My first boyfriend felt me up for the first time on the bus. No shittin'. We would hike up our skirts extra high when we got out of class, and we'd show off for the boys when we got on the bus.

I remember the first time I rode the goddamned bus. I had to go across town so I could go to school at Holy Angels because my mama figured nobody ever got a good education at a public school, and she wouldn't have us in there after grade school. It was fun at first, riding the bus to school, like we were allowed to have some fucking control over our lives. We could go anywhere, and it was our choice to go to school each day.

When I was a boy, I rode the bus to school, too. Back then it didn't cost no dollar fifty though. It was like a quarter. And we'd ride to school, then on the way home we'd transfer and head down to the river. In the warm weather we'd swim and fish, or in the winter we'd burn stuff in the little houses on the coast guard island. We never saw no coast guards.

Some mornings start out real cold and you almost can't stand to open that door. I tell you, some mornings I'm just huddled up with a blanket wrapped around me in the seat. If I'm driving one of the replacement units, I gotta bring my little heater, too. It gets cold sometimes.