Old Scratch and the Wal Mart Ressurrection

Old Scratch and the Wal Mart Ressurrection September 30, 2016

Old Scratch had his sunglasses on again. He didn’t glance back at me, but he was addressing me. “A passenger overdosed at the stop before I picked him up. I didn’t know. He passed out on the bus, I thought he was asleep. When we got here, I said ‘last stop,’ but he didn’t wake up. I went back and shook him. He wasn’t breathing. I had to call the squad, I had to carry him onto the sidewalk. They couldn’t get a pulse. They had to inject his chest three times. When he opened his eyes, they said ‘welcome to the world.’ He was dead. He was really dead. They said ‘welcome back to the world.’ He was dead, but they got him back.”

I’d never seen a man look so afraid.

On the way back, the people who boarded at each stop started to complain that Old Scratch had been late on his last run. He repeated his story to them; he pointed to where the ambulance had met them as he passed. “He was dead. He was really dead. I carried him to the sidewalk. They said ‘welcome back to the world.'”

After that, somehow, Old Scratch came to view me differently. He stopped complaining about my bags, and he stopped refusing to let me off at my stop. He never called me “that girl” again. I’d seen him vulnerable and afraid. He’d told how he carried a dead man off of his bus, and watched him come to life again. And that made me something closer to an equal in his eyes.

Just this afternoon, a few hours ago, I came out of the grocery store in the rain. I had to get home quickly to bake my daughter’s birthday cake. I didn’t have time to wait for the other bus driver; I boarded the bus with Old Scratch.

He was on the bus radio, engaged in banter with the older female driver who’s a bit fat, slimmer than me. She was laughing at some joke he’d made, and he was taunting her. He told her they should go to the beach together, so she could “Show me how you put on a wet suit and shoot out of the water backward.”

I sat in shock, wondering if he’d really called her a whale.

He had; he continued to make fun of her weight all the way home.

There was nothing I could do to stop him. There’s never anything to do when Old Scratch runs his mouth. The other passengers think it’s funny, and if I get myself thrown off the bus I’ll never make it home. I resolved to be very nice to the female bus driver the next time I saw her, and kept quiet.

When I got home, the rain was pouring. As I got off at my corner, Old Scratch asked how far I had to go.

“Just a few houses down,” I said, leaving as quickly as I could.

“I’m gonna toss you this,” said Old Scratch, and threw something at me.

An umbrella clattered against the sidewalk, shattering the handle a little.

“Just give it back the next time you see me, or give it to the other driver if you don’t,” he said in the friendliest tone his gruff Ohio Valley bray could manage.

I thanked him, and took the umbrella. The broken piece chipped off in my hand, but it still opened. I kept dry all the way home.

Human beings puzzle me. Thankfully, I’m not required to understand them.

 


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