THE CENTER part 1

“Excuse me!” She yells to the bus driver stopped at the light. “Will this bus take me to the center?” She opens her map book to page 9 and points to the center. “Right here!”
The bus driver, in no real hurry with his empty bus says, “Sure, I’ll take you there. Come round the other side. To the door.”

“But does this bus go to the center?” She remains on the corner.

“Little girl, that light bout to turn green and I tellin’ you I take you to the center. You gettin’ on?”

The girl stares at her feet a moment and checks the intersection. There are no cars present and none of the signs have any words on them just arrows pointing this way and that. It’s early morning, the light just barely breaching the sky. She smiles at the potential sun.

“Ok.”

“Well, come round now, I ain’t got all day.”

The stop light is still green for the perpendicular traffic but she sees no cars.

“Where are all the cars?”

“What?”

“The cars? Where are all the cars?”

“Ain’t got no cars here. You either walk or take the bus. I suggest you take the bus cause it’d be a long walk to where you tryin to get to.”

“You been there before?”

“Come round now girl and get on this bus before I drive off and leave ya.”
She looks down and shyly responds, “I don’t have a bus pass.”

“Well now, ain’t you a silly one. Don’t nobody come through here without no bus pass. Check yo pocket little girl. It’s there. Just got to look, s’all.”

She raises her eyes to his.

“Go on! Probably in ya back pocket. That’s where I’d put mine.”
She reaches in her back pocket and pulls out a bus pass.

“See now, what I tell you? Ain’t no such thing as a little girl with no bus pass in this town. You gettin on or what? That light bout to turn green.”

She looks back down the intersection both ways. With a faint squint in her right eye from the sharp morning sun and a heavy sigh she looks up at the bus driver then down at her bus pass. She crosses into the intersection and comes around to the door. The driver opens the door and they share a smile.

“You all make some room back there for this here girl. She goin to the center.”

The girl, startled by the driver addressing an empty bus, curiously peaks in the door and can’t believe what she is seeing; a whole group of…