you alone have always been our biggest hero along with Dad and Mom.

Rest in heavenly peace, my sweet, fiercely-competitive, humorous, loving and so intensely-loved, baby brother. 

I love you Dan, always have and forever will. Thank you for blessing our lives with your sweet presence. You made us better people. Rest easy, baby bro.

I Stand. Will YOU?

Author’s Note: I miss Deke’s writing on Blogspot. It was so much easier than this platform. Now he’s gone and it’s up to me to (periodically) write the life of a Portland Bus Operator. But I’m not happy about it. It’s just something I need to do; for YOU, dear brothers and sisters. It was a hopeful thought to imagine another picking up where Deke left off, but nobody did. Total silence did us all no good. We still have to deal with the insurmountable bullshit on the road while dealing with the fear that some over-zealous manager will wreak havoc upon our already-tumultuous life “out there”. Even though they’re not empathetic by doing what we do, day after day with little thanks other than words of intended-yet-seemingly-unfelt sincerity and monetary tokens of “support”, they have offered a collective ear. Now, it’s time for Patrick to have a say. I won’t do it often, because this forum takes me away from more creative endeavors. Still, I cannot remain quiet. Even though Deke died (in my forthcoming novel, if I could ever finish the fucker), his spirit implores me to keep writing truth to transit.

Okay. For the record, Portland transit management is making an attempt to listen to us. To me, anyway. I cannot speak for others who may have made an effort to be heard by the new regime. Sam Desue met with me last summer when I sent him a series of emails describing my views about our then (and still remaining) concerns about management. Gotta hand it to him, Sam made an attempt to be the guy who we have all been waiting for. He graciously gave me an hour of his valuable time. Then he spent 35 minutes talking about himself. Sorry Sam, but that was a mistake. I wanted you to hear US.

I wanted you to hear our pleas, but by the time you got around to me I was feeling a bit unimportant. Then, after you promised a followup to the concerns I expressed to you via emails and personal meeting, you delayed, then delegated me to your staff. At first I was insulted. Evidently, your meetings with civic leaders carried a heavier weight than dealing with a former blogger/author speaking up for the masses who roll the wheels, the “lug nuts of transit” (RIP, Thomas Dunn).

I felt denigrated, pushed aside. Although you promised to be more engaging and concerned with your front line that has been ignored for over a decade, you delegated that responsibility to people running the agency you were hired to oversee. Still, I retained a remnant of hope. So I continued expressing the frustrations WE feel in hopes some of it would strike home.

Last week, I met with the Directors of Transportation, and Bus Operations. Both have been exceedingly polite and attentive, especially after I blundered by totally missing our first scheduled meeting because like most of US, I didn’t check my company email more than once a month. I simply missed the invite. Even though I asked to be notified via phone about any upcoming meetings, I was still embarrassed to learn the invite came solely via agency email. My bad. When I arrived one very early afternoon at my road relief, I found an Extra Board Operator waiting to take over my route. I called the Station Agent who informed me I was scheduled to attend a meeting that was happening exactly then. Rushing back to the garage, I found these Directors graciously waiting my arrival. I apologized for missing the email invitation and wasting their time due to my failure to check my email on a weekly basis. They were kind and forgiving, but I was embarrassed. Luckily, they re-scheduled. That meeting took place this past week.

Fast forward to last week. Our re-scheduled meeting took place as promised. However, I felt it necessary to ask my union president for backup. Although our President and Vice President were scheduled to attend other meetings, they dispatched an Executive Board union rep to accompany me. Tim Maxcy, a wise and no bullshit/standup guy, stepped up on short notice to accompany me. I needed guidance, the wisdom of a union rep. I’m just a regular operator who happens to have fat fingers on a keyboard but cares deeply for those I roll wheels with. Not sure where our union leaders are regarding negotiations with management or what key points were part of their discussions, I assured President Block I did not want to muddy the waters. My only goals in this dalliance with the Directorship are to express my personal concerns gleaned over a decade of being screwed over. While the new regime seems willing to work with us, there remains a massive seed of doubt, given Sam’s sudden interest in those who run the government than those in control of the vehicles he is charged with protecting.

For a week prior to our meeting, I began writing my feelings and concerns. That’s how I roll. Given a prenatal brain injury, I have always been more comfortable writing than speaking aloud. (I also abhor confrontations, but that’s the reality of a transit worker advocate. STAND for what you believe, or sit down and STFU.)

Then I polled my fellow operators. I asked them to help me define “Operator Safety”. Of course, this devolved into a mis-mash of numerous (exceedingly relevant and pressing) complaints about our next-level management’s abhorrent treatment of operators. I was overwhelmed, yet not surprised, at the outpouring of my fellows’ intensely-negative feedback. The overwhelming response could be summarized by one unfailing statement: Assistant Managers view complaints, no matter how ridiculous, with more weight than the necessity of supporting an operator’s vital control of our own vehicle.

Many complained of unnecessary and outrageous disciplinary actions due to their very insistence passengers obey a seemingly nonexistent Passenger Code of Conduct. As if it no longer exists. We’re evidently supposed to bend over backwards while guiding a 20-ton vehicle while kissing the ass of fareless troublemakers, no matter how horribly they treat us. In the meeting it was stressed that some things should just be ignored, if only for our own “safety”. It’s an insanity I have lived, but to have it described in horrifying detail is more than I could bear. I wrote down many complaints, which I hoped to convey in this meeting.

The evening prior, I was aggressively menaced by a passenger who told me my polite PA plea to all four of my passengers to “please, while you’re on the bus, silence the audio/sounds on your phone. I appreciate it, thank you very much” was a “passively-aggressive insult” to him and that he didn’t “appreciate” my “bullshit”. As if my polite request was designed to punish him alone, even though the other three passengers were in compliance with this transit reality. Hey, I told him, I didn’t know, or care, who it was that I felt it necessary to remind of an obvious social indiscretion. It was a blanket plea to whoever it was causing the distraction. Passenger conversations are white noise; we can filter that out easily. The rest of our concentration is focused on common sounds of the bus, outside influences including sirens alerting of us of our lawful obligation to yield to emergency vehicles, and passenger conflicts. The distraction of some selfish individual’s phone audio is not conducive to an operator’s safe concentration to the task at hand.

Norm Abnorm stormed up to my space and verbally-assaulted me, even asked if I wanted to “punch” him. Dumbass Norm actually removed his mask, ignorant of his photographic vulnerability to the three cameras trained upon him. Instead, I vigorously invited him to get the fuck off my otherwise-peaceful bus. In a childish tantrum, he grabbed a handful of masks and tossed them to the wind as he exited. No problem I thought as I closed the door to his nastiness…. at least he was gone. Off and prancing in his infantile celebration that he had “showed me” who was “Boss”. I could only laugh as my hands shook in furiously-full-fledged Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (See: PTSD) which had prepared me to fight off a possible attack.

So prefacing this meeting, I launched into a definition of PTSD, a condition most bus operators deal with daily. My audience was visually sympathetic, yet the past decade’s experience with management nagged at me they didn’t care. Their words however, assured me they do care. Although physically removed from this reality, their faces registered not only shock but evident acceptance of my ordeal. (“They’re actually listening?” I asked myself). What I did not tell them was that less than a week earlier, supervisors met me downtown to deal with a mentally ill passenger who would not exit my bus after picking his bare feet of dead skin off the feet he said were “killing” him, leaving them and some biological ooze on the floor of my bus. He was also very verbally abusive, and two nights in a row caused extensive delays to my On Time Performance. This was made a top priority by the previous regime, above safety by all definitions.

By the time I arrived at our meeting, my PTSD was intensified by three nights of very intense incidents. Anyone who knows me would have recognized I was in full-stress mode. It was not conducive to a productive performance of an Operator trying to impress our collective concerns upon management. Still, given my failure to attend the last meeting, I was determined to deliver. Sleep-deprived after staying up two hours past my bedtime to prepare, not having eaten yet and barely jumping out of bed after two slaps of “Snooze” on my alarm in time to shower, dress and grab my essentials of operating before driving to the garage, I was woefully, physically unprepared for this grand opportunity. Oh, how I wanted to blast management for its still-inadequate efforts to assure us of their undying support!

Between their assurances of positive actions to our collective complaints, I felt they were too supportive and unbelieving of some Assistant Mangers’ abuse. Still, I had to voice the many concerns of those I asked to contribute. When these Directors showed reluctance to believe AM’s transgressions, I read some of the complaints I had heard. They were visibly dumbfounded, sometimes in stubborn disbelief. As if I had made them up. I chose the most horrible, feeling a bit testy at their shock.

One complaint in particular was a lady operator who left this job after she felt her sexual assault had been devalued by management, having been forced to drive the very route the assault took place upon. Her pleas were ignored, her mental health benefits elapsing before she could adequately deal with the terror she had experienced while in service to her community. She quit, and is now happily driving a big rig where her cargo does not talk back or assault her.

My early words of this meeting were devoted to my insistence that management adopt a true definition of “Operator Safety”. Here’s what I came up with, after reading the many complaints of my brothers and sisters:

“An environment in which an operator in the seat of a transit bus or light rail vehicle, or any Operations employee in the field; has a reasonable expectation of operating safely. It also ensures we are not pressured to work if we feel ill, which is unsafe for anyone on board or in the vicinity of our vehicles. Management at all levels should truly support us rather than resorting to unreasonable discipline. A “safe” environment also requires passengers obey basic rules of transit.” 

I asked for management’s support by insisting passengers be refreshed by the seemingly-forgotten “Code of Passenger Conduct”. My definition was met with a re-direction of the discussion. I felt my request was totally ignored. No offerings of edits or their own regarding a definition. At that point, I was devastated, and found myself briefly dropping out of the conversation. How could we address this issue if there is not a true definition of that being discussed?

Then, I was brought back to the room when the Director of Bus Operations informed us there is a new version of barriers being tested at all three garages over the next month which extend further than current models. Given Tim’s description and examples of the inadequacy of current barriers, this was a breath of fresh air. I expressed a desire to gauge the comfort level of these new models, of which each garage will have 10 buses equipped thusly. Current barriers offer protection from an assault coming from behind us, to which we are most vulnerable, but offer little protection from a full-frontal attack.

Over the past few months, Sam has offered several carrots on a stick to his front line employees. Get the vaccination, have the distinction of serving through the worst conditions during the past two years, get a few more days off. A $1,000 bonus (minus exorbitant taxes, of course) and $35 Fred Meyer’s gift card for the holidays were generally well-received. However, management needs to realize its tactics are suspect no matter what monetary carrots-on-a-stick are offered. There is still a major shakeup necessary to ease our collective anger and righteous indignation over this decade of constant abuse.

Many of our retirees suffer near-poverty conditions, especially the past decades without a bump in the promise they would feel the community’s collective thanks for their devotion to a union-led, 100+ year assurance that their service would be generously honored.

