lesa

Every evening, when I get off work, I pass by this one bus stop that is right next to my freeway onramp. On most nights, there is a very pretty Goth girl that sits there waiting, wearing her headphones and minding her own business, just waiting for her bus to come along and whisk her away. Her expression is usually the same. She looks bored and sort of defeated.

After my first car was totaled by an uninsured driver, I was in financial dire straits. I couldn't afford the repairs, let alone pay for a down payment on a new car, subsequent monthly payments, insurance, etc., so I had no other option but to take the busses and the trains to get to work every day. And every day I was miserable. Never once did I say to myself "Oh, it's not so bad." Not ever.

Granted I was able to afford certain things because I didn't have to make car payments or give my money away to an insurance agency every month, but that thought was never much solace. Riding the bus was an experience in humility. Enduring the heat of Summer and the grueling, lengthy rides inside of a smelly, filthy, never reliable, always late, always jam-packed mode of public transportation such as the L.A. bus system provides. And then there were the parts when it would rain in sheets and the wind would ensure that my bones were soaked through from head to toe. One year, I even caught pneumonia, but I still went to work, in the rain, on the bus. It was Hell.

Of course, there were the nights when I would sit at my dressing table, wondering how I would safely make it to the club that evening without being gawked at, mugged, or raped by some creepy wierdo with gang signs burned into his forearms that just so happened to like the scent of my perfume as he inched closer and closer to me in the seat beside me. And my fondest memory had to have been the time the homeless woman/creature with moles growing from every orifice pissed herself right there in her seat, unmoving, watching with interest while a puddle formed behind her in her seat, while the other passengers tried to stand away from her holding their shirts to their noses.

Usually I would fume or flip someone off if they passed me by and catcalled me but didn't have the balls or the manners to stop and offer me a ride. I would sit green with envy when clean, healthy-looking people would whoosh by in their shiny cars with the windows rolled down. I sat and smiled through clenched teeth when I saw Nicholas Cage (yes, THAT Nicholas Cage) pull up and stop at a light in his pristine white Mercedes. He even nodded politely at me, then drove off. At that very same bus stop, Fabio (uh huh, fucking Fabio) actually rolled down his window and offered me a ride in his creepy voice. I declined and tried to rid myself of the chills when I saw him that weekend, talking to the transexual hookers who leaned seductively into his passsenger side window in the Ride Aid parking lot. You have to love living in Hollywood.

But when you live in the city, you have to be careful. I mean, what if some normal, average person did offer me a ride? Would I have accepted anyway? Even if someone looked innocent enough and spoke genuinely to me? Probably not. In fact, there was one occasion when the most attractive man in a business suit and a nice car did offer me a ride. It was early in the morning, about 7 am on Sunset Blvd. After a two-second survey of my surroundings, I decided that it wasn't safe. There wasnt a soul around that would see him pick me up. I decided that this perfectly amazing-looking guy was probably a rapist, or that he assumed I was a whore for hire. So much for that.

I would sit in frustration while fighting a faceless, bitter old woman for a few inches of space on a bus bench for shade, or shelter from the rain beneath a drippy bus stop enclosure. The old people were never as "helpless" as they had people convinced they were. They were selfish, and pushy and mean, and they would always, always step on my shoes when the bus arrived, shoving their stumpy bodies forward and lurching ahead of me, using two or three seats for their stupid shopping bags filled with things that smelled like rank, old salami.

I was as polite as I could be what with the plethora of human nastiness that surrounded me on a daily basis. And I was almost as tolerant towards the horrific driving skills of one Nazi bus driver I would dread getting stuck with on certain routes. She was a true freak. Who knows, she probably didn't make enough money to afford a car, and probably was as pissed as I was for being forced to ride the bus herself.

So every night, when I leave my office, and I pass the pretty girl at the bus stop, I ask myself the same question, at the risk of looking like a wierdo. "Should I stop and offer her a ride?"