Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:27:57 +0000 (GMT)
From: Nexis Pas <nexispas@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The 7N Bus

The 7N Bus

Nexis Pas
(nexispas@yahoo.co.uk)
Copyright 2008 by the author
Nexis Pas asserts the moral right to be identified as the
author of this work.

I never knew either of their names. In the beginning, I
thought of the first one as `that young man who sits in
front of me on the bus in the morning'. Later, he was joined
by `the other young man'. After a time, I found that it was
easier to think about them if they had names, and so I
christened them Adam and Seth.

The 7N Bus runs on a circular route from the train station
through Lewiston Place out to the Oldham Industrial Estate
and then back to the train station by way of Chelmdene and
Haymarket. I am an early riser, and I always catch the bus
that leaves the station at 5:40 a.m. It gets to my stop
around 6:10, enough time for me to read most of the
newspaper.

It's astonishing how regular we humans are in our daily
habits. The same people queue up for the bus each morning,
more or less in the same order. A talkative, elderly man is
always the first in line. Most days a middle-aged woman is
the second person in line, and she and the elderly man trade
information about what they have done since they last saw
each other. I know that he is semi-retired but goes in a few
hours every day to `help' his son run the family's shop. She
is a dentist. Over the years I have learned a lot about the
two of them from their conversation. When she isn't there,
the older man tries to engage the person behind him in the
queue in conversation. I take care to be the fourth or fifth
person. I suppose he's pleasant enough to talk to, but I
don't want to share the details of my personal life with the
people waiting for the bus, and I'm not ready to talk with
anyone that early in the morning. My colleagues at work
learned long ago not to engage me in conversation until I've
had at least three cups of coffee and an hour's time to get
myself sorted out. One of the advantages of arriving long
before the others is that I can manage to be agreeable by
the time they show up.

All the regulars take the same seats each day. I usually sit
by the window in the third row back on the left-hand side.
If someone takes a regular passenger's seat, it feels as if
the natural order of the world has been violated. When it
happens, the affected person shrugs and smiles ruefully. I
always feel oddly disturbed when someone takes my accustomed
place. It's always a stranger. None of the regulars would do
that. It's quite irrational, but I do believe that it augurs
ill for the day.

Until quite recently, a young man sat ahead of me. He began
riding the 5:40 bus three years ago, something like that. He
is the one I am calling Adam. As I said, I never knew his
real name. If we happened to stand next to each other in the
queue, we might remark on some unusual aspect of the weather
or, if the bus was not there at the accustomed time,
speculate on the reason. But our conversations never went
much beyond that. I once ran into him a store. There was a
moment of mutual recognition, followed by some confusion, I
think on his part as well as mine, as to how we knew each
other. The reason dawned for both of us at nearly that same
moment. `The bus'--we spoke almost at the same instant. We
chuckled and then moved on.

I got to know the back of Adam's neck well. Most mornings, I
had the impression that he was half-asleep. Quite often his
head would nod forward and then jerk back suddenly as he
woke up. Most of us who ride the 5:40 bus do so by choice,
because we wake up early. Some, like Adam, appear to do so
because their job requires them to arrive early.

Adam seldom did anything but sit there. If someone had left
a paper on the seat, he might pick it up and turn to the
sports news. He would glance at it, but never for very long.
He apparently never read beyond the headlines or the game
summaries in the first paragraph. Nor did he spend much time
looking out the window. He seemed withdrawn into himself.
That may be why I thought he was not fully awake most of the
time. About the only thing that occasionally drew his
attention was a passenger getting on the bus.

Adam was, I would say, an average person. Well, truth be
told, I am that too. No one who rides the bus really stands
out. If we were somebodies, we wouldn't be riding the bus,
would we? Maybe he was a clerk in a shop or some sort of
assistant in a business that opened early. From the
conversations between Adam and Seth that I overheard later,
I gathered that both of them were knowledgeable about
electronics. Perhaps they were computer technicians where
they worked. It's hard to tell, though. The young seem to
know everything electronic these days.

About the only thing that drew my attention to Adam in the
beginning was an intriguing discrepancy in his looks. The
base of his hair at the back, along the neck, was always
neatly trimmed. He never allowed his neckline to become
fuzzy or uneven. It was always a straight line across the
back of his neck, and the area below that was clean shaven.
Yet his hair was tousled, almost unkempt. It looked as if he
never combed it and just allowed it to grow as it liked. I
don't mean to imply that his hair was dirty or messy-he kept
it rigorously clean-but to all appearances he never combed
or brushed it. It wasn't until the rigour of the neckline
hit one that it became apparent how artful this arrangement
was.

