Elaine Miller
Follow That Bus! by Elaine Miller
I was waiting for the Number 152 bus at the stop at Commercial and Hastings on a balmy evening in early fall. And waiting. And waiting. I desperately wished to be home already, to take off my constricting office clothing and climb into my comfy bed, but even if the bus arrived at that second it would still be thirty dreary minutes before it reached my stop in the 'burbs. I shifted from one aching foot to the other, and fiddled with my belongings as I wondered in which of my bags I had placed my half-read science fiction book. As I found the novel and fished it out with a disproportionate feeling of triumph, a vaguely sporty-looking maroon sedan pulled up beside the bus stop, and the driver leaned over and spoke to me through the open passenger window.
"Hi, beautiful," he said, as witty and original as are all men who attempt to pick up dates at bus stops. "Would you like a ride?"
"Uh, no thanks," quoth I, as eager to be friendly as are all tired young women at the end of a long day at work. I pointedly opened the book and intently regarded the first page I came to. This, I hoped, would end the matter.
"Would you like to go for a drink? Come on, let's just go for a drink."
"No. No, I do not want a drink." I understand the value of a firmly expressed opinion when dealing with importunate sorts. As if in solidarity, a few cars honked polite Canadian little honks behind Mr. Auto Erotica, and he cruised off slowly, with many backward looks.
Happily for my poor feet, I spotted the bus in the distance, and occupied the moments before its arrival with fishing out correct change. As I climbed aboard, a quick glance to my left showed that Mr. Auto had driven around the block-presumably for a second doomed flirting attempt-and was just turning the corner behind the bus.
I shook my head at that, and smiled to myself as I found the best reading seat on the bus. For those who haven't already figured it out, the best reading seat for a left-handed book-holder is the leftmost window seat directly behind the sideways seats at the back-the wheel hump is the perfect thing to place a foot upon; one's knee then becomes a well-positioned elbow-rest. And since twilight was fast deepening into full dark, the lights at the back of the bus were important. I forgot about Mr. Auto the second I reopened my book.
Sixty pages later I yanked the pull cord as we neared my stop. After commuting for so long, I almost knew without looking which of the dark and lonely stops along the Lougheed Highway was mine. Home was now a mere ten-minute walk away, through dark woods, along the outside of the fences belonging to a townhouse mini-city, through a small field, and then at last through my own little mushroom-patch of townhouses. I yearned for my cat and-most importantly-my bed. The bus pulled over in a crunch of gravel. I got out into the cooling night, and waited on the soft shoulder for the bus to pull back out into traffic, averting my face from its rush of wind and dust.
When I looked up, there he was, leaning over to talk to me through the passenger window again. Same guy. Same car. I took the obligatory long moment to blink stupidly, as there's been an awful lot of generations between me and the days of sabre-toothed tigers and instantaneous reactions to danger. Then my thinking brain took over the job my instincts had started: 1. No sane man follows a damn bus for thirty-three minutes in the dark; 2. Therefore this man is not sane; 3. Back there we were in public twilight, now we're on a very dark suburban highway, functionally alone as sporadic cars whisk by at 70 kph; 4. Bad. Very bad. I'm standing alone in the dark with a complete nutter in a car staring at me.
"Need a ride? Why don't we go for that drink now," he shouted. "Get in the car."
Nice pick-up technique, Mr. Nutter. Sweep a girl off her feet, why don't you. When in doubt, pretend to be unalarmed and stall for time. "Sorry. Can't. Gotta go home. I'm late. I'm expected. I live right in there. Bye now." I pointed at the nearest set of townhouses, mentally apologizing to the unknown inhabitants. Then I turned and took off at a very brisk walk, ready to bolt the second I heard a car door open, because that meant Mr. Nutter was about to cross the line from merely obsessive to assaultive. The car stayed in place, motor running, as I trotted down the stairs of the path, and I cursed the designer of the townhouses, because there was no actual way to run to the nearest house and wait for him to go away. Not unless I could scale an eight-foot solid wood fence while wearing a grey woolen calf-length skirt and sensible pumps.
The farther I moved from the highway, the easier I breathed, although I still had ears like a rabbit and continued to look all about me. Which was lucky, because I spotted the car by its headlights before its driver could have been close enough to spot me. I leapt abruptly into a friendly-seeming bush and watched from its leafy concealment as Mr. Nutter parked, headlights on, at the end of a cul de sac. He must have cleverly worked out for himself that if I was heading this way that I would have to pass right through the headlight's beams. The unbroken line of fence and the pathless trees on the other side limited my choices to two: back the way I'd come, or forward, past this cul de sac. So I formed a real relationship with that bush. Twenty-five minutes I crouched silently in its embrace, watching him watch for me.
For the first ten minutes, I felt the anger-driven temptation to stride in a dignified way out of the bush, and let the blood drops fall where they may if he laid a hand on me. I played with my Swiss Army knife, noting with chagrin that its largest (2-3/4-inch) blade was not very Crocodile Dundee-ish. Mr. Nutter might or might not be a psychopathic killer. At the very least he was too weird to get dates by charm and personality. He might be armed with a gun, a chainsaw-or at the very least, a knife blade longer than 2-3/4 inches. I had to concede that he probably had come to the battle better armed and more prepared than I, which was no surprise as the worst fight I'd been expecting that night had been the inevitable rush for the best reading seat at the back of the bus.
For the next ten minutes, after concluding that I wouldn't attempt confrontation unless pushed to it, I had plenty of time to consider issues of feminism. That this damn testosterone-laden idiot could cause me to hide like a field mouse by virtue of his insanity, possible armed status, and almost inevitable greater muscular strength, offended me to the roots of my independent female being. It couldn't have rankled worse if I'd been crouched in poison ivy.
I thought wistful thoughts about having black-belt-level skills in some esoteric martial art, and bounding out of the bush and into the menacing Flamingo-of-Death stance. All blows struck would automatically be for the rights of women everywhere to walk safely down the street at night. Alas, I had spent more time developing my literacy skills than my pugilistic ones, although I would have gladly traded my pen for a sword right at that moment.
The rest of the time was spent, I confess, in watching him leaning on the side of his car, and wondering. I wondered what evolutionary fault would lead a gentleman to pursue a date for the night in this rather odd style. Perhaps it was an echo of the way our prehistoric ancestors would ride mastodons up to a cavechick in leopard skin and say, "Woman, get on elephant now!"
I had enough time to come up with a humorous interpretation that involved Homo Erectus and tiny frontal lobes, when he at last got back in his car, popped it in reverse, and headed up the cul de sac.
When his car reached the end of the block, I broke out of concealment at a dead run, shoes in my bag and nylons be damned. I bolted across the empty space and took a quick jig down the path through the bushes, and when I fancied I heard the returning spin of car tires, why, I simply ran faster. It's surprising how quickly one can cover ground that takes six minutes to walk at the end of each workday. Hearing my own heartbeat too loudly in the dim light, I took care to make sure no one was near as I approached my own front door, and opened it as soundlessly as possible, closing it behind me in the same manner. I didn't want Mr. Homo Erectus, if he was still on the trail, to know which of the many doors in the complex I'd gone through.
If this had been a movie, I would have forgotten to chain the door or turn the deadbolt, and the creepy music would have played to let the audience know that I'd made a mistake that was about to cost me my life. But I'd always been contemptuous of scriptwriters who portray woman as the creature who is too dumb to take off her pumps before running like hell. I write a more realistic script, in which we do what we need to do, in order to keep ourselves whole. And my deadbolt slid home the second my door clicked shut.
