Chapter 2: On the Bus

Shawna ascended the stairs, turned to her left and surveyed the scene in front of her, breathing a sigh of relief. Her worst fears had not been realized. Although the noise level on the bus was raucous, perhaps bordering on deafening, the scene on the bus greeting her did not seem all that bad. Sure, kids were shouting and yelling and generally carrying on but, whatever chaotic Lord of the Flies image she had envisioned in her mind, half feral boys in grass skirts roasting a slaughtered pig over an open flame, what her eyes now saw was not nearly so terrible. The interior of the bus seemed impossibly bright and Shawna noticed that, in addition to the cold October sunshine streaming in through every window, there were two rows of fluorescent bulbs that ran the length of the bus just above the windows.

These lights, for some inexplicable reason, were turned on, adding to a situation that obviously didn’t need them. Two rows of bench seats with steel frames wrapped in foam and covered in a plastic designed to look like leather also ran from the front of the bus to the back with the outer side of each row abutting its interior wall. Between the two rows ran a narrow aisle and Shawna thought it looked impossible for two people to move past each other in opposite directions without one of them having to move into a seat. As she moved forward now, hesitantly, she scanned for a place to sit but didn’t see one. Then it struck her. It was now painfully apparent that her worst fear had come true as a chord of sheer panic sang painfully in Shawna’s heart.

Every other person on this bus, other than Shawna and her son, had skin as black as ink. Her green eyes flicked from the left to the right, their search for the empty bus seat forgotten and, though she would have hated to admit it to herself, the pretty Catholic mom now desperately looked for any other white person. She would have even settled for an Asian, or even a Latino, although she had to admit she didn’t much care for them either, but there were none. Everywhere Shawna’s eyes now landed, boisterous unkempt black boys, all looking impossibly short, skinny and dirty stood and sat. They waved their arms as they shouted and, most of all, completely occupied each and every seat. The pretty Catholic mom was at a loss of what to do for certainly this was an unsolvable problem.

What would she do? She and Jason couldn’t be expected to stand for the four-hour trip from Pennsylvania to their nation’s capital where the soccer tournament was being held, could they? As her eyes scanned up and down the aisles, searching for an empty seat, the one black boy on the bus Shawna was sure must be the dirtiest, the most unkempt and ugly, and the wildest looking one of the bunch now started to approach her. She saw him as he slid out of his seat from the very back of the bus and, for some reason she didn’t understand at the time, Shawna’s sense of dread now grew even stronger.

He moved quickly, almost eagerly, down the aisle until he stood right in front of her. For a moment, they just stood there and, as the stunningly gorgeous white Catholic mom’s 38D cup breasts jutted out from beneath her jumpsuit, the two magnificent orbs hung just a few inches in front of the black boy’s eyes. The two of them looked at one another and, while this awkward silence may have been a total of 2 seconds, it was more than long enough to make Shawna start to shift nervously from one foot to the other. The boy must’ve been fourteen. Shawna was sure that all the students in the eighth grade were the same age as Jason but, in his dusty and ripped jeans, covered in so much dirt that they were almost not even blue any more, and with his frail looking arms sticking out the sides of his jeans jacket, he looked even younger.

Like the bus driver, the boy now allowed his eyes to wander up and down Shawna’s body, and the pretty Catholic mom’s skin crawled as he drank in every detail from her long brown hair and her perfectly proportioned facial features all the way down to the Italian leather driving shoes that cradled her two feet. Worst of all, Shawna could swear the boy’s eyes paused on her breasts for just the briefest moment before continuing downward. They slid over her jumpsuit like a snake and made Shawna feel as if she were standing naked in front of him, before they traveled back up to stare into her eyes. The boy now smiled, a self-satisfied and sarcastic smirk, and stuck out his hand.

“You must be new here. I haven’t seen you here before and I’m sure I would’ve remembered you.”

Shawna felt her anger rise as the boy’s eyes traveled up and down her body and that satisfied smirk pasted on his ugly black face made the proudly prudish Catholic mom feel all the more violated. The urge to scold him now flashed briefly through her mind and she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from saying that he shouldn’t look at her like a piece of meat. No, that wouldn’t be right. Christ the Redeemer had preached compassion and this boy was in a school for children with emotional problems. So as much as she wanted to lecture this boy that women, especially a 38-year-old churchgoing mom such as herself, were to be respected and not ogled like a piece of meat, she would refrain.

