and your chassis groans as the mexican ladies run with their hands up holding their transfers and the kids flip you the bird and i just shake my head cuz like marilyn manson, i don’t have enough middle fingers.

bus driver.

every lap dance, or chance meeting, job interview, blind date, or cross country airplane flight, at some point someone asks what i do for a living and i can only imagine what you say. but i know what you should say you should say Fuckr.

you dont deserve the e cuz e brings smiles.

you see us waiting for the Walk sign to glow so we can sprint across the street and race you to the bus stop but you don’t even care if we win, you’ll just blow off the stop if no one in your half million dollar office rang the little bell. you’ve got places to go. you’ve got a schedule to keep. you’ve got people to pick up. people other than us.

LA bus drivers are like doctors. they don’t like it if you haven’t waited a while for them. several differences between doctors and bus drivers though, let me work real hard to see if i can think up a few. hmmm. ok, heres one. doctors at least pretend to like the common man.

who rides the bus in LA? everyone. poets, priests, and politicians. maids, janitors, lots of security guards. old ladies, kids going to year-round-school, xbi agents, whores, drunkards, convicts, David Byrne, and the homeless who stretch out in the very back row and sleep and sleep and sleep. when they wake up and sober out they’ll apply for a job, yours, and they’ll get it. and you’ll go back to your old gig at the DMV.

bus driver, and i know you read this, all of you read this. I’ve seen you read the print outs as you kill time at your Chill Out stops. you blow off riders at the big intersections like Wilshire and LaBrea or Hollywood and Highland so you can make up time, but when you’re ahead of schedule you open your double doors at the Chill Out and punch holes in your stack of transfers and make all your passengers wait with you. you don’t care if it’s during rush hour. you don’t care if it’s at two in the afternoon. you have no life. why should others?

prolific sci fi typist Piers Anthony reversed my name for his pseudonym like no one would notice and no one noticed. but he’s a decent writer and in one of his books he tells the story of a young man who accidently kills Death so he must assume the duties. After he kills you, he reaches his hand into your chest and releases your soul, if it floats to the heavens, alls good in the hood, if it sags in his hand, he has to put it in his satchel and deliver it to the Depths.

look around the MTA locker room tomorrow morning, bus drivers who keep pulling away from the curb as the immigrant beats on your door, because there will be a bus drivers conventions in the Depths and all your pals will be there.

and when the convention is over theres a shuttle to a very dark place. very dark.

and trust me when i tell you that the shuttle driver will wait for you to climb aboard to take you there.

and finally you will experience

total

customer service.

lusting: madison