The Bus Ride.

When I turned 66 I became convinced, because of my reading of Zen Buddhist books, that every time I went to bed I woke up a different person the next morning.
I wasn't sure if I liked that or not.  I mean, how different was I each day? Could I wake up one day as Harold Stassen, or Nancy Pelosi?

So I didn't sleep well anymore, after that thought screwed itself into my brain. Usually I'd fall asleep while reading in my recliner at night and then wake up around midnight and have a snack and then write poems to my ex wife until the tears came, then throw myself on my bed, exhausted, and wake up at 8 or so, and get ready to go to the Senior Center on the bus they sent around at 9.

But one day the bus driver was a substitute who didn't know anybody, so I had to give her my name to write on her clipboard. First I said I was Marilyn Monroe, which got a laugh from the other geezers on the bus. Then I said my name was Elmer Fudge. The driver gave me a ferocious frown, unless she was suffering from the sudden onset of enteritis, so I thought I'd better give her the last real name I remembered myself as. But the name didn't sound right to me. I worried that I was being subsumed by a koan.

After I swam in the pool and ate a cheese danish with a glass of orange juice, I went outside to get on the bus back to my apartment. But there was a crowd around the substitute bus driver, with everyone shouting contradictory suggestions and giving confusing orders. 

I listened, growing so angry at the stupid remarks by people who didn't know what was going on and only wanted to say things to seem knowledgeable that I finally went back inside to sit on the vinyl couch by the gas fireplace and wait for night to fall or to become invisible or turn into a marble statue. But all that happened was that some gabby old lady sat down next to me to say the bus driver was making two trips, and I would be on the second trip. I grew to dislike that gabby old lady intensely in a matter of seconds, because she punctuated every other sentence with a meaningless laugh. 

The bus did not come back for forty minutes. The front desk said the substitute bus driver had gotten lost. While I waited I collected several brown rocks with purple stripes or bands in them to put in my coat pocket. By the time the bus got back the heavy rocks had torn holes in my coat pockets and rolled around on the sidewalk, making an ominous chalky noise.

Everyone spoke Spanish on the bus but me.
The driver went in the opposite direction of where I lived.
A small red light kept flashing silently above my head.
And suddenly I knew that my name must really be Tod Williams, and that I had taught scuba diving out in Hawaii on Wailuku Beach for years before retiring because of sand in my craw.

Everyone was dropped off before me. I was the last person on the bus, and the substitute bus driver kept scowling at me. She never forgave me for that Elmer Fudge crack, I guess. I could see her frowning in her rear view mirror. I had to use the bathroom pretty bad when we got to my place, but as we pulled up I realized this was not where I lived. I told the substitute bus driver, she asked me well then just where did I think I lived -- this was where she had picked me up that day. So I got off, thanking her for her patience and kind understanding. She whistled the Whiffenpoof  song back at me in a very insulting manner.

Once inside the apartment building I pulled out my key, but didn't recognize it. Was I having a stroke? Had I died and gone to some existential Camus world? I hate asking myself questions, no matter how many times I've been reincarnated -- so I put the key in the first locked door I came to, and it opened right up.

Inside I found pleasant tropical plants scattered tastefully around some heavy leather furniture that looked so inviting I had to sit down. Next to my chair was a bowl of chocolate covered raisins. As I ate them I felt lighter and younger. A young woman in a black cocktail dress, with a yellow poke bonnet on her head, came into the room and played the harp for me.

"Who are you?" I asked her when she had finished playing When You Were Sweet Sixteen.

"Just as you please" she answered me, then softly walked into another room where I could smell grapefruit. I followed and found myself in a sun room where miniature lemon and orange trees flourished in glossy brown clay pots. The wicker furniture was painted white. When I sat down I heard a brainfever bird. When the men with the white dinner napkins finally came, I was ready to go with them. You can't fight your fate.