Pretending to be asleep in an aisle seat on a midnight bus

Heartbreak, selfishness, and SpongeBob Squarepants

2013 — I was pretending to be asleep in the aisle seat of a budget bus from Orlando to Atlanta. 

It was Midnight. I'd been on the bus for 10 minutes. We hadn't left Orlando yet, but the whole thing smelled like the toilet was overflowing. The polyester fabric on the seats was faded blue and sticky. I pulled my Cubs hat over my eyes. 

I was pretending to be asleep in the aisle seat so I could have the whole row to myself.

I had headphones in, listening to Jimmy Buffett sing "Brown Eyed Girl." I like Jimmy's version better than Van Morrison. Jimmy sounds like he's having a better time. 

And I was thinking about a brown eyed girl. My relationship with her was, how shall we say, ill-advised. Ok, it was stupid. We both knew we were wrong with each other and had broken up with each other half a dozen times (I broke up with her once because I thought God wanted me to). Our excuse for getting back together was we felt we kinda wanted to and had gone along with it for two and a half years because of hormones, emotions, and the stupidity of being 22. 

But she'd met someone else and stopped returning my texts. 

I was lost with Jimmy and my thoughts when I felt a tap on my shoulder. 

Surely not. Who is actually waking up a (not) sleeping man! What selfish piece of …

I whipped around, ready to say nothing but judge harshly. 

A woman was standing there, her braids hanging off her shoulder. She said, "Excuse me, sir," again. She'd said sir, but she spoke forcefully in an Atlanta accent. 

"Can he sit with you?" she didn't ask. Behind her was a little boy in Spider-Man pajamas, and behind him were two little girls. The woman was holding a baby who couldn't have been more than six months old. 

The boy said nothing as I let him into the window seat. His mom and siblings piled into a row across the aisle, and she began breastfeeding the baby. 

As the bus got onto the highway, I returned to Jimmy and my sadness. Who was this new guy? We'd broken up again a few weeks before, but we were due to get back together like we always did. This was our dance. 

Under my hat, I saw the boy asking his mom if he could have her phone. But his sisters were watching Cocomelon. 

"You'll get a turn," she said harsher than she wanted. "Soon, baby. Just go to sleep." 

He sat there bouncing his feet off the seat. 

We passed through Ocala and Orange Lake. 

So hard to find my way

Now that I'm all on my own

I saw you just the other day

My, how you have grown

We stopped for a few minutes in Gainesville. Unable to stop myself, I texted the girl. 

She might be gone this time. 

The boy was shifting back and forth in his seat. He'd lie down against the cold window for a few seconds and pop back up. Try lying against the polyester seat. Then he'd bump me accidentally when he shifted. 

He asked for the phone again, but his mom said no. It had to charge. The baby was starting to cry. One sister was asleep, but the other was asking for a snack. 

I wanted to be sad and listen to Jimmy Buffett. But somewhere in me, that voice said, "I want you to do something else." 

As we got back on I-75, I turned off the music and pulled up Netflix. They had a few episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. I held it up for the boy and offered him one of my earbuds. 

He didn't say anything; he popped in the earbud, and we watched. 

I don't remember much after that. He fell asleep around Valdosta, and I passed out by Macon. 

I woke up the next day in Atlanta to a text from the girl telling me it was over. 

---

I'm not supposed to tell the meaning of the story. I'm supposed to leave it to your interpretation. But I'm going to cheat and share how I felt writing this one. 

When I write about my past, it's easy to share the moments where I was selfish, like pretending to sleep so I could get an aisle seat or remembering all the reasons I was awful for that girl and her for me. 

It's hard to write about sharing my iPhone with that little boy. It seems like I'm giving into the powerful impulse to try to impress you or convince you I'm a good man through my writing. The other temptation is to counter that by sharing more about how awful I am. 

But sometimes, I need to remind myself that while I have done shameful things (many of which I cannot tell about here), I have also been invited every day to live into the love flowing into the world as God works it towards redemption. And even on one of the most depressing nights of my life, He got through to me so I could get through to a little boy and bless his mama with a moment to have one less worry. 

And even a night as depressing as that couldn't ruin how much I love that song. 

Sha-la-la, la-la, la-la, la-la, la-la tee-da