But I didn’t know that as I boarded the bus and slipped half a dolla to the driver. I made my way to my usual spot in whatever area seemed slightly more defensible and gripped a hold of the handbar, moving my feet to the ready position as I prepared to embark on yet another round of bus-surfing. An elderly lady had boarded with me and I noticed the gang of school kids at my sides. I leaned down to the nearest boy and muttered in a broken dialect: “My yute, why ya no get up, give a fi you seat a Auntie, be a bigman.” The kid gawked at the freakish white alien who had attempted to contact him and unsteadily rose as the the bus jerked to the side, beginning its usual convulsions. The old lady sat. I searched her face for a look of thanks but received nothing, which is typical, and I take as a sign that all is well.
Since I was feeling full of myself about being such a goddamn awesome gentleman I started chatting with the kid, which elicited nervous giggles from his friends, who demanded my attention as well. At about this point I noticed that a few of them were in wheelchairs, and I’d never encountered the handicapped on public transportation. I looked around, some of the kids were noticeably developmentally disabled. I looked down at the kid I’d first spoken to, noticed for the first time that he was a microcephalic, and read the name of the school on his maroon and tan uniform: “Institute for the Mentally Handicapped.” Oh, wonderful, I’d stumbled into the Short Bus. Fantastic. Perfect way to suffer through downtown traffic.
As the ride dragged on, I soon realized that this bus ride was different in another way… it was quieter. The kids were still chatting and laughing happily, touching my arms and backpack, but mostly well-behaved. They weren’t smacking each other or hurling things out the windows like normal children. Their conversations were much more simple, but not laced with profanity and sex acts like what I was used to hearing during the after school rush. Add to that the fact that the driver had to actually drive like a human due to the wheelchairs on board and I quickly decided this was the most pleasant city bus ride I’d ever been on.
The teachers were on the bus too and most were also disabled in some form. I started up a conversation with one, a paraplegic gym teacher who credited his job with saving his life after a car accident severed his spinal cord. A math teacher, not to be outdone, proudly announced her multiple sclerosis and how proud she is of her work with the kids. They went on and on, pointing out every kid on the bus, giving detailed case histories and performance landmarks, sharing 20 life stories with me before we reached the bus park. When I told her my profession she gushed and said I was doing God’s work. Hearing it coming from her made me feel cold.
God’s work. God’s work standing in a bus filled with God’s mistakes. Or were they God’s triumphs? After that conversation, I dont think I’ll be giving an unbiased opinion on the issue for sometime.
You can always judge the worth of a society based on how it treats its lowliest members. With the exception of certain self-ascribed sexual deviants, these people really band together to care for their own. The kids were happy and the teachers were wonderful, despite battling their own maladies in a place where it’s hard enough to get by when you’re healthy. Beggars are nonexistent outside of the larger towns. Even the animal shelter I went to wasn’t nearly as horribly depressing as I had expected. For all their problems with poverty and politics, the folks out here can come together for the common good, and that still gives me hope.
As for God’s work, I have enough trouble keeping track of my own.
