I new it was going to be a long ride home on the bus when I boarded and informed the driver where I needed to get off and a small voice across the is pipped up”That's my stop too” like we were cousins or something. The owner of the voice did not look too weird, tall unshaven but basically OK dressed, he looked like a worker coming home from a day at the grind.
driver: I'm consistent. I know my surrounds ,usually all the time no matter where I am. So I was a little taken back when the guy chirped up about getting off at the same stop. But oh well; stranger thing have happened. So I returned to my book, a book I would like to finish sometime this week if at all possible. Then I heard, “I live on Emerald Isle. Do you know where that is at?” Argggh, and open ended statement with a question mark!! Do I answer or pretend I did not hear or just be pretentious and just ignore? Why do I have to have so many questions at the end of the day when my butt hurts,I want to get home and just me left alone? Maybe if I just respond with terse one or two word statements the guy will get the point to leave alone.
The guy, I am sure, is developmentally disabled, one of those who can pass for normal, lives in the community with supports, maintains a job and for the most part is socially acceptable and rides on buses, the same buses as I. The guy is also a 'low-talker' some one who mumbles and you cannot tell if he or she is talking to you but you don't know so you ask before you have time to think better and before you know you are engaged in a full-blow conversation you did not want be in. Well he snagged me twice but I was able to deftly disengage. Somewhere along the line he has learned that he can get a lot of attention with his low-talking. Well after being snagged twice I ignored him as he trolled for attention The second snag, ” hey, do you smoke? I am out of smokes until Thursday. I knew I was being scammed and went silent . He managed a few more snags other travelers before our bus stop. Just before we downloaded he tried one more time,” He do you have twenty-six cents?” he managed before the bus drew to our stop. He raised up his over sized (gallon) Mountain Dew mug. I could get it full if I had twenty-six cents. Actually, if I had not been totally packed up, I even had all the pockets on my backpack zipped, I would have flipped him a quarter or even a dollar, since I usually have wadded up piece low denominational currency in my pocket for just such circumstances-- buy not today. In fact I replied as I got of the bus. “I probably saved your life”. I am not even sure he heard me. He dismounted the bus first walked a couple of feet down the street on his way to the Emerald Isle turned and waited for me to come down the ramp like we were going to walk home, together, like old friends.
Not tonight, I hit the sidewalk with my joystick pushed all the way to the max. I cut hard to the left taking me on to sidewalk which led me to the parking lot of the stake center, I cut through the church parking lot each evening, by myself. I looked back to make sure he was not following—he was not-- he was just standing there like a little kid wishing for something the big kids had...quite possibly ...a life
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