The Bus Stop

The Bus Stop

What was that noise? It sounded like the front door. But I locked the front door. I’m sure I did. Didn’t I? I turned on my left side in bed so I could see out the door into the hallway where the night light gave off a faint glow. I fisted the pillow back so my bottom ear could listen as well as my top one. There! A quiet noise. And something else. What was that sound? Someone was certainly coming down the hall. My stiff fingers were fumbling for the phone when Custer came running into my room and scooted under the bed. It was only the cat! It was only the cat.

Now, if my heart would just stop pounding. I sat up in bed, slid into my slippers and turned on the small nightstand lamp. I had to take a minute to tuck a few stray curlers back into my hairnet. “I may as well get up and go to the bathroom,” I told Custer, who I knew was listening from under the bed, but before I made it to the door I saw the shadow. Standing there in my satin nightgown, I watched as the shadow in the hall spilled into my doorway. Everything that happened next went by me in a mere second. I’ve read stories where people who are scared go into a slow motion time warp, but that’s not how it happened for me. For me it was all a blur.

How much I actually saw I’ll never know for sure because fear, and the blow to my head erased much of my recollection of that night.

Since I never got married nor had any children there was no one to fuss over me and pester me about continuing to live at home alone after being knocked unconscious during a robbery. No son or daughter saying, “You can’t possibly stay there now,” or constantly checking up on me to see that I’m all right and asking, “Are you sure you locked all your doors and windows?”, or insisting that I get a roommate. No, thankfully I am without that burden, so I got to recover peacefully in my own home. Nothing has changed.

Except I haven’t gone out of my house and I haven’t slept in my bed. I spend every night in my recliner with a baseball bat over my lap.

I spend a lot of time there, thinking. I go over and over what I told the police so they could catch that kid. I remember vividly his dishwater blond hair, gooed up and spiked straight up out of his head. And all those piercings! In his ears and his lips and nose. All that shiny jewelry in the face of a punk boy! Disgraceful. And the tattoo on his arm, I definitely remember that. A dragon. Red. Or black. That’s all I could remember, but it should be enough, I’d warrant.

“Surely by now they should have gone through all the neighborhoods and come up with the culprit.” Custer just blinked at this comment; he is more patient than I am.

I don’t want to be a nuisance, so I don’t call every day, but a few times a week I phone the police, just to check up and see if they’re still doing their job. They tell me they are “still on it” but they haven’t cracked the case yet. I just wonder about them. I sure would like for them to catch that kid so I can get a decent night’s sleep.

Now that I think about it, I’m not at all surprised that it was a punk kid who robbed me. I have always thought they are a menace to society, those boys who spike their hair and disfigure their bodies. They scare me and I always find a way to avoid one if I see him on the street. If there’s a pack of them, I just turn around and go home as fast as I can, taking side streets and backtracking so they can’t follow me and find out where I live. I can’t outrun them so I have to use my cunning.

And I’ve got a bit of cunning, too. I didn’t spend forty years teaching for nothing. They gave me a silver plaque, engraved with my name when I retired. It says, “To A Faithful And Committed Teacher And Friend.” I can see it right now, hanging on the wall over where the TV used to be.

It should also say, “Cunning.” The tricks those rapscallions used to play, trying to bamboozle me! But they soon learned there was no pulling the wool over this lady’s eyes, I can tell you that. Keeping one step ahead of the miscreants became second nature for me.

It’s been a good ten years since I quit teaching. A decade of peace and quiet. It’s funny, now that I think of it, how I can hardly remember the faces of the nice little girls who gave me no trouble. They used to bring me little presents at Christmas. I was always sure to write each one of them a thank you card, and I never let on that I threw away the gifts. I mean, really. Who needs another glitter coated candle or popsicle stick picture frame? And the perfume made me sick.

The trouble-making boys never bothered with Christmas presents, and theirs are the faces that pop up in my dreams. I wonder how many of them are a menace to society, now.

Anyway, for two months I’ve been stuck in my house, and after two months a woman’s cupboards get a mite bare. The hoodlum robbed me and knocked me upside the head but I guess I can’t just sit here in my house and starve to death. Lord knows I don’t need much to get by, but I need more than I’ve got now. And ever since I had to put Custer on half-rations he’s quit listening to me. Just last night I was complaining to him about how the lump on my head is still too sore for me to put rollers in my hair, and he curled up under the sofa before I was half done.

So, this afternoon I figured on going to the store and buying just a few things. Cat food. A couple of cans of soup, some tuna, bread, and butter would hold me over for a few days. Every day I can go out for a few things and get my pantry stocked up again. I like to have a full pantry. And this just proves it. You never know when you’re going to have to spend months holed up in your house with your cat.

I put on some decent clothes and my comfortable walking shoes. Thank goodness I thought to look out the drapes before I left because I could clearly see that it was fixing to rain. So I fetched my umbrella and rain bonnet, and after saying, “Good-bye” to Custer, I stepped out my front door with my purse slung across my shoulder and tucked under my arm so no punk kid could rip it off.

