The Price of a Bust Ticket
#25 Write about a Time You Have Been Lost
“Get off! Get off! Oh my God! Get off this bus, now!” Rosie shouted as she pulled the “this is our stop” chain by the door of the blue number 40 bus.
The door opened even though the bus had not yet completely stopped. I looked out at the blue sky, the empty countryside, and the red dirt road. Following what I thought were Rosie’s directions, I jumped. Rosie and her sister, Karina, waited until the bus stopped, and then they stepped off like ladies should.
“Are you ok?” they asked. “Yes, I was just scared,” I said sheepishly.
We could tell the bus driver thought we were ridiculous. I’m sure he had a wonderful laugh as he drove on. The problem for us, though, was that we didn’t know where he was going.
Earlier that day, my high school friend Karina and her sister Rosie and I had gone shopping in downtown Asuncion. We looked through The United Colors of Benetton, and we got perfume samples sprayed on us at the mall. We had a leisurely lunch of empanadas and ice cream Sundays. But then, we had to decide what to do with our afternoon.
“Where does the number 40 bus go? What would happen if we rode it all the way to the end?” Karina wondered.
“Let’s find out.” We all agreed.
We got on the bus going to opposite direction from where we lived. (Of course, we knew what lay that direction.) Downtown, where we got on, the bus was crowded. We enjoyed watching the people, but one by one they got off the bus.
Eventually, we left the city. By then we realized all of the other women passengers were off the bus. It was down to us, one male passenger who had been asleep, and the bus driver. We started to feel unsafe. We had no idea where we were. And no one knew what we were up to. Plus, this was before everyone had a cellphone.
Rosie said we should get off the bus as soon as possible. We got up and pulled the chain, but the bus showed no signs of stopping.
This is why Rosie started to shout at me.
As we dusted ourselves off, walked to the other side of the road, and tried to catch a bus back to the city, we realized where we were. We had been let out of the bus right in front of a brothel.
It took several tries to get another bus to pick us up. No one wanted to pick up three girls waiting in front of the brothel. Fortunately, a bus did pick us up, and we managed to return to our homes safely. Our adventure was silly and scary, but it only cost the price of a bus ticket.
Fix-A-Flat
Over the happy gurgles of K-Love Radio, I heard an out of place hissing noise. “That’s weird,” I thought. Then I heard the loud rumble of my flat tire rolling along at 65 miles per hour. This was accompanied by a burning rubber smell. “Crap,” I thought. “My tire is flat, and I’m going to be late to work on the first day of the semester.”
I grabbed my phone and tried to call my husband. As usual, I got his voicemail. I texted him, tried to call again, and then got out into the muggy August morning to see what I could do about it myself.
I saw that my driver’s side front tire was flat, but I hadn’t damaged anything else on the car. I opened my trunk to see if I even had a spare. There was so much junk in the trunk of my car that I couldn’t get the fuzzy spare tire flap open. I started to pull lawn chairs out and plop them on the ground. I slammed old jackets and shoes into the front seat.
Finally, I could see I had a spare. Just then two guys in orange vests pulled up to see if I needed help. “Yes, please,” I said. I felt kind of helpless in the pretty dress and glass bead crusted flip flops. The men seemed to be a father and son team. The older one blocked traffic while the younger one changed the tire.
As soon as he got the tire on, we heard the whirr of a police siren. A female office stepped from the squad car that had just pulled up behind us. “Do you need any help?” she asked. “Not anymore,” the older man replied. “We got it covered.”
In the meantime, my husband called back, and we arranged to meet at Lonny’s Auto in Paola. We could get a new tire put on, and I could drive his car to work. I would be late like sunset in July, but I would make it time for my first meeting of the day.
I thanked the guys profusely and drove off. However, I could see them following me in my rearview mirror. I pulled off at the first exit, and they motioned for me to roll my window down. “Your donut is flat. Pull over and we can air it up for you.” At this point, I just did exactly what they said. I pulled into the Conoco, and the younger one put air in my tire. After that, they seemed to think I could handle things on my own, so they went on their way to work in Olathe.
In the end, I did make it to work in time for my first meeting. My mechanic replaced my tire and changed my oil all before I got home that night. My husband graciously let me drive his car all day. But I am still in awe and indebted to the kindness of strangers. They went out of their way, got dirty, and were probably late to their own job that day because they stopped to make sure I was ok. Since I don’t even know their names, the only way I can repay them is to pay it forward.
#76 Hitchhiker
We were too young to know any better. Or maybe it was the infant car seat in the woman’s arms that made us stop. We were driving back to Shawnee from Paola in the dark. Our two-year-old son was just starting to settle down from his tirade. “I don’t want to leave!” he screamed as we pulled him from his grandma’s arms, so we could go home. And then we saw them on the side of the road. A man, a woman, and what looked like a baby.
My husband pulled over to the side of the road to find out their story. “We were driving back from the lake and our car broke down,” the man explained. “If you could give us a lift back to the city…” he started. “This is my daughter, and her baby.” The young girl (eighteen years old at the most) waved at us.
“How old is your baby?” my husband asked. “Four weeks,” the girl replied. “Can I see your baby?” my husband asked. The girl pulled the blanket back to reveal a tiny, tiny baby in an infant car seat.
“Ok, we’ll take you to Olathe. You should be able to use a payphone there to contact someone to help you.”
The woman and the baby got in the front seat. I moved to the back seat next to my son. The man sat on the other side of my son’s car seat.
We chatted as we drove the fifteen miles or so into Olathe. All the while, I was holding my breath just a little. I was torn between making sure these strangers and their baby were safely off the highway and protecting my son.
Finally, we pulled up to the Perkins on Santa Fe. “You will be safe here,” my husband said. They are open all night, and they will let you use the phone. The hitchhikers got out and waved goodbye. They didn’t ask for anything else.
We drove home to our safe, warm house, and put our baby snugly in his bed. We were equally happy to have helped strangers and to be safe from them.
Margins
Sometimes when I travel, I meet people who tell me Kansas is flat, ugly, dry, and somewhere to drive through on their way to Colorado. Secretly, I think, “good, then don’t go there and mess up my leg room.” I love many things about Kansas, but most of all I love the open spaces and the sacred solitude that can still be found here. When I visited the St Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park in Centerville, Kansas, I had a similar feeling. In a way, I am afraid to write about it because I enjoyed my experience there so much that I want to keep it all to myself like a sacred secret.
I chose to visit St. Philippine Duchesne memorial Park because it honors the Potawatomie who lost their lives on the Trail of Death. I learned a bit about the Trail of Death last year when I performed with the Osawatomie Time Machine as a Potawatomie girl. Naturally, I wanted to learn more, and I expected to learn more. What I did not expect was what a deeply spiritual place I would find.
Of course, the fact that no other visitors or volunteers graced the park last Friday morning, and that my family decided to do other things, added to my experience. It is easier to listen to spiritual things when no one talks. The first thing I did was walk along the 14 stations of the cross (which I did not read about in any literature on the park), and I realized I was looking for a site that honored Potawatomie who were murdered, but I found the most famous murder victim ever—Jesus. I also read about a nun who had achieved sainthood, and one who was on her way to sainthood.
I moved around the park, and I read about Father Petit, the Catholic priest who accompanied the Potawatomie on their trip. The plaque explains he wrote his mother in France and told her the Indians said that before he came, they were orphans living in darkness, but now it as if they have seen a great light, and they live. Father Petit walked with the Potawatomie, tended to the sick, and gave the last rites to the dead all along the trail. The march took place in the heat of summer in 1838, and many died because of it, including Father Petit.
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