Ah, the nightmare that was the daily schoolbus ride.
My elementary schoolbus driver was an old woman named Ruth. My junior high schoolbus driver was a different old woman named Ruth. Additionally, the junior and senior high study hall monitors were both different woman named "Ann Powers". The number of available names in my small upstate New York town appears to have been limited.
The first Ruth was a hardass. The second Ruth was not. She was a 60ish woman who played rock music eight track tapes (Foreigner, Joan Jett, Billy Squier, Billy Joel) on the bus. I remember always hearing a song by Billy Joel called "Pressure". In it, he sings "When all you feel are loaded guns in your face and you can not handle PRESSURE!", and I always thought the line was "When all you feel are lonely cunts in your face and you can not handle PRESSURE". I'm not sure I was totally aware of what a "cunt" actually was, but whatever.
Anyway, growing up I lived in the "country". As opposed to "in town". The town kids were somewhat civilized, albeit sometimes a bit snobbish. The country kids were what most DC people would refer to as "redneck white trash juvenile delinquents". In a twist of fate though, the redneck country kids used the term "redneck" to describe someone who was straightlaced and rules abiding (This may not be far from the truth, as the term "redneck" has origins in describing farmers, not white trash losers), which to them was not a good thing. I was neither a country kid nor a town kid, as described above, but rather a farmboy, and by entension, a "redneck", based on the definition set forth by the country kids.
So when I was in 7th grade, I would ride the bus driven by the second Ruth. Rock music would be blaring (which was cool by me), but the other parts of the ride were what was the nightmare. I was always one of the last to board the bus, and consequently nobody would share their seat with me. I'd finally get to the back of the bus, and one of the country kids would begrudgingly give me a seat, after being prompted to do so by Ruth. Note, the country kids had all flunked two or three grades in elementary school, making the ninth graders 16 years old, whereas I was 12, giving them a huge size advantage. As soon as the bus got moving, the unsolicited pummelling began.
Luckily for me, the country kids did take smoke breaks from their pummelling of me. They put all of the bus windows down in the dead of winter, and would proceed to smoke cigarettes and weed, while Ruth would turn a blind eye. I really think Ruth was a bit afraid of some of these kids, so to make peace with them would allow them their daily smoking on the bus.
Well eventually my parents caught wind of what was going on, and reported it to the superintendent of bus transportation, or whatever the fuck he was. A big brouhaha ensued, and for awhile, order was established on bus #75. But at some point, the country kids figured out who had ratted them out, and the pummelling began again, and Ruth went back to turning a blind eye on the situation.
Reading your stories makes me wish Mrs. Pinkett had been my busdriver.
