She's a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 3

Chapter Three: Love, after the Deer Apocalypse

In an orange autumn world, and overlooking a winding gray creek—silver, this morning, a sea of yellowing blacknut trees and kudzu, both invaders foaming far below, and alongside that, Charlotta looked down and breathed smile at the dizzying rush below and the incredible, orgasmic pangs within. The sky above was a whitening blue, the sort of maybe blue that a city sky never is. And there were birds. She didn’t care about those birds. The almost not sounds he was making, those incensed her. Those struggled to hear over every other sensation up from their hips together, and the cool air beneath her feet, that tickled them was an unfair reminder, at the same time, that they could both fall, that he might have lied and would not be able to catch her no matter what…
 
The Korean boy with the JCrew shirt was doing this to her. The popped collar now on the ground somewhere, torn open.
 
“Mike…”

She's a Mean Old H4 Bus, Cpt 2

Chapter Two: The Quiet, Angry-Faced Girl

The girl with the quiet, angry face did not, of course, call herself ‘girl with the quiet, angry face.’ She was Charlotta Phelps, but Charlotta was the kind of young woman who did realize strangers must call her ‘quiet, angry-faced girl’ and she relished having a quiet, menacing demeanor that kept people unseated with her—she was able to project her frustration, sharpen it, and then strangers didn’t approach. A little girl, she looked like one, but she set it up so that men on the street must have been frightened of her. Who needs mace in this city? She was really very good at scaring the men on the METRO, and that was her best defense, and also her favorite game. She reasoned that she had better like doing it to them. Her offense.
 
There were more than the homeless-looking men who stared to play the game with. She played the ‘don’t you dare touch me’ silent treatment with the business-looking men who stared at the way she wore her coat, her purse, her body. Leaning on the silver pole on the METRO train with hips cocked, as if she had had enough. All those business-looking men could not have been from DC, almost no one living in her city was anyways, but Charlotta had learned that these men could hurt her with their misunderstanding, shame her by making obvious the distance she (knew she feared she) saw between them, if she ever allowed them to get near and take her, and tap her number down, and text her later,
 
Ur so beautiful. Nice finally talking to someone on the bus. Wanna get coffee later?

She's a Mean Old H4 Bus

Chapter One: Marlin

It should have been a normal rush hour ride from Brookland Station, past Georgia Avenue, through Columbia Heights, then down through that damnable bottleneck—a place some of the drivers still secretly called Spanish Town, though it wasn’t much of that anymore. But Marlin noticed, as he worked the lever for the door and let people in all through Mount Pleasant, that something was powerfully wrong.

At Mount Pleasant and Irving Streets, the mean teenager (Marlin had been there himself and swore the kid was a gangbanger) got on the bus. Then, at Mount Pleasant and Hobart, the Asian guy (Marlin was sure he had two girlfriends) got on. He was the one always leaving gum on the seat. At Mount Pleasant and Park Road, the angry black girl with the quiet face (probably something to do with her always staring at the young Asian guy) got on, and she was the one who blocked the back door. At Eighteenth Street and Park Road, the old lady who could barely speak to him through her other language, but kept on speaking to him anyways when he was trying to drive (she was far too skinny for an old lady, even)… all of these people were his worst costumers,

Snowball Fight in Mount Pleasant

The snow today reminded me of this short story about how a really lopsided snowball fight brought two taciturn DC neighbors together. Totally a shameless re-post!

Blizzard of 2009                                

by J.Ingram

Dear Mr. Tannenbaum,

Please consider the following before you file criminal charges, or whatever:

A few years ago, I also threw a snowball at Dr. Somiley.  Maybe you don't remember his family?  They were at the open house.  Dr. Somiley was a dentist.  Also, no one liked him either.  Not that I don't... dammit, I can't cross that out.  I hate handwriting things, which means I have no intention of re-writing this either.  But considering how late it is after being up all night, and that I want to get it through your mail slot before you leave the house, I hope you will understand.  Well, in any case, like a lot of the more terrifying dentists, Somiley had one of those names that matched his profession.  It should have been my first warning, I guess.

I don't know why I aimed the snowball at the old man's head.