One moment that surprised both Tim and I was when these upper management Directors told us the union would have “an upper hand in the next contract negotiations”, given our operating the past two years through impossible conditions including pandemic, ice and snow storms, fire and smoke and the added stresses therein. This non-requested gem behooves us all to list our numerous desires on our union’s website to restore the many takeaways over the past several contracts. STAND AND BE HEARD!

Wow. This is a far cry from (former HR manager) Laird Cusack’s disgusting quote that “the only good employee is a scared one” and that “public sector employees should not have a pension”. It’s also refreshing after a GM who had not read the state’s audit of local transit before being granted the position after being fired from Vancouver BC’s transit system. Nor had he heard of Thomas Dunn’s murder. His reply to the former stark truth of our reality was reportedly “Hey, I’m from Canada you know”. As if Jubal Irvine Fraser’s murder didn’t happen in the very country from which he had just come from.

I was thrilled that our newest Director had to be reminded exactly who Laird was. It seemed his disastrous reign was being actively forgotten. Yippee! It was one of several good signs in a meeting I entered with grave reservations.

So. What did I take from this “follow up meeting with Sam”? There are still a myriad of problems management needs to address. What constitutes “Operator Safety”? How far does it extend? Powell Garage operators still (after more than a year) are forced to park their personal vehicles far from the garage and take a shuttle to their relief points while their cars are left to a “security force” which fails to prevent vandalism and theft. Layover points are often a nasty lair of homeless tents, rampant drug use and harassers of transit workers. Many bus routes fail to offer safe layover points and only provide porta-potties which are constantly broken into by the homeless, with operators constantly fearing for our safety.

Although enhanced barriers are great, what about when we have to leave the seat? It’s time the wussies of local government take a stand, with Sam the Man leading the charge. Clean up the garbage and needle-strewn trash heaps which litter our city streets. Our transit routes. If our local economy has any hope of recovery, with tourism making a comeback, and transit workers’ safety (and that of other municipal workers) finally becoming a priority in the Portland metro area, this city MUST proactively begin to dig out of this deep hole. If not, our economy will fail to rebound. Very few today venture into our once-vibrant downtown after two years of pandemic, riots and lack of leadership. There aren’t enough cops to enforce basic traffic laws, let alone respond to our constant pleas for support when things go awry on our rides.

It’s time to reclaim our once-celebrated city from the trash pit it has become.

So what? Operator Safety? Yeah, right. I’m more likely to be killed by some state-protected drug addict or violent protestor or transit thug than by my life’s negative health choices. I’m vulnerable to the dregs of society, and I do not feel management has any clue what Operator Safety is, let alone how to support such a non-defined state. However, I believe we’ll get there. We have seen the worst, fallen to our deepest of despair, and now only have to claw our way out. It’s possible, and I believe it can be done.

I cannot give up hope. I’m an optimist. I will continue to meet with management until I die, am fired for being too vocal, or whatever. It’s a stance EACH transit worker must emulate. Strength comes in numbers of those willing to be heard, not from those who sit on the sidelines and blather on social media. I delivered your concerns, now I urge you to take them to management yourselves.

It’s time to STAND, but something too many may feel overburdened to do. Hell, only 30% even voted in our last union election. This collective apathy is pathetic. I encourage ALL of you to make your voice heard. I can’t do it alone, nor can any of the few others. We have an opportunity to protect (and grow) the number of our neighbors who depend upon transit just to get to work and home, safely. YOU have not only the responsibility to rise in righteous indignation over working conditions, but also the moral obligation to do so. If not only for yourselves, but for those with whom you vigorously withstand the constant insults we daily endure. Actually talk to a management which currently is open to your doing so. Give it a whirl, I have. While it hasn’t exceeded my expectations, I’m encouraged they’re willing to at least listen. If they don’t hear your concerns in large numbers, what makes you think they’ll actually do something positive?

Seize this moment… we may never have such an opportunity again.

Yeah, management has a lot of work to do. At this moment in ATU757’s 100+ year history, we are faced with a golden opportunity to actually be heard. They finally admit they NEED us. US. You, your brother and sister. They still need to listen to those who came before as well. Meanwhile, stop bickering amongst ourselves. Voice your opinions, your concerns, fears and disgust to this new regime of management while they’re still listening.

It’s time to RISE. I have, and will continue. Will YOU?

My Holiday Thanks

Anytime someone reads my book, it’s an honor. Thanks to all who supported my feeble attempt at first publication!

Five point five hours ago, I ended my week as a bus operator. The day before Christmas Eve. Planned, you know. Nearly four months ago, I correctly guessed the loss of operators was so great that my nine-year tenure would not guarantee me a holiday off. Here I am, correct. Luckily, of course, given my tendency to forgetfully screw things up. This time, I got it right.

Upon my arrival home, I was greeted not only by my Beloved, but the son she fetched from his job in Seattle. Eight hours devoted to ensuring our family was 6/7 complete for the holiday. She and my sweet mother-in-law braved holiday traffic to make the four-hour trek northward to gather our dear son. It wouldn’t be our 20th Oregon Christmas without him.

Driving a city bus can be a drag. It has its positive moments, but they unfortunately come rarely. We simply adapt to our variances. Although my current route wields a few passenger gems, it also is one serving many long-time transit professionals. They have their fare ready as they board. They may or may not acknowledge me, one of many bus operators over their many years of riding. They know (and respect) the drill. Three or four times a year, their driver changes. Why make any connection to the mindless dolt behind the wheel when he/she will only switch? I get it, yet it still hurts. I try very hard to make their ride smooth, comfortable and most of all SAFE (and 94% on time) every day. In return all I hope for is a simple “thank you” upon their departure. If I’m lucky, I’ll make a meaningful connection with a select few.

This signup is winding down, and I’ll have a different, much later, schedule to attend to come January 9. My current run has been canceled for next time, the victim of a reduction in service due to operator shortages. We have lost a great many experienced, knowledgeable and transit-wise professionals due to a management that still doesn’t understand IT is the main cause. Too many corporate hacks sour our hours with their unrealistic expectations and ridiculously-unprofessional discipline. We KNOW our jobs; they do not. Nor do they support our decisions on the job which are decades-old honored transit edicts, pointing toward our ability to keep order on our vehicles while ensuring the safety of everyone in and around our vehicles.

If management had wisely chose to do everything in its power to hear our pleas, it might not be in such dire need of new operators. Two years ago, we saw 20-25 trainees every few weeks. Today, trainers are lucky to have five, usually less, recruits to teach. Instead of doing everything possible to retain valuable veterans, management screwed itself with its own weak-minded hand. It apparently believes the public is the best judge of what we do out there, when we have spent thousands of hours providing incredibly-safe and smooth service to the “Karens” who call in to complain about the most absurd, unimaginable bullshit. If management truly believed “Heroes Work Here”, they could see through the whiny insults of bullies whose hand is awash with nothing to show. Management would do us a grand favor of calling “bullshit” on many complaints, if it only understood the basics of transit.

In Portland alone, the past 20 months have seen us withstand a myriad of disasters. An enormous rise in attacks on transit workers has been fueled by a politically-debated virus that cares not who anyone votes for. It would kill us all if nobody paid it any mind. Still, we are subject to whatever slithers through our doors, with only a flimsy mask and a prayer we don’t catch this dreaded virus. Our only weapon against those who refuse to obey a public mandate is 100% compliance, and even that’s not reliable protection. We’re all faced with a microscopic killer, yet fully half of our populace refuses believe it is bigger than us, and our false bravado.

Give my route’s long hours, some ride my bus to and from work. These are the folks who are most likely to allow me an occasional glimpse of their guarded personality. While they may not agree with a “mask mandate”, there is not enough strong evidence to support non-compliance. The slightest glimpse of “regulars” finds me smiling and offering more than a cursory greeting upon boarding. Each day, I offer a bit extra, in hopes one of them will open themselves to me. My love for people was one of the main factors I chose this profession. I truly enjoy new connections, and this job certainly affords that opportunity. It could be as simple as a smile of recognition. My friend and fellow author Tommy Transit taught me the basics of “The Art of Acknowledgement”, but so many these days are plugged in and tuned out. If they hear my hearty greeting upon boarding they often fail to offer me the benefit of simple acknowledgement, let alone note the rigors of my constant attention to their safety and comfort while onboard.

People who ride transit are a mixed group. Some are truly appreciative. Perhaps they have ridden since childhood and had the benefit of many operators. Others however, tend to treat us as invisible servants. We are there for them only, our personalities be damned. Show up several minutes late during a cold winter’s rainstorm, and they act as if you purposely delayed the bus to ruin their precious timetable. I had one Karen recently tell me I should find a new career because I was eight minutes late picking her up. She further berated me upon her exit, telling me I was the worst bus driver EVER. I had to laugh, considering I recently earned a 93% On-Time Performance rating. Instead of explaining why I was so late, all that escaped me was a disgusted snort.

Others fall in between and are tough to crack, but a well-placed phrase might catch their attention and cause them to linger up front a moment or two. Over several weeks, these interactions if played right, have blossomed into wonderful conversations which, in my history, have encouraged great joy in fellowship. These interactions have been constant for 100 years in Portland transit life. It’s safe to say we have a positive relationship with those we serve. Why is it though, that the small percentage of those who call in baseless complaints are the most-heard by management?

I know of several incredible operators who have left this job solely because of management, or who have been fired due to unprofessional managers who have no business managing professionals. Still, a new management seems reluctant to admit this mistake, even though it is due to a previous administration’s obvious faults. Today’s lure of a $2,500 signing bonus and a 20% higher starting wage than a few months ago make veterans seems insulting to those of us who have served with honor for decades. As a fresh hire I was paid half that much, and the most senior drivers earned about 150% more than newbies. Today, a veteran’s worth is about half that.

I was treated to a noob’s horrific disrespect tonight as I ambled “late” to my bus at a layover. If I leave there exactly on time, I will arrive at the first time point exactly two minutes early. Doing so elicits whiny complaints from an irresponsibly-unsupportive management. Just a week short of a new signup, I was surprised this operator greeted me aggressively as I walked up to my bus. He told me I was cutting into his “break time” by leaving late “every week”. Hey bruddah, you drive this line once a week for a few hours, and you have the temerity to berate me? How dare you, rookie? I have driven this route for years. I know through instinct and experience when I can depart in order not to be early. Drive “hot” and people miss your bus, subject to Portland’s harsh winter weather while waiting for the next bus some 20-30 minutes later. I ripped Noobie Norm a new one and left at my leisure, steaming at a slow boil until I reached the Rose Quarter Transit Center.

At that time point, I realized he was an operator who has only driven “20 minutes” in real time, and didn’t understand the true reality of our profession. Arriving at the end of that run I sent a quick text to a transit-savvy friend asking him to look up the name/badge #/hire date of my follower. He responded quickly with a query as to ‘why’ I asked. “I need to teach a newbie the reality” was my reply.

Upon his arrival at the next terminus, I guided Norm Newbie inches from my back bumper at a very tight stop. Then, I stood at his front door and invited him to open up.