Adam's style of dressing was much the same. At first glance
his clothes appeared to be thrown on. He gave the impression
of being one of those young men who has never learned to
knot a tie properly. The knot was always pulled away from
this throat a bit, and the tie hung askew down his chest.
Until one looked closer, he always seemed carelessly
dressed. But his clothes and his nonchalant style of wearing
them always looked good on him.

No one would call Adam a handsome lad, I think. Presentable,
easy on the eyes perhaps, but no, not handsome. If pressed
to categorise him, I would say that he knew how to make the
best of what were only so-so looks. By apparently not trying
to make himself look good, however, he ended up looking
better that he might otherwise have.

I don't want to give the impression that I spent a lot of
time studying Adam. It's just that he sat ahead of me for
three years or so, and over time I became acquainted with
his looks. If I had any artistic skills, I could draw every
building the bus passes. After nearly twenty years, I am
familiar with every aspect of the streets along the route. I
sometimes play a game and keep my eyes shut during the
morning ride. I keep them closed until I was sure we are
almost to my stop. Most of the time when I open them, we are
exactly in front of the building I thought we would be. Over
time, the 7N bus and its occupants have become rather of a
hobby of mine. One has to find something to do to occupy
one's thoughts.

I'm not alone in that. All of us who ride the 5:40 bus could
probably compile a list of the people who usually get on at
each stop-not by name but by sex and age and physical type.
I almost always am aware of a newcomer as soon as he or she
boards the bus. It isn't that I intentionally look. It's
more that I realise that two people are getting on where
usually only one does. I glance up and register the stranger
and then return to my reading.

That early in the morning, most of us have a bench of seats
to ourselves for the first ten or fifteen minutes of the
route. After that, the bus fills up rapidly and all the
seats are taken, and some people have to stand. Even in this
respect, however, the same people tend to sit together most
every day. The seat beside me is usually taken by another
middle-aged man who boards at Lower Bridge Street. He gets
out at the stop before the university.

Six or seven, months ago, the seat beside Adam was taken by
a young man boarding at Kensington Street. I had never seen
him before. Like Adam, he was slender and lithe. The thought
struck me that they were rather of a matched pair in looks
and dress. Both stayed on the bus until Lewiston Place.
About half the bus gets off there to transfer to other buses
or to head for work in one of the office buildings there.
The newcomer quickly became a regular and, unless the seat
beside Adam was occupied, took that seat.

Two or three weeks after I first noticed the newcomer, I
happened to look up as the bus pulled into the Kensington
Street stop and saw Adam turned sideways in his seat looking
out the window at those waiting to board there. He suddenly
smiled and sketched a half-wave to someone standing in the
queue. I looked out and saw the newcomer, the man I am
calling Seth, wave back to him. Seth bounded on board the
bus and hurried down the aisle, all the while smiling at
Adam.

The two of them began chatting animatedly, discussing a
football match that had been broadcast the evening before. I
was reading and didn't pay much attention to what they were
saying at first. A car must have cut in front of the bus,
because the driver had to brake suddenly. The driver shouted
something out, and that made me look up to see what was
happening. When the bus started on its way again, Adam and
Seth resumed their conversation, and I heard Seth suggest to
Adam that they meet after work.

I recognised the place he named as one of the larger and
more frenetic gay clubs near Lewiston Place.  I've never
been in it-it caters to a much younger crowd. Whenever I
have been in that area and walked past, it's always been
packed with people. Despite the fact that it occupies at
least two floors in the building and must be able to
accommodate hundreds, there is frequently a line of young
men standing outside waiting to get in. At night, light
pulses from the building, and the beat of the music can be
heard a block away.

The realisation that Adam and Seth were gay made me pay
attention to them. Adam had turned sideways to face Seth.
`But we won't be able to hear ourselves talk there.' And
then he suggested another place. It happened to be the place
Richard and I patronise when we venture out to have a drink,
but Seth dismissed it out of hand as filled with `old gits'.
The two of them kept trading the names of places. Seth
seemed to want to go to more active and noisy places; Adam
preferred less rowdy ones. They were still discussing where
to go when the bus arrived at Lewiston Place and they got
off. For me at least, the bus seemed much quieter after they
had left. I resumed reading the newspaper, but there was a
vacant spot in the air ahead of me.

