9 out of 10 monkeys believe they are not behind glass

I had the most bizarre bus ride of my life this morning. I arrived at the bus stop, barely finding a parking spot (damn you student parking), and I ended up standing in the universal line waiting for the bus. It was cold, I could see my breath, and the phone in my pocket would not stop beeping with alerts from work.

Ding Ding Ding.

Like a synth soundtrack from a bad 1980′s action movie. The bus finally arrived, I flashed my pass to the driver as I boarded, following the ever present line into the gaping maw of the bus door.

And then it got weird.

I went to the back of the bus, where I usually sit to taunt other riders and fashion spitballs for potential use against others (kidding), and I pulled out my phone and my coffee. Kill two birds with one stone.

And the lady sat down in front of me.

Tall, black-skinned, her hair tucked under a skewed hat, a down coat covering her upper body, and a very hippy, artisan ankle length skirt flowing down to brown boots. Her dress marked her as eccentric, but nothing odd on the bus. Especially in this town. I have seen all types and all shades of crazy.

Then she turned and smiled at me.

“How ya doing?” Her voice was very high pitched, like a young girl, but her smile, and the crinkles in her skin around her mouth and her eyes made her look at least 25, maybe older.

“Good.” I reply.

“Whatcha doin?” Her eyes moved down to my phone, where I am deleting emails (ding ding ding).

“Nothing.” I hastily tuck my phone back into my pocket and focus on my coffee.

“Good for you.” Her smile is wide, her eyes are behind green rectangle frames, sliding to the halfway point between the brow and tip of her nose. Her smile is almost like a jackal’s, like she is on some joke about the kill that the other predators can only guess at. “Whatcha drinkin?”

“Coffee.”

Again: “Good for you.”

A pause, a moment in the universe passes, somewhere a child is born, an old man dies, and I am very uncertain about my choice of seat this morning.

“Your lips are so kissable. You want to kiss me?” She puckers and leans towards me. He lips are generous, slightly dry, and they draw my vision like a train wreck or an accident that I can’t turn away from.

“Um. No thanks.” I reply. I don’t know what to say. Thanks? Do you say thanks to something like that? I am very uncertain about my choice of seat at this point. Then she reaches out and rubs her hand on my chest, her palm sliding over the slick surface of my rain jacket. She moves her hand from side to side across my pectorals, and all of a sudden I feel both naked and very uncomfortable.

I have been violated. I think. I am very very very uncertain what the hell is happening to my day. I look around, and all the other riders are very focused on their books, their phones, or the scenery outside. Not one of them makes eye contact with me. What the heck should I do?

Her hands are rough, by the sound they make sliding across my chest and my shoulders, and OH MY GOD, her hand is on my cheek, gently caressing my one week old beard, moving across my chin, carefully avoiding my lips, and touching my other cheek. Her fingers linger a moment, then she turns around in her seat and looks out the window.

I think its over. I am not sure what happened. I look down at my coffee and take a drink. And a deep breath. I let it slowly, trying to release the unbelievable amount of pressure I am feeling in my head about be being touched like I just was by a complete and utter stranger.

“You just strolling the streets today?”

I look up and she is facing me again. Same smile. Same eyes. I don’t think she is attractive, something about her and this whole situation is making me feel like an alien visiting another planet. She is xenomorph from Alien, and I am Ripley, wondering how the hell I got this close to those teeth.

“Nope, going to work today.” Time is going slow. My watch, a digital, is reporting that we are obviously driving near something with immense mass, like a black hole, or a neutron star… because it appears time has stopped.

“If I didn’t have to go to school today, I would spend it with you. Look at those cheeks, I love your cheeks.”

“So does my mom.”

“Good for you.” She is still smiling. “Sure you don’t want a kiss?”

“I think my wife would object.” I am darting my eyes to other passengers. Am I going crazy? Am I the only seeing this? What did I eat this morning? Can oatmeal be a hallucinogen? All these questions take a leisurely stroll through my head… since time has stopped, they have all the time in the world. Some even stop and sit on the benches and feed the neuron pigeons.

She turns away again. I have not been rude, or mean, or anything. I smile when she smiles, I return her serves and play my part in what should be a normal conversational encounter on a bus, but has turned out to be some sort of teenage nightmare.

Her hand is on my chest again. She is rubbing the fabric in circles right above the logo, and I expect it to be like the last time… a quick and graceful caress. But she keeps going. A full minute, perhaps longer, looking over her glasses at me, her brown eyes, half lidded, evaluating me. Is she looking for a reaction? Is this a prank, a stunt, something that she can report on in her psychology class?

Something tells me deep down that she is not a psych major. She must be in one of the “special” schools downtown. And she is rubbing my chest.

“I like the way this feels.”

“Yeah its good for keeping things off of me,” I reply. In retrospect I guess that was a great thing to say, because it was imminently true. It was keeping her hands off of me. My face had been touched, true, and at that moment I wished that my jacket was covering my face too. Why don’t rain jackets come in a hazmat suit style? With the face shield integrated into the hood? I need something like that.

We reach the next stop. Time speeds up again. I wonder if I should get off here and just wait for the next bus. Twenty to thirty people board, and the bus fills up completely. A student (an actual student, thank god) sits down next to me. I use it as an excuse to pull my backpack into my lap and use it as a body shield. I look out the window and finish my coffee. I think to myself that I should have put Bailey’s in it this morning. That would have helped.

“Whatcha drinking?” I hear. I keep looking out the window.

“Tea.” Comes the reply from Mr. Student.

“Good for you.”

…

An indeterminable time later we reach the final stop. I grab my bag, stand up calmly, and step of the bus. I reach the stairs in the station, not looking behind me to see if she is following, and I bolt. I take the stairs two at a time, the sound barrier folding around me, the pressure wave building. It releases like a rubber band, snapping back, and the windows rattle as the boom travels along the length of the bus station.

Usain Bolt, suck on that. I went up stairs at Mach-freaking-one. You got nothing on me.