Growing up where I did in the middle of a cornfield, I was on the school bus for a long time each day. An hour to school and an hour back. I remember fifth grade as an especially painful, long time on the bus. Once the kids who lived within the township limits were let off, there were only a handful of us left on the bus. Some of them were Matt K., a guy who chewed tobacco in fifth grade and sat in the back of the bus with all the bad asses so obviously I had a tremendous crush on; Jeremy C., a kid with Coke bottle classes and a farmer's attitude about crop dusting and deer hunting TO PROTECT THE CROPS; that annoying kid who always wore suspenders and whose father owned a huge farm in the middle of fucking nowhere and was the reason our bus had to go ten minutes out of the way in both directions just to drop his ass off; a small girl in first grade who was scared to death of being late and the bruises she frequently had on her arms led me to assume her father beat her when his schedule was thrown off; Micah A., a super smart, quiet kid that I later had a crush on in high school; and his baby sister, Becky, who was in first or second grade at the time with her bright pink snow pants and gap-toothed smile.
We were the kids on the bus. One day, we were sent home from school two hours early because of the snow that was falling. On east/west roads, it was like nothing had happened. But on north/south roads the wind was whipping the snow around and it was impossible in spots to determine where ROAD was and where BIG DITCH YOU WILL DRIVE THE BUS INTO was. And, because we had to drop off the annoying kid with suspenders, we had to drive onto one of the worst maintained dirt roads running north and south that existed in the county. But Pam handled it with the grace one expects from a school bus driver who drives kids in rural Michigan. I can't picture Pam in my head without her in the driver's seat of the bus. She always had that black jacket on with her name embroidered in the upper left of the front. On the back of this jacket, the side that faced us kids on the bus, was a big picture of a school bus with the slogan TRI COUNTY TRANSPORTATION written in yellow below it. I sat towards the back, in the seat with the heater, which was also the seat with the wheel well. I figured it didn't bother me to have my feet up and I was always warm, which was more than I could say for the fools in the rest of the bus. Of course, my knees were usually propped up on the seat in front of me so I could peruse the book I was reading, trying to avoid eye contact with any of the other kids who would undoubtedly mock me for any number of my annoying know-it-all mannerisms and statements. On this day, however, I was anxiously looking outside, aware that all I could see on any side of me was white. I heard Pam radio in the condition of the road. The bus garage head lady, Mary, told Pam that she had to drop off the annoying suspenders kid. Pam sighed and gunned it. Right into the ditch. The annoying suspenders kid gave this superior look to Pam and said he would walk home and get his father to get the big tractor to pull us out. Pam couldn't let the kid go because she was in charge of his well being and if he died in the snow, she would be held responsible. After much radioing back and forth to the bus garage, the little girl with the abusive father crying incoherently, and me trying to be invisible from the boys, the suspenders boy sneaks out, gets his father and the tractor, and we are saved. I remembered this day vividly one day when I was home over Christmas. The unrelenting white, the abusive parents we all took for granted, and the sort of mentality that allowed us to think that a fancy tractor could save us from the evils of the world. I was walking the dog and all I could think about was getting away from the white. Being home for Christmas is a mixed bag, you know. I realize that I'm glad I'm out of that environment, I realize that my life now is as happy and fulfilled as it has ever been, but it reminds me that I hate that place, the memories, and the open fields of relentless white that will drive you crazy and slowly convince you that the world will eventually get the better of you and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. But I also realize that I am happy here. Happy, kind of, with my job, happy with where I live, happy with my roommates and their adorable cats, happy with my boyfriend, happy with the sun that was shining today, and happy with the idea that I can come and go as I please and that the white doesn't follow me.