When a man strikes you on the left cheek, turn and offer him the right.

This is what she would do. After all, she was better than these people, these poor ignorant blacks and, if poor black people wouldn’t raise their children to be any better than animals, then that was hardly the fault of the children. She would show them just how a conservative white mom conducted herself as an example. She would be patient and charitable. After all, the boy was speaking to her and if she focused on his words, hopefully, she would be quick to forget his latest insult.

“I’m sorry what was that?” Shawna said, trying to force a smile and hoping she didn’t come across as being too rude in asking the boy to repeat himself.

“I said,” the boy now responded and the tone of condescension and annoyance in his voice made Shawna think he considered her to be the dimwitted one.

“You look like you could use help finding a seat. My name’s Damon, my friends call me L’il Brick. Come on sister I’m gonna help you out.”

Damon’s eyes floated down again, and Shawna now realized, to her embarrassment, that the entire time he had been standing in front of her his hand had been thrust forward in the gesture of a friendly handshake. There was a moment of surprise and then a hot flush of embarrassment that made her skin pop out in gooseflesh as the pretty Catholic mom realized her unintentional rudeness. She was the one who was supposed to be teaching these boys manners, not the other way around. Whatever her prejudices, or her annoyance at being referred to as ‘sister’ by a fourteen year old black male stranger, this repugnant young boy was just trying to be helpful. The dirty, sexualized looks she thought she had been getting were probably all just part of her imagination; a product of the nervousness she felt at being in a strange and somewhat intimidating environment.

“I-I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I don’t know where my manners are today. I-I’m Shawna Lynn McDonnell and this right here-”

Shawna gave a half turn and now pulled Jason forward.

“This is my son Jason. We are new here.”

Damon smiled back at her and, while the look on the boy’s face still seemed smug and ever so self-satisfied to Shawna, it was something about his eyes and the way they looked at her that made her sense of foreboding continue to grow.

“Yeah, I know Jay. We hang sometimes.”

Damon paused for a moment, his coal black eyes staring up into Shawna’s green ones. She was finally on the verge of asking this unnerving young boy just why he was staring at her but, before she could do so, he began to speak again.

“But you, you’re Jay’s mom.” Damon now said.

“Hey that’s great, it’s great to meet you. Bus is probably gonna leave soon, so let’s get the two of you where you need to be.”

Damon now turned and began to walk down the aisle towards the back of the bus while Shawna hesitated for only a moment. Then she began to follow him while a small voice whispered and asked her just how a child of fourteen had, so quickly and effortlessly, put himself in a leadership position over her. The sound of Damon’s voice now floated back to her as the three of them walked down the aisle and, while Shawna realized the 14-year-old black boy was still talking, even though, in the cacophony of conversations that surrounded them from all sides, there was no way she could catch more than a few words of what he was trying to say.

“I know how scary it can be being someplace new with no one to help you out. But don’t worry Shawna, I’m gonna make sure you get the best seat in the house.”

It was another annoying sting. First, he had referred to her as sister, not at all appropriate but she had been willing to let it slide if it only happened once. But now he had called her by her first name and almost immediately after his previous rudeness.

“Damon,”

Shawna stopped and, though she didn’t shout, the pretty Catholic mom now tried to sound as assertive as possible. It seemed to have the desired effect for, now, Damon also stopped walking before turning to face her. They were now about halfway to the back of the bus and, from here, she could see that one seat was still unoccupied. It was second from the back and to her right and it almost seemed as if the boys had purposely kept it empty; as if they were reserving it just for her. She now smiled awkwardly while still trying to ignore her growing sense that something wasn’t right. It had to be ignored, that feeling, for she had been raised to believe that there were things that couldn’t be tolerated, even if addressing them did make polite white moms extremely awkward.

“It’s inappropriate for you to refer to adults such as myself as anything other than Mr. or Mrs. Not by their first name and certainly not as sister or anything else so informal. Do you understand? It’s about respect. Anything else is just unacceptable.”

