You're damn right I'm essential personnel! It just took a damn global pandemic for someone to say it out loud ! I mean just two months ago before people started, slamming their elbows into yours to say hello, and collecting toilet paper like it's Pokemon, I read an article in the AJC that said with the rise in Uber, Lyft and those damn suicide scooters that people just throw anywhere like a five year old with a Cheerios; with their rise does Atlanta even need MARTA anymore. Does Atlanta need MARTA!? Does the Pope need that pointy hat!? ... Well probably not but he's better with it ain't he?
For those of you unfamiliar, MARTA stands for Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Some people like to say it stands for Moving African Rapidly Through Atlanta. We call those people Republicans. These are the same people that oppose MARTA expansion because they say it'll bring crime to their neighborhoods, because that's what people do, steal your big screen TV, and take it with them on the bus.
All of that that is beside the point, what I'm trying to say is, MARTA is essential in these days and times because that ride share shit ain't cheap! It's at least five dollars to go three blocks. THREE BLOCKS! And sure you can scooter three blocks but people's balance and attention span ain't what it used to be. I think it's the tennis shoes that look like a Transformer and not being able to go a minute without looking at their phones. I saw a guy with a face full of tattoos, in some skinny saggy jeans (don't ask me how they're skinny and saggy), a hat that said, fuck your feelings, and hoodie that said, God is Dope, near Jerome Road trying to scoot and take a picture of himself with his phone. He had one hand on the scooter and the other with his phone in the air trying to get a good angle of all those tattoos in his face. That's when he almost hit a pole, jumped the curb into traffic, went across four lanes with the faith of Jesus walking on water, hit the curb on the other side, and flew off like Jazzy Jeff getting thrown outta Uncle Phil's house. He skinned his forehead to the white meat in front of Big Daddy's Soul Food joint. Rubbed all the tattoos off his forehead. I'm talking several hundred dollars dry erased off his face by asphalt. I yelled for him to put some Vick's salve on that, and pull up his pants. Would pulling up his pants have saved his forehead? Probably not but he's better with 'em up ain't he?
What I'm trying to say is MARTA is $2.50 and hell people don't want to pay that! Look here, people working two and three jobs and still barely making ends meet take MARTA. People who bank at check cashing spots, and keep their money in their sock drawer and on a Russell Simmon's debit card (do you know how broke and desperate you have to be to keep your money on a debit card from the motherfucker that produced Krush Groove?) well those people take MARTA. People who only have the twenty minutes from the time they get on the bus, until the time they get off the bus, to get the only sound sleep they're going to get all day take MARTA. Don't let the movie studios, and fake housewives and mumbling rappers fool you. Atlanta has more people like those that take the MARTA than those that don't. So when they instituted the lockdown, and said only essential personnel are to report to work; you may ask, as the driver of the route 89 down Old National Highway am I essential personnel. You're damn right I am!
The world came off the tracks a few weeks back. Corona Virus they call it. When I first heard the name I thought it just meant a person with a drinking problem. I wanted to tell em having a Corona virus ain't nothing, I know people with the Schlitz Malt Liquor virus. Now that's a killer. I soon found out, this wasn't about falling off the wagon, this was about staying on the planet. It got serious fast. The president said we had nothing to worry about. That's when I knew we were in trouble. I ain't never met anyone that calls shit, sugar, like that dude. If he called and told me I'd live forever, I'd know I'm dying tomorrow.
The next thing you know everyone was told to stay at home, wash their hands and practice social distancing. Old people started getting sick like you wouldn't believe. Young people started going to the beach like you wouldn't believe. Hospitals became overwhelmed. People started to die. Curfews were established and the word came down, only essential personnel were to report to work. Some of the people they consider essential, people they've looked at as insignificant until now, like grocery store employees, food workers, liquor store clerks, etc. don't have cars. Many of the people headed to grocery stores, liquor stores, their weed man and other essential establishments don't have cars. They take the buses and trains. So suddenly, in a way that has never been voiced before, we, the workers most people ignore, that have the jobs that most people consider dead end, have became essential. So everyday, I get up out of my warm bed, with my even warmer wife and get people to where they need to go, up and down Old National Highway.
