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By Danny MacEachern |
Riding the bus to school always bores me. I take three different buses in the morning and the same three in the opposite direction home in the afternoon. Since nothing exciting ever happens, I often daydream on the bus, imagining what it would be like if, for example, the bus was hijacked. I'd wonder what the hijackers would do, what the bus driver would do. I wonder what I would do.
Every morning and every afternoon, the same crowd of people gets on at the same stop. One of the people who rides the bus with me is a skateboarder, or so I assume. I've never actually seen him skate, but every day he carries his skateboard. In winter, he takes the wheels off and uses it as a snowboard. He's my age, a little shorter, with blond hair and he always looks worried. We speak to each to each other now and then, small talk stuff like, "Oilers swept the Bruins, good deal." We aren't friends, but we don't hate each other. He goes to a different school, I think it's Mill Woods Jr. High. He goes his way and I go mine.
One morning I was sitting on the bus, reading a Caramilk ad and the bus driver stopped to let on two boys. They looked a bit older, wore dirty jean jackets and ripped jeans. One wore a T-shirt with the charming slogan "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." I 'knew' one of the boys; he sometimes took the bus in the morning. He was the type of person (jerk) who would trip you and then glare at you as if you'd insulted him by not hurting yourself enough.
I didn't know the other one, so assumed he was a friend of King Jerk. I didn't really care one way or the other, so I ignored them. They sat down in the back, fairly close to the skateboarder, watching him and talking to one another.
We transferred buses at the Westmount Shopping Centre. Westmount had an air conditioned bus shelter behind it and it's where a lot of buses pick up and drop off, where the drivers have a cigarette or just take a break. We all got onto the next bus and again the two boys sat close to the skater. When the bus stopped, I and Skateboarder and the other usuals got off, and so did King Jerk and his twin. We'd just crossed the street when King Jerk said to Skater, "Hey!"
He said it like he was trying to act tough, trying to say "Don't mess with me unless you enjoy pain."
We all stopped and turned around. We all looked at the three of them. Skateboarder didn't say anything, just looked at King Jerk, his face a mask of indifference.
"Where'd ya get that skateboard?" asked King Jerk.
"I got it for my birthday," answered Skateboarder, his voice as unrelenting as King Jerk's.
"When was your birthday...last week?" sneered King Jerk II.
"No, it was last summer and I've had it since then," answered Skater, a faint trace of worry creeping into his voice.
This was true. As long as I'd lived in Edmonton, which was since last summer, Skateboarder has been on the bus and skateboard had been with him.
Skateboarder started walking around the bus stop , in a circle, with the Jerk brothers still following him. Suddenly he yelled, "Well, it's my skateboard!" and ran across the street into a residential area, dodging the morning traffic. King Jerk I and II ran after him. I soon lost sight of them.
About five minutes, the Jerk brothers walked back across the street, talking to themselves. They walked away, down Stony Plain Rd. There was no sign of the Skateboarder.
Days went by. I was starting to feel guilty about not doing anything, like tripping one of the jerk twins. I'd seen nothing of Skateboarder or the Jerks. They hadn't been on the bus.
It was exactly two weeks later that I saw King Jerk I on the bus. He sat at the back, his face like a bear trap. His friend wasn't around.
We got off at Westmount Shopping Centre. I saw Skateboarder standing with an adult at one of the entrances to the bus shelter. I assumed it was his dad. King Jerk saw them too.
King Jerk went around and entered the bus shelter through a door on the other side, He sat down next to me. He smelled.
The man standing with Skateboarder walked into the shelter. He approached King Jerk who gave him one of his friendly little glares.
"Are you David Ashford?" he asked.
"Yes, so?" answered King Jerk , trying to appear uninterested.
"Do you have any identification with you?" asked the man.
" No."
The man reached into his coat and pulled out a wallet. He showed David his shining police officer's badge.
"I'm placing you under arrest," he said. "He led him out of the bus shelter across the street and into a waiting car.
I talked to Skateboarder, who stayed behind to take the bus to school. It turned out that after the three of them ran across the street, King Jerk had pulled out a switchblade. Skateboarder ran into someone's house, a stranger's house, yelling and screaming. That was when I'd seen David and his friend come back. I asked about David's friend.
"They're picking him up this morning, too," answered Skateboarder. "They're being charged with attempted robbery, assault with a lethal weapon.."
"Did they wreck your skateboard?" I asked. He didn't have it with him.
"No," he said. "I've got it in my backpack." He grinned. I grinned back.
Riding to school after that would always bore me. Nobody tried to take Brain's skateboard again, and I would wonder what it would be like if the bus was hijacked. I would wonder what the bus driver would do, what the hijackers would do, but I knew what I would. I would trip a hijacker.
tgmag@tgmag.ca