“Hey Operator,” I shouted. “We got off on the wrong foot earlier. Welcome to OCTC! Now listen up, Mr. Operator, because I have some valuable advice for you.”

“How do you know my name?!?” the noob asked. My sudden familiarity had the intended reaction: shock.

“Been here a while and maybe longer,” I replied. “I know a few things. I was once a Line Trainer and I still have a few things to teach. Get this. When you arrive at the end of the line and there’s room for three buses, your break is not in peril. You simply take the next spot and wait for the next driver to leave. Then, you move into the first position. That’s how transit has worked here for 100 years, and you’re no different. Other than that, I hope the worst transit has to offer lies right there. Be patient with your fellow operators. You don’t know what we have gone through prior to this point in time. Now peace be with you, Merry Christmas and may you have a wonderful New Year.”

Oh, how I wanted to say much more, but I hopefully left Operator Newbie with a new respect for a senior operator. You see, I was him once upon a long-ago time. Other brothers and sisters patiently set me straight, and I have not forgotten. My hopes are great for this inexperienced fellow, but I refused to be angry with him in hopes he took my words in a positive manner.

It’s hard out here, folks. More than ever, we are faced with extremely harsh conditions. I’m constantly forced to deal with my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while still providing a safe and courteous ride. It’s a constant battle as I safely weave through an increasingly-volatile war zone. I have learned that few will express their appreciation for my constant attention to safety. That’s okay, as long as they don’t insult my professionalism by acting up.

And yes, you’re welcome for getting you there safely. It’s what I do, and I appreciate that wave of thanks as you exit. Next stop: Sellwood Bridge.

“If you have a problem with the way your leader does things, then by all means tell them as soon as possible. This is our first interaction in three months and you act like I’m a bad guy even though you never asked why I leave ‘late’. It’s best to approach a Senior Operator early in the signup if you have questions or concerns, rather than a week short of the end. I would have gladly explained the particulars of my years-worth of knowledge on this route, had you only asked.”

Then, I began to instruct this new operator in the ways of transit operations.

If you arrive at a terminus and there’s a bus in the first position, you shut your bus down and proceed to take your allotted break. Once the bus ahead of you moves out, then you take the first position and wait until you’re ready to proceed. Bingo boingo, that’s how it goes. Get used to it. You have no idea what your leader has endured or is dealing with while on-the-job. Be patient and forgiving. You’re driving the route three hours and he’s likely out until tomorrow. Have compassion for your brothers and sisters. Instead of being impatient, get to know your leaders. We might just share some transit tidbits which make you a better operator.

The past two years, I have driven a virus delivery vehicle. I wondered if humanity would perish, and if I was helping spread the invisible danger. Then came the summer fires which choked Portland with dense smoke, fearing the loss of our homes. Then, a fierce winter storm which totally shut down our transit system for the first time in its history. Mother Nature wasn’t done, as summer brought record-shattering temps reaching 118 degrees last summer. I was afraid to ask “what’s next” because I dared not tempt Her. The previous summer was full of protests and demonstrations in which our beautiful downtown became a third-world war zone. It has not (yet) recovered. Instead, it is now a mostly-boarded up tent city for the homeless.

As if we needed more heartbreak, our sister Breonna White was murdered at home. Our brother Dale was shot as he drove bus on his day off. Hundreds have been assaulted/threatened/spit upon/robbed and endured other horrendous insults thrown our way. These incidents exponentially increase with the temperature of society’s fury. On the front lines of every city’s woes, transit workers become more vulnerable. For we are not protected or respected, yet neglected. It’s impossible to protect us I know.

All the while, we have endured. We are some tough, dedicated and valuable members of this tortured workforce. Like medical personnel, police, firefighters and rescue workers, garbage collectors, food service and many more professionals, we are vulnerable to harm from those we serve (or not). Transit workers still observe a mask mandate which did little to protect us from smoke and minute virus particles; we have for nearly two years. We have suffered fools who think their “freedom” allows them to potentially kill others. (Hey, if you want to risk your life, don’t assume it allows you the “freedom” to take others with you. I was taught as a child to be responsible for not only myself, but also for others.) Hundreds of transit workers have lost their lives, and/or those of friends and family members.

If you fail to plan ahead under such circumstances, don’t plan on berating me for being “late”. I have already guided a 20-ton beastie to your stop under the worst possible conditions. I have likely saved my passengers many a delay by depending on my years of experience to know precisely how to keep from plowing into several idiots who consider themselves “the World’s #1 Driver” and take ridiculous chances they are woefully-unprepared to successfully negotiate. We save lives hundreds of lives each day during normal conditions, and likely twice that when streets become icy and dicey. How, you might ask? By simply not plowing into their unthinking and foolish asses.

RIP Freddi… we cannot ever forget your dedication.

Dear Karen

I have had so much to say over the past six months it is painful to keep those words captive. For eight years I wrote my heart and soul describing this singular life as a transit operator. Often, those words were harsh and angry. It became too difficult to express such negativity. I had to stop.

It has been nearly impossible to prevent these fingers from communicating the miles of heartache seen from my office on six wheels. Still, this forced silence has forged a new creativity, one which I have anguished to reveal, hidden behind the anger and frustration of the countless insulting daggers piercing this writer’s soul. Still, there remain a few rays of sunshine piercing the clouds which envelop my workday.

The cell phone is the singular threat to societal harmony today. People have so plugged in/tuned out over the past decade it has replaced civility. It’s difficult to imagine if you remember life as it was a decade ago when conversations were abundant on transit. People were more connected with the operator at the wheel of their ride to/from their daily toil. Instead of eyes glued to the day’s social media posts, their minds wandered furtively as eyes watched the wondrous sights rolling past as a human being handled their magic beast homeward. Now, that biological being behind the wheel is but an afterthought, a mere servant to their roll home after a workday during which their surfing has taken a back seat to earning a paycheck. Why the hell would they sacrifice this time to catch up with whatever they missed on the “InterNEGanet” whilst slaving away 8-12 hours just to pay for the opportunity to do so?

This is the time I tend to pounce. As a public servant 150% intent upon providing a safe ride, I am also intent upon also raising awareness to whatever they are missing. On a most personal, intense level, I let them know that I am their intense chauffeur a la safety for the duration of their stay on my vehicle.

After a decade on this job, I have ferried a million riders safely to their destination. Sure, there have been rare instances where breakdowns or unruly scumbags have interrupted my tranquil roll, but to this date I can brag a 94% on-time performance. This means that while your ride my ride, you can be assured you will arrive at your destination just about every night, at the same time sure as your loved ones expect you to. This is my specialty, the goal second only to your safely arriving there. And your safety is my first goal, not being on time. I would rather deliver you safely to your destination than on time, any moment of every trip I drive.

All too often, people have no idea what I do behind the wheel of my 20-ton megabeast. To them, being “on time” is the most important part of my job. A few of them try to tell me this whenever unforeseen circumstances delay my roll. Sure, I may be a few minutes “late” at certain points on my route, but this is usually a planned occurrence so that I’m not early at time points or transit centers, where people depend on me to be strictly “on time”. To do this requires a constant, diligent concentration and knowledge of many factors which confront a bus operator. Get caught at a railroad crossing of an agonizingly-slow freight train, you can be delayed several minutes. A veteran operator watches both the train and the clock, constantly factoring how many freight engines preceded the cars behind it with the points during the route where the time slips easily past. We gauge the speed of the train with what lies ahead, being vehicular traffic or passenger loads. We determine exactly where we might, if conditions allow, make up the time we lose waiting for the train to clear. If all goes well, we’ll be pretty close to “on schedule” at the next time point, or exactly so at the one following.

As the rail crossing clears, we’re locked and loaded, already planning how to make up the three-to-seven minutes we have lost sitting there. Making up this lost time is dependent upon several factors, the most being waiting passengers being ready to board, fare-ready and sans attitude. Given the latter, we just wave them to a seat and ignore their ignorant insults upon our lateness, in hopes they shut up and sit the fuck down so we can roll wheels again and continue making up the time they are bitching about. They don’t understand that the longer they stand in our face whining about how late we are they are delaying us ever longer. It’s ignorance building upon ignorance that pisses us off beyond imagination. We’re already fighting frustration, yet their whining exacerbates the problem. The experienced operator mentally waves off their bitching and ignores the incessant whining because we have enough on our minds to give it the weight due someone’s silent fart.

Recently I had a bus which decided it didn’t want to properly deploy its ramp for a passenger who uses a mobility device. After a minute fussing with the mechanism, I realized time required me to take the manual route. I grabbed the requisite tool from the box and deployed the ramp by hand, pushing it the rest of the way via my size 12 boot. After Lady Pax had boarded and the ramp was manually stowed, I dutifully notified Dispatch of my vehicle’s malfunction. Once our conversation was over, I was already rolling in hopes of erasing the deficit of both train and ramp delays.

A few stops down I encountered Karen, who was furious at my 7-minute-late arrival.

“Thanks for getting here so fucking late!” she bellowed as she blasted past an elderly gentleman any polite person would have allowed to board first.

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “Of course, I knew you were waiting for me on time and I arrived late on purpose just to inconvenience you. So very sorry.”

“Fuck you,” she snarled, “asshole!”

Elderly gentelman then boarded, wondering “who lit the fuse on her tampon?”

I chuckled at this. Then I burst out laughing, also wondering who or what had lit that incredibly-short fuse. It couldn’t have been me, for I greeted her with my signature eye-smile-behind-the-omnipresent-mask. Of course, she couldn’t have seen my grim smirk as I followed her progress toward the rear of the bus. Only seeing her, and the elderly gentleman, safely seated did I more-than-purposely-slowly roll on from the stop. You see, I drive the same way whether I’m on time or late… SAFELY. I’m paid by the minute, and each second I’m in service it’s incumbent upon me to be a professional. It doesn’t matter to me if someone is in hurry; I’m not.

As she exited after her five-minute roll, Karen could not help but berate me again.

“Thanks for being the worst bus driver EVER!” she screamed as she struggled to open the back door. “You should get a different job, you’re a horrible bus driver!”

I chuckled, then laughed out loud. Not only had she mis-planned her transit trip to not allow for possible delays, she couldn’t even master opening a door on her own.

“You’re WELCOME!” I said, my foot keyed on the microphone button to mute the horribly-omnipresent nag to intending passengers that they need to wear a mask on transit.

As the door closed, blissfully ending that encounter, I added, “dumbass,” not realizing my foot was still depressing the mic button. Several chuckles and one outright guffaw greeted my outburst.

“Oops,” I offered to those aboard. “My honesty is showing. Please don’t hold it against me.”

Of course, those still onboard knew exactly why I was late because they had witnessed everything prior to her boarding. A few even shushed her as Karen continued to berate me from the “cheap seats”. A few of them were my regulars, and know me to be kind, safe and attuned to their needs as passengers. Three of them paused to tell me they appreciate my efforts and to ignore Karen’s insults.

“It’s okay,” I told one, “and thank you for saying that. I appreciate you.”