That quickly became the pattern for Adam and Seth. Adam
would sit up slightly just as the bus reached Kensington
Street and look out the window for Seth. The two of them
would greet each other with bright smiles and talk happily.
One day someone set beside Adam before we reached Seth's
stop. When Seth came on board, Adam excused himself and got
up. The other passenger slid over into the window seat. Adam
took the seat next to me, and Seth took the aisle seat in
front of us. Seth turned half-way around in his seat, and he
and Adam spent the rest of the ride conversing animatedly.
After that, no one took the seat beside Adam. As I said, the
regulars respect one another's space. We quickly became used
to their conversations. For me at least, it added a cheerful
note to the morning routine. It wasn't so much the content
of what they were saying to each other as the fact that they
so clearly enjoyed each other's company that heartened me.
Perhaps I put too much stock in such things, but friendship
of that sort seems to me to be sufficiently rare that it
ought to be appreciated.

Then one morning, Seth was waiting with Adam in the queue at
the train station. They were behind me, and I didn't realise
the two of them were together until I was seated on the bus.
I had already folded my newspaper open and was reading it,
when I became conscious that two people had taken the seat
in front of me. I think I briefly felt regret that Adam has
lost his usual seat. It wasn't until I turned the newspaper
over that I discovered that Adam and Seth had boarded the
bus together.

In contrast to their usual talkativeness, both were sitting
there without speaking. It wasn't the quiet of two people
who have nothing to say to each other, however. Rather, they
appeared to be in that state when the important things have
been said and done, and further conversation would disturb
one's enjoyment of what has happened. They also were
physically at ease with each other. They weren't touching or
groping or doing anything to advertise the fact that they
had made love, but they weren't being careful not to touch
each other. I wasn't the only one to notice the change in
their relationship. As I looked up, a passenger who had just
boarded the bus and was coming down the aisle registered the
fact that Seth had apparently spent the night at Adam's
place and smiled with satisfaction at her deductions about
what had happened.

Thereafter the two of them almost always got on the bus
together. Most of the time they boarded at the station.
Occasionally they would get on at Kensington Street, often
enough to make it apparent that Seth still retained his own
place and hadn't moved in with Adam. On a few days, Adam
boarded alone at the station and Seth joined him after
Kensington Street. The first time that happened, I wondered
if something had come up between the two of them and was
quite relieved when it became clear that the separation was
temporary.

Maybe I am romanticising others' feelings, but I think all
of us felt better because Adam and Seth had found each
other. The atmosphere on the bus seemed much more pleasant
during that period. The two of them so obviously were happy,
and that spilled over on the rest of us. They weren't
demonstrative about their feelings or so wrapped up in each
other that they were oblivious to the sensibilities of
others on the bus. But in many little ways one could tell
that they were in love. One morning there was a patch of
construction just before the intersection of Kitchener and
Harlow streets. There were a few seconds of bone-jarring
vibrations as the bus passed too quickly over the temporary
patches in the streets. All of us swayed in our seats. But
for a half-minute or so after the normal ride had resumed,
Adam continued to sway in his seat and bump shoulders with
Seth. Seth gave him a complicit smile and a look that said
`What are you up to then, mate?' But he didn't move away
either.

The episode brought a memory to my mind. Soon after Richard
and I began sleeping together, I awoke one morning with
Richard spooned against my back and his arms around me. I
could tell from his breathing that he was asleep. We were
both naked, and I can still remember his half-stiff cock
pressed against my rear and the odd mix of comfort and
arousal that caused. The hair in his groin felt wiry and
stiff. It was almost as if I could feel each individual
hair. I lay there wondering what would happen if I began to
flex the cheeks of my arse together and press it into his
crotch. It's strange how strong certain memories are.

At that time, I was living in quite a small flat. The
bedroom was barely big enough for the bed and a small table
and chair. It was late morning, and the light in the room
was quite bright even though the curtains were pulled. The
night before, Richard had hung his shirt over the back of
the chair rather hurriedly. One shoulder and sleeve were
almost touching the floor. I lay there stroking the fabric
of the shirt and feeling ridiculously happy about waking up
to see Richard's shirt in front of me. I can still see the
colour-it was a dark blue shirt with almost invisible thin
grey stripes running vertically up and down the fabric. It
had one of those narrow, stiff, white bands that were a
popular style for collars in the late 1970s.

