The View From Nathan's Bus

  Conversations from the middle of the night: A man, asking the woman with her arm in a sling: "Is that a mouse?" She manages to be old,...

  Two girls are getting on at southbound Dearborn, early college maybe, coming aboard in handfuls, pulling their luggage behind and beside them. Together they...

I help a young black American family with the wheelchair seat at Fifth and Jackson. He's carrying laundry in tattered oversized Target plastic shopping...

  I pull up to the Third and Pine island stop, outside McDonalds. We're in the vortex, the nerve center. Every major city has an...

  I see her brighten the bus stop as I pull up. Third and Union southbound, some time before midnight. Hers is a smile which...

  I'm riding the bus home tonight, racking my brain for particulars. He had a helmet, I'm thinking. It's just after 1am, and I'm sitting...

  I recognize his face and gait, but what happened to the mangy hair? He's still scruffy, but his haircut looks like that of just...

At Letitia I put the lift out, saying goodbye to a couple I haven't seen in some years. He's a Vietnam vet with a summer...