Despite the urge to lower her eyes, Shawna now held the smirking boy’s gaze. She had the moral high ground here and it was time for this smarmy young black boy who wasn’t raised properly to learn to respect women as authority figures. While Shawna though Damon was honestly trying to be helpful, there was something else about him, something on which the pretty Catholic mom couldn’t quite put her finger. It was something that made her find him to be the most repulsive creature that that she had ever met and, even now, she was starting to regret not letting his second insult slide. Standing in front of her, Damon’s only reaction was to increase the size of his smirk; the way his thick black lips stretched across the lower half of his face now looked almost clownish to the increasingly uncomfortable Catholic mom.

“You know,” Damon now said still smirking up at her.

“You’re absolutely right. If I’m going to be undressing you, it should be as Mrs. McDonnell so that’s what I’ll call you from here forward.”

He held her eyes for a moment longer and then turned and once again moved forward stealthily down the aisle. He seemed to have a knack for always being able to avoid the myriad arms, legs and torsos that stuck out from every seat and on both sides. Shawna, however, was not so lucky. As she passed each row of seats, a multitudinous mass of body parts seemed to constantly rub up against her while the thought of these ugly black children’s skin sliding over her made her shudder with revulsion. They passed another row and Shawna was shocked to see, as she turned her head and tried to give a warm little smile to one of the two black ladies that appeared to be the only other chaperones on the bus, that this friendly gesture was paid back with an angry scowl and a glare. It was an action that stunned her, and, for a moment, Shawna didn’t know what to make of it. She had just assumed that the few adults who were expected to keep order in this unruly situation would have a natural solidarity.

Instead, she was among a wolf pack of howling and uncivilized 14-year-old black boys and, though her own son Jason had acted out in school lately, she knew she could get him to behave. As for the other boys, she was completely outnumbered and, though the look on the other woman’s face had seemed to be full of hate; the pretty Catholic mom now convinced herself that, if any of these young boys got out a hand, each of the three women would certainly support one another. With this new and internal reassurance, Shawna’s mind now turned away from the scowling black woman but then a new and infuriating realization occurred to her. It had been so subtle that her conscious mind hadn’t even registered it at the time. Now, it slowly sunk in.

Wait, did he ... did ... did that impudent little black kid really try and slip past me the fact that he said ‘If I’m going to be undressing you’ instead off addressing you? What?! I ... how ... how am I expected to put up with this? Tolerate being spoken to in such an overtly sexual and disrespectful way!? And me ... a well-mannered and middle class 38-year-old suburban Catholic mom?! To be referred to in such a way and by a disgusting and impudent 14-year-old black boy no less!

Shawna now opened her mouth to speak, to tell this revolting little bastard that she had heard what he had said, and that she did not appreciate it. Just before she could though, a loud bang came from behind her as the bus driver now threw the ancient vehicle into gear. The drivetrain shot forward and locked into place making the bus jerk tremendously as it lurched away from the curb. Shawna was thrown forward and her feet completely lifted off the hard metal of the bus aisle. For a moment, the pretty Catholic mom felt herself float through the air. This sensation of helplessness, the first of many that she would experience that day, fortunately only lasted a moment. Then, her expensive Gommini flats were touching down again, the rubber nubs on their soles doing a crazy little shuffle on the dirty metal that made up the aisle of the bus.

Her upper body lurched forward, and, as she tried desperately to keep her balance, Shawna felt herself crash into the vile black boy walking in front of her. Everything had seemed to happen in slow motion since the bus first pitched forward and, as Shawna felt herself float through the air for that timeless moment, she saw Damon start to turn towards her. It was as if he, too, was moving in slow motion. They both were and, just before she crashed into him, Damon had completed his rotation. Now, his body faced directly towards hers and Shawna grimaced as she felt them collide. Her 38D cup breasts, of which she had always been so self-conscious, now smashed into either side of Damon’s face while his arms flew up and forward. His hands were positioned awkwardly, as hers also seemed to be, and, as she fell around him, Shawna felt her own arms bend at the elbow. Her wrists and hands grabbed for Damon reflexively in an