SCHOOL BUS MEMORIES OF AN ANXIOUS CHILD by Clay Halton

To say I was simply a nervous child would be like saying the Dust Bowl was simply a dry spell. Debilitating shyness forced my mother to put me through an extra year of preschool. This was something I didn’t find out about until I was an adult, though it finally gave me an explanation for why I was a year older than everyone in my grade.

When I did start kindergarten, I was still so shy I wouldn’t stand up during lunch to throw my trash away because I was too afraid to walk in front of the other kids to the garbage. When I got home from school every day, my mom would open my lunch box to find a stash of wrappers and food scraps.

So, it may not be a surprise to hear that doing something as simple as riding the school bus every day nearly sent me into full-blown panic.

It probably didn’t help that my first bus driver was a scary, grumpy man named Ed. Not Eddie, friendly and carefree. Ed. Full stop. He was a big man with buggy eyes and hair parted to the side with a little bit draping over his forehead. Not in a stylish way, more in a scary, mad scientist way.

The bus was madness. It was loud, its engine roaring and quaking as I boarded every day. Inside, children jabbered and bounced on seats that smelled of rubber—when they didn’t smell of something else. (Everyone seemed to save up their vomit for the bus.)

There was no AC so it was sweltering in the summer, and in the winter the windows were full of condensation due to our warm little bodies. Children drew crude pictures or messages on the foggy windows. I could always see someone coughing with their mouth wide open or picking their nose.

My goal was to be invisible. Or, if visible, to be the perfect student robotically staring straight ahead, not noticing there were other children around me.

One of Ed’s tactics to make the kids on the bus behave was a classic: pull over to the side of the road and sit silently until everyone stops talking.

“I can wait,” he’d say over the intercom. “I’m in no hurry to get you all home.”

This was one of my worst nightmares. I was always in a hurry to get home. I’m not sure what I was so afraid of. I could barely breathe during those moments let alone talk, so it wasn’t possible that I’d ever be in trouble, but still my stomach twisted the moment the wheels veered off the road.

Why wouldn’t the other students stop talking, even then? I was amazed and sickened that they didn’t stop. Having always been a rule follower, the idea of continuing to disobey anyone, let alone Ed, was not an option for me.

To this day, I still wonder… why wouldn’t they stop talking? How are those kids today? Are they still talking?

Once, one kid was hitting another kid in the head with a coloring book, and Ed deployed a new tactic: pulling over, grabbing the coloring book, and hitting the kid in the head with it repeatedly and yelling, “Do you like that? Do you like that? No? Then stop!”

So, I had a reason to be afraid. The fact of the matter, though, is that I have never in my life hit another person with a coloring book, and probably never will. Although adult coloring books are having a moment right now, so it’s not totally off the table.

I am certain I would have been just as anxious about the school bus with or without Ed. But he gave me reason to believe in my fears.

One year, Ed showed up at our house after school was out for the summer. That was one of the biggest shocks of my life. Opening the door and seeing Ed standing there. School was over. Why was he here? I knew that my fears all year long had been right. I was finally getting in trouble for something unforgivable I’d done on the bus.

Ed was holding a big manila envelope and asked me to get my parents and Chelsey. I did, and Ed pulled out a large piece of chocolate from the envelope.

“Clay and Chelsey were the most well-behaved kids on the bus all year. So, I wanted to stop by and give them a gift for being so good.” I saw a true smile in his eyes as he spoke.

I still remember the chocolate was delicious. Maybe made more so by the fact that my intention of being perfect on the bus had been recognized. I understood how big of a gesture it was for him to come to my home and offer us this chocolate. He did have to deal with a lot of crazy children every day. I still feared him, but I saw a side of him I hadn’t seen before.