\nShortly after arriving in Chicago my old friend Stevie and I jumped on a bus to the city center. But in all the bustle of arriving and heading out, I neglected to think about how I was going to pay for my ride. Stevie got on and quickly put two dollars into the machine, while I looked in my wallet and found only a ten dollar bill. <\/p>\n
“Can I put a ten into this thing?” I asked the bus driver sheepishly.<\/p>\n
“Won’t give change.”<\/p>\n
I stood at the front of the bus for the next several minutes embarassed and rumaging through my pockets for forgotten quarters. No luck, I spent it all on tolls. The bus stopped and I had to move out of the way, and moved further up the aisle onto the bus, with my hands still frantically shoved into my pockets. I found one dollar and fifteen cents, still not enough for a ride.<\/p>\n
“How much you got?” The bus driver asked.<\/p>\n
“Buck fifteen… then a ten.”<\/p>\n
“How did you think you were going to pay for your ride?”<\/p>\n
Interesting question. “I wasn’t thinking… I just came in from out of town.”<\/p>\n
“The buses in your town give change?”<\/p>\n
“We don’t really have buses where I come from.”<\/p>\n
“I see,” and he trailed off, still leaving me there embarassed clutching a handful of change. He wasn’t throwing me off the bus, which seemed a good sign that I might make it to my destination. I was a little worried that he would demand ten dollars for my ride.<\/p>\n
“Maybe somebody else on the bus’s got change,” the driver suggested.<\/p>\n
I turned to the rest of the bus, “anybody got change for a ten? Anybody? Please?” Most people just stared at me like I was crazy, the others quietly shook their heads.<\/p>\n
I stood there a few more minutes.<\/p>\n
“Weed’s gotta cost more in this city than where you come from, huh?” This was kind of a frightening question. Stevie and I were freshly stoned, and either he was mad that I was high and acting stupid or he didn’t care and was just calling me out on my obvious intoxication.<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure,” I said. Honestly, I wasn’t.<\/p>\n
“Whattya mean you’re not sure?”<\/p>\n
“Well, like I said, I just got here.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, so you bring yours in with you?”<\/p>\n
I did. “Well, you know…” I laughed nervously as I said it, but it seemed clear that he didn’t care.<\/p>\n
He laughed too. “It’s not a crime,” he said, “they make it one.”<\/p>\n
“Absolutely.” This guy didn’t stress any small infractions and I liked where this was going. If “they” make smoking grass a crime, “they” also make getting a free ride on the bus a crime. And if that’s the way he was thinking, not only did it work out to my advantage, but I agreed wholeheartedly with him.<\/p>\n
“Everything’s a crime,” he muttered as he smiled and shook his head. Crime and punishment was just a big joke on the world. I nodded in agreement, which I later realized was rude and must have seemed like no response at all, since I was standing behind him.<\/p>\n
He seemed like he’d been driving the route for years, as passenger after passenger came on board and gave him a friendly greeting. He was popular along his route and seemed just and fair. A few people may have not paid and discussed it with him beforehand. Still, this was the South Side of Chicago and I wasn’t sure if he was into giving free rides to idiot stoned white boys.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later we came to our stop. From behind him I asked, “so… how does a dollar fifteen sound?”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry about it,” he answered. “Just pay for your next ride.”<\/p>\n
“I will,” I said, ecstatic that I lucked out with such a friendly bus driver. “To be honest I feel pretty foolish about the whole thing.”<\/p>\n
He chuckled, “not at all. It happens all the time.”<\/p>\n
“Thank you, take care!” I told him while I walked off the bus.<\/p>\n
There’s good people in Chicago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shortly after arriving in Chicago my old friend Stevie and I jumped on a bus to the city center. But in all the bustle of arriving and heading out, I neglected to think about how I was going to pay for my ride. Stevie got on and quickly put two dollars into the machine, while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}