The Bus Stop

It irked him when they said she didn’t deserve it. That seemed like it was the thing to do. They’d read headlines, wag their heads and mutter, “She didn’t deserve that, poor soul.” What did that even mean? She didn’t deserve to be beaten by her stepfather? She didn’t deserve to get introduced to Maybelline as a method to cover bruises? She didn’t deserve to get shoved down a flight of stairs and crack her head open on a cement floor?

Gee. How gracious of them.

There was still a stain on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building. He walked by it every time he went to school.

The first time Timothy met Tracy, she was pounding out a beat with drumsticks on a railing. She looked up as he passed, winked, and then spun effortlessly towards him. The pounding continued, on building sides, along the bus shelter with a sharp DING DING DING. She stopped on a hasty staccato, took a seat next to him, and said:

“Hey there mopey.”

He frowned. “Mopey?”

She reached up and poked the corner of his mouth with the tip of her drumstick. “What’s with the long face?”

He felt his lips twitch, whether he wanted them to or not. Pushing the stick away with a finger he replied, “Nobody’s in a good mood on Monday mornings.”

“Aaahhh,” she replied, and crossed her heart. “Amen.”

A silence passed between them. Companionable. Usually it would have been awkward, but with her it wasn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asked, surprised to find himself trying to strike up a conversation. He never did really.

“Tracy. You?”

“Timothy. Tim.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh. We can’t be friends I’m afraid.”

Stunned, he felt his heart drop briefly into his stomach. That too was odd for him; giving a damn after so short a time. He just shrugged and hunched his shoulders a little.

She threw back her head in light, airy laughter. “I’m kidding, man! But you got to admit. Tracy and Tim? TT? T squared maybe? Oh man. Totally GAG worthy.”

She thrummed the drumsticks again, BAH DUM TUSH! The bus pulled into the stop, and she sat next to him when they got on.

It went on like that. Cusp of high school, freshman year. Nobody shoved them into lockers or down trash cans, but the whole atmosphere was weird. The bizarre push and shove of way too many people in one space, and way too many raging hormones.

It was pretty much clockwork. Tracy and Tim at the bus stop, every morning, usually before the crack of dawn. Ungodly hour that. She always had a smile, he a frown. Every time it was “good morning, mopey!” There was a warmth in the nickname. Her smile was an infection he was all too happy to contract.

Things changed with Tracy halfway through the year. She’d show up with tears in her eyes and blame the cold. She started caking makeup on her face and claimed it was to fit in. She didn’t smile much anymore. She didn’t rap out beats with her drumsticks.

One morning she got there before him, which broke their norm. He watched her through the glass. Her shoulders were shaking and her face was in her hands. She was sobbing. He could hear it as he got closer.

Tim didn’t say anything. He just reached out and hugged her, and she turned into him. She told him everything. And immediately after that, she made him promise to tell no one.

“He’ll go after my mom,” she rasped. Her tears had washed away the cover-up. He could see the bruise on her cheek, purple and angry. “I swear to God he’ll kill her.”

So he didn’t tell. He shut his mouth. He kept her secret and did his best to cheer her up every morning at the bus stop. He lent her his hat when her stepdad ripped out some of her hair. He was her shoulder to cry on, her confidant.

He questioned it always. Questioned what he was doing, covering this up. Questioned what kind of world it was where some kid felt she had to protect her grown ass mother.

He snuck out one night, and stood outside her apartment door. He stared up at where her window was, a bat in his hand. He thought to himself, if nobody else is going to tell this fucker what for, I will. He fantasized about beating his head in. He fantasized about painting his body in bruises like he’d done to his friend. He would do it, he thought, hovering his finger over the doorbell. He would do it like the Punisher, full of righteous wrath.

His hand fell. He turned and walked silently home again.

When Tim got the news, guilt hit him like a sledgehammer. When they investigated Tracy’s case, he ran to that witness stand. He didn’t make it through his testimony without crying. He swore at the stepfather, swore at her mother for not protecting her, and inside he pleaded God’s forgiveness for not doing it himself.

They convicted the monster.

Tim felt nothing in the conviction. It felt hollow.

Standing over Tracy’s grave after the funeral, unawares of others trickling away, he let himself go. He fell to his knees and curled his fingers into the still-loose earth they’d stuck her in. He thought of her vibrancy, her smile, of the life of her. He knew she could have been something great. Something bigger.

If only someone had done something more.