The Bus Driver

They called him "Stinko", and he never found out why. He was going to ask. He was always going to ask; he just never did. And then it was too late.

His driver's license says Edward J. Mulligan. His real name is unknown, at least to the crew of Devil’s Nightmare. They started calling him Stinko on his first day, and the name stuck.

Back when he was a leg-breaker for Vito Tankette he was known as Danny Two-Sleeves. Mention the name Danny Two-Sleeves in any taproom in Koreatown, they let you in the backroom. Back then he demanded respect, and at six foot four and 320 pounds, he got plenty of it. You didn’t break legs for Vito Tankette and not command respect.

Those days are gone now nine months. Here, amid the misty shadows of lonesome San Pedro Harbor, he drives a school bus filled with prepubescent street-hoods. He does this twice a day, five days a week. He stays to himself. He drinks alone, eats alone. Sleeps alone. He had come west by Greyhound and took a job nobody else wanted. Now he waits for a bullet to the back of the head.

For most bus drivers, these particular young misfits might have been too much to deal with five days a week. To Danny Two-Sleeves, they were a breath of fresh air. He was their seventh bus driver this year, and it was only November. The other drivers had run for the door. One sued the school board. Two called the police. Most didn’t last a week. They all tried hard. They would turn around and shout things like, “You boys sit down right this minute!” “Put that out!” “Don’t make me come back there!”

Danny Two-Sleeves never tells them to sit down or shut up or to stop smoking weed. He drives the bus, the Devil’s Nightmare blow spit wads at the back of his head.

He can deal with spit wads to the back of his head. It's the other that concerns him. He tries not to think about it, but he knows what's coming. New York’s coming. Chicago’s coming. St Louis is out there some place. One of them is going to get here someday. He’s amazed he’s still alive, and he’s amazed at how much he enjoys driving this bus. The kids remind him of him. He too had thought himself a tough guy, though deep down he knew he really wasn’t. He was just big. Then, over time, he became a tough guy for real and proved himself wrong. Very wrong.

That was then.

Now, in mirrored sunglasses, he secretly watches his passengers in the rearview mirror. He feels sorry for the little fuckers, and for himself as well. He sees himself in them. There are fifteen in all. Fifteen future tough guys now jumping on the seats, hanging their bare asses out the windows. Whistling at girls twice their age. The inside of the bus is covered in graffiti and smells heavily of gym socks and marijuana.

Today he's watching Rocco in the rearview mirror. Rocco Dueno. A future tough guy bound for LA County in the not-too-distant future, and a three to one shot at doing the full dime in San Quentin before he's thirty. “You’ll come outta there a pork sausage, kid.” That's what Danny Two-Sleeves was going to tell Rocco one day. "A pork sausage." Just spell it out quick and dirty, then drop the subject.

So here comes Rocco down the aisle. Rocco's commanding the stage, making gorilla sounds. His arms hang low to the floor. “Who am I?” he says, trying to sound like a deep-voiced gorilla.

“Stinkooo!” the kids all say in joyous unison. Danny Two-Sleeves tries not to smile. He drives the bus and lets the little shitheads be little shitheads.
 
When things get out of control, knives drawn sort of thing, then he’s quick to stop the bus and take off his sunglasses. By glare alone, the bus quiets. They were young, this Devil’s Nightmare gang, but they were street. They knew genuine danger when they saw it. Stinko's eyes told them to sit their asses down and they did so quickly.

This was Danny Two-Sleeves’ life now. Pick up fifteen hungry kids at 3:30, drop them off in the projects across town just as it’s getting dark. This was on the other side of the canal, which in San Pedro is the other side of the tracks, which is the other side of the world from where streetlights work at night.

Most get off the bus at 118th. A rough area. But not as rough as this next stop, here at Hays Avenue where the Barkly twins live. They, the twins, went out the back doors this evening and nobody saw who came in from the front.

The Barkly boys held their noses, made farting noises, called out, "Stinko” one last time, then jumped from the bus. He watches them run up the dark street until they turn left at the corner, and once again wonders why they call him that, when a bullet passes through his brain.

Someone from somewhere had finally shown up.

--871 Words--