Richard had pulled his wallet and keys out of his trousers
and left them on the table. It was peaceful to lie there and
let my eyes take stock of all of Richard's possessions
scattered about my room. When I looked down, I could see one
of his arms and all the dark hairs on his forearm. I was
almost afraid to move for fear of disturbing my quiet
happiness.

I was so absorbed in my reverie about those early days with
Richard that when Adam and Seth stood up to get off the bus,
I did something unusual for me. I looked Adam directly in
the face and smiled at him. Somehow I felt that he would
understand the train of thought he had occasioned by his
playfulness. He smiled back at me. It was only then that it
struck me that he must think me an old fool. Adam couldn't
possibly have read my mind, but he was kind enough to share
his own happiness with others.

Most of us who ride the 7N bus that early in the morning are
older. We haven't forgotten what the first flush of love is
like, however. But even though the memories are overlaid
with what has happened since, we can still be transported by
the thought of love and hope for the best. Or maybe it's
just me. I can't speak for the others.

A few weeks later, on a Friday, I joined the bus queue just
after Adam and Seth. Seth was standing off to the side
holding a small canvas bag. There was a psychical as well as
physical separation between him and Adam. He sounded rather
defensive when he spoke. `I'll be back on Sunday evening,
Monday morning at the latest.'

`I don't see why you have to go.' Adam was aggrieved.

`We've been over this before. Gavin and I made the plans and
bought the tickets months ago. Before we met. This is the
only concert the Vads are giving in England this year. I
know you don't like that kind of music or I would have tried
to get you a ticket.'

`You could have asked, instead of just telling me this
morning that you were off for the weekend. I would have gone
with you.' Both of them were trying to keep their voices
down, but the odd word here and there escaped their attempts
to control their emotions.

Seth looked around, trying to avoid Adam's angry looks. He
suddenly brightened and waved at someone. `There's Gavin.
I'll be going then. I'll see you on Sunday.' He glanced
briefly in Adam's direction and then rushed away toward the
entrance to the train station.

Adam turned away, refusing to watch Seth leave. He faced
forward, looking toward the head of the bus queue. His
shoulders rose in a sigh and then slumped. When we got on
the bus, he took his usual seat in front of me. The entire
time he rode the bus, he kept his face cast downward,
refusing to look up. When he stood up to get off, he hurried
down the aisle, brushing past those who were slow to stand
up from their seats. Once he got off the bus, he walked
rapidly away, carefully looking straight ahead and refusing
to see anyone.

I sat there wondering if I should have said something. I
realised then that I had grown to feel rather proprietarial
about their relationship. Which was wrong, of course. It
wasn't my relationship and I had no right to imply that I
could offer any useful advice. Perhaps they reminded me too
much of Richard and myself. And what would I have told Adam?
`One argument isn't the end. He'll be back. Everybody needs
a little space apart from the relationship.' Useless
platitudes when you have a grievance. It's easy to be sane
and logical and wise about others. Far more difficult to be
rational when you're one of the parties involved. The first
time Richard and I had a fight over something he wanted to
do by himself with a friend of his, I nursed that grievance
for weeks. The last thing I would have wanted was for a well-
meaning stranger even to notice that my lover had walked off
to spend a weekend with someone else. It would have made
matters worse to have to accept consolation and sympathy
from someone I didn't know and who happened to feel sorry
for me. If I had been Adam and found someone sitting behind
me on a bus offering advice, I probably would have expressed
my feelings in the vernacular. Although it might have
relieved his feelings to have been able to tell someone to
fuck off.

God, I was furious with Richard that time. One morning as we
were getting dressed for work, he casually let slip that he
wouldn't be around for a while because he and his mate Len
were off to Amsterdam. I was too stunned to speak at first,
but I quickly found my voice. We had a major row, and it
ended with Richard throwing his things into a bag and
rushing off to meet Len. I was so mad I called in sick to
work and spent the day raging around the flat. I couldn't
think of anything but Richard's `desertion'. It didn't help
to get a postcard three days later from Amsterdam with the
bald message `I'll be back on Saturday.' I tore it in two
and tossed it in the bin, only to pull it out and then shred
it into confetti.

When Richard returned, he was greeted with silence. He
tiptoed around unpacking his things and then sat down
opposite me. His first words other than hello were `Don't
worry. I took precautions. I'm not bringing any diseases
home.' That, of course, was precisely the wrong thing to
say. The knowledge that he had not only taken off without me
but been having sex with others infuriated me and set me on
a monumental rant. By the time we had finished that
argument, it was apparent to both of us that we had very
different ideas of what fidelity meant. I had more
traditional notions. For Richard, it simply meant that I was
the person he came home to at the end of the day.

