1.
The number four bus, the bus I take, smells like the armpit of a seventy year old fry cook. It’s by far the sketchiest bus that I’ve ever taken, filled with twitching people, homeless people, old people, costumed people, and me. Sometimes I wonder where I fall into place in the great universal measure of sketch.
2.
“Hate is a lack of imagination.” –Graham Greene

On the bus I once sat next to a mentally disabled boy. Throughout the ride, he would alternate between relaxing his entire body on me and leaning his head on my shoulder. I felt a bit violated. Anger and resentment filled my stomach hot as I subtly tried to nudge him away.

I don’t like being touched on the bus by strangers even more than I don’t like being talked to on the bus by strangers. So, sitting there on my two by two foot brown square seat, I hunched and fumed.

“Hey, hey. No snuggling with strangers,” his mom chided. The mentally disabled boy shifted his weight for a second and then dropped back down.

But this time it was different. His mom’s word choice—“snuggling”—pricked my imagination. I noticed his bare, gangly arms huddled against my shoulder and I imaged how cold he must be on the air-conditioned bus. I imagined his day and what he ate for breakfast (a banana and raisin bran).

When his mom pulled the “stop requested” cord, he lifted his head from my left shoulder and took her hand. They weaved through the standing crowd. I watched them until the bus turned the corner and they were out of sight.
3.
I scribbled: “Deep down I want to be persuaded just so the actions can be explained, and I can sit here nodding before walking away. Not so deep down, I’m scared of my unanswered questions.”

It’s funny how this poem is a lie, I thought to myself as I looked out the greasy bus window, how it’s easier to regurgitate generic sentiments than tell unflinching factual truth. The dawn was breaking, and the doors slammed loud as the bus stopped and accelerated.

It’s true though, the part about lying. None of the passengers look any different from each other. There are Hawaiian shirts on the businessmen. There are averted eyes, hunched backs, pages turning, thumbs glancing off iPod spin wheels. Fat plastic watches on skinny prepubescent wrists.

It’s not that they wear the same exact clothes necessarily—there are no generic personalities—that would be ridiculous. But it’s the shifting eyes that give it away. The Roxy t-shirt girl checking out the Oneil shirt girl checking out some one else. There’s a sense of fear. I know because I’ve felt it. Everyone wants to fit in sometimes. We want to look the same, move the same, think the same. It’s so innate and strong that it’s downright primal. We are as birds flying in triangles, climbing onto buses and off buses and into the sky.
4.
My favorite part about going over the Pali every morning is that moment just before the tunnel. The bus moves with such momentum that I feel like I might hurtle off the cliff any second. I’ve thought about contingency plan after contingency plan, usually when it rains so hard all I can see is fuzzy grey rain-static. Would I want to be under the seat when it crashes? Or should I float to the ceiling with the fall? Do call my mom in the seconds before death?
5.
A fat girl was on the bus in front of me. She smelled like Longs perfume and her hair was thick, curly, and wet. It resembled a mass of black seaweed clinging to a boulder. Her body took up two seats, her thighs over flowing into the aisle. Two stops after I got on, she pulled the stop requested cord and got off. As the bus powered away in great lumbering turns, I saw her light a cigarette and lower her weight onto the bench.
6.
Crack head Santa sat behind me on the bus today. I was in the first row, window seat; he was second row aisle. With his brown tipped full beard poking through the hole between our seats, he leveled his head with mine and turned to look at me. His jacket, maybe six inches away from my nostrils, smelled like Santa had indulged in some ganja and had maybe spilled a forty on himself.

I wondered if there was a rehab center on the North Pole. I imagined their high squeaky voices saying, “Hello, Santa.” I bet he started drinking after Tim Allen played him in Chris Kringle. That was horrible. He’d probably get drunk every Christmas eve and then do some speed (just to be safe). But he really started hitting the hard stuff once Cinnamon the elf showed him how much cocaine looks like snow. A couple of lines of “snow” and he’d be merry for the rest of the night.

But that couldn’t continue for long. One day, as she was mending his best suit, Mrs. Claus found his stash sewed into the fluffy ball in his hat. She kicked him out that night. Every Christmas eve since she’s been putting on a fake beard and making the rounds.

Things weren’t so good for a homeless, drugged out Santa on the North Pole, so he moved south—to Hawaii. No one recognized his traditional outfit and it was warm, the most logical location on the globe. When Santa couldn’t afford his “snow”, and when crack prices got cheap, he got himself a real pipe and cut off his red velour pant legs. He’s made his home camping out on the stoop of “Paintballtopia” in Maikiki.

I pulled the stop requested cord and took one more look at jolly Santa: eyes rosy and cheeks shiny, he winked in my direction and promptly passed out against the window