Waiting For The

Short story

Bus

By Raymond C. Pillai

WAITING for a bus is a terrible drag. I mean it’s unproductive activity—if you can call waiting an “activity”. But then you get to meet some interesting people. Take, for instance, the girl I bumped into at the bus stop. It must have been around half past one and there was this girl standing there. Tall, black-haired, broad hips, big tits, nineteenish. Part- European I suppose, but it was hard to tell really. She had a Polynesian looking face and a hint of Asiatic in her eyes.

I sat down on the bench and took lout a pocketbook. She gave me a glance as if she wanted to say some thing to me, but her eyes flicked away immediately. A short while later |she asked me in a strained voice, [“Excuse me, what’s the time?”

I looked at my watch. “It’s twenty to two.”

“Thanks. Man, the buses are really slow round here.” “There should be one soon.”

“I really hope so. I been waiting here 20 minutes.”

Her words spilled out slowly. She seemed a bit edgy. As I had a closer look at her I could see she had a pretty face. But she didn’t look after it too well. Her eyelids were painted a weird shade of purplish-green, and there was too much rouge on her cheeks. I thought her eyes looked a bit puffy too. Didn’t get enough sleep by the look of things. Probably one of those girls who stayed out all night having a good time. She certainly looked the loose type. I wondered if she would ask me for a cigarette.

“Man, I don’t feel very well,” she said after a while. “I feel so upset I want to see a doctor.” She hesitated and looked at me, but I didn’t want to encourage her. There’s nothing more boring than other people’s medical hangups. “You know,” she continued, “I had a misunderstanding kith my boss. That’s why I feel even

p'orse.”

She sat down on the bench. I moved away from her a bit because I didn’t want anybody to think we were together. I mean she was a real weirdo. If those dark green eyelids

weren’t bad enough, she was also wearing one of those platform shoes which look like you just walked into a bit of wet concrete by mistake and you hopped out with great big gobs of cement sticking to your feet. 1 wasn’t interested in hqr problems.

Anyone else would have taken the hint. But not this baby. It didn’t faze her one bit. Now that she had got going, she was really into her stride.

“I should be at work now,” she said, “but I feel so awful. I don’t feel like going and facing my boss.

He’s nice. I don’t know what made me go against him. I really feel up set.”

“Maybe you should go and see the doctor. He’ll probably give you some tablets to relax your nerves.

Maybe some sleeping tablets.”

“Yeah, I haven’t slept very much too. The place where I live is very noisy.” She pointed to a house across the road. “I’m renting a room there.”

“Oh, so Suva’s not your home town then?”

“No, actually I am from Suva. But I’m staying away from home. My family they no good. Specially my father.”

“That’s tough. It always helps if you’ve got someone to turn to for sympathy.”

“Actually I got a boyfriend. He works on a boat. He’s in New Zea land now. 1 feel really awful with no one to help me. You know, I just felt like talking to someone. I mean . . , you know . . . When I saw you I felt like speaking to you, but I didn’t know whether I should. But I just had to speak to somebody, you know.”

Poor kid, I thought. She must be in one hell of a fix. I tried to sound more friendly as I spoke to her. “Yes, it often helps if you can speak to someone about your problems. It’s a biff relief to get it out of your system.”

“But it’s awful to speak to some one you don’t know . . .”

“Sometimes it’s easier to tell your worries to a stranger. He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him. And you’ll probably never meet again. It’s sort of anonymous. Like those Roman

Catholics going to a priest for con fession. But priests are different, I suppose. You can trust them, but you can’t trust strangers.”

“Yeah, but still you can trust most people. You know, I think that’s my trouble. I trust everybody. And that’s why I get hurt so often. I’m a very sensitive type. Even when people say something about me behind my back, I somehow just know it. I can feel it. But I don’t say anything. I just take it, but, man. those people don’t know how much they hurt me,”

“Yes, I know what it’s like. I’ve been hurt a few times myself.”

“It’s not so bad for you boys. Boys are . . . you know . . . harder. They can take it. But us girls. We are dif ferent. When we are hurt, we are really hurt. Man, just now I feel so upset I don’t know what to do. I shouldn’t have quarrelled with my boss. I don't know if he’s gonna be angry or what. Maybe I should go and tell him I’m sorry. I don’t want him to think I’m the mean type. Man, I feel so upset.”

She was repeating herself and it was getting kind of boring, so I thought I'd better change the subject slightly. “What’s your boss like?”

“Oh, he’s all right. He’s a white, you know. He took me out on a date a few times. I'm not really interested in him. But I don’t know about him— I mean what he feels towards me.”

AHA, just as 1 thought. She was another of those local girls who fool around with white men and hope they’ll hit the jackpot some day. It’s happening all the time. There are many whites floating around town.

Business executives, company repre sentatives, bank clerks, tourists, hip pies and others. They are away from home, far from family and friends, and without enough white women of their own kind, so they shack up with the local talent. You really can’t blame them. If I were forced to work in a foreign city, I suppose I’d do the same myself. And you can’t blame the local girls either. Sometimes they do quite well out of the deal. And what’s

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wrong with that? Half the world lives by selling itself to the other half. If this girl wanted to fool around with her boss, the best of luck to her.

And if she had a quarrel with him, that was her own problem. Why should I get involved in her affairs?

Still, there was a certain loneliness and helplessness about her that made you want to help her. It’s not that she looked delicate or anything like that. She was taller and heavier than me, and it’s hard to feel protective towards a girl who’s bigger than you physically. But somehow I felt a bit sorry for her.

“I’m going away for good,” she said suddenly.

“Are you going to emigrate to Aus tralia or somewhere?”

“No ... I mean ... I feel so miserable. When you are hurt inside, there are so many temptations. If you see electric wires, you feel like touching them. If you see a bottle of tablets, you feel like taking the whole lot and killing yourself . . .”

“Aw, come on,” I said. “That’s no way to talk. Running away from prob lems doesn’t solve them. You have to make the best of things. Today you may think life’s not worth living any more. Tomorrow the sun will rise and shine again. You’ll find some thing new to cheer you up, then you’ll think you were so stupid to think about suicide.” 1 felt a bit stupid myself, giving out with all this bogus philosophy, but when you deal with people you always have to say things you don’t really believe.

A bus pulled up and squealed to a halt. We both stood up, them some thing made me change my mind. I mumbled that I was going the other way and sat down again. After she had gone I felt a little guilty. Maybe I should have gone to town with her, just to keep her spirits up. Anyhow, it was too late now. It’s not very often that you get an opportunity to help a fellow human being. I had my chance, but I guess I blew it.

SOME months later a picture in the Fiji Times caught my eye. It was a wedding photograph. The groom was an American businessman and the bride was—you guessed it—my bus stop friend. So, I thought to my self, she had struck gold in the end, even if it meant dumping her boy friend who was working on the boat.

Well, that’s life for you. If you want happiness nowadays, you’ve got to grab it wherever you find it and not worry about the cost. Call it selfish ness if you like. I call it pragmatism.

It's a tough world that we live in.