The nation doesn't have enough gloves and masks for the hospital workers so you know they don't have enough for bus drivers. When I asked my supervisor about safety gear he told me to stay behind the plexiglass shield that separates the drivers from the riders, and to try not to breath so much. So I head to work these days wearing a pair of the bright yellow plastic gloves my wife uses to clean the toilet, and a mask she made by cutting one of her bras in half. I think she learned that on Youtube. I don't mind it being pink but the lace is a bit much. She asked me how it fit and I told her it fits pretty good but it smells like a cell phone, a pack of cigarettes and fifteen dollars. She laughed and said well that's good because the other one smells like a debit card, half a blunt and Ramen Noodles. I knew something weird was happening with the Ramen Noodles. I leave every morning and tell her I'll keep her abreast. She loves me but she hates puns.
This morning hop on the bus and wipe it down. I use Clorox wipes on the steering wheel, the seat, the panel, any hard surface I think I might have to touch. I have a thing of wipes sitting out so that anyone that boards can do the same. I get off the bus, walk its perimeter, and do an inspection. I look at the tires, at look at the body and dammit man! Some has spray painted MARTA 89 on the side of the bus and then lined though MARTA and written COVID above it, and lined through the 8 and written a 1. Is nothing sacred! Some people already think of the buses and trains as moving virus factories. Now this. There's nothing I can do about it right now. I need to start my route. I hop in the drivers seat, fire her up and pull out.
Ridership is down there is no denying that. People are scared, and with good reason. The number of people catching the virus is alarming. The number of people dying is growing fast. I was told by my boss to not deny anyone a ride. If they can pay good. If they can't no worries, get on the bus. Very few people hop on my first two trips up and down. A lady trying to get to The Dollar General the second it opens. A man that jumps, on runs to the back, and ducks down for three lights before raising his head and looking out of the windows to see if anyone is following him. A young lady with three small children headed south down Old Nat. The kid's all look at my pink, lace, bra mask and laugh. The youngest, not quite one, starts pulling at his mom's shirt to feed. The trips are fairly uneventful until the 8:45 a.m. stop at the corner of Bethsaida and Old National.
I see him standing up at the bus stop as I pass the Shell gas station. I ask myself, can I just act like I didn't see him and let the next bus pick him up? He's got a sign in one hand and his other hand is buried down the front of his pants. Purel could never, in all its glory, sanitize that hand. He begins waving his arms wildly, like he's trying to land a plane, and smiling wide to get my attention. Shit, now I done looked at him. Now I've got to stop. I pull the bus over and he gets on slow, staring at me, and smiling like a man walking into Magic City for the first time. I don't say anything. I look straight ahead. He starts,
"Good morning Virgil. Big Facts!"
The Big Facts part is a verbal tourette's like tick. He often makes a statement and follows it with a random interjection. I return his greeting,
"Good morning Morris," Morris is a gentle homeless soul that often panhandles to get bus fair. He generally spouts his theories about the world coming to the end, Beyonce being Jay Z, and Jay-Z being the devil himself.
"I don't have the fare. Not fare!" Morris says and I tell him it's okay.
He boards, stands near the front and says, "I told you didn't I? Trick get off me!"
He points to his sign that has written in black magic marker those same words, "I told you didn't I!" minus the, trick get off me.
He continues, "I told everyone this was going to happen! Das Efx! That a virus was coming and it would shut down the whole world! In his hands! But noooo it was Morris is homeless. Morris is crazy. Morris talks to dead people! Bruce Willis! But Morris was right wasn't he! Wasn't I Virgil! Trick get off me" I'm starting to question if the, trick get off me, is less of a tick and more of a pointed response.I take a deep breath. The breath my supervisor told me not to take and say,
"Yes Morris. You've been saying this for years."
"That's right!! And you know what else I know who done it! I know who unleashed the 'Rona on us and it won't no damn bats! Bats is the scapegoat, or scapebat! Batman! You want to know who did it?"
"I don't."
"Well... Morris is going to tell you anyway."
He leans over close to the plexiglass shield. I have never been so happy to have a plexiglass shield in my life. He says with breath that looks like it smells and through teeth spaced out like a picket fence, "It was..."