Roger

A young lady with a baby strapped into a pouch asked, “How much?” She stood there for a moment with a handful of coins looking at Roger. What did she just say, Roger asked himself.

“Excuse me,” she said again, “how much is it?”

Roger shook the daze from his eyes and told her, “$1.20, do you need a transfer?”

The lady put each coin in deliberately, counting out loud to herself and nodded her head yes. The baby was squirming and began to whimper as she looked for a seat on the crowded bus. Oh not another one, Roger thought. I can’t stand the crying babies. Not this early in the morning and it probably shit its diaper and now it’s gonna stink up the whole damn bus. God, I hate my job.

The baby started slowly but worked its way up to wails. Roger watched the young mother rock the baby in rhythm of the bouncing bus, trying to calm him. Roger also watched the other riders on the bus. Some of them stared as if gawking would somehow stop the crying and some tried to bury themselves in the newspaper, pretending not to hear. Roger all of sudden felt a pang of sadness for the lady and her screaming kid, remembering what it was like to have babies. He looked up again as he heard the bell ring signaling a stop. The young woman gathered her things and stood up. She hung her head as she walked to the front of the bus waiting for the doors to open.

“Have a nice day,” Roger said.

She didn’t look back, just put her hand up in recognition of his voice as she got off the bus. Roger sighed part in sadness for her but mostly he was relieved the baby was gone.