“No,” one lady said. “We appreciate you. You don’t deserve the crap some people throw at you. Thanks for getting me here smoothly, safely and with kindness. You ROCK!”

And that, dear folks, made my day.

Time is Constant

“Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”

–Chicago Transit Authority, 1967

Deke in his Blues on Line 9
Photo by Dean Turner, 2020

It has been four months now since I stopped blogging. Writing, basically. Had to give my created dual personality a sudden death in order to keep going. Now I’m recovered from that eight-year gig, ready to roll along.

My new book of fiction is in the first-draft stage, almost ready for the second phase every author creates to perfect the vision, clean up the dirty bits and prepare for a select few to read. Then, it’s back to the editing phase where the bad bits are trashed, those bits allowed to stay are perfected, the plot is polished. The third phase is hopefully where the magic happens: the book is created.

I love each part, having gone through it now once before. Last time, I created a book from the blog FromTheDriverSide. At first, I thought it would be easy, having written each chapter beforehand. Actually, it was heart-wrenching and painful bringing those blog posts into chapter form. A lot of editing took place, but I was careful to leave the original intent of each basically untouched. Incredibly, I deleted 30,000 words from that book JUST DRIVE – Life in the Bus Lane, without disturbing the feeling of the moment each which my alter ego created.

Here, I tend to echo Deke, but there’s a bit to be said about my paycheck gig that was left unsaid as the blog died. So many times driving the bus I have thought of the many posts left unwritten over this year of plague, weather and fire catastrophes. My professional life of nine-plus years has been more difficult than ever before, but I left the bus driver’s blog behind to rest the muse, to pursue other forms of expression.

This break has been healing. I have learned to love my life more, to hold those I love just a bit closer than I could while trying to maintain a double life. It seemed at times my only reason for being was to blog the life of a transit operator. I loved the attention of those who read the posts. However, it became too much. The ego grew more than the art did. Writing became more of a duty than joy. That was a burden I couldn’t honestly defend. It was either kill the pseudonym or leave the artistic love of my life behind. Deke had to go. He actually went peacefully, after a few weeks of holding myself down and forcing these fingers not to type there any more.

Now I’m plain Patrick again. Just driving a bus, man. Refinishing Beloved’s family dining table, a lovely piece of maple that has witnessed 80 years of her family’s (and ours) meals yet needed a loving hand. Yard work at this wonderful home we have evolved into. Constant cleaning and maintenance doing homage to the wonderful Lady Alice whose home this originally was as we loved her from across the street. Putting down roots into a home we dearly long to purchase evokes new energy into souls long pushed simply to find shelter. Yes, I am happy. It is wonderful to be here as the world seems hell-bent upon destroying itself. I cannot concentrate on the news of our constant peril whilst surrounded by the happiness I have spent a lifetime earnestly seeking. Fuck the bad, I’ll enjoy the good. While it’s here, nobody can wrestle this domestic bliss I have finally found.

So, many friends tentatively ask, “Where is this book you talk so much about?” The Tilikum Troll is a project-in-progress, folks. Just like the dining table. The yard. Washing of wood floors, resting from an intense 56-hour work week on a 61-year-old body. Yet, there’s a nagging voice within (probably Ma’s) that I heard while producing my last book, urging me to put great energy into finishing Terry. There’s also a secondary nag wondering why I haven’t finished the already-1,200-page-long novel I began when my now-24-year-old son was an infant. Gooch, it’s named, a fun rambling tale of a lad who grows up in a desert town strangely similar to the one I love to remember. Hey, ask anybody who loves me and they’ll tell you I’m the world’s biggest procrastinator. It took me 10 years to finish building my daughter’s doll house. But hey, folks, it was one badass creation.

We all wonder if we’ll have time to finish the major projects in our lives. My answer is that time is relative, and that means my family comes first. To provide this home as a final safe-haven is my constant goal. I must work hard at what I do, driving a city bus, to earn a wage that keeps this beautiful roof above us. Given that I still have the energy of what I do, I can only rest a bit each weekend before the urge to create/clean/busybody myself around takes precedence.

The writer’s hand with my father’s, the music maker/creator. October 8, 2018. This was our last photo together.

Time was the underlying reason for this post. I hinted at it last time I wrote, but failed to expound upon it. Let’s explore that from a bus operator’s view. Only while working does this constant drive me, because my job is dedicated to the tick-tock of the world clock. When you “sign work” for each of three segments per year, you learn to structure life around each second. As a “relief operator”, which means I start my job by relieving an operator en route, it is imperative to count time backwards.

3504 begins at 5/Alder in Downtown Portland at exactly 12:06 p.m. In order to be nearby at a time two transit points earlier, I arrive at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 11:35 a.m. To get there by then, I must arrive at my garage by 11:00 a.m., park my car, walk inside and fill my water jug, use the potty if necessary (finding an available restroom during COVID can be challenging, so you even plan potty breaks accordingly), and meet Line 17 by 11:11 a.m. In order to make that bus, I have to leave home by 10:35 a.m., having arisen from my slumber by 9:15. At my advancing age, first potty takes an average of 20 minutes in which time the bodily functions must be met, then pills/dietary supplements ingested and teeth flossed/brushed. Shower takes about 10-12 minutes because my hair is purposely getting longer and more time-intensive to keep clean. Breakfast? Ha! I’m lucky to find time in rainy Portland to find a dry spot to enjoy my fast-breaking, which usually means I may have to drive before eating at my first layover. It’s not healthy and something I constantly promise myself to improve upon but have a hard time doing. Why? Now let’s move the clock forward a bit.

My shift is about 2.75 round trips. At the end of the line each way, I have about 30 minutes (or less depending on traffic; the schedule tells me when I must leave the next trip) to scan the bus for trash or left-behind items, potty, eat, walk/stretch, talk with Beloved, vape (nicotine is this operator’s lifelong addiction) and collect my thoughts before gaining the seat again for the next exciting round. It takes a deep breath and affirmation for a safe roll before this is possible. Then, no matter how silly I have been on the phone or while conversing with regulars waiting for “go-time”, I transition into professionalism. “Be Safe,” I remind myself each time the wheels leave the curb.

It doesn’t stop with meeting my bus on time, every day. “If you’re not there 15 minutes early, you’re late,” is a quote we’re drilled with from Training Day One. After that, I’m still watching the clock. I’m usually late that first run because it takes time to get the details of the roll from the wonderful lady operator I relieve, stow my gear, log in to the onboard Computer Aided Dispatch console, adjust seat and mirrors to my personal specifications and simply prepare to guide the Beast. If Lady Op is on time, which she usually is, I can bank upon getting started a minute or two behind schedule. That’s okay, because I know that given the route’s schedule flexes I can arrive at the end of the line a minute early or just on time. It’s not a major consideration because my first break is usually a wash. I don’t need many moments then. Only later do these precious minutes give me the necessary breathing time.

Along the route, time is constantly monitored. Time points must be arrived at a bit late or just on time to keep the number crunchers satisfied and serious passengers precisely-served. (Have you, as a bus passenger, ever found yourself closely-monitoring the progress of the bus you’re hoping to catch “on time”, only to arrive at your stop early, only to see the tail-end of the bus lumbering past? Too-horribly frustrating to fathom, I understand.) I time my route to arrive precisely when I’m scheduled to be there, even just a bit later. However, if you’re not prepared enough to be there when I arrive, you are betting 50-50. If you’re on the other side of the street and I’m running a bit behind and my light is green, you have arrived early for the next bus. I will not encourage unsafe behavior to those who would run across a busy intersection against the light to catch my bus. Sorry, but that’s the way of transit. If you’re not there 2-3 minutes early, you’re just as late for the bus as if I’m not at my relief point 5-10 minutes before it is supposed to arrive. At that point, you’re early for the next bus.

The Earth orbits the Sun as surely as I monitor my speed to arrive at the next stop precisely after the time I’m supposed to be there. Just for you, dear riders. It takes years of practice to know how to do this while calculating traffic/construction delays along the route. When you board and fail to acknowledge the human at the wheel who cordially greets you, it is very rude. Especially if you board without even looking at me while failing to show valid fare and subsequently fail to thank me for a safely-smooth ride when you exit my rolling office. You have been delivered precisely at your stop when transit has deemed it so, yet you take it for granted. You’re welcome.

All day. Every day I’m behind the wheel, you can be assured of my constant attention to detail. Keeping my ride away from the constant inconsiderates who fail to adhere to the simplest of traffic codes. Reading traffic lights to avoid sudden stops or otherwise-brake pedal-heavy stops to keep your coffee cups precisely upright on the seat next to you. (Whenever scouting the bus at the end of the line to find a puddle of coffee on a seat, I scold myself for not keeping their cup safely upright, my Scots-Irish blood boiling for knowing I cost them a fiver or more for that custom cup of java tipping over due to any miscalculation of the brake pedal.)

Brothers Blue and Daddy, who taught us ALL how to drive early and often.

Keeping a constant eye on the clock all day is not only for customer service. It also preserves the time at the end of the line where I can take a break. The longer I’m out of the seat is elixir for the aching joints and muscles of this aging operator’s body. Hips, lower back, shoulders, ankles and neck are all points my masseuse concentrates upon when I finally assume the position at Massage Envy every month. My whole body aches every day. “Just Drive”, they tell me when I insist passengers obey transit code, not having the slightest idea how many of us suffer from repetitive-motion injuries while doing just that.

Seconds evolve into minutes and then hours and weeks and months and years then decades of constant abuse in a poorly-designed seat which is the target of too many complaints vs. commendations for the efforts we constantly practice to provide the smoothest/safest ride for the buck, the best deal any metropolis has to offer.(Sometimes a run-on sentence works when you’re trying to describe a time-worn and never-ending sequence too many fail to recognize.)

Still, many transit riders step aboard and fail to realize what pains that person at the wheel has taken to arrive where they have been waiting in a cold rain. Maybe you’re five minutes late and they timed their arrival to match when you’re supposed to be there, only to be “failed by transit yet again”. They don’t know or care that the problem passenger 30 minutes earlier took 15 minutes to deal with, or that traffic 45-minutes earlier set you late. All they know is they’re drenched having stood in the rain longer than anticipated and they are pissed. At you. Even though you have broken a few rules to try and make up the time lost, or you’re still soulfully-bruised by the incident yet gamely try to apologize for being late. The treatment we receive is not commensurate to the pain we have already endured. When the delayed passengers arrive at their stop and fail to thank me for the safe/smooth ride, I feel insulted and they are annoyed to be a few minutes late even though I have made up several minutes while they were on board.

Hey, that’s transit. It’s a cheap ride but we try to make it well worth the few bucks paid.

After dropping off paperwork/Lost&Found with the Station Agent upon my return at the end-of-shift, I make my way back to the car I left behind 11.5 hours earlier after a restroom stop. After a 20-minute drive home, my schedule is still on track. Eat, relax a few. Clean the kitchen. Prepare drinks for the next day. Take meds, brush teeth, drink boatloads of water to help the body repair what the previous day has broken. Don sleep machine torture apparatus and meditate into a hopefully-dreamless/nightmare free slumber. Only to awaken to the alarm reminding you too soon it’s time to rinse and repeat.

