Stories from the bus

               When you ride the bus as often as do I you tend to see many of the same people over and over, day after day.  And for the most part, you tend to see them doing the same things each time.  Some are readers, some talkers, some gazers (out the window), some gazers (at others) and some just stare at the seat in front of them. A few knit, more in winter than in summer seems to me but I have no data. Some talk incessantly and loudly on their cell phones, as though everyone around them would be interested in the details of their lives even if we could hear both sides.  

               I’m a reader. Occasionally a chat-with-one-of-the-regulars-er but mostly, a reader. I’m sure some of the other riders consider that boring.  The lady with season tickets - and how do we know she has season tickets, you ask? Because during football season she feels we will all benefit from her play by play recapping of the most recent football contest – once asked me what I found so interesting about ‘words on paper.’ This from someone who considers high drama to involve grown men running around on a big lawn, throwing and kicking a misshapen ball and pushing each other down.

          

               I suppose, to her, I am boring. But not, I tell myself knowingly, not as much as the guy staring at the seat cushion in front of him for twenty-five minutes each way, five days each week. And of course, my judgment of him is no more valid than my own inner comments about Football Lady. Or hers about me.  Because we can’t know what the other is thinking, can we?

               Of course, as a writer of novels – which is to say, a fashioner of stories from whole cloth – I enjoy imagining what the stranger might be, you know, imagining. So sometimes, when confronted by a Seatback Starer I find myself taking off on a flight of fancy based at least in part on unmerited judgments I make about the fellow rider. One Seat Starer in particular has actually provided kindling for several stories because he’s truly that rare combination of Everyman and Unique Soul that we all imagine ourselves to be. His could be almost any story, albeit with a few obvious caveats. The ample waistline probably rules out competitive body builder. And the well-embedded wedding band most likely eliminates gigolo from the realm of possibility. He walks with a cane, so I’m guessing not a pole vaulter. But he’s something and therein lies the rich loam in which my story will grow.

                 I wonder about the lives of the people on the bus, wonder what shapes their day. Their lives. With a few, I’ve become friends of the sort you see regularly but not for long and never privately. I know Marsha teaches maritime subjects to mates and captains. Andrea is the CFO who recently survived a takeover to beat out their CFO for the spot. The tablet guy is a lawyer. But for the most part, I don’t know their true stories and that’s the way I like it.

               I like making up their stories for them. Not to worry, I’ll be gentle.

               Usually.