The Bus

The bus was yellow, just like all the other buses, with its dirty windows, full of fingerprints and tracings that declared Johns existence, because he was here.  Windows  that we were never allowed to open, even though the  worn out, fake leather, plastic seats smelled of too many kids that almost made it home, but not quite before their bladders betrayed them. 

But this yellow bus was the short bus. The one they used to pick up those kids that were heading for that special class because they were different from everybody else. Maybe they didn’t read yet in spite of their thick, black rimed coke bottle eyeglasses or maybe they talked funny from some malformation that took place before they ever saw the light of day.  Whatever it was, they were those kids, the ones everyone teased and laughed at behind their backs and to their faces.  They rode that short yellow bus, and we sat next to them.

 The Cello? Who plays the cello? I could hear my Dad from the other room, his voice sounded strained, the way it sounded when he didn’t understand how an umpire could make that call and was talking to the TV because the stupid ref must be blind. I guess if your daughter plays the violin that’s OK, but when my brother declared that his instrument of choice was the cello, that was different.

It stood as tall as he did at first. The case for it was brown and made of canvas. It seemed like it weighed 40 pounds if it weighed anything at all. The case had a handle just below the neck for carrying, but it was useless because he was so short when he started. It took up the whole seat next to him like a greedy selfish little child with that single metal foot poking into the black rubber mat that ran down the aisle. It was laughable really, just like those kids on the bus. My case was not canvas; it was made of high quality plastic, with “a sensible carrying strap that you could put over your shoulder”.  I heard the man tell my mom so when she bought it.

Nerds, that’s who played the cello and the violin and that’s who we were.  Orchestra nerds who, way too early in the morning would have to ride that short yellow bus, in the grey mist that obscures everything around you. Like clouds that were too lazy to rise to the heavens, and in their slothfulness, make early in the morning colder and more dismal than it really needed to be. This is a good thing, this London pea soup fog, that tasted of cold steel, maybe none of the other kids will see that we got on that squatty yellow abomination they called the short bus. But they did see. They noticed that we packed up our cases and our music and mounted that undersized, laughed at, bus.

My brother lugged that cello onto, and off of that short bus for 3 years. Why couldn’t we just have orchestra at our own school? Why did we all have to be bused to one central school? Some kind of music school boot camp to see who would survive is my guess. Did you know that most cello music for beginners only has about 8 notes? They play the bottom of the music; the music that no one really heard back then, in the stone ages, before subwoofers.  Three years times 8 notes is not a satisfying musical career, nor is it worth riding the short bus for. Sorry Pachelbel.   

  Enter junior high, no go ahead walk through the double doors that are designed to slam shut at the slightest hint of a student struggling with a large, brown, canvass encased, expensive, piece of wood. Yeah, this becomes the new short bus. Those cold heartless metal doors, that greet you with the same warmth as your classmates as you disembark from the regular long bus.

Time to get something cool man, something hip. Time to trade in the short nerdy thing for a taller one, a cooler one, a jazzy one. Yeah man, a standup Bass. Nothing says “hey look, I’m cool now” like a bigger brown canvas covered piece of beautifully grained and polished wood the color of honey. One that sings like Ole Man River and knows what makes Ella smile. This sensual shape that you caress with your arms wrapped around, like new lovers in the night. This was cool.  And just like he would trade the short bus for the longer one, he traded his cello for that stand-up jazz bass and the much cooler, jazz bus.

Oh the bliss of that beautiful bass. Now it sits next to him on the bus, like Marilyn Monroe, waiting for someone to challenge her to move, knowing she won’t.   But he never really traded up and out of that place where he was a bit different. He never really arrived at cool until he put his big bass behind him in that seat with her viola. One day he just asked that cute little blue-eyed blonde girl to sit next to him, and she placed her black plastic protected viola next to his brown bass and joined him on his green leather seat.

That was 25 years ago, and they are still playing together. All through the valley whenever they need a stand in for the stand-up bass they call him.  Oh sure, inside he is still that nerdy music kid who still carries those 8 notes to Pachelbel’s Cannon in his head. And no, he won’t play it for you at your wedding, but, could he interest you in a little of the Duke?