Chapter 1: Bad Bus Day on Broadway


It was a fine autumn day in the city. Softly glowing rays of sun came
streaking down from the sky from behind a number of puffy white clouds,
resembling balls of cotton. The temperature, at 75 degrees Fahrenheit,
was a tad above normal. Still, the air had a brisk character to it,
without the oppressive humidity of a summer's air. I would say that
birds were chirping and it would not be a cliche. In fact, it would be
false as the only birds in a city teeming with buildings were pigeons,
or rock doves, to be more accurate. By and large, a majority of
the pigeons had grey splotches over their bodies, dark grey wings
and incongruously red scaly feet. Flocks of the winged vermin milled
around on the sidewalks. Anyone walking by would stir up such a
commotion as the pigeons took to the sky, only to circle around and land
exactly where they were as soon as the intruder had passed.

The aging blue and white Metropolitan Transit Authority bus rumbled down
Broadway. The bus was loud, very loud. It was almost as if a large
steel barrel of thunder were rolling along the street as the engine of
the bus struggled and strained to carry the mass conveyance up the
incline as it headed from the lower altitudes of Harlem up to the
higher heights of Morningside Heights.

The bus driver wore a typical bus driver's uniform of a dark blue cap
with a short brim, a dark blue long sleeved jacket with a zipper up the
front over a button down shirt that was a very light shade of blue. He
had on a dark blue pair of slacks and a pair of black leather shoes.
He sat in the driver's seat hunched grimly over the large steering wheel
as he worked over it like a fine pot of gourmet stew. A little to the
left. Then a little to the right, as he tenderly nudged the wheel this
way and that to correct the heading of the bus. From all appearances it
looked like the bus was already going in a straight line but you
wouldn't know it watching the bus driver roll the steering wheel back
and forth like a ship's captain piloting his sea vessel, pitching and
tossing around in the middle of a raging storm. Around the driver, there
was a steel handrail that could be lifted up if he needed to get out of
his seat and into the bus corridor.

Just above the window, in front and to the right of the driver, there
was a red and white "Stop Requested" sign. At the moment, it was lit up
as someone had pushed one of the many red buttons along the handrails
and on the side of every pair of seats all the way down the bus or one
of the strips running from roof to floor between any two windows along
both sides of the bus. The bus driver was obviously not of a suitable
temperament for the job as every time someone pushed any of the buttons
or strips, causing the bell to ring and the "Stop Requested" sign to
light up, he would cringe and groan a bit. Then he would mutter strange
curses in a dialect of a foreign language under his breath while
manoeuvring the bus into the bus stop.

The very first set of seats behind the bus driver were three seaters
parallel to and against the side of the bus. They were made of hard
plastic colored blue and beige with a steel handrail at either end of
the seat. After those and going all the way to just before the end of
the bus were the rows of two seater seats produced and colored the same
way as the first set of seats. The only exception to the regular
arrangement of seats was an empty bay just before the back of the bus
about the length of two rows of seats. That was a space for a wheelchair
or two. There were a few black nylon straps attached to the wall of the
bus so that a wheelchair may be strapped in for safety. At a regular
interval of around two seats, steel poles went from the floor to ceiling
of the bus. A shining chrome steel handrail ran all along the ceiling
from the front to back of the bus. Passengers would hang on to those
when the bus was packed and all that remained was standing room. The
last row of seats was a six seater bench against the back of the bus
going all the way from one side to the other.

It was in one of those pairs of seats where Frankie sat, clutching his
weathered and stained canvas book bag. As the bus lurched forward, he
pondered the weighty issues in his life. His past. His present. His
future. His past, at least, was clear but only in relative terms as he
wasn't clear on all the facts of the kidnapping of his sister. Nor did
he have the slightest idea who the kidnappers were on that otherwise
splendid autumn day when he finally made full circle on the swingset. He
chuckled to himself a little. Ah, the foolishness of youth, he thought.
He could have died attempting such a stunt. Indeed, he had many a bruise
that would remind him of his foolishness in the weeks after that day.
But no bruise or scar was as bad as the stinging memory of being mere
feet away from his sister and losing her in a moment's letting down of
his guard.

As he recalled, his parents were justifiably upset upon hearing that his
sister had been abducted, even if they didn't believe him at first. It
wouldn't have been the first time he pulled a silly prank like that.
Still, when they saw that he was obviously shaken and gravely serious,
they got on the phone and called the police. Two of them arrived at
Frankie's home in a black and white boxy Ford Crown Victoria squad car
with the logo of the municipality's police department emblazoned on both
front doors. They took down the information, or rather as much as he
could remember of the black van with the dark tinted windows as it sped
away from the playground. They left but not before mentioning that while
they could do some preliminary investigation and start an Orange Alert
lookout for Freda and her captors, they would have to wait a full day
before they could act on a missing persons report. Also, they mentioned
that his description of the van wasn't much information to go on as he
did not have the plate number or even the make, model and year of the
van. But they then expressed hope that the abductors would be found and
Freda would be rescued unharmed.

