riding the wrong bus home

Sometimes I take the wrong bus on purpose. The one that stops at the Vet’s hospital. Because that’s where I can listen to the best stories. Today I ran into Jody. We’d never spoken before. Usually crossing paths on a different route on a different day in the late afternoon, when we nod at each other in passing. Today he sat down in the seat in front of me. Waited a block. Then turned around and started talking. We exchanged information about what had been spinning in our discmans. Same beats, he smiled. I agreed. And wondered why he wasn’t in school on a Friday afternoon. He’s only 12. He kept messing with a braid that had come loose somehow and said he’d be in trouble for it when he got home. I offered to redo the row. How’d you learn to do that, he asked. And I thought about Jak and the times he asked me the same kinds of questions. I just know how, I guess. He seemed to accept the answer. We talked about music. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a jacket—that the shoe on his right foot was missing the laces—that his eyes looked like they’d seen more than they should. You’re pretty cool for an old white lady, he giggled as I was getting ready to pull the cord and start the long walk home. You’re pretty cool too, Kid. Take care of yourself. And I smiled. He waved at me—skin and bones—from the other side of the window. I wished I could take him home with me and feed him a sandwich.