Fiction

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This story is from the author’s book They Also Lived



RADIO RIDES




The minute he got on the bus I sensed he was going to be trouble. He was about nineteen, maybe six feet tall, with long black hair, a ripped jacket, and dirty jeans.
But the real star of the show was his radio. It was all silver, a good two-feet long, and blasting to high heaven. He carried it on his left shoulder and swaggered to the rear of the bus, taking the seat across the aisle from me.
I looked at him with some contempt. What a shmuck, I said to myself. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not some middle-class WASP snob who thinks that everyone should have my tastes and interests or else be deported. Oh, no. I believe in live and let live. If you want to look like an idiot by wearing a baseball hat sideways, that’s your business. If you want to turn your brains into jello by listening to rap music, hey, it’s a free country. If people want to walk the streets proving to the rest of the public that they have the intelligence of a plate of spaghetti, good luck to them. For fifteen or twenty minutes I can put up with anything.
Unfortunately, everyone isn’t like me. In fact the guy sitting two seats in front of the kid with the blasting radio was as opposite from me as you can get. He turned to the kid and said in a stiff voice, “Hey, pal any chance of lowering that thing? You can hardly hear yourself think in here with all that racket.”
The kid, who had now popped a piece of gum into his mouth, looked at the guy as if he were something that had just crawled out from under one of the seats. He stared at him for about fifteen seconds, chewing rhythmically, then turned away, obviously not the slightest bit interested in complying with his request.
The guy didn’t say another word. Instead he turned back to the front and did a slow burn. The radio screamed on.
Then the old woman sitting beside me said to the kid, “Would you please turn that thing down? It’s giving me a headache.”
The kid looked at her, his shoulders moving to the beat of the music, and said with a drawl, “Hey, lady, it’s a free country.”
That did it for the first guy. He turned again and said, “Haven’t you got any manners at all? Can’t you see that you’re making it very uncomfortable for the other passengers?”
The kid said, “Like I said, pal, it’s a free country.”
“Yeah, well we’ve got rights, too,” the guy said. He got up and marched to the front of the bus and began complaining to the driver. I figured this would do it. The driver would stop the bus, come to the rear and order the kid off.
But things didn’t work out that way. The driver was an older man who had seen better days. He began giving the first guy a hard time, stating that he was paid to drive the bus and not tangle with every roughneck who boarded it. And besides, the kid would probably get off in few more stops anyway, as he had been on this bus before.
The first guy came back to his seat ripping mad. “The head of this transit line is going to hear from me,” he said aloud. “This is crazy!”
The kid with the radio seemed oblivious to it all. He sat there in a half daze, his head bobbing to the beat of the music, his eyes partially closed.
I watched him with growing interest and figured him for a real space shot. He was the most arrogant and inconsiderate creep I had ever run across.
The bus slowed for the next stop and a big man in a gray trench coat boarded. As there were no seats left in the bus he came to the rear. He grabbed the vertical pole in front of me and stood. Within seconds he became painfully aware of the radio that was now blasting louder than ever.
He looked down at me and said with a soft grin, “Is the fellow over there the entertainment director for this cruise?”
“A couple of people asked him to knock it off,” I said.
“And...?” he asked.
I shrugged. “He said it’s a free country.”
The man turned toward the kid with the radio. “Hey, fella,” he said pleasantly. “Would you mind turning that thing down?”
The kid looked at him. He kept chewing and said nothing.
“Oh, I see,” the man said.
The first guy piped up and said, “We’ve already asked him to lower his radio, but he doesn’t seem very concerned about others.”
The old woman said, “Yes, he’s a very rude young man.”
The man turned and faced the kid directly. “Tell me something,” he said. “Do you have a gun or knife in that jacket?”
Everyone in the back of the bus tensed. What was all this about? Even the kid with the radio seemed a bit startled by the question.
“N-no,” he said. “Why should I have a gun or a knife?”
The man said, “If you had one it might be enough to keep you from getting your radio snapped off or having it thrown out the window.”
Oh, this guy is beautiful, I said to myself.
The kid’s head stopped bobbing. He looked up at this new threat. “Is that right?” he said. “And who’s going to do that?”
“Me,” the man said evenly.
“Yeah?” the kid said. “Well that could be assault and battery. You could get yourself in a bit of trouble.”
“I could,” the man said. “But either way that radio’s going off.”
“Yeah, well you know what you can do,” the kid said. “I---”
The man moved fast. With his left hand he pushed the kid back against his seat and with his right hand he snapped off the radio. The kid tried to bolt from his seat, but the man was holding him fast.
“I’ll see you in court, big shot,” the kid yelled. “I know my rights!”
“I don’t think you have any rights to be a public nuisance,” the man said.
The kid tried to squirm loose. The man placed his fist in front of the kid’s face and said, “Go ahead. Take the first swing and then it’s all self defense for me.”
“I got witnesses to what’s happening here,” the kid shouted.
Without taking his eyes off the kid the man said in a loud and clear voice, “Are there any people here who will go to court as a witness for this man?”
I looked around. No one spoke. A few people had slight grins on their faces. But no one spoke up. Oh, this guy is beautiful, I said to myself.
“Looks as if you don’t have much of a case,” the man said to the kid.
The kid lowered his eyes and backed down.
The man stepped back “Now take your radio and get off this bus.”
The kid looked around at the rest of us. He knew he was beat. He picked up his radio, and without looking at the man again, moved to the front of the bus. The driver stopped the bus and let him off.
The other passengers breathed a collective sigh of relief and settled back in their seats.
I said to the man, “You a cop, or something?”
“I used to be,” he said.
“Why did you quit?”
“I entered the ministry.”
I figured I didn’t hear that right. “What...?” I said.
“I’m the new minister at Temple Baptist Church over on Cedar Street.”
“You’re a clergyman?”
He nodded. “Why do you say it like that?”
I chuckled. “Well, I mean...what about turning the other cheek, and all that? I thought you guys were big on that stuff?”
“Oh, that’s very good advice, and I’m all for it,” he said
“Yeah, but, ah...” and I motioned to where the radio guy had been sitting.
“Well,” he said with a grin, “there’s another Bible verse that says ‘If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men.’ Now I’m sure you will agree that our friend with the radio was making that quite impossible.”
I stared at him with a slight grin. “Yeah, I suppose he was,” I admitted.
Boy, this guy was something else. I could see the headlines now: Preacher Punches Out Punk On Bus. Ha, no one would believe it. Oh, this guy was beautiful.
He reached into his pocket and handed me a small religious tract. “Take that,” he said, “and maybe you’d care to drop in on next Sunday’s service.” The bus slowed. “This is my stop,” he said. “See you in church.”
After he left the bus I looked at the tract. It was titled The Complete Life. I read it and thought about what it said, and then decided that maybe I would see him in church next Sunday. I’d probably hear an interesting sermon, and who knows, I might even see a good four round brawl between him and some guy in the fifth row.
But I really doubted that.

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