#4: Hot Stuff! 

Kendra sat in a state of shocked terror, not  knowing what to do, and not trusting anyone  around her to decide for her: 

The bus driver, indecisive and too polite to be  in charge of anything—and white besides—had just  submitted to the demands of the crazy man. 

The crazy man was at least known to her, an orthopedic tech that had always irritated her so  when he brought her patients to X-ray. He was some loudmouthed sweaty kick-boxer or  something and had just killed one lady EMT and  threw this big gimpy fat one, who worked up in  admittance, on the seats so hard she might never sit  up straight again.

Three white people; one crazy and two more  afraid than me. I can’t trust them. What about the  brothers and sisters? 

She looked around to see the Mexican lady  screaming—Great, invasion of the body snatchers  and we still have an illegal alien on board! 

She then noticed the sweet big-headed giant,  the retarded boy with the bible comics, hugging the  Mexican lady and trying to calm her down talking  about Jesus, He can’t lead shit, probably be the first  to get eaten, impregnated; whatever those messy  bugs are wanting to do to us! 

She then felt a sweaty quivering hand, like a  giant gelatin claw, droop over her forearm, and was  looking into the eyes of the immensely fat burger  boy, who was babbling, “What do we do Miss  Nurse? You should know—you a nurse. Do you  work with the crazy kung-fu doctor?” 

His watery eyes had indicated the insanely  violent tech, pleading for sanity. Kendra had to at  least set some reality down, “What’s your name?”

“Malcolm, Malcolm ma’am!” 

“Okay Malcolm, I am not a nurse, but an X-ray  tech, and he—that crazy man right there—is an  orthopedic tech; beats the shit out of drunks on the  night shift in the ER and casts broken arms for the  real doctors—who are all stuck in that building that  we are leaving behind going God only knows  where! Sit right here next to me Baby.” 

Great, I have a four-hundred pound toddler to  care for, she thought as Malcolm squirmed onto the  two seats next to her.  

She then regarded Oldman Jones; at least a real  man, but old, and only as capable as a man who has  swung a mop his entire life could be expected to be.  The older janitor nodded to her approvingly as she  hugged the giant baby to her small breast. Then she  glimpsed her one hope of sanity in this mess; the  one person who she could at least hope was a  kindred soul, the young sister with the plastic  flower in her wig, who was pacing the aisle angrily, smacking the window and cussing at the big disco ball-eyed spider that was eyeing her hungrily. 

Yes, a sister at least, someone to speak with while the crazy man barks orders and the cowards  cower. 

The Brother Left Behind 

The bus was now picking up some speed going  past the next stop. Their attention was then all  drawn to the figure of a tall young black man  running along the sidewalk waving down the bus.  They all stood and watched him swatting at flying  bugs and calling for help. There was no help coming  from the bus driver, as he obeyed the crazy tech,  who continued to give orders, “That’s right Brother  Man, no admittance. That dude has got an  infestation already. We cannot endanger your  passengers.” 

Just then the young man on the sidewalk  screamed hysterically, looking into their eyes, as he  raced along the bus; unlike most of them being fast  enough to actually catch the thing. She looked into his panicky watery eyes—for it was her, the  sympathetic mother-figure on board—with whom  he chose to lock eyes and plead silently. She placed  her hand on the glass and spoke out loud, “Oh Baby  I’m sorry—Oh Baby lookout!” 

He was still running, palms on the side of the  bus, pleading to her with his eyes and screaming for  the driver with his mouth. Then two of the nasty  spider-bugs leaped from the bus and sailed into  him; one smacking into his eye and flexing  grotesquely, peeling his eyelid back, and the other  sailing right into his mouth! 

All of them, but the driver, even the crippled  admittance lady, had come over to press their faces  against the windows, in morbid fascination as to  the terrible skittering fate that seemingly sought  them all. When the spider latched onto the young  man’s eye and began spreading the lid and inserting  the tip of its abdomen into the tear duct they all  gasped in horror. But when the other spider sailed  into his open mouth they all sucked in their breath  in disgust, except for the crazy tech, who cruelly stated, “The creepy-crawlies from outer space just  whacked another one of us. Here, I have these  masks like I’m wearing. You should all put one on  and have some spares—” 

Just then the man shed a tear with his unmolested eye and threw himself down beneath  the bus, which made a bumping motion  accompanied by a sickening crunching sound as the  poor man took the easiest way out available to him.  Before the sounds of disgust faded away she was  attacking the heartless tech, pounding his hard  chest with her little hands, “You, you racist—if he  wasn’t a brother! You let him die! We could have  saved him—you white people—” 

The crazy man was now hugging her, trying to  soothe her, and this brought her beyond words, to a  white hot anger, “Arrrgggheeeah!” 

The driver spoke up, “I was just doing what the  man said—I’m sorry!” 

Oldman Jones spoke up, the hugging tech  apparently beyond words also, “Listen Baby Girl, this man survived out there—he knows, is jus’  lookin’ out. Weren’t nothin’ racial about it.” 

Malcolm then patted her back as the bus  cruised on, “Besides, this dude ain’t white—he  Puerto Rican or some shit.” 

