The Smell of Other People's Lives

The bus was crowded. Not face in armpit, step on foot full, but full enough. Full enough that all the seats were taken and a cluster of people stood in the front. Full enough that you could smell other people’s lives. The greasy windows, veined with the oil from a thousand weary heads resting on their panes, were all open a crack, which as far as any bus windows opened, but it was still soggy and warm inside the bus as if its riders were swimming in a lukewarm sink of dishwater.
Moira, her arms stretched with grocery bags, elbowed her way through the cluster of riders in the front. An aggressively thin woman with crooked yellow teeth and skin that was broken by acne glared at her as she ploughed into the woman’s oversized backpack, which was conveniently blocking that aisle. Moira hated people who wore backpacks on the bus. Moira hated people who crowded in the front, refusing to shift to the back, despite the relative emptiness of the rear. If the bus driver looked back quickly, he might think there was no more room on the bus, turn on his blinking ‘sorry bus full’ sign and leave other poor saps stranded at the stop. Moira glared back at the skinny woman. I’m not afraid of your hostility or your ugliness she thought. Moira made it to the back and set her bags on the sticky floor, bracing them between her calves to keep them upright. She hoped she didn’t look vulgar standing, legs apart, over her groceries.
There were no other standees in the back of the bus. Moira relaxed a bit safe from swinging bags and clumsy feet. The seats in front of her were occupied by an elderly woman in a khaki safari outfit, handkerchief elegantly knotted at her neck, silver hair combed in a perfect bob under her pith helmet; a youth in oversized clothes and shoes who bobbed his head, covered in shaggy blond hair, to the beat that emanated from a pair of oversized headphones and; a rough looking man whose unshaven head hung low on his chest in apparent slumber, his limbs heavy and motionless, his dark shirt splattered with colourful chunks that could have been paint or vomit. Drunk, Moira thought. She glanced at the pole behind her. It was free. The groceries shifted between her legs, and an onion slipped out and rolled down the aisle. She gripped her pole more firmly.

Once upon a time, Moira had not been a bus rider. She had lived in a white house with a white fence. She had had a white husband who, while far from perfect (he insisted on growing and keeping a beard, he laughed like a donkey, he often had little globs of spit in the corner of his mouth and his feet sometimes smelled like rotting tomatoes) fulfilled his husbandly duties by providing a stable income from his dental practice and by driving Moira, in his fuel efficient Toyota Yaris, to the grocery store, to dinner at her sisters place over the bridge, and to the gardening supply store; in short, wherever she needed to go.
Unfortunately Harold, for that was her ex husband’s name, had gone and ruined the whole arrangement by falling in love with his receptionist and asking, ever so timidly, for a divorce. This had surprised Moira. Not that he’d been screwing around with his receptionist, she had suspected this for some time and it seemed a predictable step in the ascent to middle age, but that he had actually gone and fallen in love and decided it was worth ruining their whole arrangement over. She conceded that she had not been a perfect wife (she had let her thighs become all cottage cheesy, she often forgot to depilate her upper lip, she was probably boring in the bedroom, especially when compared to the receptionist who probably had all kinds of perverse husband trapping tricks) but she had kept them running smoothly, remembering important appointments, cooking nutritious meals, vacuuming, even under the couch for God’s sake.
Now, Moira lived in a small apartment on the other side of town. It was clean, of course, and pleasantly bright but it certainly didn’t have the charm of the little white house she and Harold had shared. She had to take the bus twice a week to the library where she had accepted a job. She could have probably lived quite comfortably on the alimony that she received from Harold but she liked how the library made her feel busy and useful, even if it did mean riding the bus. She also had to take the bus to do her grocery shopping. She didn’t trust the produce stands near her place. The vegetables were always unnecessarily dirty and the fruit slightly shriveled.
This evening, though, she wasn’t going home, or at least not to her new home. She was going to Harold’s, to her old home, to her white house with the white fence. Harold had called her out of the blue and suggested they do dinner. He had some nice restaurant in mind but Moira had insisted on cooking. She wanted to feed him. And to see the house. She had hoped he would zip over in his Toyota and pick her up like he used to. But he was working until late. And hadn’t even offered. So she was forced to ride the bus with all the ingredients, plus a few extra treats to leave around, just in case. She wasn’t sure what the dinner was all about. Maybe he was having a baby with the receptionist. That was a cruel thought. Maybe he wanted to patch things up with her. She wasn’t past hoping.

