Mass Transit

 The idea of chowing down on a Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken wings made Reese Lee’s mouth water. But in this Peter Pan bus station, it was only an idea and nothing more. It was something that would have to wait until she made it back to her college town. Considering that breathing air in this bus station was worse for the mouth and nose than giving a rim job to someone with a stomach virus, even the idea of getting potato chips from the vending machine was a taboo.

All she could do was sit cross-legged in a chair (preferably one without bubblegum stuck to it) and study for her final exams. Burying her nose in her text book was more appealing than allowing body odor and cigarette smoke to melt her face off like acid. It was even more appealing with new age music blasting in her headphones while she kept her hoodie up. Everything about her screamed “Do Not Disturb”. But who was listening? Certainly not the other patrons.

There they were milling all around the station waiting for their respective buses to take them to their destinations. Some of them had long greasy hair that hadn’t been washed since the Obama administration. Some of them burped loudly enough to jolt Reese out of her studying trance. A scraggly old man in a trench coat puked on the floor, the puddle resembling a prehistoric tar pit. A weary-eyed mother sat on the floor and attempted to rock her crying baby to sleep. A man in overalls and a MAGA hat lit up a cigarette and puffed like a diesel train.

This isn’t worth it…none of this is worth it, Reese thought to herself as she tightened the draw string on her hoodie. No matter how many times she pored over various psychological terms in her textbook like Gestalt and Jungian, they wouldn’t stick in her overcrowded mind. Her brain felt as though it had Novocain smeared all over it. Her eyes watered from the intense smells. Her jaw clamped down so tightly that she was getting a headache. She could just as easily step outside for fresh air, but that would mean potentially missing her bus back to college.

Then again, it might not have been a bad outcome considering that a man a greasy leather jacket marched up to her reeking of alcohol and trash. “Ten-HUT!” he shouted. “The purple monkeys are coming to take our brains! STOP THE STEAL! Blar-blah-BLAR!” He marched to the bathroom, but not without leaving Reese a quivering mess in her seat. Her eyes watered once again, but not from the pungent miasma.

It’s not worth it…it’s not worth it….none of this is worth it…

As Reese tried to steady her nerves with deep breathing exercises (the ones she learned from her psychology classes), the mother from earlier approached her, the baby in her arms fast asleep. With yellow teeth and chapped lips, she asked Reese, “Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, I don’t. Sorry.”

“Come on, just one cigarette! I’m stressed out!”

“I told you, I don’t have any.”

“I’ll kiss your feet if you give me one!”

Bile rose up from Reese’s throat. She threw her textbook to the ground and rushed for the ladies’ room. Unfortunately, time was not her best friend as she vomited on the ground before she could make it. Her stomach contents burned her throat while her eyes watered some more. A few droplets of nose pudding mixed with her biological swamp brew on the ground. Nobody said a word when the motor-oil substance from the old man hit the floor. But once Reese’s acids flew from her lips…

“Fucking gross, lady!” yelled the guy in the MAGA cap. “Is that what they teach you in that lib-tard school of yours?”

Reese wiped the sewage off of her face with the back of her hand before unnecessarily apologizing. The heavy breaths she took wouldn’t do much for cooling down her throat considering the air was thicker than that of a burning building. But heavy breaths she took anyways.

She took even more of them when an obese man in an American flag T-shirt grabbed her butt and squeezed as hard as he could. “Ow! Ow! Let go! You’re hurting me!”

“I bet that shit hurts real’ good, little lady!” said the pervert before hacking and laughing at the same time. Reese was able to pry his fingers off before dashing for the exit. The pervert laughed at her some more when she slipped on the black puddle from earlier. Her back collided with the cement ground and knocked the wind out of her lungs (not that it was good air to begin with). Her MP3 player and headsets broke on the way down, but not nearly as badly as her spirit.

She used the nearby arcade cabinet to pick herself up before (successfully) dashing out of the bus station and into the clean night air. The breeze gently blew against her white-hot face. Every shaky breath she took was pure heaven to her throat and lungs. In fact, it was the only thing about this night that could be described as being remotely close to heaven. She rested her sore back against a graffiti-splattered wall and sunk down to her butt, bursting into a full-on crying session.

The whole reason she went to college in the first place was to study psychology and become a licensed therapist. But even with this wealth of knowledge, she knew the people in that bus station were beyond help. The healthcare system failed them. The world failed them. But she had zero interest in helping them now. 

