On the bus to Boston

It’s an old saw: “Make the most of what you have.” We tell each other all the time,  that things can change in the blink of an eye. We nod and go on with what we were doing. How long does that advice remain with us?

I am on the bus to Boston after working on the development of a new class to be taught in NYC in the Fall. I could go on about that, but won’t for now.

I saw my lawyer yesterday and changed my will. He asked, "what would you want to have happen if you were hit by a bus when you left here"? We talked. He said he’d prepare the paper work and I could sign it when I return to NYC in August.

I am on the bus to Boston. I said that, didn’t I? The driver was 15 minutes late to pick us up. I was annoyed. It was hot, but there was a lovely breeze on 34^th  St and 8^th Ave that I didn’t expect. I thought about how I want to use the idea of micro-climates in my Fall classes. We know that there are places of shade and breeze in our daily lives, but we don’t think much about them ‘til it is too hot and we need the shelter of a building or a cross-breeze. I was listening to Carlos Nakai’s Native American flute on my i-pod. I thought about how music can take you somewhere else. I wonder if I can use that in the Fall.

I am on the bus to Boston. I am sitting in the front row where I have enough room to work on my laptop as we drive north. I have a full view of what is in front of me.

The driver has plugged in a Blackberry and is listening to music through earphones. It is something with a tinny repetitive beat that I can hear from where I am sitting. He took out the Blackberry to  text, saw that I was watching and put it away. I took a drink from my bottle of iced water and answered an email from an old colleague. He lost his computer and was testing an old address for me to see if it worked and to check in. I told him about our conundrums about work. I told him that I had gotten married a little more than three weeks ago. He will know Herb and I think he will be happy for us.

We passed a convertible sports car. I think it was red. There were two young men in the car that looked as though they might be Hispanic. On the roll bar were two plush monkey toys, one a vivid pink and the other purple. The bus driver looked me and laughed. “I saw you were looking too.” More miles. Closer to Boston. I got an email from a student who wants to take my class in the Fall. I am hoping she won’t. She is what my mother would call “an injustice collector” and she lives in a state of constant crisis – the roommate's boyfriend moved in or out, her step-sister has asthma, and she wants to help, but the place smells like smoke and there's the cat hair, and she'd like to help, but her teacher wouldn’t understand that her paper was late because she had to move out...

And then I heard the driver’s sharp intake of breath. Did he say anything? I don’t know. When I looked up, a black sedan was perpendicular to the three lanes of traffic. Just ahead of us. As I watched, it fishtailed several times in arcs which seemed to change direction – first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again, while somehow all of us moved forward. Then it went through the taut wire barrier and onto the shoulder, spraying dirt behind it. We were past before I saw where it landed.

“I didn’t see nothing,” the driver said.

It took about 20 rings for the police to answer my cell phone. “Troopers are already on the way.”

Witness reports are notoriously unreliable.

I hadn't seen it from the beginning. It had looked as though the black sedan was trying to pass another car in the right lane,  but all I really saw was that the black car had been fishtailing and went off the side of the road. I asked the driver what had happened.  "That other guy swerved into him," he said. And now he's up ahead. Just kept going," he said...