Standing on the corner, I saw a bus coming down the street. Damn — “Ryerson Base” scrolled across the front, marking it as an off-shift bus going back to the base, so I turned around and wandered back to the bus stop to keep waiting.
Then I heard the sound of the bus braking and pulling over to the side of the road. The doors opened, and the sweet smell of pipe tobacco wafted out as the driver beckoned me in. “Hop on!” So I did.
“Just smokin’ down the road,” said the driver as the bus pulled out and I sat down. “I’m heading into the base, but I can get you that far, or if you see another bus that’ll work, just holler and we’ll get you on that one.”
A few blocks later, he pulled to the side again, and picked up another two guys waiting at their stop. “Jump in and hang on,” warned the driver, and the bus roared back to life, taking the next corner faster than I’ve ever seen an articulated bus corner before.
“So here’s the deal,” said the driver. “We’ve got about three more streets to cross, then there’s a stop just before the base. There’s a ton of buses that go through that stop, so I’ll let you off there, you’ll get downtown, and I’ll be on my way home.” Sounded like a good plan.
As we got closer to Ryerson Base, the driver pointed out the other two bus bases in the area (three of the five or six bases are in the south downtown area). Distracted by being able to play tour guide, though, he suddenly realized that he’d passed up that last stop that he was going to be dropping us off at.
“Well, that was my mistake. How about this — when we stop, just stick with me,” he said, and pulled the bus off the street and into Ryerson Base. He pointed off to the right side of the bus. “See that sign? That’s the parking assignments. This is a sixty-footer, so I park in lane 27 or 28.” Another quick turn, and the bus pulled to a stop in the midst of thirty or forty other members of the Metro Transit bus fleet.
The bus went dead.
“Okay, guys. Stick with me. You don’t want to get hit in here.” We all got off, and followed him out of the base and across the street into the employee parking lot. “Normally you wouldn’t be allowed in here, but it was my goof up. I don’t want to send you walking down that corridor,” and he gestured down the narrow road, obviously intended only to allow bus access to and from the base, “so I’ll just have to give you a lift to another stop.”
A few moments later, we all piled into his little Geo Metro. He waved his employee badge at the gate, the crossbeam lifted, and we drove off down the road. Not long afterwards, we pulled to the side of the road at the corner of Fourth and Jackson, in the International District. “That’s it for tonight, guys, I’ve got a ferry to catch.” We thanked him, got out, and he drove off into the night.
The other two adventurers wandered off to wait for the next bus to take them the rest of the way into downtown. I looked around, figured that it wasn’t that far, and started walking home through the Seattle night.
iTunes: “Helium” by 29 Died from the album Sworn (1995, 3:59).