Stories From The Bus

By Merlin Sprague

For several years, Merlin Sprague drove a small passenger bus for a senior center. It was an unusual occupation (but then, what occupation isn’t unusual in its own way).

In Stories From The Bus Merlin tells you about his job, the people with whom he worked, his passengers and their their lives. In these stories, Merlin expresses consternation with an increasingly harsh system originally designed to help those who cannot help themselves.

Through no faults of their own, Merlin’s passengers are old, sick and broken. These people are down for the count and must rely on government programs to stay alive and keep roofs over their heads. These programs have never been overly generous and now our political climate seeks to do away with even this meager portion.

Stories From The Bus concludes with some pungent observations on why things are the way they are and what might be done about it. Merlin Sprague is militating for a change of heart before much more damage is done.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Merlin Sprague
• Release date: Mar 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310144752

Merlin Sprague

Back in the day I, by turns, sold pay telephones, large telephone systems, consulting services and software (of my own creation, I must note).I also drove a semi.There are also two kids and four grandkids, but they live light years away in Minnesota, California and Florida.And of course there's Jo, the wife. She and I got happily married back in 1974. We live in Washington State in a little wide-spot in the road called Clearview. It's nice out here and we've been in the same home for over twenty years.

Book preview

Stories From the Bus

A study in the Economics and Politics of Our Times

By:

Merlin Sprague

Published by Merlin Sprague at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 by Merlin Sprague

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

The Bus

Getting Started

Orientation

Checkrides

A Big Surprise Was In Store

The People Who Ride My Bus

Before introducing you to my passengers

Is This The Cause Of It All?

Now for Some Stories From The Bus

The Dead Lady

Tyrone

Brian

Heard on the Bus

Miss Lacy

Anna, One of My Favorite Passengers

Nannette

Jon

Within Walking Distance

The Old Veteran

The RideLink Era

Slum Court

Larry, Moe and Curley

Sleepy Hollow

Sex Kitten

The Beaten Woman

Two-Ton Tillie

Jerkin Off

The Sweetest Little Girl

Going to the Hospital

Big Merlin & His Dad

Rules, Rules, and More Rules

The Methadone Clinic

Vladislav

The Woman in the Trailer

Wally, the Pinhead

A Thought Wally Inspired

Skinning a Buck

So Then

Introduction

For several years, Merlin Sprague drove a small passenger bus for a senior center. It was an unusual occupation (but then, what occupation isn’t unusual in its own way).

In Stories From The Bus Merlin tells you about his job, the people with whom he worked, his passengers and their lives. What you read here is all true, though the names have obviously been changed.

In these stories, Merlin expresses consternation with an increasingly harsh system originally designed to help those who cannot help themselves.

Through no faults of their own, Merlin’s passengers are old, sick and broken. Their lives have been fundamentally changes by age, sickness and disability. These people are down for the count and must rely on others to stay alive and keep roofs over their heads. These programs are mostly offered by the government and have never been overly generous. But now our political climate seeks to do away with even this meager portion.

The Bus

Merlin Sprague, said Jo placing herself between the TV and me, fists on her hips. You are going to seed. You never get out of that bathrobe anymore and it’s starting to smell. You never go outside anymore. All you do is sit in that damned recliner the whole damned day, watching that damned History Channel.

I’m telling you, if you don’t get out of that chair and do something, you’ll be dead in six months. Some fine day, you’ll be watching the umpteenth replay of Strategic Air Command when you’ll quietly stroke-out.

Motioning her to get out of the way I replied, Hey, could you move? Please? I’m watching this thing on FDR.

Of course Jo was right. Unfortunately, the last few ugly years taught me the futility of attempting anything but going to the bathroom. After the 2000s, I had decided to retire, in the sense of surrendering to sloth, indolence and the absence of pocket change. Unless hectored, I wouldn’t mow the lawn, sweep the driveway, wash the car or even make my bed (after all, a guy never knows when he might need a nap).

My chores are repetitive; I finish them one day and, b`god, there they are again the next. They’re like flushing a toilet over and over -- press the little handle and the water goes down, then the water fills back up. Press the little handle . . . You get the idea.

I have few friends and fewer family -- two daughters from a previous marriage who never call -- so my departure wouldn’t be a great loss. Except to Jo. Jo and I have been married for forty years and are joined at the hip. If Jo wants me around that much, I suppose I have some duty to maintain myself in robust, pink-cheeked health.

Besides, some extra dough might be nice. But what to do? I was sitting in my recliner because five years ago, my business went down the old porcelain pipe. (I explain all this in another book titled Trucker, an ebook available from Smashwords, Amazon and other such places.) Now, having hit seventy-two and stony-assed broke, starting another business is unlikely. Besides, I’m fresh out of ideas. Selling stuff would be a good option, but what? Cars? Real estate? Tried those and they suck. But with my checkered history and advanced age, something like ethical pharmaceuticals wasn’t in the cards either. Retail clerking? Back in my school days I tried that and it really sucked.