Yeah, I hate the clock, but it’s constantly there. Except NOW. It’s my weekend and the ticker can take a flying leap into go-fuck-yourself-for-all-I-care land. I plan to sleep a blissful nine hours now. And NO, I will NOT work my day off, thank you very much. I’ve had enough.

Patrick, 1969, 4th Grade
Florence, Arizona

My Post-Deke Life

It’s hard to kill a pseudonym. After eight years of living a writer’s manufactured dual personality, you realize how dependent upon it you are. Each time an idea for a blog post comes up, it must be put down like a sick pet. You cannot resurrect what has no hope of living. It’s tragic and yet gives life to one: either your future or a memory. At this point, I’m happy enough with the nostalgia. Of loving what once was while taking those memories forward and growing happily onward.

Driving a bus for the paycheck is a constant challenge. Your life as a transit operator is dependent upon the clock. Given I was born in 1960 and came of realization when the hippies were all the rage, just as MLK then Bobby were murdered, I learned early that time is relevant yet not vital. Only while on the job does the clock mean anything. We live second-to-second knowing each tick could be our last. Will I die suddenly of a heart attack behind the wheel or “peacefully sleeping”? The latter is surely the preferable of the two.

What if I suffer the unmentionable while in service and fail to secure the bus before I succumb? My passengers’ safety is paramount to everything I do behind the wheel, so this is something my subconscious is tasked to remember before my brain’s control gives way to the ages.

It’s certainly not the topmost thought as I drive The Beast. Mostly, I’m busily predicting the foolish antics of other motorists and constantly formulating Plan A, B and C (sometimes D) to prepare for the worst. Dad taught me this first, then my employer. I had been practicing it for decades before gaining the operator’s seat of a 42-foot long/40,000 lb. bus, so it’s second nature. The added onus of passengers makes this even more imperative a task.

Allow your mind to wander too far from the present and you might miss that one scan that saves some family a tragedy.

“Always expect other drivers to do the worst thing possible,” Dad taught me, “and be ready for it.”

This simple lesson has saved my ass so many times it’s impossible to document each incident. And that was before I became a bus operator.

Today I celebrate my ninth anniversary as a city bus operator. Save for a minor incident within the bus yard, I have avoided countless collisions. While YOU may think this is a great accomplishment, I cannot. It’s a struggle to guide the Beast every day. Each time I safely arrive to set the brake in my assigned track, I heave a heavy sigh of relief.

I turn the bus off thanking whatever deity or stroke of luck I am blessed to have guiding me for yet another “safe” day. It doesn’t matter how many schmucks versus honest exclamations of gratitude I’ve delivered safely to their destinations. The end result is the same: a grateful and satisfying sigh of relief.

My drive home is usually late at night, traffic at minimum, car’s computer all but driving me effortlessly home. Once here, I’m finally able to relax. After 13 hours, I’m back where peace reigns. My soul can breathe again. Then, it’s back to bed to rest up for the next grueling shift.

Sometimes soon, I promise to return to writing my novel. Leaving Deke behind has been a challenge I didn’t realize would be so difficult. Now, I’m simply allowing myself to let it go. Idea for a blog post? Nixed, deleted, ignored. Some nights I don’t even think about my previous life as a blogger. The further behind it is the easier it is to finally relax.

Writers need to write. However, we also must find peace between projects. Eight years was more than enough. Now, I’m eager to finish my novel. Next time I write it will be to work on the novel’s finale. I think I can see it… the haze is lifting now that Deke has died a peaceful death. He’s leaving me and the future is about to become.

Deke N. Blue is My Alter-Ego

https://fromthedriverside.blogspot.com/2020/03/day-one-my-corona-virus-journal.html

Life Renewed on A Bus

Love Renewed on a Bus

By Patrick Brian Coomer

© 2023

Anne didn’t know what led her to the bus stop that Monday morning. Habit, more or less. The start of a week which would be as never before, nor ever again.

Her hose was torn, clothing semi-fresh. Electric had cut off two nights ago during the rinse cycle. Everything had changed in five days.

Was her firm was still operating? Doom bloomed in shades of black grey, but Anne continued as if nothing had happened.

But life’s finality had happened. The facts assaulted her from every direction. She was not able to accept the truth, because it had no comparable reality.

A week earlier, she braved a late-winter blizzard to catch Line 9 at the Powell/Milwaukie westbound stop. To work. That then-constant trek to do another’s bidding. For beans, not quite cooked. Anne tapped her transit pass, pivoting her eyes away from the bus driver. No contact desired nor notice of that annoying “Gene the too-happy bus driver” bouncing off her hardened shell.

He’s just a fucking bus driver, she thought. Just drive the bus like you’re paid to. It’s too damn early to be smiling.

Anne settled uneasily next to last night’s hangover. In the full rush hour bus, there was no other choice. She hated standing because it disrupted her musical balance.

Just inches away, Jim Beam’s poster boy was snoozing the night off, unaware of anything around him. His week-old stubble accentuated last decade’s BudLight T-shirt. He didn’t notice the exquisitely dressed legal secretary sitting next to him wearing lavender perfume.

Good thing he’s out of it, she thought. Good grief, how he reeks!

Amidst an abnormal amount of coughing and sneezing, Anne registered nothing over the noise-cancelling headphones blasting her favorite Tedeschi Trucks tune. Sweet and Low helped prep her for the coming onslaught of legal briefs for attorneys demanding impossible deadlines. She dreamed of a future lover cuddling her on a brisk January eve. She sighed, resigned to yet another silky fantasy.

Anne snorted in condescension. Perhaps her father was right, a law degree would elevate her from bottom-feeder hell to greatness.

“With just a bit of work,” he once told her, “you will rise well above the hopeless nobodies.”

Like Gene, the bus driver. God help her if his ilk was all her future held.

Anne considered Gene unskilled labor. However, his people skills were superb. He always complimented her style while extending warm greetings, which she routinely ignored yet secretly enjoyed. Nobody else complimented her carefully groomed hair, immaculate and stylish fashion, and understated array of half-moon jewelry. Her side of the moon was left; Daddy wore the right.

Gene was intent upon catching her attention. She thought he was flirting. But why would a 60-something guy do so with a 23-year-old? Disgusting. Still, his kindness was intriguing as her music muted his greetings.

This bus operator smiled, complimenting everyone. Greeting many by name. They responded warmly. A grandmotherly type kissed him on his cheek as he spread his arms in a loud and boisterous greeting. Her husband followed, smiling broadly. Anne watched these moments with disgust.

Smarmy and unbecoming a gentleman, she scoffed. Flirtatious, perhaps? After months of observation, she gradually doubted it. From her lofty perch, she wondered why Gene was so upbeat. Was that the only way he could reconcile himself to his monotonous career?

She exited the bus at 6^th and Alder, this time using the front door.

“Thank you,” she said. Gene was briefly startled, but his smile remained. It was the first time she had spoken to him, and he had driven her ride for 10 years.

“No,” he replied, “thank you! And don’t forget to sing today, Annie. Hope you accomplish something memorable!” He winked at her and flashed his trademark grin.

Anne stopped in her tracks, staring at him, mouth open. She had planned to disarm his supposed faux charm. Instead, Anne nodded curtly and stepped off.

Dodging the homelessness smothering the bus stop, she nimbly stepped off in a daze. How could he know her nickname, or that she sang?

Since childhood, she had cultivated a lovely alto-soprano voice through thousands of hours of lessons and practice. Diligently working her way up through the St. Patrick’s Cathedral Youth Choir to become junior lead soprano at 14, she hoped to become an understudy to the Great Lupe Armas with the Portland Opera.

Anne didn’t realize anyone heard as she sang along to her tunes on the bus.

Gene heard everything on his bus. He politely asked people to silence the audio on their cellphones several times a shift. Harmoniously attuned to the mechanical sounds of his rolling office, he needed to hear street noises, escalating passenger drama and anything besides artificial nonsense. He loved hearing Anne sing. Gene’s father had been a gifted tenor; he instantly recognized talent.

* * * * *

This winsome lass who projected rudeness was the niece of Gene’s favorite passenger. Anne’s Uncle Dan was Gene’s drinking partner at Kell’s Pub, and regularly rode his relief trip. Dan always spoke highly of his spirited niece.

“She has always been a cute lil’ songbird,” Dan told him. “Since she was about, say, three or so, ’Lil Annie (that’s what I call her even though my sister hates it), has sung her way through life. It has always been hard for her because she’d rather sing to herself than talk to others.

“I don’t know how she stomachs those lawyers. Must drive her absolutely ratshit. Only person I know she actually talks to is her papa. They are inseparable, those two.” Dan shook his head, his wistful smile replacing a pained smirk.

Gene smiled at the connection. Dan’s description confirmed the lovely songbird’s identity.

From that point on, Gene worked diligently to crack Anne’s hard shell. Then, the pandemic intervened. It drew them close with a force neither could have ever imagined.

* * * * *

Gene walked into a mostly-silent garage. Station Agent Alvin was genuinely surprised to see him.

“Gene!” Alvin exclaimed. “You’re a welcome sight!”

He gratefully shook his friend’s hand. Gene and Alvin were classmates, having risen together through tumultuous decades of Corporata’s assault upon transit.

“God, it’s good to see you, lad. How’s the family?”

Alvin bowed his head, gradually glancing back upward. “Better than most. Lost Mom and Dad a few weeks back, but the wife and kids are still healthy, thank God.”

“That’s wonderful news, regardless,” Gene said, ending it with a painful sigh both recognized.

“Both your parents were very dear to me,” Gene added. “They were my Line Trainers. Their lessons have guided me for decades in this job, buddy. My condolences to you, little brother.”

They shared a silence.

Alvin smiled in pain, his head drooping. A river of tears rushed down his cheeks. Another moment of silence. Neither wanted the other to see his face.

“Seems we fared better than most,” Gene said quietly, reaching for something good through his own pain.

Alvin sniffed, wiping his eyes with a shirt sleeve. His red eyes rose to meet Gene’s.

“Yeah, but we’re not alone,” Alvin said, his voice choking on emotion. “Al Bones was in a while ago to drive his Dirty 3, and a few Extra Board ops are out there too. Other than that, I’ve had a couple hundred call-ins and the other garages are about the same.”

Alvin sobbed a snort. Fingers poised upon his desk, eyes dripping grief in a brief interlude, he continued.

“Forty operators died over the past seven hours. We might salvage a few ops out of all this. But the calls… they’re so damn sad. Their husbands, wives, children… calling in…” At this, Alvin stopped. Unable to speak, his shoulders tremored. He turned away and walked back to snatch a tissue from a hidden alcove behind the counter.

Both men grieved. Over 750 of their co-workers had perished. The toll was too heavy for either to comprehend. Of the Portland metro population of 2.5 million souls, maybe 70,000 remained.

