My Eighth Birthday as Deke

Deke's Note: Hey kids, I'm officially eight years old (again)! Yes, it was May 5, 2013 that I began blogging here on ye olde FTDS. So much has happened in this less-than-a-decade span in my life it truly boggles the blogosphere. The first 4.5 years of this blog are forever archived and preserved in the first edition of JUST DRIVE - Life in the Bus Lane; you may never see them again unless my attempts to persuade you to buy the book fail. At this moment however, the book's first edition is done. If you have one, thanks a billion. If not, you missed out on a simple chronicle of my first fumbling attempts at describing a career no one person could describe for everyone; it's a personal road we all travel with a multitude of views from the seat of an unforgiving public bus. 

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It has become a joke with my Beloved and I: "Deke is eight years old today," I'll say in a child's voice. Beloved giggles and imitates my tone: "And I'm not even born yet." What a cradle-robber I am. (And oh so happy to be so.)

Several times over the past three years, I have almost stopped writing here. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was simply this: we all suffer much of the same no matter where we operate a city bus. Whenever I contemplate the end of this blog, another post pops into mind as I drive. How can I abandon those with whom I share an intense relationship with? Sometimes I consider it cowardly to bow out, because the plight of a transit worker is rarely documented. I feel responsible in some warped sense of duty to document my work so my fellows feel represented and appreciated.

Rather than writing for personal gain (I make pennies every month on ad revenue, but nothing else save for the occasional book purchase), it has always been my goal to simply give a voice to those who feel marginalized in a blue collar world dominated by the white collar fools who run it. I am fiercely protective of my brothers and sisters, as I hope you can tell. Sometimes my anger overrides a level-headed and conservatively-considered response, but that's because I often write just out of the driver's seat, FromTheDriverSide. It's intense from that viewpoint, extremely volatile many a time, and that's not something one can forget easily. My words come from deep within, and this is an intense form of self-therapy. 

Transit workers are thrust upon the public into its grisly depths. We are met with the best as well as  humanity's darkest hours. While horrifically untrained to deal with the extremes, we are unfairly judged when we err. Even when our lives are threatened, we are subject to harsh discipline if we say anything considered inflammatory, or dare to angrily respond to many unfair insults. Even though children are often the most rude and prone to the most egregious violations of passenger conduct, we are strictly forbidden to toss them out of our rolling office. Many take this as free reign to terrorize us with their childish antics, no matter their age. 

Many have asked: Why are you so ANGRY, Deke? I've been accused of being recklessly-furious in my writing. Fuck you very much, I have earned every moment of ranting. The riding public takes my dedication for granted. They think a few bucks entitles them to the right of telling me how to do my job, or to "just fucking drive the bus and shut up". Yeah, what I said a few sentences ago, you erroneously-protected mob. I prefer those passengers who pay their fare and are ready to do so upon boarding, those who greet me warmly and obey the simple rules of the ride. Much more so than those who think not paying their fare allows them the right to abuse me and my rolling office full of decent people who hope to make connections further down the line. 

Yeah, I'm often angry. I dislike what this job has done to my soul. It's just what my dear brother Lance said in a private moment we shared on a break. That statement profoundly touched my driver's soul. My own has always sought the good in people. Now, I look upon many with an unnecessary frown I soon realize is unfounded. Sometimes my transit-hardened self is unnecessarily prejudiced on someone who looks a certain way, only to find myself humbled by that person's wonderful personality revealed during an oh-too-brief conversation. But then, that moment can be spoiled when my soul mis-judges a seemingly-nice person who rattles my soul with a wrath no biblical passage can soothe.

This week has challenged me to extremes I didn't know were possible when I began writing this blog. I posted on FaceBook that one night was the worst I've had as a bus operator. Why? Because a person boarded my bus the first run of my route one afternoon who has been homeless so long he is crusted with layers of filth. His feet were bare, covered with open festering wounds dripping with possibly-staphylococus infectious ooze. He is someone those who drive my route routinely pass up. His hair is infested with lice, his clothing the same as what he wore last year but is now infested with God-knows-what including urine and fecal matter. How did he board, you ask, without my forbidding it? Only because the intending passenger I lowered the ramp for was a gentleman and insisted this rolling biohazard board ahead of him.

Foot imprints I cannot forget.

As he boarded, his bloodily-infected feet preceded him, passing just a few feet from my face. The smell was overpowering, the visual something I could never forget over a thousand lifetimes. Of course, he did not pay fare. He never has. Didn't even apologize. Just rolled himself into the prime ADA-priority position without so much as a thank you to the gentleman who followed him up the ramp. 

What was I to do? Block the ramp to a federally-protected passenger because he's a Petrie dish of all that could ultimately kill me? I trembled in fear of an ADA complaint which could land me in deep trouble with a management that has historically-protected the most dangerous passengers ahead of its own drivers. Every 33 driver knows he's a collective "do-not-board", but once he successfully boards is impossible to be rid of. Given I had but eight minutes left of the run with a bus full of people intent upon making transit connections, I was left with the ultimatum: JUST DRIVE. I was already late because the operator I had just relieved is consistently late to the relief point. It's my responsibility to deliver my payload to its destination as close to on-time as possible. It was a horrible tight spot betwixt that proverbial rock and reality.