Then I went back in for my coupons. And to go to the bathroom. I got as far as the sidewalk when I remembered I hadn’t dusted the front room, so I simply had to go back and get that done. Then I was almost to the corner when I realized I had left my breath mints on the coffee table; I’d seen them while I was dusting. All things considered, it wasn’t long before I was on my way.

I haven’t driven for a long time so I have to take the bus down to the Food Mart. It’s a full five blocks to the bus stop so I get plenty of exercise, which will come in handy if I ever have to run for my life. I buy only enough items to fit into one plastic grocery bag so I can hold tightly to the bag and my purse. If you’re carrying too many things you’re a prime target.

Just before I got to the bus stop, sure enough it started raining. I got my umbrella up just in time so I didn’t get soaked. In this town the bus stops are all covered by green overhangs and are enclosed on three sides with this plexiglass that you’re supposed to be able to see through. But when you’re sitting on the bench you can’t do any people watching, thanks to the posters and advertisements taped up all over the place. You’d think people would take more pride in their city. I hate to think what their houses look like if they’re this willing to clutter up a bus stop. I should be able to sit in the shelter and watch the people walk by on the sidewalk, but instead I have to read about the next concert of EXTREME MACHINE and about how I can get an INSTANT TAN. And I couldn’t care less about knowing the phone number of that Realtor with the pouffy hairdo or about finding an accountant. I’d never trust an accountant who pasted up his phone number on a bus stop anyway.

I looked at my watch and saw that my bus would arrive in about fifteen minutes, so I sat down.

Not many folks take buses on rainy days like this so I was surprised when I saw a young man in a hooded sweatshirt come into the enclosure. When he took off the hood I startled and sucked in my breath. There, sitting right next to me was The Punk who had attacked me, I was sure of it. His hair was quite a bit lighter than I remembered, practically white in fact, but he could certainly have had it bleached, couldn’t he? The giveaway was all the studs and rings in his face, and even if this punk seemed to have a few more nose rings than I remember I don’t think that matters, since I got knocked out. I’d testify in a minute that this kid was the same one who robbed me! I could almost make out the edges of what looked like a tattoo on his arm where his sweatshirt sleeve ended. No doubt in my mind. This was him!

For a minute there I thought I would pass out, but then I got too angry to faint. The police have been telling me for three months that they're looking high and low for this kid, and here he is, right on my bus bench!

I'll never know where I got the courage to speak to him, but before I knew it my mouth was open and the words were out.

“I know you.” I squeaked at him

“What’s that, old lady?”

“I saw you.”

“Well, I don’t know where, lady ‘cause I never seen you before.”

“That night.”

“WHAT you talking about? Are you a crazy bitch, or what?”

They always use poor grammar and bad language. My courage was building, even though my heart was pounding. I was The Teacher again.

“Don’t you pretend with me, young man. As soon as I get home I’m going to….” I shut my mouth just in the nick of time! What was I thinking? I had almost signed my death warrant. If I told this punk that I was going to phone the police and tell them that I had seen him and that I even knew what bus he was on, I’d be a dead woman, for sure. Even I know that a criminal is not going to leave behind someone who’s about to snitch on him.

“Do what, lady?” This he actually snarled at me. He came close to my face and I could count his yellow teeth and smell the tobacco on his breath. They all smoke cigarettes, too.

I couldn’t speak. My heart was running hurdles and my throat was paralyzed. I felt like a cartoon character who opens his mouth but nothing comes out. I never knew until that moment this actually happens. The rings in his lower lip began to blur. I knew that if the bus didn’t come soon I was going to die one way or another – he’d kill me, or I’d have a heart attack.

I took hold of my umbrella, glad that I had some sort of weapon, just in case. I moved to the farthest end of the bench, and he followed, scootching closer to me. He smiled a wicked smile. I actually thought I was going to scream. I have never screamed in my life and I didn’t want to end my life screaming, but I felt it building and had resigned myself to the certainty of it, when the bus pulled up and saved me.

The punk got on the bus, and even though it was my bus too, I stayed exactly where I was. I may be an old woman, but I am no fool. I walked back home and called the police. I told them that I had seen the punk who attacked and robbed me, that he had threatened my life at the bus stop and was right that minute on bus number 67, heading west. All they had to do was send officers to the bus stops along the route and they would catch him. They told me they would get right on it.

I heated water and made some chamomile tea to calm my nerves, and I put out Custer’s last half-can of food.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m in no mood to take your sass.” Custer licked his nose, which is what he does whenever I scold him. It didn’t take long for him to eat his dinner, then he jumped in my lap.

So now I’m sitting in my recliner with my baseball bat and my cat waiting for the police to call and tell me that they got that punk kid and locked him up at last.