Bus Stop

Bus Stop

“The bus, is it late again or is my watch not living up to its share of our agreement?”

“Hard to tell, I don’t wear a watch. Something about knowing what time it Is makes me more nervous than I already am.”

“You got some kind of a disease or is this world just getting to you?”

“Nah, me and the world get along pretty good. And I ain’t got some disease that makes me feel like I’m running out of time. I think it’s just the time of year, kind of makes me mopey.”

“What’s mopey fell like? Sometimes I get so I don’t want to leave my room cause I know what’s waiting for me. Nothing serious, nothing I can’t handle, but it’s the thought of always having something that seems to be gunning for you when all you want to do is live out your years in peace, and hopefully quiet. What do you do when you get feeling like that?”

“I don’t do nothing myself. I don’t feel fit to do anything that involves thinking or moving, so I mostly just sit. Sometimes if I feel like thinking a little, I wonder what clouds think about. It always passes by about supper time and that’s all that matters.”

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before. You live around here or are you just taking in the sites? I know sometimes when I get to where there isn’t anything worth doing or even thinking about doing, I just get on a bus and ride. You’d be surprised how much stuff is out there you didn’t know was out there. It’s cheap entertainment and enlightening at times, if you don’t mind the times it ain’t, which is most of the time. But once you know there is a possibility something different might happen, it kind of takes the edge off nothing happening. Know what I mean?”

I did know what he meant, kind of. That is why I try not to take up conversations with people. They have a tendency to tell you things you don’t need to hear and sometimes show you things you really shouldn’t be seeing. I understand about running away from yourself, I do it all the time. Too bad it don’t work. I end up back in the same house with the same people. All that running around, and most times for nothing. This guy however has more potential than most I meet. I should say observe, cause I try not to meet too many people. I know enough people as it is and most of them I wish I didn’t know.

“No, can’t say I know what you mean, cause I don’t let things affect me. I used to but learned it did no good…” Sometimes it’s easier to lie when you don’t know the truth, but then that ain’t actually lying.

“You ever heard that analogy about worry doing no good cause it’s like paying a debt you don’t owe? I never understood where they were going with the words but I kind of got the sentiment. Could be cause I don’t believe in debt. Debt is the direct result of buying things you want but don’t necessarily need. The whole damn country is hooked on this buying things. We are, if you haven’t noticed, a consumer society. It makes the economy go round but it’s driven by a bunch of addicts. People who feel that things make them who they want to be. Can you imagine what would happen to the world if people quit buying things they don’t need? Essentials are just the basics, and if they was made right they would last someone’s life time, but they ain’t. We just have to keep buying or most folks wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Are you a buyer or reuser?”

“I ain’t never thought of myself as either if you must know. I like to save when I’m buying, so I guess that makes me a saver with economical tendencies. It ain’t that I don’t think things are costing what they should cost, but they just ain’t worth what is being asked. I know we got inflation, but inflation is just another way to make it look like we are headed in the right direction when in fact we is losing ground; let me give you an example.

You got money you saved in the bank, probably because you didn’t pay what was being asked. That money, let’s say a dollar, with inflation stretching higher and higher your money is only worth let’s say 95% of what it was when you put it in the bank. Now, you demand higher wages, cause inflation is making you pay more for less. You get a raise, and you go to the store and what used to cost one dollar, now costs one dollar and ten cents. That is because the guy putting it on the shelf wants more too. The business owner, although claiming to be part of the capitalistic system where supply and demand are supposed to set the cost of things, now he can’t absorb the cost of the guy he just gave another 10 cents to, so he raises his price.

Now you just made an extra 10 cents but it cost you 10 cents more to buy something, so you are where you started, the guy selling you the stuff, he’s where he started, and the boss man who sells the stuff, he’s excusing himself from scrutiny cause he controls the supply but tells you it’s a transportation supply problem that he can’t do nothing about. So, he gets your 10 cents without doing anything but lying about what he’s doing to keep your 10 cents.

You are probably thinking that they got regulations to keep stuff like that from happening, and they do. It’s just that the guy selling stuff is making the regulations or paying someone to make them for him. Now, while you are wondering how you can pay the jerk back for profiting off of his dishonesty, people ain’t buying cause they is scared the whole system is going to fail and they need to keep every penny, even though it ain’t worth what it was. So, as you might have guessed we have a recession, or worse a depression, where people lose their job cause no one is buying… but not to worry.

The guy who makes the rules can buy back what he sold you for a dollar for 25 cents, cause you need the money even though you know you is getting the short end of the deal, and he knows he’s too big to fail. Which means the government will have to step in and give him your tax dollars so he can keep a float while you is sinking.

It’s nothing to be concerned about. These thing come along every so often like clockwork. It’s kind of like a bonus for the people selling things and should be a lesson for those buying, but it ain’t. Humans have the attention span of a squirrel, maybe not as twitchy, but not far off. So now that the guy selling stuff is floating away and you is sinking, the government prints money so we can all have a little to spend. Think of it as robbing Peter to pay Peter, cause nothing is free.

The guy selling cause he makes the rules, decides he needs to pay less taxes so the debt goes up, which your kids get to inherit because they was born into a system that’s too big to fail.