Hey, how about a nighttime security guard? Nah. Pay is for shit and the job is deadly-dull. Besides, I could get shot by some mutt looking for money with which to buy crack.

Perhaps a gatherer of night soil at a local hospital? Nope: Though there might be some excitement (Jesus H. Christ, guys! Will you look at the size of that turd?), the pay is still low, the job is disgusting and you are on call 24/7/52.

Wal-Mart greeting was unappealing. Yes ma’am, the Depend adult diapers are over on aisle three, right next to the enema supplies and douche bags. The bosses are tyrants, the hours are long and the pay is crap.

Well, I like driving. But no more semis, though the semi provided a welcome and much-needed change from bitching customers and nasty bill collectors. Unfortunately, with one exception, the job had been hateful and that one exception was driving the semi. I loved driving the semi. I loved it almost as much as I loved getting the pilot orders from Microsoft, IBM and Cisco Systems, back in the day.

But what to drive? Taxis? Un-uh. You work all the time and I mean all the time. City bus? Negatory. I’m too old. Delivery route? Bad idea. I’m too feeble to shelp around all that cargo. Besides, I look bad in shorts.

Maybe I could mule drugs? What self-respecting narc would suspect a grizzled old fart in an ancient Toyota of toting a quarter million dollars of dope in his trunk? It’s a possibility, but I don’t have any connections in that biz. I suppose I could ask Mac, my old and trusted supplier of weed but he died of cancer a short while back.

While I was mulling over my options and coming up with nothing, our friend and neighbor, Jasmine Johnson, popped in for a chat. Jasmine does volunteer work at a senior citizen center hereabouts and mentioned the place was looking for drivers. Jasmine said the center has a fleet of some dozen small, twelve-passenger buses in which they transport clients to and from the center and various adult day care facilities.

One rainy afternoon I headed for the center for a look-see. The place has two buildings: 1). A large two-story structure up the hill for functional members who usually drive their own cars, and; 2). The building I was visiting which was a daycare facility for the old, sick and broken. One organization, two immiscible clienteles.

Pulling into the parking lot, I saw a throng of older folks milling about the doorway. One or two could walk under their own steam, but for the most part, they’re in wheelchairs or use crutches and walkers.

These clients love coming to the center. And why shouldn’t they? There’s basket-weaving, of course, as well as group sing-alongs of 99 bottle of beer on the wall, jigsaw puzzles and, to round things out, bologna sandwiches for lunch. Or, for those with no teeth, some kind of mush. All the while minders are roaming about, making sure the clients do not touch certain areas of their bodies.

To attend the clients’ needs, a bevy of trim, young-ish women hover about. They offer kind words and amiable chit-chat while standing ready with moist towels -- spills and slobbers are numerous and frequent.

Rack-mounted Port-A-Potty’s line the hallways.

Of course there’s no free lunch, is there. The senior center and its fleet of buses -- and the drivers’ pay -- has to come from somewhere. For this we thank Uncle Sam and his grants-in-aid program, family members plus the usual suspects in need of tax deductions.

You may not think going to the senior center is very enriching, but it beats doing the very thing I was doing -- sitting around, watching the tube, waiting to die.

--- *** --- *** ---

Well hell, why not apply for the job. If I were a bus driver for the center, there’d be no heavy lifting and I’d be home every night. And with my Class A Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) and my experience in the semi, I’d probably have a good shot at the job. Jasmine filled me in on some of the details. At $12.25/hour, the pay stank but the job did provide bennies, though the health insurance had a $2,000 co-pay. Bad. But worse, as I’d be starting as a part-time driver (substitute as the center preferred to call it), there’d be no benies until I graduated to full-time status. And that wouldn’t be any time soon; no one in the band of elderly drivers appeared ready to leave. Fortunately, Medicare wasn’t far off.

Ah, Medicare. Good for me but Jo was still years away and, thanks to the Bush creature’s Depression, the state-subsidized health insurance plan Jo’d been using had gone a-glimmering. We both hoped and prayed we wouldn’t get sick. Though Jo gets the sniffles from time-to-time, she’s as strong as an ox and as healthy as they come. Unlike me, who is sickly and rather fragile. Of course Jo is looking into Obamacare. Hope she can find something.

I parked the car and went up the stairs to call on John Lombardi, the big kahuna of the Transportation Department. Squat with long arms, Lombardi arose from his chair and asked me what I wanted. From his expression, he must have thought I was going to rob the place. When I told him I wanted to apply for a job as driver, he broke into a wide smile and extended his hand.

My visit was timely, he said. Lombardi explained that the center would be officially looking for drivers in a few weeks. The center had a formal search process underway and they’d already asked the center’s employees but got no takers. The next step was an official notice posted in the Little Nickel and other papers. Lombardi promised that once that notice hit the streets, he’d call. Two weeks