Bus Stop

by Juanna B. Goode

A young, dressed-for-success career woman boards an empty bus and takes a seat mid-way, by the window. A few stops down the street a very large developmentally disabled youth boards the bus. Immediately the woman starts praying to herself, "Please God, don't let him sit by me. Not today." The bus pulls out and the youth slowly makes his way down the aisle, looking for a suitable seat. The woman looked out the window so she wouldn't make eye-contact and continued to pray, "Oh, God, not here. Don't let him sit here with me." As the youth neared where the woman was sitting, he looked right at her. He straightened up, beamed as if he recognized her and partly groped, partly lunged his way to her seat on the moving bus. The woman closed her eyes hard and, one more time, prayed silently, "Oh no, please God, not here. Don't let him sit here." The young mentally disadvantaged person heaved his bulk, into the seat next to the career woman and dropped it like a six-foot sack of potatoes. He smiled a wide, toothy smile, rocking back and forth in his seat, like riding the bus was the biggest treat in the world. Then he looked at he woman next to him and said, "God told me to sit here."