The bus stopped. Three people got on. Nobody got off. Moira spotted her onion. It had rolled even closer to the front. A petulant girl in short jean cut offs kicked the onion. She will be fat when she gets older, Moira thought, observing the way her shorts strained to envelop her thighs. Too bad about the onion. The crowd at the front was slowly being squeezed towards the back. The aggressively thin woman with the backpack glared some more, not really at anyone in particular it seemed, and then reluctantly shuffled a few steps closer to the rear. She will never be fat, Moira thought. She will also never be happy. She looked down at her own muscular calves clenched around her grocery bags. They looked like legs that could support happiness.
A dark haired man in a faded blue suit grabbed the pole next to Moira. He was handsome in a tortured way. Moira smiled at him but he gazed steadfastly out the windows as if witnessing some private tragedy unfolding before his eyes. She tried to make some more room for his sadness but the drunk, slumbering man’s legs were blocking the aisle. He didn’t appear to have moved once. Moira surreptiously prodded one of his legs. If he woke she would smile in a way that said oops, sorry, just the motion of the bus. Neither the leg nor its owner budged. The older woman in the safari get up glanced at Moira. Moira tried to smile at her conspiratorially. Hey, her smile said, we’re too classy to be riding the bus. We don’t belong with the drunks. The safari woman refused to play along. Moira tuned her out.
She wondered if Harold had changed much in the house. She doubted it. He didn’t like change. Oh, but then there was the receptionist. Still, she couldn’t picture him rearranging the furniture or painting. It was probably the same, only dirtier. Would it be weird to start cleaning? Probably, if he announced that he was having a baby.
The safari woman gripped Moira’s pole, plucking Moira from her thoughts of Harold, and hauled herself up with some difficulty. She was now uncomfortably close. Moira caught a whiff of violets that seemed to be masking decay. Up close, the safari woman was less classy. Her face was crepey and bits of foundation clotted in her skin. Her eyebrows were wild and uneven. Her hands were claws and they gripped Moira’s pole for dear life before the woman lurched forward and greedily clasped the next pole. The tragically handsome man continued to ignore everyone around him despite the fact that safari woman was nearly hugging him. Yet, as soon as the safari woman had cleared his pole, he plopped into her vacant seat. Moira didn’t even have a chance to consider sitting. Really, he was not so handsome. He had thick hair and long lashes but his eyes held tears and his mouth was a caricature of a frown. He looked ridiculous next to the exuberance of the bopping headphoned youth. The absence of the safari woman seemed to have excited the youth as he was now drumming rapidly on his leg as well as bopping. Moira watched his hands fly against his thighs. His nails were bitten short and ink stained. She wondered if he was one of the kids who wrote all over the seats and walls with thick black pens, claiming the worthless territory. Moira wished she had thought to write her name somewhere on the white house. The drunk remained completely motionless despite the fact that from time to time the youth’s elbow would connect with his shoulder or bicep.
The bus turned. They were nearing Moira’s old neighbourhood. It looked different seen through the smeared lens of the bus window. Moira began gathering her bags. She knew from experience that there would not be enough time once the bus stopped. The drivers never waited no matter how politely you asked, and she always asked politely even when yelling down the aisle of the bus. It was a balancing act, gripping the pole with one hand while hauling the weighty bags with the other. The bus stopped and she headed towards the door, knocking the drunk in the knee, hard. She felt the impact in her own shoulder but still he didn’t move. As she stepped down and off the bus she was struck by the terrifying certainty that the man was not drunk but dead. She glanced back and up and saw his motionless head in the window. She pictured him riding around and around in the bus, people knocking into him and glaring, until the driver pulled over for the night. It was wrong, even for a man with vomit on his shirt. She should rap on the window or signal to the driver. There would be a long hold up. The bus driver would have to wait for the paramedics and the passengers would probably all have to give statements. Dinner with Harold would be late, if it even happened at all. The bus pulled away. Moira turned, squared her shoulders and strode towards her former gate without glancing back at the bus. After all, she wasn’t responsible for the people on it. And Harold might be having a baby.