If that whole bus station burns to the ground with them inside…I’d never be depressed ever again…

While she couldn’t find a gas can and matches with her blurry eyes, she did see something that was almost as destructive: a lead pipe lying on the ground. A rusty lead pipe with a little bit of moss grown over it, because of course it was. She wiped her eyes dry and picked up the non-moss end of the pipe. She could bash a lot of brains in with this weapon. Not that they had brains to begin with, but it’d be a nice visual for her healing.

“I’ll kill them all…I’ll fucking kill them…” she sniffled.

“What did you say? Hello?”

That familiar voice came from her smart phone, which thankfully wasn’t damaged in the slip and fall thanks to the case she bought for it. She must have pocket dialed someone during the whole kafuffle. That someone was her mother. Hearing her voice again was another factor in cooling down her aching lungs and throat.

“Mom? Are you there?”

“Reese, are you okay? Did I just hear you say you’re going to kill someone?”

“Um…” she sniffled. “No, I was just…I mean…Mom?...I can’t go back inside the station. I hate it there!”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Reese had a hard time forming words through her tears.

“Do you need me to come pick you up?”

“But…I have my final exam soon…”

“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you wanted me to pick you up and take you home.”

“…Yes! That’d be wonderful.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Hang in there.”

“I love you, Mom!”

“I love you too, Reese. Bye.”

In all this time of studying psychology, Reese had forgotten the most important lesson of all: self-care. Even the most hardworking minds needed to rest. Even straight A students weren’t immune to mental health crises. If her professors didn’t understand these things, they had no business teaching psychology. In that case, studying at this college wasn’t such a good idea after all.

As for the lead pipe, Reese gazed at it for a while, feeling the rusty metal grate against her sensitive skin. She had thirty minutes before her mother got her out of this hellhole. She still had ample time to smash heads and drop corpses. But if she went through with her violence against the mentally-ill bus station customers, she had no business being a therapist in the first place. And if that was true, then learning psychology from these uncaring professors was like a toxic relationship that would never end.

Reese dropped the pipe and allowed it to roll across the sidewalk. “I hate this place. But I hate the system more…” She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed into her legs some more.

Revenge Porn

Liz Ronaldson wondered how badly her body would be broken after jumping off of the suspension bridge into the icy waters below. Would her legs snap in two? Would her neck crack in different directions? Would it be over in an instant? Regardless of the two-hundred foot drop, shattered bones and punctured organs couldn’t compare to the pain she felt in her heart and soul. As she gazed hypnotically into the waters below, tears cascaded from her eyes. She tried wiping them away with the only puffy coat she had, but the tears kept coming. No matter how many times she snorted and sniffed, the loose snot wouldn’t stay up her nose. She was ready to jump. One…two…

“Hey, loser, you got five dollars on you? Gimme that shit!” She saw the incident take place only a few feet from where she planned to jump. The three bullies pushed around the smaller kid like a torturous game of volleyball, all while making wisecracks about how he was allegedly on welfare and food stamps. The smaller kid hauled back and slapped one of the bullies across the cheek. The shoving match ended with the bullies staring at the kid in shock. They swore at him with whip-cracking voices while punching him relentlessly, causing the little guy to huddle on the ground and cover.

Liz’s suicidal sorrow turned into fiery rage. Her tears became hotter. Her stomach was burning with homicidal tendencies. Her fists were clenched tightly. Reaching around for the nearest weapon she could find, she picked up a lead pipe and shouted to the bullies, “Hey! Knock that shit off! He’s just a kid, you fucking idiots!”

The bullies ended the beat down like they were told, but only to laugh and point at Liz. “Hey, look! Miss Ronaldson’s got something big in her hands! Hell, I got something big too after seeing those naked pictures!” taunted one of the bullies, resulting in even more obnoxious laughter.

Liz chucked the lead pipe at the bullies and caused them to cover up with their arms as they ran off like little bitches. The former teacher continued to throw rocks, rusty nails, glass bottles, and anything else she could get her hands on until the older kids were out of sight. Some of her projectiles hit their marks, but only did enough damage to elicit an “Ouch!” and nothing more.

“That’s right, you pussies! You’d better run like the goddamn wind! If I ever see you fuckers again, I’ll kill you all!” shouted Liz while flailing her fists in the air. Even more tears poured from her eyes and stained her tattered jeans and newspaper shoes. The little kid, which she now recognized as one of her former students, was tearing up as well. Bloody gashes covered his arms and face, but being homeless didn’t afford Liz access to proper healthcare supplies.

Liz approached the banged up kid and ripped off pieces of her fluffy jacket to use as bandages for his wounds. Neither teacher nor student could stop crying, but Liz wiped her own tears away long enough to form coherent sentences. “Hi there, Seth! You’re okay now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” murmured Seth Luke. He wiped his eyes with his bloodied arm and recognized the angelic face of his recently fired English teacher. “Miss Ronaldson? Are you homeless too?”