Stores were ransacked, food supplies virtually exhausted. Trash uncollected, the wind flitted it about the few vehicles venturing into a world punctuated with gunfire between factions of militia wannabes. Most survivors locked themselves in their homes, and neighborhoods consolidated whatever stores they had to form collectives.

There were no public services; the government had instantly dissolved into nothingness. Nobody knew how many were left to lead them through their viral hell.

Somehow, transit survived. It rolled mostly empty buses and trains through deserted streets. Humanity vainly attempting to justify itself against the odds.

Every city department was down to just a few souls. They didn’t even know if they would be paid, or what that would mean. Banks were closed. There was no longer an economy. Survivors believed they needed to go places, even if there was nobody to serve them at whatever destination. Any attempt at normalcy was all anyone could do.

* * * * *

“You have Bus 4055 for your 902,” Alvin told him, handing Gene a trip sheet and a roll of ticket paper. Gene shoved it back across the counter.

“Nobody needs to pay now,” Gene said. “I haven’t accepted fare in two weeks.”

“Yeah,” Alvin said, “I get it. But Norm insists we give it out anyway.” They both laughed at the absurdity of the lone upper-management guru.

“Fuck him,” Gene said, laughing. “What’s he gonna do, fire me?”

Alvin chuckled. “He might try, but I say we both kick his ass. I’ll go left and you hit him with an undercut.”

Gene smiled. He shook Alvin’s hand again.

“Hey bud, you all set?” Gene asked. “I just shot a deer on my street a few days ago, so my freezer’s stocked. Until the electricity goes away.”

Alvin sighed. “We may have to take you up on that. Thanks. Where you holed up?”

“I just took possession of an ancient Victorian three blocks away,” he replied. “Had to bury the former occupants in the schoolyard, but I don’t think they mind my being there. 1420 Center Street. Come over later, I’ll throw some steaks on the coals. Got some potatoes and veggies from their garden too. It’ll be good to have some sense of normalcy. Say, around 6?”

“We’re there, bro,” Alvin replied. “Hey I found a whole shelf of Scotch at a liquor store. Want me to bring a bottle?”

“Bring three,” Gene chuckled. “Slainte. We’ll put it to good use. We can always call in sick tomorrow.”

Both laughed.

“I don’t want a 4000-series bus,” Gene said. “Can’t I have a 3500? They’re a lot easier to drive and my back hurts like fuck.”

“There’s only fuel in a few and Norm dictates we drive the newest ones. A 3500 would likely leave you on the side of the road with nobody to rescue you. Sorry, man.”

“Oh well,” Gene said, “this may be the last time I have to do this anyway. I’ve gone from 230 in seniority to about 15 in a week. Guess I can suffer through another shift in those new bastards. I miss the 2600s… they had some zip!”

“Be safe out there man,” Alvin said. “Lots of gunshots out on Powell lately. We’re on 135^th and I can’t sleep well at night because of the warfare out there. Even my 11-year-old sleeps with a loaded 12-gauge by his bed.”

“I hear ya, bud,” Gene replied. “Why don’t you move closer in? There’s a bunch of empty places here in the Brooklyn. Safety in numbers, and a few of us have taken over the area. It would be a lot closer commute anyway.”

They both laughed. Suddenly, each realized this might be their last time as interacting transit employees.

“You’d better get out to your bus,” Alvin said with mock authority. “It’s way past 902’s pullout time and you know how Norm loves optimum On-Time Performance stats.”

Gene laughed. “Fuck Norm and the bus he don’t know how to drive. But yeah, I’m outta here after I make the bladder gladder and grab a cup o’ joe from that pot I smell back in your domain.”

“Have a full Thermos to go,” Alvin said, swinging open the door separating the bullpen from his previously restricted area. “Just be sure to leave me a few cups. Stores running low here.”

“Gotcha brother,” Gene said, pausing to give his friend a bear hug when the door opened. Alvin hugged back, holding on just a moment longer than usual. They separated without looking at each other. Their love for one another thusly stated, nothing more was necessary.

Gene poured the entire pot’s content into his Thermos, but made sure to get another pot brewing. Sliding the steaming cauldron into his backpack, he strode out the door without looking back.

Ten minutes later, he guided his bus out of the yard, onto 17^th Avenue and the Center Garage stop, where he paused to pray. Then, he pointed it northbound. He didn’t even look for traffic. There was none.

* * * * *

Anne was dreaming a moment with her parents a few months earlier as she waited for the bus. It seemed years ago. Today, Gene was the only person she desperately needed to see. Everyone else was dead.

“Daddy! No, no no no… NO! Please let this be a fucking nightmare! I want to WAKE UP! PLEASE GOD, LET ME WAKE UP! DADDY? Why aren’t you answering me? FUCK FUCK FUCK!

“PLEASE GOD… make it ALL… just… go away.”

This disharmonic soliloquy sent her into spasms of grief. Grunting sobs, fist-clenching cries exploded outward. With nobody to notice, she allowed herself to mourn.

Anne needed somebody to lean on. After years of turning inward for solace, her soul screamed for acceptance. Gone was no longer her stubborn snobbery. It had been replaced by a sudden desperation for that once-scorned hug from humanity at-large.

She had depended solely upon her father for love and support. No boys in high school had his charm, his good looks or impeccable character. All they wanted was sex. No thanks, she told them. It wasn’t some quaint desire to protect her virginity. Just disinterest. None of the males she knew had the ability to engage in intelligent conversation. They also lacked interest in her thoughts or dreams. She found them all boorish, unworthy of her tempestuously artistic soul.

Now Anne wished one of those foolish boys had hit the mark, having survived to find her during this awful week. She was horrifyingly, completely… alone. In the span of five days, she lost all those who suffered her aloofness yet remained her closest confidantes.

Not only Dad, but Mom, Sis and her two brothers, Uncle Pete, Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Andy along with their newborn twins. Georgie, Hans, Moddit, Mary, Sam, Bird, Roger… all dead. Each of them and everyone on the fringes. Of her three closest friends, none of them answered her calls. It was paralytic; one short week when numbness replaced confidence.

* * * * *

The flu. A stupid little virus had killed nearly all the world’s population in less than three weeks. The bug hit Portland like a sledgehammer in the form of holy rollers. They lit up the Convention Center with devoted gyrations upon the unholy scepter of promised “redemption”, then sent forth missionaries who infected hundreds of unsuspecting Portlanders with their hidden assassin: the vastly lethal King Virus. Those infected returned home, and the bug infected entire locales. It ravaged Earth like a wildfire consuming a shriveled forest.

Only the strongest escaped King’s deadly grip. Most perished within a few days of contracting the virus. Those who survived wished they had been taken away as well, for they faced the nightmare of survival.

Meanwhile, other animals began to flourish. Humanity’s deathly pollution quickly subsided. The Earth began to reclaim itself after 200 years of abuse by those who now perished without so much as a daylong whimper. As money lost value, humans became even more violent. People  were murdered for a stash of Lay’s Potato Chips. Gunfire was a signal to find shelter.

Governments were castrated by humanity’s assassin. They initially downplayed the virus, their inaction vainly masking their inability to contain it. Within days, leaders became violently ill, then died. Only those unknowingly gifted a simple variation in human DNA were immune.

There was no news. No internet activity, radio, television or any other means of communication. In some areas, a few had communicated via ham radio. In some cases, they briefly united only to find each other stubbornly retaining political divides.

Mother Earth had long needed to cleanse itself of humanity’s poisonous grasp. Inevitably, the one species which should have saved itself, could not. This shining blue planet found its healing nirvana through humanity’s near extinction.

The sounds via which humanity roared for millennia were forever silenced. The wind rose victorious to accompany the birdsong soaring to reclaim nature’s harmony.

* * * * *

It was hard for Anne to function with any semblance of sanity. She hoped it was just a lucid nightmare. Her dismissive behavior toward others had sustained her to that point. Now, everything she knew was horribly obsolete. She wasn’t ready to become responsible for those weaker than she.

* * * * *

So it was, that morning as Anne arrived at her bus stop. It was habit, comforting in its commonplace ritual. She rose at 6:00 as her cell phone alarm chimed. Allowing herself one blissful snooze setting, Anne’s dream continued. Dad tugging at her hand, urging her forward as she marveled the scent of yet another spring bloom at Washington Park’s International Rose Test Garden. Mommy laughing at his corny dad jokes. The sun bathing Tilikum Crossing’s glaringly-white cable stays. Puffy Tyrannosaurus-Rex clouds chasing Bugs Bunny into Mr. Rogers’ cardigan sweater. Her skin felt the warmth of the sun, turning pink in preparation of bronzing her into beauty.

Bleepity-ring-a-bitty-do. The phone implored Anne to rise into today’s new round of despair. Hands moved to her eyes, which immediately filled with tears. She writhed in anger and disbelief. She wasn’t sure of which to be more afraid: nightmares of a comforting past, or the horrors of the now.

Anne blew her nose and sat up. Her senses clearing, she decided this strange new world demanded calm resolve. Daddy would have insisted.

She rose and showered, applying light makeup (a dash of blush and dawn’s touch of lipstick). She chose a bright-yellow blouse to accent a sky-blue skirt, with a green tartan Scottish cashmere scarf (purchased on her 18^th birthday trip to Edinburgh with her father). Perhaps hysteria-induced eccentricity led helped her pick the red Converse high-tops with bright-orange laces.

Anne exited and locked the door. Eyes glued to the sidewalk, the quarter-mile trek to the bus stop seemed longer than usual. She realized her headphones still hung upon the bedside lamppost and dismissed the urge to turn back. This accessory’s absence was negligible in light of a reunification with normalcy she hoped awaited her.

Each step echoing between the mostly-empty homes along Rhine Street, she trudged toward Milwaukie Avenue and turned right. The early-morning sunshine felt good. All she could hear were birds, a weird departure from the din of motorists honking angrily while racing to the next red light.

Silence assaulted her senses. No conversations from hordes of coffee-sippers dreading another workday.

An empty Line 66 bus roared past as Anne waited to cross Powell. It was the only vehicle in either direction, so she crossed the street against the light. A block ahead, the rail crossing blared a MAX train’s approach. A few moments later, she reached her stop at Powell/Milwaukie. Eight minutes ahead of schedule.

The normally busy intersection was silent; no traffic awaited the timed signals.

None a week prior realized they would be dead in a few days, headed to their non-existent funerals. No traffic, except a Coca-Cola delivery truck, its driver with nothing to deliver except his own grief.

Comfortably numbed by her headphone symphonics, she previously avoided noise. Today’s soda truck was the only semblance of normalcy in her new reality.

Where the hell was it going? Its very presence was disturbing. Anne wondered if the driver would trade Diet Coke in return for her companionship. She nodded at him as he drove by, and he returned the gesture in solidarity of their survivorship.

Anne stood, hands clenched tightly at her waist, her lithe body stooped like someone 40 years older. Hoping, even praying, to hear the familiar hum of rush hour traffic. Instead, only birds. Millions, singing more happily than normal. Amply celebrating humanity’s reckless self-destruction.

