As the BLM soldiers huddled in out of the driving rain, the firelight beneath the old marquee casting their forms in lurid silhouette against the steel-mesh brick-face of the liquor store they held against their Sharia foes up the street, as if defending their own holy city, Tom Jones sighed, wearily.

“I’m getting too old for this shit.”

As if on cue, he saw the glare of white light beaming at the top of the hill. Childishly his spirit lifted at the sight of the large rolling box of metal, glass and light ploughing through the sheeting rain, splashing the rubble walkway on his side of the street and drenching the empty northbound lane with water cast off by its big tires.

He waited for the bus to get two blocks away and then stepped out with his plastic bus pass in his palm and held it for the bus to see. The light console, where the driver would have sat in years gone by, flashed yellow and the bus slowly veered toward his stop. He kept showing the pass so he wouldn’t lose his boarding option and finally, after a few drenching seconds, the bus eased up to the broken curb as the light turned green. The bus kneeled with a welcoming hiss, the door opened, and he stepped in, the interior of the bus echoing with his metallic, feminine greeting, “The coach floor is wet. Please watch your step. Valued Senior, please take the first seat on the left, reserved for your use, in these years of ease.”

Ain’t nothing easy about it, you damned contraption! he thought angrily to himself.

The first seat on the left was glowing green around the guide bars and the hoodlums and yo-punks on the back of the bus were looking on in gaping curiosity, as if they’d never seen a handicapped seating before. This pissed him off, so he decided to go sit in the back—well, maybe climbing the deck was a little much. He could at least save face and find a seat in the middle, what with the bus being mostly empty—then the bus eased to a stop and the dozen or so patrons groaned.

He heard an, “Oh, come on, yo, sit da fuck down!”

Another voice said, “Look, yo ancient muvafucka, I gotz a twist ta jet to—sit da fuck down!”

The interior of the bus then spoke, “Valued Senior, this coach may not continue its progress until you are seated.”

“What?!” he raged, “What, are you kidding me!?”

A large, round-faced, black woman, dressed in a medical orderly outfit, then stood in front of him, turned to the irate young thugs in the back and bellowed, “Shut da fuck up! His ass be old en cafused. I gots dis. Yo, you got some shit fo me, yo narrow-assed niցցer? Didn’t think so!”

All sounds of complain died away.

She then turned and leaned over into his face as she placed her big, soft, chocolate hands on his now bony shoulders and said in a soothing tone, “Now, Sir lookie over there.”

As she said this she turned him bodily around as if he were a toddler and placed her massive chin on the top of his head and said, “You see her there, with that welcoming green glow, she misses you, Sir, has a need to warm that liddle white butt a yours. Let me take you to her.”

As the giantess walked him to the seat, he neither moving or resisting, placed him gently in its very comfortable, orthopedic cradle, and secured him with the soft-gel, no-clip buckles, she cooed, “There we go, Mister Man.”

She then smiled in his face and asked, “Is there anything more I can do for you, Sir?”

He shook his head, “no” dejectedly, and then she smiled and returned, “I understand, Sir. I see this all the time at Rosy Acres—I’m the hostess, don’t you know. No bed pans for Janaynay. Now here’s a little something I give to all my tough old schoolers, like you!”

The bus was rocking along through the rain as she handed him a miniature of Heft Vodka, kissed him on the forehead like he was an infant and walked back to her seat to the applause of the stoned thug multitude of ten.

“What the hell?”

After he knocked it back and felt the poison wash down his gullet he did feel a little better. One could get used to this seat. It was massaging his hip were the rotator was knotted up—poor Betty’s hands just couldn’t work the muscle loose anymore.

He placed the miniature bottle in the recycle chute, amazed that anyone still cared about recycling bottles when no one had ever bothered to recycle this damned city. He prepared himself to sit back and enjoy the beat of the windshield washers in the rain, but heard none. Recalling, with a frown, that automated transit vehicles did not require visibility, he let out a sigh and let himself enjoy the seat.

The bus voice was speaking to him overhead: “Valued Senior, city law enforcement services are suspended until sun up. Please seek safe lodging immediately. In the meantime, conceal all valuables. In the event of attack, hand over your valuables. The individuals on this bus are under video surveillance and are reminded that their bus passes key their video image to their arrest and prosecution record, so civility is encouraged.”

“Fuck you, bus bitch,” railed one thug, shaking his fist at the overhead panels, demonstrating young black folks helping elderly whites on and off the bus.

The bus responded, “Tyson Johnson, you shall receive your summons by text for disturbing the peace. Civility is advised. Civility is the MTA Way.”

The various thug patrons began to laugh at and tease the thug so named by the bus and Tom felt a bit guilty, and waved and smiled to the young fellow, “Sorry.”

“Thank you, Old School!” came the sarcastic reply, as the suddenly lively bus rolled on into the darkening ghetto, all aboard in agreement that no one would offload in the immediate vicinity, as the bus stops outside of the BLM checkpoint were inhabited by homeless men armed with clubs, bats, chainsaws, machetes, axes, meat cleavers and bars, staring expectantly at the occupants within as the rain soaked their matted dreadlocks and heavily blanketed shoulders. The laughter died down as the danger without cowed all into silence. Tom pondered at how far Man—particularly the type of man who looked like him—had fallen since its Low Point, a nadir that seemed, in his mind, to coincide with his bastardly birth.

His Uncle Joe had assured him that it was none of his fault—even though his mother named him a curse, ruining her figure and keeping prospective husbands at bay. Uncle Joe said it was clearly the fault of President Richard Nixon, who had embraced Communist China, let the Vietnam Wall fall, devalued the dollar by messing with the gold standard—whatever that was—and had declared war on people getting high. That was what Uncle Joe, the only book-reader in the family, had said. But Tom Jones didn’t know a president from a bookie. He just knew boxing and carpentry and was content that the wretched state of the wider world was not his fault. That is all he needed to know to keep on limping on.