A bus called Community:
Travelling by bus offers a front-row seat to the sights, sounds — and idiosyncrasies — of the Greater Victoria community
by Dr. Lynne Van Luven
 “Some friends think I’m a tad eccentric. ‘You’re taking the bus?’ they’ll gasp, as if I had just announced I was going to ride a dromedary bareback across the Aussie Outback for a month.”
Monday, 6 a.m.
When I leave the house, the Big Dipper is still visible, tilting night towards morning in the cobalt sky. I walk down Wilkinson Road to the bus stop, the fresh morning air a cool hand on my face. The rooster across the road isn’t
awake yet, but I hear small creatures — a vole, a squirrel, perhaps a rat — rustling in the blackberry bushes along the ditches. Traffic noise from the highway a few blocks away is a muted rumble, low enough to be merely white noise. With many houses still dark and few cars on the road, I try to absorb enough of this peace to last me the rest of the day.
Marigold and Burnside, 6:25 a.m.
The sky is lighter now, a dull pewter shade that has swallowed the Big Dipper. Here it comes, Number 22, my snorting, lumbering chariot. This early, I’m often the only passenger for a few blocks, so I can ride in state, making small talk with the driver, or just sinking into the seat. This is my chance to keep an eye on the neighbourhood, noting whose garden is still in fine shape, whether there are new For Sale signs on lawns, whether Vern has finished painting his house yet. I love the fact that I don’t have to pay attention to the traffic and can daydream if I want.
Burnside and Tillicum, 6:37 a.m.
You can’t say we’ve missed our connection because buses in Victoria aren’t really scheduled to connect with seconds-to-spare clockwork, but the Number 26 is later than usual today. I stand outside the bus shelter, watching the cars, many of them bearing only one person enshrined in metal and plastic, hurtling past. Today Earl is waiting with me; he’s as loquacious as ever, talking about the sunny weather predicted for the week, eager to start his day at what we used to call a sheltered workshop.
“26 is coming,” I tell him as the bus lunges around the corner. He carefully positions himself right where the bus door will open, gently tapping the sidewalk in front of him with his white cane. Sometimes Sam (short for Samantha) transfers here with us, too. She’s a nursing student at UVic and over the past year she and I have chatted about her courses, her girlfriends’ mainland parties, whether she should seek work in the U.S., and how her grandmother is doing with her new hearing aid. Sometimes, if we talk all the way to campus, I forget to look at my pet landmarks — Shoebox Bookkeeping on Boleskine, the mist rising off the water along Saanich Road at the Swan Lake Sanctuary, the Nellie McClung branch of the public library. Not long ago, a huge orange and white inflated tiger proved a temporary distraction, poised to pounce atop a gas station on McKenzie.
Other mornings . . . .
On later trips, the bus is packed and the journey is far from serene. Hanging from the overhead rail while hefting a briefcase full of books is hardly relaxing. Indignities I have suffered on city buses over the past three years: glasses knocked askew by giant backpacks, half a dozen hits; ear or head bashed with an aggressive elbow, countless hits; toes mashed by people stepping back suddenly in a standing-room only aisle, innumerable hits; surges of anger as rude passengers (most often teenage boys) sit with their feet planted firmly in the aisle, nearly tripping me, half a dozen spurts.
Weirdest conversation logged on a bus this year (Number 14, late afternoon, leaving downtown near the Douglas
Hotel):
“Lady kin ah sit wid you?” he inquires, the greasiness of his blond hair exceeded only by his aroma of stale cigarette smoke and very recent beer.
“Sure,” I say, briefcase more firmly positioned on lap.
“Yer shure a good woman.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Yep, ah kin tell. “
“ How? “
Red-rimmed eyes peer at me. “Ah kin see it . . . ah been Zshembudzhist, y know.”
“Zshembudzhist?? “
“Ya, you know, lissen to nature and be yer own self inna whirld . . . don’ do wha ev’ry buddy else is. “
“Oh . . . oh, you’re a Zen Buddhist? “
“Ya, Zshembudzhist.”
And the bus goes on . . . .
None of those annoyances change my mind. Most days, I’d still rather take the bus than drive to work. Sure, I might not say that if we were a two-car family, but one rapidly depreciating chunk of junk in our driveway is enough, thank you. And I admit I don’t always think, “Oh, goody, a bus ride! “ at the end of a bad day when I face at least an hour’s travelling time, or when it’s raining chickens and elephants and everyone on the bus is soggy and surly. But four days out of five, “L’autobus, c’est moi, merci.”
True, some of my friends think I’m a tad eccentric. “You’re taking the BUS?” they’ll gasp, as if I had just announced I was going to ride a dromedary bareback across the Aussie Outback for a month. “Let me pick you up,” they insist. “I can’t just drop you off at a bus stop,” they assert, “that seems rude.”
Really, it’s not. I don’t mind. I kind of like that tuned out, wool-gathering feeling I get as a passenger on a public transit vehicle. And it’s educational. A great deal of what I know about the Greater Victoria area, I learned from buses. (Maybe not all I need to know, but a lot of stuff). If I didn’t take the bus, I wouldn’t know Earl or Sam, and I wouldn’t know about the teen moms who are organized enough to get their kids to daycare enroute to high school to finish their education. I wouldn’t have heard a trio of teenage boys talking about how they’d like to get a gun to show off at school. I wouldn’t see the frail out-patients getting on and off the bus at the cancer clinic and I wouldn’t know how many senior citizens ride the bus downtown Thursday mornings to shop. In short, I’d know a lot less about the fabric of my community.
If I didn’t ride the bus, I might even believe Victoria is the squeaky clean, mostly white, florally enhanced, tweedy bit-of-England, tourist haven that the downtown merchants keep advertising so relentlessly.
Thanks to my real life on the city’s buses, I know B.C.’s capital city is a much more problematic and diverse place than the brochures tell us. More than 50 years ago, the American playwright Tennessee Williams created an enduring play called A Streetcar Named Desire; I’m working on my own local narrative, A Bus Called Community.
When not travelling on the buses, Dr. Lynne Van Luven is an associate professor in UVic’s department of writing.
|
