Bus Report #1084

Yesterday the rain was beautiful and light in the morning, and when our 28 bus turned off the freeway into the parking lot by the bridge, I could see the bridge was shrouded in fog.

It was beautiful. Misty and quiet and you couldn't see the headlands at all.

Some tourists, smiling in their not-warm-enough clothes, looked out the windows with wonder. 

Yeah, I wanted to say, I feel it too.

The rest of the ride was just as beautiful, and I hopped out at Laguna to go meet some writer friends at Fort Mason. Fort Mason was breathtakingly beautiful too - pelicans and seagulls swooping around, Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge also obscured by thick fog. The marine layer.

Later, riding back towards home on the 43, I looked out the window near Steiner and saw two men running across Lombard. They were running too fast and if the bus was any slower, if they were any faster, we'd have hit them.

Looking back, I realized what was really happening; the first man, in shorts and ratty sneakers, a blanket over his shoulders, had stolen something from the other man, short, stocky, either an employee at a nearby market or someone who had just been pickpocketed.

The second man caught up to the first man, and I don't know what happened next. I like to think the man got his wallet back.

Our driver was who I thought of next. What if he'd hit the man with the blanket? At our combined speeds he'd have been killed, I had no doubt about that. And the driver would've had to live with that.

My mind is always running, running - no time to stop for thoughts to catch up with each other - and I pictured the aftermath of the crash, the squeal of brakes and the collective shrieks of us passengers, thrown about the bus, spilled and broken groceries and broken bones, bloody noses and concussions. The driver, if he hit that man, sitting still and rigid in his seat, staring at the damage outside the bus. 

The images came and went and we were a block away already.

A man got on in the Presidio and leaned against the yellow pole, reading a book by James McBride.

All I could think about was that he was not holding on, that if we braked suddenly he would go flying. He'd get really hurt.

I was relieved when, a few minutes later, he sat down.