Frankie's mom and dad were understandably shaken by the kidnapping. All
they could do was hope and pray for the best, while telling everyone
they knew to keep an eye out for her. And they asked everyone to keep
her in their prayers too. But as the days went by and Autumn turned to
Winter, their hope faded as well and turned to despair. Meanwhile, the
investigation proceeded at a brisk pace. Freda's face appeared on milk
cartons all across the state and throughout most of the nation. The
story was picked up by several local newspapers. Unfortunately, in the
end, nothing came up. For all Frankie and his parents knew, Freda could
be dead or working at a slave camp in a Third World nation. And so it
was that Frankie became an only child, growing up bitter and resentful,
forever haunted by the nightmare of the kidnapping.

The bus glided to a slow crawl and jerk abruptly to a stop as the bus
driver slammed on the brakes, piqued at yet another "Stop Requested"
button pushing. The doors opened. A lady pushed through the double doors
in the middle of the bus and alighted to the sidewalk. On the sidewalk
at the bus stop, a guy in a wheelchair waited patiently.

The bus driver sighed and you could almost make out a slight eye roll as
he got out of his seat to assist the disabled man who was about to be
a passenger. He made quite a show of slowly climbing out of his seat,
only to have his crotch smack right up against the steel rail around the
driver's compartment. Groaning again slightly, he lifted the rail and
ambled through. There was a red lever next to the first seat, which was
the one parallel to and against the window. He pulled on the lever.
Almost like magic, the front steps going up into the bus unfolded and
refolded into a square platform about 3 feet by 3 feet in dimension. By
some other magic, the bus lowered itself ever so slightly, perhaps via a
shift of the front suspension. Then the platform creaked its way down
until it was just about touching the asphalt on the road. It was then
low enough that the wheelchaired guy was able to roll himself
carefully onto the platform.

The bus driver then pushed the lever back. The front door of the
bus closed and the platform raised itself up slowly, creaking all the
way, to the level of the floor of the bus so that the wheelchaired guy
could wheel himself towards the fee box. By this time, the bus driver
had gotten back into the driver's seat and had put the railing back
down. The guy in the wheelchair placed a token into the fee box,
eliciting a small beep from the contraption to indicate that a regular
fare had been paid. Then he rolled his wheelchair down the corridor of
the bus, taking his place by an empty bay near the back of the bus,
where he strapped the wheelchair onto one of the straps there. Then he
held on to the steel pole as the bus once again lurched forward with a
loud grumble from the engine and started trundling down the road.

Frankie was just about to settle into another midday reverie. In front
of him sat a mother and her young son, who could not have been more than
about five years. He was rather boisterous as are most children of about
his age. He went "badger badger badger". He stopped for the second and
then continued with "Badger Badger Badger". Then he raised his voice to
an ear splitting volume and yelled "BADGER BADGER BADGER MUSHROOM".
Until then, his mother had been sitting still, looking out the window
into the distance, or as much a distance as you can get with buildings
on both sides of the road, and trying to forget that she was actually in
charge of the little monster. But with that last "BADGER BADGER BADGER
MUSHROOM" emanating in such a loud volume from her charge, she snapped.
She turned to the child and gave him a firm tap on his shoulder. And she
said "Now you stop badger badger badger mushroom." He lowered his head
with a look of resignation and mumbled softly "badjah badjah badjah".

Two men in business suits and ties were sitting across the bus corridor
from Frankie. One of them said "Badger was up five percent badger since
the beginning of badger." The other said "But you have to consider
that snake badger has a better price sales ratio and superior
mushroom flow to badger. It'll blow the barn doors off the mushroom
sector. And with the quarter end badger triple witching trade, who knows
how high those badger options will shoot up? You know they are right up
against the badger expiration period." The first man reiterated "You
have to consider the new badger economics of mushroom. We have a new
paradigm in place and I do not mean twenty cents. It's a badger future
and they are not going badger over the snake mushroom product line." The
second man said "And snake badger ooh it's a snake." And then the first
man retorted "Badger badger badger." The second man countered with
"Mushroom ooh it's a snake."

Diagonally across from Frankie, another man rustled a newspaper. He was
reading with intent one of the interior pages. Rather incongruously,
the masthead of the newspaper was "Badger Times" with a picture of a
badger to the left of and facing the two words. To the right of the
words in the newspaper's name, there was another badger, a mirror
image of the first one so that it too was facing the words in the
name. The front page headline read "Badgers are badgering badger badger
with badjar."

Sitting on the bench of seats at the back of the bus were a couple of
youths in blue jeans torn at the knees, more likely in a show of
attitude and teenage style rather than of poverty. Between them, they
had a rather large boombox playing one of the latest music hits by a
cookie cutter band, the product of a monopolistic and exploitative music
industry. The song went "Oh... badger badger... back when I was in the
Otter Banks. Went the way of the mushrooms in the field of badger badger
badger."

