Steve was not happy that morning. Well, to be honest, he was never happy. How could he be? Steve! Steve! Not Stephan, which could be pronounced like Stefan or Steven, but Steve! So plain, so ordinary. How could his parents have been so uncaring, so inconsiderate, so shortsighted, so plain? Steve.
Steve was quirky for a teenager, even by teenager standards. He didn’t do the Goth thing, he just didn’t look good in black, and teen angst, well, that had been a part of his life since his earliest childhood memory. Steve was quirky in that he loved bagpipe music. He oftentimes imagined the sound coming from two dead, bloated geese being stepped on simultaneously. Some people likened it to fighting cats, but Steve knew it was dead, bloated geese. Steve had researched bagpipes and knew that at one time they’d been used to drown out the cries of the wounded on the battlefield, but he focused, instead, on the dead, bloated geese. Perhaps he’d be lucky enough to see inside the reeds of a bagpipe some day. Surely, they would be the vocal cords of geese, he thought.
Steve’s difference did not stop with his love for bagpipes. He spoke a broken English that made him sound like he was from Jamaica, although he’d never been. Where he picked up that brogue no one knew. He also liked to wear kilts, and one day, to the amazement of all, showed up for class wearing a kilt. It caused such a stir that the school was forced to require all students to wear uniforms from that point forward. That made Steve popular. Sure it did.
Although he loved his bagpipe music and derived a great deal of pleasure from it, he often listened to it when he was angry. This was why Steve was listening to his collection of bagpipe music at an ear shattering volume this bright and early morning. Of course, Steve’s mother couldn’t help but take this opportunity to express her love for him, screaming, “Turn that shit down! What, are you deaf?” Yeah, it was the beginning of a long day full of comments and criticism about him, a long day.
The one bright spot in his day was his bus ride home from school. The city bus he rode consumed and spat out a variety of people, some nice, some not so nice. The bus driver, though, drowned out their presence and opaqued the background noises. She was a dark haired beauty with long hair that was usually tied back in a pony tail. Her laughter and smile were contagious as though her beauty was not enough. She was a beautiful person inside and out, a hard thing to come by in this world in which we live. He did not know her name, nor she his. He did not know her touch or perfume, but still he was smitten.
Steve imagined the bus driver as an elephant tamer with whom he was allowed to ride. She commanded the great beast with gentle kicks behind the ears. A kick behind the left and the leviathan turned to the left. A kick behind the right and it swung to the right. He watched through his romance colored eyes and was amazed at her adeptness at handling the beast of burden. At stops she directed the creature closer to the ground to allow departures and arrivals, and he was amazed when it responded by lowering itself. . . .