Two blocks away, the railroad crossing alarms once again blared through the eerie calm, startling her from aggrieved numbness. Normally, traffic would dull that noise, but in today’s silence it was piercing.

At least the MAX is still running. Each clickety-clack of the empty light rail car’s wheels was amplified a thousandfold.

Anne collapsed to her knees and began to laugh. Then just as suddenly, tears flowed down her cheeks and she spiraled into hysterics.

“Where’s Gene? You’re FUCKING LATE YOU BASTARD!”

He wasn’t. Still, she beat her fists on the sidewalk. Anne prayed he was still alive, still driving the bus she needed to come. It was now 7:20:45, almost a full minute prior to his normal arrival time. Anne’s watch was two minutes behind her phone, because she rarely synched them.

Was Gene gone, like most of the city? She sobbed, begging any cursed entity to deliver her last hope of normalcy to that lonely street corner.

After a few moments, she heard the hum of a diesel engine accelerating up the incline from the rail underpass at 17^th Avenue. It was entirely too loud to be true. Anne glanced eastward to make sure her ears and eyes connected. Sure enough, a bus approached, its overhead sign read “9 to Portland/Masks Required”. As it drew close, she saw the route sign in the right corner of the windshield declaring it was indeed “902”.

Anne stared, hoping to see Gene in the seat. She couldn’t tell… the operator was obscured by early morning sunshine. Anne waved frantically. Shading her eyes, she squinted in desperation.

Is it Gene? Lord, PLEASE let it be him!

The light turned green, and Anne raced toward the pole, waving both arms. She was intent on making sure the bus stopped. It didn’t matter if anyone occupied her office. She had to ride this bus at least one more time. Whoever drove it, she needed to greet them. To thank them for being there even though they had also lost those dearest them. To have another human to talk to after a weekend from hell, watching everyone she had ever loved fall into oblivion.

The previous silence was dimmed by the diesel engine’s slowing, air brakes assisting the 20-ton Gillig easing into the stop.

Bus No. 3505 stopped, but the doors didn’t open. Anne stared, but the operator was looking down, facing left, his back to her. Finally, the bus door eased open. To Anne’s ecstatic surprise, Gene swung his barrier open and walked out, enveloping her in a deep, fatherly hug.

Tears dripped from his eyes. Never having had any meaningful conversation, operator and passenger were equally overjoyed to see one another. While one week ago she sneered at him, now she eagerly returned his hug. A full minute passed as they poured out their collective grief in a mutual embrace. He swung her through the air, jubilantly celebrating their reunion.

Gene had lost not only his beloved wife, but also his entire family, numbering 22 loved ones and scores of friends, coworkers and passengers. He boarded only two passengers since the transit center. Empty again at the 82^nd time point, he stopped for 10 minutes. There, he simply cried. He missed the early-morning grumps, sullen teenagers enroute to high school, the sullen drunks not ready to awaken. Hoping to see at least one of his regulars, he was rewarded when Al boarded at 52^nd Street. Both were relieved each other survived.

Now, Gene’s grief was etched into his smiling soul. His sobs shook Anne’s slight frame. Her own attempted to match his. Anne felt genuinely sorry for him despite her own grief.

Anne began to feel empathy for the first time in her life. At first, his hug had been a great shock. No other male other than her father or a rare uncle had bestowed such affection upon her. Gene’s sobs echoed off the piano store walls across Powell. Rocking to and fro, holding her tighter with each sway, he murmured into her ear how ecstatic he was to see her. Alive.

Anne began to sob with him. Each heave of her chest brought them closer together. Time stood still while Anne patted Gene’s back, soothing him. Her formerly icy resolve weakened as their combined sadness consumed the moment.

He began to calm, but still held her close. He felt like he was hugging the ghost of his beloved daughter. He realized Anne had likely lost many of her own family. Their tears mingled, becoming a shared river of grief.

Finally. For two days, she had hidden within a shroud of denial. Now, she was no longer alone. Her unlikely rescuer reigned from the operator’s seat of a 20-ton city bus.

* * * * *

Seated inside the bus, Al watched Gene cradle the young lady, each begging solace. Their embrace reaffirmed his belief that love reigned supreme through that which had devastated humanity.

Al chose the back door to exit. He had nowhere else to go, and feared the unbridled violence Downtown Portland offered. Preferring the serenity of strolling through a peaceful yet ghostly neighborhood to the unknown terrors ahead, Al eased his walker to the sidewalk. He paused, watching Gene and the equally-aggrieved lass. He smiled at the sight, remembering his reunion with his Flora when he returned safely from World War II. This reunion was different, but weirdly the same, a few days divided by years.

The morning sun was brightly upon them. Looking down, Al felt lucky to have nobody left to grieve. He was 92, childless, an only son of parents gone six decades earlier. He accepted loneliness. Surprised the pandemic had spared him, he was sad for those left behind. He believed his survival must have purpose. Not knowing what it was, he would accept whatever happened.

Al shuffled up to Gene and Anne. Murmuring words of consolation, placing both his hands upon them. Both wrapped their free arm around Al, forming a triumvirate of comfort. Their tears ended as he drew them close. Massaging their shoulders, he helped them grieve. Al was all too familiar with that emotion. He knew too many who failed to feel, then later perished from prolonged heartbreak.

Anne broke the group hug to reach into her purse. She offered them tissues before taking one for herself. Each used theirs, backs turned to one another in practiced embarrassment. As they turned toward each other, each chuckled.

“I guess we needn’t feel shame for shedding tears,” Al said. “Nobody but us to see them.”

“We are here,” Anne said, “and I’m glad. At least we can share our grief. I’ve been so alone the past three days! I showed up hoping Gene would bring some normalcy to this nightmare. You and your damn cheery goodwill shit.”

“There you are,” Gene said softly. “I’m so glad to see you again, lass.”

“I missed me too,” Anne said, smiling.

“Oh,” Gene sighed, “how I have longed to hear your voice, Annie girl.”

Anne was shocked. “What? That’s what Uncle Dan called me!”

She stared dumbstruck up at Gene, not understanding how he could possibly know her uncle’s pet name for her.

Al’s ears perked up at this point. He knew Dan too, having had many fascinating conversations with a fellow WWII veteran. He had also learned to love Anne without being introduced. He sat, refreshing his pipe with a bulge of what his sons once called “Barnyard No. 9”. Lighting the pile, he settled back to absorb the unfolding love story.

Gene stepped closer to the fragile girl who desperately grappled for strength through her indescribable grief, gently cupping her downturned chin in his left hand to meet his gaze.

He wiped her tears with his thumbs. He kissed her forehead and drew her close as only a father knew how, nestling her chin into his shoulder. Gene patted her back as he would burp an infant, his other hand palming her head, keeping her close. He rested his chin atop her head, swaying with her gently. When he spoke, it was in a calm tone, each word carefully considered.

“Dan was my dear friend for many years,” he said. “He bragged about you, lass. Your uncle marveled at your pitch-perfect vocals, your fierce determination. For years, sweetheart, Dan spent his daily 20 minutes on my bus describing, in utter awe of his one, beloved niece. I grew to know you long before you stepped upon my ride.

“When I first saw you, I knew you to be the niece he so lovingly described. Especially now, I am so truly grateful. Annie, my dear lass, I now offer myself where he left off. I am so damn sorry everyone has left you. I, too, miss your uncle more than I could ever describe.”

Gene stepped back, shading his tears with his hands with a bow worthy of Scottish nobility. Anne cupped her mouth with both hands, touched by the gesture. Remembering etiquette training from her travels to Scotland, she curtsied in return.

“I am truly honored, kind sir,” she replied. Her tears continually flooded her vision, but it was a sight she would never forget.

“You must accept you’re forever stuck with me,” Gene said. “I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. Once bonded, I’m hopelessly devoted to my child-… er, I mean, younger friends. But yes, you are young enough to be my grandchild. Still,” brushing off another memory, “I hope we can find solace in each other, given…”

Anne sighed, breaking away from him to light a cigarette. She had tried to quit smoking several times but walking into a deserted Plaid Pantry a day earlier, she grabbed every carton of American Spirits she could cram into her backpack.

What the fuck? I have no reason to quit now. Whazzit gonna do, kill me?

Puffing a furious first hit, she absorbed the moment as her exhale clouded their shared stare.

No wonder he reached out to me all these years! He already knew me!

Suddenly angry, “How long have you known who I am and failed to address me by name?”

Startled, Gene felt assaulted. Turning his back to Anne and Al, he boarded the bus to gain some composure. He turned off the motor. Transit can wait, he told himself. This was a moment he figured would come, albeit under different circumstances.

He blew his nose, wiping his eyes with a dry corner. After a few deep breaths, he turned and exited the bus, stopping toe-to-toe with Anne. He felt accused, somewhat defensive given the hundreds of times he had complimented the lass in vain attempts to engage her.

“I tried to connect,” he explained, “but you wouldn’t even look at me. I refrained from calling you by name because I simply wanted to see you. Without using my sleeved ace.

“Still, you treated me with disdain, like many others I greeted cheerfully every morning.” He gestured aimlessly, with both palms turned upward, unable to continue. He shrugged. Fresh tears poured down his cheeks with the memory of being shunned so many times.

Anne listened, arms crossed, left hand dangling her smoke, right index finger crooked against her mouth in silent respect of an elder addressing her.

“I wasn’t going to push you,” Gene continued, “knowing my position required tact. Years ago, I decided my one goal in this job was to simply acknowledge people. They go from place to place, finding little or no kindness. I just needed them to know I do care. Every once in a while, a regular passenger would recognize my feeble attempts at making their day just a bit brighter, to know that not only did I want to drive them safely to their destination, but to also afford them an opportunity to make a connection with a fellow citizen of this world we all share. Because, dear lass, if nobody else you encounter during the day gives a damn, why not accept the one who does?”

Gene paused, sadly remembering all those with whom he had made a connection, and how they expressed their gratitude for his attempts to brighten their gloom. He stared toward the Ross Island Bridge, totally deserted. Instead of the emptiness which assaulted his vision, his mind replaced it with a memory of the bustling metropolis destroyed by this damned pandemic. It took every ounce of strength he could muster to return to their shared moment.

Taking her hands into his, but without meeting her gaze, he continued. To look at her would make his next words impossible.

“I watched you grow from a gangly pre-teen into the beautiful young woman I now behold. Alone yet lovely, now tortured by the grief we all feel. What was I supposed to do with someone plugged in and tuned out like the rest of her generation? Beg? Sorry kid, I stop short of sacrificing my pride for callousness.”

Al sighed from 10 feet away. He knew all too well how Gene had suffered Anne’s callous indifference, having witnessed each attempt to connect.

Anne stepped back from Gene, staring at her shoes. Al thought she felt shameful. Gene feared he had shown too much anger, ashamed for his outburst.

The two new friends sighed. Al meanwhile, marveled at humanity’s downfall. A lone Honda sped through the red light at Powell, zipping past them at 70mph, amplified muffler overcompensating for a severe lack of combustive muscle.