So what could I tell Adam that would have been of any use to
him, even if I had known him well enough to offer advice? My
own experience hardly boded well as an example.

Seth didn't reappear until Tuesday. He and Adam boarded at
the train station. Seth looked a bit hung-over, but that may
have just been my imagination and conjectures about how he
had spent the weekend and why he hadn't been there on
Monday. Adam and he were being careful with each other. They
rode most of the way in silence. Seth's attempt to start a
conversation about the football games on television that
weekend was met with a dismissive `I didn't have time to
watch them' from Adam.

As the bus neared Lewiston Place, Seth asked, `Want to meet
for lunch then?'

Adam shrugged, `Sure.'

`Usual place.'

`Yeah, it's as good as any.'

`My treat. I'll even buy you an ice cream after. Chocolate
with chocolate syrup and chocolate chips on top.' Seth
nudged up against Adam and smiled uncertainly.

`A double scoop?'

`Triple, if you want.'

`You'd have to help me eat that.'

`Can I share your spoon?'

Adam finally smiled. `More than that if you like.'

`I like.'

`All right then.' Adam smiled again, but he looked a bit
sad. The argument was over but not to his satisfaction, I
think.

For the next month or so, matters between the two of them
seemed to have regained their previous state. At least as
far as I could judge from seeing them for fifteen minutes
each weekday morning on the bus, they enjoyed each other's
company and spent as much time as they could together. Seth
seemed to be making an effort to interest Adam in his
recreations and not take Adam's participation or
nonparticipation in them for granted. A great many
discussions revolved around which music groups were playing
that weekend and whether they should go hear them or go to a
club or a football match. I wasn't familiar with the names
of the groups they mentioned and it was impossible for me to
follow their discussions of the relative merits of various
bands, but they appeared to have developed a playful
disagreement about each other's taste in music. They only
singer whose name I recognised was one that Seth dismissed
with a scornful scatological monosyllable. Adam nodded in
agreement and said that the most popular singer of my
generation was `a favourite of me mum'. About some matters
musical they were in total agreement.

I didn't realise how much interest I was taking in their
relationship until Richard came for one of his weekend
visits. He drops by a few times each year. He rings me up
early in the week and asks if I'm free the next weekend and
if he can stay over on Saturday. He knows, of course, that I
am always free on the weekend, but he's polite enough to
pretend that I might be busy. That particular weekend
Richard came alone-the current boyfriend was attending a
wedding-which may have been why I felt free to talk about
Adam and Seth. It struck home to me how much I was talking
about them when Richard began nodding his head impatiently.
He obviously found Adam and Seth and my adventures on the
bus less than enthralling. When I saw that the subject bored
him, I moved on to other matters. Richard seemed to be in
the last stages of his relationship with the wedding guest,
and he wanted to gripe about it. I've lost track of how many
semi-permanent boyfriends he has had. I wonder if he keeps
up with his other exes in the same way he does with me. As I
sat there commiserating with him about his current problems,
I amused myself by imagining Richard travelling about the
country, each weekend visiting a different ex. There were
enough of us that he wouldn't have to make a repeat visit
for four or five months.

At the end of the evening, when Richard had exhausted the
subject of his current affair, he asked the ritual question
he always asks, `Are you dating anyone?'

I was still envisioning Richard visiting each of his former
boyfriends in turn and rather than give my usual `No, no
one,' I asked, `Do you ever see Geoff Whittaker?'

`Who?' Richard was baffled by the query.

`Geoff Whittaker-my successor as the boyfriend of the
moment.'

`Good lord, was that his name? I've totally forgotten. I
wonder what happened to him. Are you sure that was his name?
It doesn't sound right. Why are you bringing him up? You're
not still angry about my misdemeanours, are you?' He grinned
at me in what he obviously intended to be a sheepish
admission of the impossibility of my being upset about his
truancies.

