Silence on the Bus....

Riding the bus is never just a way to get from one place to another. It has a very polarizing effect on me. When it is absolute hell it goes like this:

"Yeah, so, he doesn't have to pay child support when he's in jail. What's up with that?"
"I know, I know, and then Kaylie was talking shit about me on my MySpace page about Jeff."
I interject in their non sequitur exchange and say, "I'll switch spots with you, so I'm not sitting between you and your friend."
"Nah, it's fine."

When it is absolute bliss:

"My kid has the same hair as you. Except his mama's white, so it's not as nappy as yours. Oh, and since mixed babies are the best, he's a lot cuter than you are."
"Sir, I would hope so. It's hasn't been easy being this ugly."
"Oh shit! This dudes clownin' back here. Hey everybody...! [cue bus attention] this dude's clownnnnnnin'!"

But beyond everything I've seen while riding a bus (emo teens feeling each other up, and hicks spitting chaw straight onto the floor) and heard (a 15-year-old girl named Princess going straight from telling me a story about stabbing her step-daddy while he tried to rape her into trying to come and hang out at my house) and experienced (businessman on derelict bum fist fights) I have never experienced the ultimate nirvana in public transportation: absolute silence.

I owe my skill of instant reaction to the unexpected to baseball and my father. Baseball, being the most boring of all sports to play and watch gives a young man a lot of time to think. In the field you think through every possible scenario before the pitch, double in the gap to you left, single right at you, where the runners are, who is batting, stealing, sliding, who's on deck, what pitchers they have in the pen, a bunt, why they call it bunting, bunt cake, pan cake, pan fried, fried rice, rice paddy, paddy wagon, grand wagoneer, "I want a Jeep," ad infinitum. After a while this just becomes a meditative trance know as "the zone", where you not so much react as anticipate the world that you are now one with. My father taught me how to do this, himself being far too meditative for his own good.

I apply this to every moment of my life. When I ride the bus and we go over a bridge the scenario of a fiery bus crashing into the river runs through my mind: calm the passengers, move everyone to the bottom of the bus, release both hatches, swim to safety. Today, while I was thinking about what I would do if I was suddenly stabbed by the man audibly praying behind me, the bus stops dead. That is when I achieved full enlightenment. For those 10 blissful seconds it was completely silent and complete dark. The stop marquee restarts and simply says,

"Clever Systems -- Ltd."

Go bus, I'm late for work.