The big-headed boy then spoke up, “No, he’s  Italian; an ethnic kind of white man.” 

Malcolm seemed perplexed, “Really, Italians  are white? I thought they was like rich Puerto  Ricans?” 

The man that was hugging her then spoke up  in his own ethnic defense, “My parents were Greek,  I’m an American!” 

Malcolm, now unafraid, spoke out loud, to no  one in particular, as if the object of their discussion  were not even present, “What the hell is a Greek?” 

The big-headed boy chimed in, “They are like  really hairy Italians with bigger noses. Their ancestors discovered civilization and they own a  bunch of diners.” 

The man was no longer hugging her and was  just looking from person-to-person as if he was  wondering what the verdict concerning his  ethnicity would be, when Oldman Jones bellowed,  “Okay Mister, I don’ care if you the Mafia Pope or  Jackie Chan, what is you plan?” 

The tech then gently pushed away from her  and seemed uncomfortable speaking to them all,  “Ah, ah, Mike here said he was taking us up to the  college campus to maybe wait for the National  Guard or some other first responders.” 

He said this as the bus was banking left onto  Rossville, not right toward the campus. Then the  driver let out an oath and tried to turn the bus in  the intersection, causing it to jerk and them all to  crash into the right hand side of the bus. The big admittance lady fell on Kendra’s ankles and  squealed. Then the driver yelled, as more bugs  smacked into the bus, “Shoot, I’m sorry folks, I just was turning out of habit. Damn, I don’t want to risk  the undercarriage over the median. Let me back  this thing around and then we can head up—wait,  you see that Nick?” 

Hot Stuff! 

Kendra was now sliding back up onto the seat,  prying her foot out from underneath of the big  admittance lady with Malcolm’s help even as  Oldman Jones helped the crippled woman up onto  the seat across the aisle. Nick, as so the crazy tech  was apparently named, hurried up to the bus  driver’s shoulder as they all looked ahead through  the windshield at the stop in front of the  apartments off to the right.  

The driver pointed to the two young people at  the stop, a muscular young man and his pretty  white redheaded girlfriend with the tweezed eye brows and the attitude. The girl was shielding her  head with her purse and the man was swatting the  spiders that hovered about menacing her with a rolled up apartment guide. Oldman Jones then  began to inch up front, “Is that?” 

Nick then cut him off and answered him at the  same time, “Yeah Oldman, that’s Hot Stuff!” 

Malcolm then chimed up, “Oh we can’t let her  die!” 

Big-head then chirped in his squeaky voice, “I’ll  help!” 

The bus roared into action as the driver  hunched over the wheel and Nick produced a  surgical mask from a small box and held it up, “I  need someone who can run.” 

You have got to be kidding me. Just because she  is pretty and tweezes her eyebrows and has a wide  white ass they are going to risk their ever-loving  lives?!? 

She looked to the back, up into the eyes that  she expected would offer a comforting note of sane  agreement, and possibly some defiance, to the ghetto girl with the plastic flower in her store bought hair. If she had hoped for agreement from  that quarter though she was mistaken, as the girl  stepped forward to grab a mask, “I’ll out run your  ole gyro-eatin’ Jackie Spam ass!” 

The bus roared on and people yelled encouragement, but someone closer yelled in  supreme indignation up at the ‘heroes’ poised to  rescue the damsel in distress, and she was surprised to realize it was her voice, “Are you all  sick? We let that man die back there. Now we go to  rescue some bitch just because she’s fine and  manages to squeeze into them tight blue jeans?”  

Oldman Jones perked up, “Pretty much Baby  Girl.” 

Nick agreed, “It’s doable.” 

Malcolm then chimed in with his quivering  voice, “Can I help?” 

She looked at him in disgust, “You too?”

Then the black girl yanked the hat from his  head, “I’ll take this fat boy.” 

Kendra’s ire was now turned on the younger  sister, and she looked up with blazing eyes,  “Seriously, this somehow makes sense to you? We  let a brother die and then risk everything for some  fine little white girl?” 

The dark-skinned girl looked down into her  eyes harshly, “Lady, I’m gonna let that boy out dare  die too, ‘cause I a lesbian. And, if this shit is the last  day on earth like this Big-headed retard say—the  hell if you gonna be my last booty call! Here, hold  my hair bitch!” 

Kendra was left in shocked awe, holding a nasty cheap-made wig with a plastic flower in it, as  the bald ghetto girl slapped on Malcolm’s greasy hat and seized Oldman Jones’ mop, and prepared to  offload from the front door as they banked over to  the stop.  

Despite her reservations about the blatantly  sexist, racist, and apparently ‘homosexual-ist’ motivation behind this rescue attempt, she found  herself cheering for Nick and ‘Ghetto’, and hoping  that the young man who was just now fighting so  heroically to protect his much-desired lady friend from the hovering and lunging spider-bugs that menaced them, would somehow prevail. Kendra  was kneeling on the seat, leaning over the fire extinguisher box, and found herself screaming  through the closed window, “Kill them nasty  suckers Baby Boy.” 

Please Baby, kill them all, and get on up in this  bus.