Over near the front of the bus, a bunch of people, who were obviously
tourists from the exaggerated straw hats and riotous Hawaiian shirts
that they were wearing, and the cameras of foreign make they were
holding, were chatting up a storm. The lady in the group said "Why don't
we see the badger exhibit at badger badger downtown badger street near
badger." One of the men in the group exclaimed "But that's so boring. We
could go to the exciting cafe, Badger Badger Revolution. I heard lots of
things about that one. You could do the Badger Dance on the Badger
Badger Machine while I have a badger with a side of badger and a glass
of diet badger badger snake." Another lady in the group moaned "Oh you
and your trendy badger badger elitism. I wanted to go badger shopping in
the badger shopping district over by the badger neighborhood in mid
badger. There are badgers that you can find only there and nowhere else
in the badger world." "Oh poppycock," said the other man in the group.
"You haven't lived until you've seen the Badger of Liberty from aboard
the Badger Ferry crossing from Badgertan to Badger Island!"

And very slowly, a badger wearing a luxurious coat of fur in typical
black and white stripe markings ambled down the corridor of the bus. One
of the tourists bent down to pat it as it walked past in a slow relaxed
manner, seemingly used to being patted.

Now all this while, Frankie had been cowering in his seat. Each time he
heard the word "badger", he cowered ever more in annoyance and
irritation. Were these people for real or was he just hearing and seeing
things. By that time, he was visibly shaken and whether or not the
badgers were real or just a hallucination, that had to stop. And so in
one outburst, he yelled "STOP! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS RIGHT IN THIS
WORLD, STOP!"

Almost immediately, he realized that it had all been one big mind trick
as everyone turned around to stare at him. The bus driver turned around
and stared too. He said "Hey you. You know that there's a red button on
every seat? See this STOP REQUESTED sign here? You push that red button
and the bell dings and this sign lights up. What? Are you new here or
something, ferret boy?"

Then the bus driver turned back suddenly and exlaimed "Whoa!" as the bus
was still in motion. He slammed on the brake just in time to stop the
bus at a red traffic light. The stop was so sudden that the back of the
bus tilted upwards for a bit before coming down and landing on the road
again with a loud thunk. The bus driver turned around again and said
"Okay, Mister Stop, there are other things I would like to say to you
but since we have foreigners in our midst..." He glanced at the tourists
sitting near the front and then turned back to Frankie. "... we have to
watch what we say. So I'm going to stop the bus at the next bus stop
just past this intersection and you are going to GET OFF."

After a tense minute and a half or so, the traffic light turned green.
As the last of the pedestrian stragglers made their way across the
pedestrian crossing, the driver started the bus moving again. It groaned
its way up to a slow crawl and then the bus driver turned back to the
side of the road and into the bus stop just past the intersection. The
bus door opened. The bus driver turned and said "Now you!" He pointed at
Frankie. "I believe this is your stop."

That was embarrassing. Frankie couldn't believe how embarrassing that
was. If his face and cheeks weren't covered in soft tan colored fuzzy
fur, everyone would have seen how he was blushing a bright red at the
time. And to make matters worse, his stop wasn't until about six blocks
further down the road. He sighed. He really had no choice after that
outburst of his. A true New Yorker may start a fight. Then again a
true New Yorker also would know the consequences of such a fight so
he may not. Frankie would have to take it like a man, he guessed. So he
got up from his seat. As he made his way up the bus corridor towards the
door, he could feel every pair of eyes in the bus staring at his back.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity and then some, he arrived
at the steps heading out to the front door. He went down one step, two
steps, three steps and off the bus. Then he felt his left leg go
alarmingly lower than he expected. His heart stopped for a moment as his
left foot went way deep into the deepest pothole by the side of the
road that he had ever seen. Of course, that threw off his overall
balance and he suddenly tilted forward and fell out of the bus face
first down to the sidewalk. First he felt the cold, hard concrete. Then
he smelt the gritty burnt odor of a bunch of discarded cigarette butts.
And finally, he heard the laughter of the bus driver and the passengers.
The bus driver sniggered "You made my day, ferret boy. Har har har." And
the door closed shut. The bus once again rumbled to a rolling start and
departed from the bus stop.

Frankie lay there for a few seconds. After making sure that nothing was
broken, he put one arm and then the other underneath his body to prop
himself up. Then he rolled over into a sitting position. Not a very
elegant move but how graceful can you be when you are sprawled out on a
sidewalk? Then he got his legs under him and with one arm for support,
he got to a squatting position and then slowly stood up, still checking
if anything was broken. Thankfully, everything seemed to be in order
even if he felt a new soreness somewhere in the vicinity of the small of
his back.

He took a look up the street. He was going to give the bus driver a
fuzzy ferret finger but the bus was long gone. As he absent-mindedly
glanced around the bus stop area, it dawned on him that he had left his
umbrella back on the bus. The embarrassment must have caused him to
forget that he had left the umbrella leaning against the seat. He had
not been looking at the sky in the last fifteen minutes and the
weather in the mid-Atlantic region does change very often and very
rapidly. So he took a look up at the sky. Dark clouds were rolling in
and he could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance. "Oh darn" he
thought. He paused and thought "Oh well" as he started shuffling up the
sidewalk towards his intended destination.