Boarding the number two at Rideau and Nelson, the bus driver warns me not to swallow the two quarters I have pinched between my lips. Adding cheerfully, “you’ll get sick to your stomach and then I’ll have a mess to clean up!”
At the Rideau Center, a woman dressed in generic work clothes she probably doesn’t like very much, is reading The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. She’s only on page eight, and judging from the look on her face, she’s not enjoying it very much. Occasionally, she looks up from the book and checks her Blackberry. She sighs as she does this, as if disappointed that somebody forgot her birthday, again.
Turning down O’Connor, two professional looking women talk about the virtues of CBC radio and NPR. The one who’s doing most of the talking looks like she votes NDP and proudly frequents nude beaches. While speaking, she deftly integrates her affection for foreign films, The Economist and the Sandinistas into one sentence. The woman standing next to her nods her head, a tight smile on her lips.
On the Somerset portion of the route, there are lots of haunted looking men. They look lonely, like the have demons. Day after day, they return home to empty apartments, their hours stretched thin, they dump overflowing ashtrays into the toilet.
In Hintonburg, a man carrying a pack of Peter Jackson cigarettes and a Coke gets on the bus. He has a shock of white hair and a soul patch on his chin. He walks with a limp and wears mismatched clothes that almost look cool. He tells the person he sits beside about a horse that came in on Sunday night that paid out $75. He speaks slowly, as if it’s difficult for him to locate the words he wants to use.
Pimped out kids loiter in front of the Community Center. They look dangerous, like you wouldn’t’ want to watch them play street hockey, frightened to see how they might use their sticks.
Passing through the fashionable Westboro district of the city, the #2 emerges onto Richmond, where the demographics change. Here, on the bus, there are only women. Sitting quietly, they all stare straight, holding their bags carefully on their laps they look like they’re on important missions.
At Bayshore, a large woman in a hijab reads a tiny chapbook about half the size of a baseball card. Her thumb obscures the entire page of Arabic text on the opposite page to the one she’s reading. Her lips move slowly as her finger traces the words on the page.
Two girls share an iPod. One listens attentively, like a studious music geek, while the other girl bops about playing air guitar and snapping her fingers. Eating from a bag of Hickory Sticks, she shouts, “I have to pee so frigging badly!”
Plump and happy, a man wearing a Dave Matthews concert t-shirt decorated with the buttons of all sorts of not-so-cool rock bands gets on. He looks like he collects action figures and has an informed opinion about which Star Trek franchise is superior, like he’s dying to talk to somebody, to anybody.
A woman, who has made a point of carrying all of her groceries in cloth rather than plastic bags, answers her phone. At first, her “hello” is neutral, a question. When she finds out who’s calling, she relaxes, “oh, hi,” she says, warmth now infusing her voice.
It’s raining now, and as the 2 returns downtown an Asian man runs like the wind to catch the bus. He flashes by The Plant Bath, where, through an illuminated window, you can see dozens of children in karate outfits doing jumping jacks.