I have been riding the bus now four about four months. Usually, it is a non-descript commute of about a half hour. The 301, my normal bus, is an Express, which makes about six stops total before heading onto the freeway, shooting down the express lanes on I-5 to the tunnel that runs under the city.
I used to make fun of that tunnel in a parody of the Kingston Trio’s song MTA, about how Charlie may “ride forever in the Metro bus tunnel, he’s the man who’ll never return.”
Now it’s part of my daily life. And I keep returning. Funny how things work out in life.
There’s another bus that runs from my neighborhood downtown. It’s the 358. Instead of running down the freeway, it tootles down Aurora Avenue. If you’re not from Seattle, Aurora used to be the main highway between the north and the south, before the interstate was built.
It runs along a mish-mash of neighborhoods, some nicer than others, all with character, that’s for sure. Along Aurora, you can see homeless people, hookers, ne’r- do-wells, the well to dos, the corporate climbers, the service industry population – just about the entire strata of society, all on one road.
And they all ride the 358, dubbed the Crazy Bus.
You’d think the Crazy Bus would be so named because of its herky-jerky route. It doesn’t really go all the way down Aurora, instead making a sharp right off of Aurora near Green Lake for no apparent reason to make a few stops in a non-descript neighborhood, before pulling back onto Aurora by the Woodland Park Zoo.
I didn’t really plan on riding the Crazy Bus. It’s the slow way to town, about 45 minutes instead of 30. For those who are stuck in traffic for an hour or more every day, I know, this seems like a relatively small amount of time. But not when you’re riding the 358.
Things start out slowly on the Crazy Bus. Up where I live, there are fewer crazies per capita. I was just the fifth or so person to get on the bus. But then the bus began to fill with the crazies.
The first one was a gentleman. He looked fairly normal, but as he walked by I got a nose full of crazy. My smeller isn’t the best, having spent several years in an unventilated darkroom trying to put the make on coeds. But I could smell this guy as he passed me by, not only as, but before and after.
I’m not sure what the smell was exactly, an odd combination of cologne, pot and body odor. Not very pleasant at all.
On the upside, he got a seat all to himself. Well, several seats actually, given that anyone with a better smeller than I were sure that they didn’t sit in that area of the bus. It was like watching one of those Off! commercials where none of the mosquitoes will bite, they won’t even light.
It wasn’t too long before another crazy got on the bus. I don’t mean this in a bad way, either. The guy was sight impaired a bit, and this time, I think it was the bus driver who was the crazy. The guy asked if the bus went over the Aurora bridge. The bus driver couldn’t seem to give him a straight answer.
He kept asking. Finally, it occurred to the driver that the person asked this because he wanted to make sure he was going the right direction on Aurora. He wasn’t. The bus was indeed going toward the bridge, not away from it, which was the direction he had just come from.
He got off at the next stop and was told he needed to cross the street. I hope he made it.
Now, I have heard rumors that all sorts of people get on the Crazy Bus. There is the story of the homeless man who got on a totally crowded run with his shopping cart.
The driver even lowered the handicapped ramp so the guy could bring his mobile home on board. I think that’s uniquely Seattle, not even thinking anything about a guy that brings a fully loaded shopping cart onto a city bus.
Then there are the drinkers. You’re not supposed to drink on the Crazy Bus, or any city bus for that matter. But people do. I’m sure they could do it very quietly, but they always have a case of the “sneaky eyes” when they are doing something they know is a “no-no.” It just draws all the attention to them, like when you were a kid and did something wrong. No matter how you tried to cover it up, the sneaky eyes would give you away.
Eventually, the Crazy Bus ran its course. I never think it’s ever going to make it to downtown. The cast of characters continue to get on and off the bus; the woman with her shaking, quaking dog, the guy who liked to answer his own questions out loud, the girl with a backpack that had enough stuff in it that she could have easily made it to the top of Mt. Everest, and the older woman who spent more time propping up her reading light than reading her book, even though it was daylight outside.
I’m sure this isn’t the only time I will turn to the 358. I know that when the weather turns surly and I’m standing at the bus stop in Shoreline, I will see a bus approaching. It will be pouring rain in buckets, and the bus won’t have a 301 sign, but a 358.
Going against everything I know, I will step on the Crazy Bus and go for another memorable, impossible ride to downtown Seattle, for the moment, becoming a crazy as well. Crazy for ever wanting to board the 358 to downtown Seattle.
In the Emerald City, trying to find my Orca Card so I can ride forever in the Metro bus tunnel, the man who’ll never return,
– Robb