Riding the Bus

Riding the city bus is a fucking nightmare!! While in the work release center unless you are a federal parolee, you are not allowed to drive or have your car. I am not a federal parolee. So, my life consists of a lot of walking and riding the city bus. I am in a small city in the Midwest. A small city that is basically a factory town. Public transportation is not a priority. I have ridden on buses and trains while in Europe and in big cities here in the U.S. This is not that kind of public transportation. I am not sure what this is exactly........other than a type of social experience or experiment. This is white trash meets the ghetto meets the substance abuser. The routes are hopeless and only come once per hour. The only connection is downtown at one terminal. If you miss one bus, you are screwed because it will be at least an hour before the next one.

The first and most important step of the work release is obviously finding work. Unless your family lives near by and can drive you, you must take the bus. Imagine my first time out....I have never ridden the bus in this city. I havent been in the city since I was a child. I have no idea where anything is or where to even begin looking. But, I head out and walk the 15 mins to the nearest bus stop. Convenient, not!  I am armed with a bus ticket and a schedule. I am to apply to 6 jobs per day. I climb aboard and am first met with a very distinctive odor...unwashed pits and crotch. Oh, boy. Here I go. The first trip is only 10 minutes to the transfer spot. That is where you get the full experience of people milling around smoking, bumming cigarettes, borrowing cell phones and worst of all macking all over each other. We are talking full on, tongue down the throat kissing. Most of the couples are climbing and groping each other in full view. Giving each other hickeys on the benches. Didnt that end in highschool? Seriously?


After walking about a million miles while applying for jobs, I am finally ready to head back to the center. I get on the final bus and lo and behold...who is sitting spread eagle on the back seat of the bench? None other than LaShonda. It is easy to see that she is up to something. I walk closer to the back of the bus, part fascinated and curious and part horrified. This 400 pound woman is spread eagle, partly sitting up with her hand down the front of her pants. Remember, she is facing the front of the bus. The almost empty bus. I dare to ask her "What the hell are you doing?" Without missing a beat, she tells me that she is attempting to put her cell phone "up my twat."  I just looked at her and said "Excuse me?" She tells me that she is putting her cell phone up her twat so that she can get it into the center. Another rule of the center: no cell phones. This is how she smuggles it in. I look at her and say, "OMG, my eyes are burning out of my head." She calmly replies in her yelling voice, without stopping the shoving of the cell phone, "What? It is in a ziplock bag." 


This is what I now live with every day.