And you are so happy to get a little extra so you can start buying again, that you forgot after ten seconds that you are in fact paying yourself for not complaining. It’s a wonderful system if you are too big to fail, so I’d suggest you get to the place where you are too big to fail or quit buying what you don’t need just so you can feel good about keeping on buying.”

I certainly wasn’t ready for that. I know we buy things cause it makes us forget our children are going to inherit a debt that can’t be paid off, cause it is in no one’s interest to do so, especially when you are too big to fail. He’s right about that. Once the money becomes worthless, it’s only worthless to some, not all.

“Where you work at anyway? You seem to know a lot about this buying and selling stuff. You work at a bank or one of those places where they get to gamble with other people’s futures?”

“At first I kind of took you for one of those agitator types who is always telling me I’m doing it wrong, and that’s why I can’t seem to get ahead or even catch up most times. But then I thought, no, you wouldn’t be taking the bus if he was one of those types. By the way, the way you’re dressed you just can’t tell. I never thought that orange and purple went together all that well.

Then I thought it might be better to just ask rather than waste time guessing. But then, was it really any of my business? You might just tell me you’re a hit man and then you’d have to kill me to keep me from telling. But you don’t look the part according to the movie version of people who have that calling.”

“So, where do you work then?”

“I work at Meat Heads, that bar on Hennepin Avenue that someone like you couldn’t afford to get acquainted with. They got standards I can barely fit into, that’s why I’m dressed like this.People think cause they got money they can tell you how to dress, behave, and how much they think you are worth.And they’d be right. Money kind of decides who gets to say and who has to listen. Everything is about money. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but you can’t go to a church now days where they ain’t asking you to contribute so that your own soul can be saved; everything’s got a price, but I can’t see how paying the middle man is going to make that much difference as far as my soul is concerned.

I noticed you didn’t ask about the name of the bar, Meat Heads. It kind of got borrowed from the old TV show about a family of misfits, in misfit times. The guy who owns the bar thought it would be appropriate to kind of rub those who can’t afford to drink there the wrong way. There’s nothing like being able to look down on someone to make you feel more important than you already think you are. Like they say, it’s always easier when someone is down to kick them, than you having to bend over to hit them, easier and makes more sense, unless you is the one being kicked.

And what do you do if you don’t mind telling me?”

“I’m a psychologist at the zoo. You’d be surprised how many animals need psychiatric help. But then I ain’t there for the animals, but the people who work there. They all feel undervalued and not just cause they don’t get paid much and they claim the animals are treated better than they are. I have to keep reminding them they are animals themselves. You should see the ignorant fights break out when I tell them that. That’s why I stay on the other side of the glass with the regular animals. They are far less temperamental and less likely to beat on you for what you say, truth or not.”

“We got a lot in common then. We both get to listen to other’s problems and give them answers we have no idea will work or not. I think it’s more the fact that we listen, answering would give them the impression we care. Do you care?”

“Care? About what?”

“The people you listen to at the bar? There must be some reason you listen to them? Some of them you must relate to? I know at the Zoo I find it’s easier to relate to the orangutangs than the people that work there, but I can’t hold that against them. I don’t like most people, so that’s probably the reason they ain’t fond of me either.

This is my stop coming up. Sure was fun talking to you and not feeling like I been used up. You just going to ride around town all day and…and do what?”

“I just watch people. They are the most entertaining of creatures. Sometimes I feel like I’m from another planet and ended up here and now I can’t find a way to get back. You ever feel like that?”

“I did at first, but I got used to it after about a hundred years. How long you been here?”

“Don’t know for sure. Don’t wear a watch anymore, makes my skin feel like, well, you know, skin.”

“I got to get off here. Nice talking with you and don’t take any wooden nickels.”

“Now, why would I do that? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a wooden nickel. Seems like they wouldn’t hold up to good in this humidity. You’d best be off. Maybe we’ll run into one another sometime if we ain’t got much to do and the buses are still running. You know that apocalypse thing they is always talking about? Well, I heard…”

“There is a lot being said, but little of it makes any sense. The people on this planet are devolving. They are using far more resources than can be replaced and they continue to ignore the problem because someone told them all the climate concerns were just a hoax. I’ve been here since it all began to change, turn of the last century. You do know you can’t buy common sense? You ever heard that saying about feeding someone a fish and he is good for a day, teach him to fish and he’s good for life, or at least until they overfished themselves out of fish.

I meant to ask, and I now can cause I missed my stop, where’d you get your accent?”

“I’ve been living in Appalachia, how about you?”

“I live in New Jersey, but I spent the first fifty years in Brooklyn. Most people can tell.”

“I’m having a hard time with the language as it is, let alone learning accents. I have been thinking of moving out to Nevada where the gambling business is shrinking because people are afraid they might not have enough money to eat on.”

“You don’t need to go to Nevada to gamble. People gamble here every day; betting the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat ain’t going to kill them. I got to get back and it’s a might of a walk. Monkeys don’t feed themselves you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that! Say, you got any more of those wooden nickels? They ain’t got no humidity where I’m originally from.”

“Yah, and there ain’t no humidity there either.”