Get Off The Bus, Gus

He put on his work clothes (Dickies pants, T shirt and company-issue zip-up sweatshirt; they had a uniform service, which would be convenient, but he resisted; it felt like they'd then own him or something) and fed the cats. Locking the door, he stepped out into the watery sunshine. His yard was still filled with leaves, now matted down for the long haul after an unusually snowy December. Gotta get at that before the snow returns, he thought, knowing damn well he wouldn't.

He drove to work, getting stuck behind a school bus the last few miles. At least he wasn't stuck on the school bus, he mused. God, he had hated that bus ride as a kid. He'd been a pretty happy kid when they'd lived in town; those were the last years when parents had no problem with children making their own way to school. He'd walked with a bigger kid to kindergarten every day, then rode his bike the seven blocks for the next two years. He reveled in his freedom then. He would ride his bike to a friend's house after school sometimes, then call home to see if he could play there, presenting it to his mother as a fait accompli, thinking he was the cleverest lil' bastard in town. But then they'd moved out to the country: same school district, but different school. And the bus was brutal. Everyone seemed to hate him on sight. He got on near the end of an overloaded run, so kids were already often three to a seat, and the few remaining openings were not about to be ceded to the likes of him. He often had to sit on the floor, or try to take a seat and risk a punch in the face. He got beat up a lot in third and fourth grades. His little brother, three years younger, would take it upon himself to defend him, often successfully which was much worse. Their bus served a small Christian school as well as the public elementary; the Christian school enrolled students up to eighth grade, so the very front and the very back of the bus were ruled by great hulking bruisers and surly girls with helmet hair, all looking like they'd kill you for cigarettes. Every Christian school kid seemed to be a bully, even the smaller ones; he was sure, even now, that their teachers must have told them that only they were God's chosen people and everyone else was to be considered a personal punching bag. The ride home at night could take up to an hour sometimes, a long time to be spent sat upon. Yelling and complaining did no good, as the bus driver was nearly deaf and beyond caring what happened to little you anyway. That driver had a heart attack behind the wheel a few years after he moved on to middle school and rode a different bus. He had dropped off the last of his kids, turned around to head back to town, and turned all the way into a deep deep drainage ditch. It was an early lesson that life can suck, and then you might in fact die. Life is short, but who has the time or energy to possibly give it all the effort it deserves? Not I, french fry, he thought, as he pulled onto the side street that led to work, getting a last flip-off from the kid sitting in the bus's back seat.