“Please, call me Liz. I don’t deserve to be called Miss Ronaldson after what happened with those pictures. So many of my friends and family saw those.” Liz smiled sadly and shrugged before changing the topic. “What am I saying? You’re the one who got beat up. They got you pretty good. I think there’s a hospital around here somewhere. Are you well enough to walk with me?”

“Thanks for helping me, Miss Ro, I mean, Liz,” sniffled Seth. He shivered in this chilly afternoon air due to him only wearing a short sleeved shirt.

Liz gazed upon him sympathetically and took off her own jacket to wrap him up. “There you go, Seth. You’ll be all warm and toasty in no time at all.”

“Thanks, Liz, but don’t you need a jacket too? You’ll freeze out here,” stammered Seth.

“I’m not going to need a jacket for where I’m going,” said Liz while gesturing towards the edge of the bridge with a nudge of her head.

“No! No, you can’t do that!” argued Seth as he wrapped his bloodied arms around Liz. “I’m not letting you jump! I don’t care if I have to hold onto you for the rest of my life!” Even more hot tears drained the homeless teenager’s eyeballs to the point of redness. “You were my favorite teacher before they fired you! You taught me about being creative and making the most of life! And now you’re just going to jump off the bridge over some naked pictures online?!”

Liz wrapped her arms around Seth and said solemnly, “There’s more to it than that, Seth. It’s not just the naked pictures that became my scandalous secret. It’s about my career. It’s about my social and family lives. I made a bad decision when I let my bastard of a boyfriend take those pictures of me. I’ve lost everything and I can’t get it back. Once something is on the internet, it’s there forever. All I have left are the clothes on my body and a beating heart. I don’t want the latter of those two things if it just keeps hurting like this.”

Seth gave Liz his best puppy dog expression when he sobbed, “But I can help you get those things back! It’s not over until I say it’s over! You’re going to be okay again! I promise you!”

“Seth, that is so sweet,” sniffed Liz. “But you’re in the same boat as I am. We’re both alone out here with nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. What can we do for each other now? Where do we go from here?”

“There’s always another way, Liz,” said Seth. “We have each other. We can be a team and take on the streets together. Just you and me! No jack-off bullies, no bastard boyfriends, no judgment at all. You taught me all about this, Liz! You taught me how important it is to care about each other and be there when we’re down. If you jump off that bridge, you’re going to be nothing more than a hypocrite! Maybe I’ll join you afterwards, who knows!”

Liz shoved Seth away from the embrace and transformed back into rage mode. “Oh yeah?! A hypocrite?! And what do you suppose I do about this?! I haven’t eaten in days and I’ve got frostbite on my fucking fingers! Nobody wants to give me the time of day let alone give me my life back, all because of some stupid fucking naked pictures! What am I supposed to do, just pick up a beer bottle off the ground and pretend there’s actually liquor in it?! Tell me how you’d solve my problems if suicide doesn’t fix everything, asshole! What would the great and wonderful Seth Luke do if he was half the master of his destiny that I’m supposed to be?!”

While giving his former teacher the gorgon death stare, Seth pulled a wallet out of his pocket with his school’s logo on it. It looked stuffed with dollar bills. “You see this? I plucked it out of one of the bullies’ pockets while those three bastards were beating on me! I was going to eat at McDonald’s or Denny’s with this kind of money! I was going to take you out for something to eat! But I guess you’d prefer suicide over a good meal! See you around, toots! Thanks for the life lessons! I really appreciate them!”

Seth turned heel and began stomping away. Watching him leave twisted a knot in Liz’s stomach. No matter how much she tried to deny it, Seth was right all along. Dying would solve nothing. Liz had just unloaded on the one person in this world who still cared about her. He probably didn’t even have an internet connection to see those pictures. He took to her lessons of not judging each other like a bee to honey. Liz’s heart shattered into a million pieces after realizing what she had done.

“Seth, wait!” said Liz as she ran after him. He turned to face her with his arms folded and an angry stare formed on his bloody visage. “You’re right. You’ve been right all along. Look at you. You’re in the same boat as me and you’d never consider suicide. You’re an A+ student in the truest sense. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. I’m sorry I yelled at you. Let’s take on the world together. I’d love to eat a decent meal with you. How about a hug?”

Liz and Seth bawled some more while coming in for a tight embrace. Two of the loneliest people in the world versus an uncaring, inherently evil society. The odds were stacked against them, but they liked those odds anyways. Death was not the answer. Fighting like a passionate warrior was closer to being the topic of an A+ paper, written by A+ students and teachers alike.