Another one rides the bus

There is still an empty seat next to me when Kim gets on the bus at 7th and Congress.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asks while taking her seat. “I’m not crazy.” She then sticks out her tongue, makes the sign of the devil, and smiles coyly.

“Well, maybe a little.”

Today I’ve decided to ride the #1 bus for the entire route. Because I drive my car everywhere, I find the idea of riding the bus strangely exotic —– almost to the point where I’m scared of it. But, after growing tired of paying for parking tickets and gas, I decided to buck up and unravel this enigma — even if I don’t know what to expect. I want to see if Capital Metro can get me around Austin as easily as they claim on KUT.

And that’s how, after two hours, I end up sitting next to Kim.

Kim looks as trashy as she talks. She has bleach-blonde hair and margarita breath, but she’s not a bad woman. She just needs braces.

“I didn’t do nothin’. Well, nothin’ he didn’t deserve,” Kim confides in me.

“Of course not,” I tell her, questioning my initial judgment of her character. I’m beginning to think I should have chosen a different bus.

“I just got released from Huntsville with nothin’ but a hundred bucks and my name,” she explains.

“Oh,” I nod, not really knowing how else to respond.

As we stop at the Capitol, two teenage girls sit down behind us and begin a highly topical conversation about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Kim ignores these politicos, cackles, and asks me, “So you wanna know what I did, or what?”

“Okay.” Of course I do — all this Lewinsky stuff has gotten me in the mood for some dirt.

“I caught my man screwin’ some whore in my mother’s trailer, so I set their bed on fire.”

Seeing the look one my face, she quickly clarifies: “Aw, no. Don’t worry. They ain’t in the bed at the time. I had to run out and get some gasoline first, and by the time I came back, they were gone.”

Kim clearly didn’t realize that setting fire to a bed in a trailer was a bad idea.

“The whole goddamn thing was gone in seven minutes. I couldn’t believe it! I was just tryin’ to give that sonofabitch a little scare.”

We’ve known each other less than five minutes, and she’s already confessed to arson. I just keep nodding.

The Lewinsky girls get off and are replaced by a large woman breastfeeding her little girl.

“Ooooh, that sugar’s so good! That sugar is so good!” the woman coos while Kim watches. She seems sad.

Kim shows me some wallet-sized photos taken before she wound up in Huntsville. They’re pictures of her baby daughter. But that little wallet girl will never know how sweet her mama’s sugar is: In a custody battle, “the government” shockingly picked the sonofabitch over a convicted arsonist.

While I sympathize with Kim, I don’t share her indignation towards government. After all, “the government” helps fund Cap Metro, which gives rides to people like Kim, the breastfeeding mom, and folks like me who just want to save some money. And although Cap Metro was helping Kim cope without a car, it wasn’t helping her cope without a man.

“It’s just so effin’ weird not having a man around. And I give my man everything I have. I spend so much damn time taking care him — it’s like a soul sucker, you know? Sucking up all my energy and money? But it’s never enough.” I thought about my boyfriend’s perpetually messy kitchen, and I began to understand where Kim was coming from. “Nothing is ever enough for those bastards. You know?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I tell her. Life advice from an ex-con wearing jean cut-offs in winter is extremely hard to come by.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have done what I done and burned down everything and all, but I will say this,” she pauses to laugh, “It was pretty effin’ fun!” Then she laughs some more.

As we continue to ride down Lamar, Kim happily confesses she’s drunk. I’m impressed, but not surprised.

Kim signals her stop as we approach The Yellow Rose. I bite my tongue.

“When is this damn road gonna end?” she mutters, standing up as the bus slowed to a stop.

Maybe she’s speaking metaphorically. I tell her it could be a while. Then the bus’s doors open, and Kim steps off the #1 and onto the streets of Austin.

I’m all alone for the next two hours of my route with nothing to think about but Kim. How did I manage to make a connection with this woman? And why do crazy people always tell me their life stories? Maybe it’s because I have a look in my eye that says, I make poor decisions, too. And I do. I, too, have a sonofabitch: my car. It costs me lots of time, energy, and money, and it certainly feels like it’s sucking my soul. And I need my soul; I was a philosophy major.

I’ll just have to make sure my car’s not in the garage when I light it on fire.