Anne and Gene faced each other, identically stubborn. Arms crossed, both dealing with internal pain yet trying to recognize newfound common ground. It was up to her, Anne realized, to make things right. She dropped her cigarette and twisted it dead under her Converse heel. Gene had made daily attempts to engage her over the years, and she had consistently ignored him. Until this moment, when she needed him most. She felt childish, selfish and embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry,” she sighed.

Gene lit a cigarette of his own. “Maybe we should step aboard and toke up a joint.” He laughed.

Anne laughed in surprise. “I’ll pass on the pot, but I could sure use a wee dram about now.”

Gene chuckled. “I’ve got several bottles stolen from a liquor store at home, but never will you catch me nipping on the job. We beat the hell outta that virus, didn’t we? What’s a toke gonna do us now?”

Anne laughed, fishing in her jacket for a tube containing her “go to roll” she would have sneaked on her lunch hour. It felt liberating to smoke pot with someone 40 years her senior without being admonished.

She held it high to the sky, then brought it to her lips with lighter in opposite hand. Al, who had never partaken in his long life, saw and heard the moment, jumping up to join them again. Anne ceremoniously lit the doobie with her Homer Simpson lighter. She drew deeply, offering it to Gene. He paused, still feeling “transit responsible”, then then realizing their combined reality, pinched the joint into his reluctant but welcoming fingers. For years he had abstained in fear of being caught “dirty” in a random piss theft.

In defiance of a decades-long ridiculousness regarding cannabis, Gene took his first hit of pot in decades. Unlike his filtered tobacco cigarettes full of carcinogenic chemicals, the smoke was at once exhilarating yet simultaneously harsh. He held it as long as he could, snarking, choking, allowing the pungent smoke to overtake years of resistance before coughing it off. He leaned back into his bus, his eyes rolling skyward. Anne laughed in celebration of Gene’s “breaking the rules” nobody would ever care about.

Al ambled up. “Hey Gene, you gonna hold that thing untl it dies, or you gonna pass it?”

Startled, both Anne and Gene burst out laughing at the octogenarian’s willingness to join them in something his generation had long believed “devilish”, certainly frowned upon. In defiance to this, the 92-year-old pinched the joint and held it to his lips as he drew deeply. Without coughing, he held the hit a full five seconds before exhaling.

“Damn, kids,” he chuckled, “that beats the hell out of the 70s weed!”

The pot-induced seriousness exhaled into a trio of THC-induced silliness. All three found anything and everything suddenly hilarious, their laughter lighting up a previously-silent streetcorner with unexpected glee.

Just as suddenly, the scene turned serious, as pot can do. It also loosened their emotions, giving them freedom to express what each needed.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Gene said, passing Anne the joint. “I shouldn’t have come down so hard on you. I found out from your neighbor how your whole family…” He stopped abruptly, seeing his words’ immediate impact on her.

Anne nodded, her tears flowing. “They’re… all…” Unable to finish, she leaned her forehead into Gene’s shoulder. Joint smoldering, she quietly sobbed. She had not allowed herself to grieve. Until now.

Gene wrapped his arms around her.

“I’m so… very… sorry for all your loved ones,” Gene said. “But Annie girl, you’re not alone. I’m here, so is Al over there, and we’re part of this shit show together. For better or worse, as they say.”

Anne sniffed, and Gene handed her his clean handkerchief.

“How fucking noble you are,” Anne snorted into it.

“Yeah whatever,” Gene replied. “Just make sure you wash it before I get it back.”

Anne alternately laughed and sobbed, burying her head into his chest, gently pounding her fists into him. She sobbed there for several minutes. In that time, a pack of teenaged survivors racing each other blasted through the red light, jealously staring as Gene embraced an exquisitely beautiful young lady.

* * * * *

Gene’s watch reminded him he was now 27 minutes late. He didn’t care. He would likely arrive downtown in five minutes with an empty bus. Dispatch would likely roll him back to the garage after another round trip.

“Hey Annie,” he said softly, turning her head up so as to look into her eyes, “you want to stay over at my place? I have spare bedrooms galore, and I would truly savor your company. Nothing but grandfatherly intentions, of course.”

Anne chuckled, snuggling even closer into his embrace. She felt loved again, no longer alone. It was a feeling in which her grief was tenderly abated. She nodded silently into his chest, seeking comfort in one she had previously abhorred. Now she felt safe in this kind bus driver’s embrace.

“Got room for another?” Al chimed in, rolling his walker up to them.

Gene smiled. “Of course, Al! I’ll even give you the ground floor master bedroom, complete with your own full bath! Dinner every night at six, unless I have to work over.”

“I can cook,” Anne said, feeling relieved at not having to remain alone the rest of her unmarried life. “If you don’t mind burger-mac and spaghetti.”

Gene laughed. “Um, only when I’m too lazy to cook. My buddy Alvin is coming over at six for a barbecue. You’ll love him, and he’s bringing his wife and cute little buggers. It’s gonna be an even more fun party with you guys there too!”

“It’s a deal,” Al said, holding his hand toward the trio’s center. He was elated at the offer, as he had nowhere else to go. The thought of a bed’s comfort after a week’s living on the violent streets sounded luxurious.

“Deal,” Anne added, extending her hands. “I’ll stop by my place and bring whatever I can fit into my suitcase. I’m there. Believe me, that’s the best offer I’ve had… ever!”

With that, Anne collapsed to the sidewalk in fresh sobs. Both Al and Gene knelt down to join into her grieving embrace. They huddled close, each finding that human embrace an immediate comfort. It lasted several minutes as each mourned what had once been. As they heaved a final agonized sigh, they squeezed adjoining shoulders and broke apart, finally finding a tinge of comfort through what had been an unimaginable week.

* * * * *

Gene left his bus right there, quitting his now-nowhere job on the spot. Out of formality, he called Dispatch to inform them. Dispatcher Liza, sounding resigned yet understanding in her sweet way, sadly accepted his resignation. Gene invited her to that evening’s barbecue, and she accepted.

* * * * *

Alvin appeared with family in tow as promised. This reunion was met with enthusiastic approval from Anne and Al, Gene the most boisterous in greeting. He raised both Alvin’s boys high into the air and swung them around as they laughed in excitement at the thrill. Alvin’s wife Freddi broke into tears as she laughed, thinking of her boys’ grandfather freshly buried in their back yard.

Five other bus operators, Sam, Tre, Amy, Chuck and Lance, surprised them all, having heard from Liza over the radio of the party. Liza herself arrived with a case of Scotch and a rack of steaks she found in her freezer. Each transit worker gathered for a group prayer and hug of solidarity, silently thanking their own deity for finding others to share their collective pain.

Anne shyly offered her lovely voice to their combined music that first evening, and it filled a renewed Brooklyn neighborhood with relief. The joy of their music was borne by a brisk breeze off the Columbia Gorge, and about 150 people from nearby areas followed the music to join in solidarity for their combined survival.

* * * * *

Anne was soon swept off her feet by Roger Green, cellist/pianist/vocalist who ambled into the neighborhood that first night’s magical celebration. They moved next door to Gene and Al, and their joy resulted in a baby boy they named Albert Gene.

Lost children were drawn to the Brooklyn Neighborhood, enthusiastically welcomed by all who lived there. They found joy in the new homes of all who found themselves abandoned by death. Only love was acceptable; the hundreds of children drawn there found themselves part of a family larger than they had ever known. Within months, the local school was reopened by adults with no experience in teaching. All they knew was a need to help the young find a path back to normalcy after losing everything they had once been comforted by. Together, they found a way to teach one another, and tests became a challenge to become better humans. Classrooms were populated by those of all ages, each finding a way to teach one another in ways never imagined.

* * * * *

Al’s life was extended another 10 years, enjoying his new role as great grandfather to an expanding orphanage. He taught woodworking skills and baking to children eager to leave grief behind. His tenderness was fondly remembered by a rejuvenated city.

Gene lived his remaining 37 years as a writer documenting the plague and what transpired in its wake. He rambled about, shooting deer and rabbits for meat, occasionally venturing east via horseback, past the Cascades to find wild beef. He turned part of the local schoolyard into a community herb and vegetable garden.

On his 101st birthday, Gene enjoyed a rowdy drunk with hundreds, sharing several fat joints of the weed he grew in his back yard. Two weeks later, he took a nap to awaken in his surprised final moments. Holding Anne’s hand while tenderly consoling her, he said, “I’m finally gonna join my beloved Stacey Lynn. All is well, dear lass. Just… keep… singing.” With that, he died.

Gene’s funeral was broadcast to the world over the re-vamped internet, Anne sang Gene’s favorite tunes: James Taylor’s “You Can Close Your Eyes” and Jimmy Buffet’s “Banana Republic“, ending the service with his favorite Lowell George tune, “Willin’ “. Each was recorded by her husband, and they earned acclaim across the world. Her voice became widely-regarded as the finest of their time, and she toured the globe as New America’s premier vocalist.

Gene’s hundreds of friends recalled how he cared for many who had lost their way after “King ’20”. His infectious joviality resonated with all he met. They missed his ability to create fun, his art of distilling fine whiskey and the block parties he hosted. These gatherings became a constant tradition in the jovial celebrations defining 2030’s Stumptown.

* * * * *

Portland emerged momentarily stronger than before, its leftover population forging a spirit of cooperation and goodwill foreign to the previous world. The Portland Phenomenon became a positive infection. It spread quickly as the planet slowly healed itself from human-induced poisons.

It all stemmed from one bus operator who refused to kneel down to negativity. No matter the disposition of others, Gene treated all with respect and love.

New Portland built a memorial to Gene the Friendly Bus Operator in the middle of Pioneer Courthouse Square: his uniformed 12-foot sculpture with arms spread outward, embracing a beautiful passenger named Anne.

Thirty years later, an even more deadly virus struck. Humans finally became extinct.

* * * * *

In 2517, a spacecraft alighted upon 6^th Avenue at Pioneer Square. Towering pines had sprouted through the weaknesses in the pavement. Except for the breeze from the Columbia River, all the visitors could hear was birdsong. Tens of thousands of them, singing, chittering, calling to one another in pure joy. Symphonic nature had replaced humanity’s poisonous din.

The human-like beings landed on the moss-encrusted, heavily-vined street. They marveled at the crumbling towers hovering over the landscape where animals roamed freely.

They came upon a relatively-untouched monument of sorts, statues of humans, male and female.

“What beings dwelled here?” one of them asked. “Surely, they created this monument, these structural canyons. It seems to have been inhabited by many, several octens ago.”

Another replied, “A species which obviously valued something other than its own survival.”

“Truly,” another replied.

Just then, an owl graced her shoulder. She extended an arm, and it hopped down to her hand. They admired one another.

“Whatever species dominated here,” she said, closely examining the bird. “I hope it appreciated these winged creatures. They are spectacular! Look how they rise!”

“Evidently,” the latter said, “those who built this, failed to rise.”