`No, I'm not angry.' And then I changed the subject. I don't
know why Richard keeps coming back. I don't know why I let
him. The next time he calls, I should tell him that I won't
be free that weekend. Or perhaps I should get caller ID and
just not answer when he rings. How many times would I have
to refuse one of his invitations to visit me before he
stopped calling? Richard is always the one to propose a
meeting. I can't recall ever ringing him and inviting him to
visit. But I've never refused his request for a talk and
weekend's lodging. The first visit came after his break-up
with Geoff. Since then, he has visited two or three times a
year, often in connection with problems with his current
relationship. The two of us seem reluctant to let go of what
was the first love for each of us, well, the first love for
Richard, the only love for me. Our furious parting has
evolved into an amicable split, and we have become
acquaintances with a certain history and a certain
understanding of each other. Perhaps I find comfort in
Richard's gossip about his current inamorato's shortcomings.
Perhaps he finds comfort in my post-Richard lack of desire
for another relationship. I didn't mention Adam and Seth
again that weekend. Richard drove off late Sunday afternoon,
for what I was certain would be a heart-to-heart talk with
whatever his name was.

A week or so later, Seth suddenly stopped in the middle of
something he was saying to Adam and pulled his mobile phone
from his pocket. `It's Gavin,' he announced to Adam. `Maybe
he got the tickets.' Seth chattered happily with the person
on the phone. His conversation was punctuated by joyous
cries of `great' and `terrific'. When he hung up, he turned
to Adam and said, `Gavin got us tickets for the fourth and
fifth both. We'll be able to get close to the bands.'

`Where are we going to stay the night of the fourth? We
can't afford a hotel after what these tickets are costing
us.' Adam sounded less enthusiastic about what appeared to
be tickets to one of the summer music festivals.

`Gavin's friends will put us up. I stayed there last year.
We'll take some beer, and I'll get some . . .' Seth must
have thought he was speaking too loudly because he dropped
his voice and whispered something to Adam.

Adam whispered back to Seth. He didn't look happy, and he
glanced around to see if anyone was watching the two of
them. Luckily I had enough time to shift my gaze back to the
newspaper I was holding and had the presence of mind to
pretend a rapt interest in the story I wasn't reading.

Seth's next comments were audible, at least to someone as
close to the two of them as I was. `Oh, loosen up. Have some
fun once in a while. It doesn't hurt anyone. The police
don't even care about "recreational use" any more. Half of
them probably smoke it too.'

`What's this place like? Gavin's friends' place.'

Seth reverted to whispering. I did hear the comment
`mattresses on the floor' and I think I heard the word
`orgy'. Seth was quite enthusiastic about staying at this
place. Adam looked sceptical. They were still discussing the
matter when they left the bus.

For several days thereafter, Seth spent most of the bus ride
talking on his mobile, making plans with his friend.
Occasionally he would turn to Adam and consult with him
about a proposed arrangement, but he didn't otherwise seem
to have much to say to Adam. On the eleventh, Adam mumbled
something in response to a question from Seth. `Hold on a
minute. I'll call you back.' Seth snapped the phone shut and
turned to Adam. `What do you mean go without you?'

`Just what I said. I'm not going.'

`God, you are such a pain in the arse. After all the trouble
Gavin went to get these tickets and now you want to back
out. I've half a mind to go without you. Don't even think
about asking for the money for the tickets back.'

`Take somebody else then. Or sell them. You shouldn't have
any trouble finding someone who wants them.'

`Nah, it won't be any trouble at all replacing you.' Seth
opened his phone and called his mate back. In an
exaggeratedly clear voice, he carefully explained that `the
fucking bitch has decided not to go.' Everybody on the bus
could hear him. Adam's face turned red and he turned away
and looked out the window. When we go to their stop, Seth
stood up and casually walked down the aisle without looking
back. He flounced off the bus and walked away, still talking
into his phone. Adam sat there without moving. The bus
driver glanced back over his shoulder and tried to catch his
eye. When Adam realised that the bus wasn't leaving, he
looked up and then shook his head no when the driver tilted
his head toward the still open door. The driver closed the
doors and drove on. Adam was still sitting there, rigid and
blushing when I got off.

The next morning was the second. Seth boarded at Kensington
Street. Adam wasn't there. I knew from the conversations I
had overheard that Seth and his friend were travelling to
the concert on the third.  Adam rode the bus alone the next
day.  The fourth and fifth were the weekend. The next week
Adam was waiting for the bus on Monday. When we got to
Kensington Street, he kept his head down. Seth got on and
took a seat a few rows behind me. He pulled out his phone
and began chatting loudly with someone about the great time
he had had over the weekend. Adam never stirred or gave any
indication that he could hear Seth talking. That was the
last time Adam took the 5:40 bus.

Seth still catches the bus most mornings. He has a new
boyfriend now. The two of them seem to get on well. I've
never seen Adam again. Perhaps he found a job elsewhere or
maybe he takes a later bus.