When he exited at the end of the line, after being pleaded to by his assistant/fellow rider to go to the hospital to be tended after, I was left to scour the bus as usual for the requisite trash and Lost-And-Found items while opening EVERY window to allow the stench to escape my rolling office. In his wake, my afflicted passenger left a horribly-disgusting calling card:

Upon seeing this, I was many things at once: disgusted, sickened, depressed, angry, horrified to be so close to what society has deemed forgotten/discarded/ignored: those who cannot adequately care for themselves. I was distraught when I called Dispatch. His countenance so horrifying, I couldn't even give an accurate description of him. So disgusted by what he left behind, I was unable to (once again) give my fellow union member the words which would signal the proper response. I failed in my responsibility to adequately describe a situation which should have ended with a medical response to someone who desperately needs professional attention. Instead, I lashed out at my Dispatch brother, telling him I felt "marginalized" and unsupported in his response. In retrospect I felt horribly guilty for failing to properly describe the horrifyingly real plight of this man us operators are so deathly afraid of serving. Mostly, it's because we realize there is little anyone is given the slightest power to truly help. He sadly falls into a group which society holds little respect and NO compassion for: those who are truly unable to help themselves out of a hole too deep to crawl out of.

How is it that our country supports a military budget that overwhelms that of our collective "enemies" while the least of threats to national security are actually the most intense to our collective well-being? If we cannot take care of those of US who need it most, why are we so concerned with the Middle East? They have been fighting wars since Christ was a child. It is intensely arrogant of this rather-young nation to think we're so important we have any influence whatsoever upon a conflict that will last forevermore. How can we claim moral superiority when millions of our own suffer in such squalor and unnecessary pain? Half this country is so self-centered it cannot reconcile itself with Christ's most-passionate plea: love one another as you would have them love you. 

I have been bombarded with the word "hate" so wildly thrown about the past decade without the most basic understanding of what it truly means. I do not hate my political opposites: I pity them. They throw this word about as if it makes them pious. Instead, it only magnifies the meaning of word as it truly describes them. We are no better than those who have less than we do, if we marginalize and denigrate those who have less than we do. True, WE work for what we have and boast. True, WE pay taxes and are therefore entitled to our excesses. Or are we? I would rather my tax dollars HELP someone who lacks the desire I have to succeed rather than see those who do not suffer for their lack of intelligence and/or willpower. There are truly those out there who do not have the strength to survive in today's harsh realities. Am I better than they are? That truly depends upon what society decides is most important: love and compassion, or bitter division.

I would rather my tax dollar help those who truly can no longer help themselves rather than pay for yet another endless war fought by those who have the most money can buy. Hey, I can barely pay the bills with the wages I vigorously earn via 50+ hours in the seat of an unforgiving city bus. I'm not "rich" by any means. If I were to lose this job, I would join millions of others who have fallen into the cracks of a horribly-unforgiving scheme designed by the richest 1% not give a damn for those who can no longer "earn" a meager living.

This past eight years has been the most instructive of my six decades. Life is often cruel, and those of us on the bottom of the capitalistic pay scale work ourselves to death with little to claim at the end of our useful years. Too often, we retire into a casket, leaving our survivors to scramble and pick up the crumbs we leave behind.

I yearn to leave a legacy in my wake. It's what I was born to do. Given my precious mother's dedication to ensure I excel even though my brain was injured pre-birth, I am determined to far exceed the least of professional expectations. Hopefully, you will find my writing worthy of mention long after my earthly body has become dust upon some lonely Scottish shore, Oregon coast and Arizona prairie. Whatever the case, I mostly hope you look beyond what we are told is reality to actually see what I do. People are constant, corporations are fleeting. WE live, love and carry on in those we leave behind. Along the way, we find many we either casually encounter or with whom make a true connection. However so, I plead you treasure each human encounter, throw away any awkward preconception, and learn to love what you may not have previously understood.

To love one another is the ultimate goal. That is one of the main precepts which prompted this blog. To describe an occupation few can understand unless they grip a wheel with the steely determination to safely ferry our payload to each destination, and somehow find a few glimmers of joy along the way.

Even though it becomes more difficult every shift, there remain many who make my day bright. Thank you Aaron, for protecting me in a potentially-even-more-violent situation than it actually was. Thank you lad, for aiding a lady whose 18-year-old dog was actively dying as we rolled together. Thank you Bob, Rob, and Robert for making my evening rolls more humane than they were before you boarded. Thank you Jason for giving me props in light of your precarious life struggles and having me sign my book you paid precious dollars for. Thank you everyone who boards my Dirty3 with a smile and thanks me upon your exit.

My view as I finish blogging.

After nearly nine years of operating, my fears are forever illuminated by those who make the horrific moments just another dim memory. These people drive my fierce commitment to practicing a smooth roll into life's most drastic, or more hopefully serene and happy, consequences.

And so I shall, until I cannot any longer.

Peace be always with you and yours,

Deke N. Blue