Bud driver

When I was a little kid I lived in a tiny town in Maine. I'm talking really small, with a population of 600 people. That's not that unusual for the area, and many of the surrounding towns were around the same size. We had our own combined elementary and middle school, consisting of around 60 kids, give or take, depending on the year. Everybody knew everyone. Forgive me that I'm a little hazy on the details of this story because it happened so long ago, and it wasn't until long afterwards that I realized the significance of the events that transpired.

It feels important to mention before I get into the story that I had a habit of running around butt naked in our yard when I was a child. I lived on a quiet road and my parents were pretty crunchy so it never raised any red flags. There were only a few houses on the road, maybe ten along the whole stretch, and it ended in an overgrown dirt road through the woods that was next to impossible to drive on without causing serious damage to your car. Therefore, I always recognized all the cars going up and down my road, even it the vehicle didn't belong to a resident but to a resident's friend or family. There was one car, however, that I didn't recognize. They only drove down my road a few times, but they always slowed down when they saw me outside playing. If I happened to be in my house watching the road from the window, they sped past, doing well above the 25 mph speed limit. I never saw the driver, but my neighbors said that the car had hit their dog Lloyd. Miraculously, Lloyd survived the hit and lived as the world's fattest, grumpiest Chihuahua until he died at the age of 21. However, after that incident my mind viewed the unknown car as a dark presence that brought nothing but bad things.

For a few years in elementary school I had a bus driver, Jerry. I was around 6 or 7 at the time and I didn't have many friends because I was a bit of a weirdo. Every morning my older brother and I would wait at the end of our driveway for the bus to pick us up. I loved Jerry because he was always really nice to me, making me laugh and giving me compliments that soothed the insecurities that were popping up as I got older. I took to riding in the front seat of the bus so I could talk to him while he drove. Thinking back, I remember he always smiled at me and said hello, but never gave my older brother the time of day, even though we got on the bus together.

Being little kids, our idea of being rebellious badasses was switching bus seats and trying not to get caught by the driver. We'd throw our bodies across the aisle as fast as possible to avoid being yelled at. Elementary students aren't very good at being sneaky, however, and Jerry often caught them and yelled at them. He never yelled at me though, even if I was caught among a group of seat switchers.

One day a kid in my grade, Mathew, was being particularly troublesome, to the point where Jerry actually got out of his seat once we'd reached the school, marched down the aisle, and scooped up the poor boy. Jerry gripped Mathew from behind so tightly his feet left the ground. Mathew shrieked and Jerry swung him up into his arms completely to stop the kid's attempts to struggle. From there, he carried him off of the bus and into the school.

The remaining kids on the bus looked around at each other in silence, shocked at what had happened and trying to understand it. We knew something about the situation wasn't right, but our innocent minds couldn't figure out what was making us so uneasy. Some time later, I had a new bus driver. Jerry had disappeared and no one would explain to me why my friend was gone. I'm assuming he was fired for inappropriate contact with a student.

Around eight or nine years later I was living in the town over and in high school. I was supposed to meet a friend in a café in town, but she was running late. I didn't have a phone at this point in my life as my parents were strictly anti-screen so I sat at the bar and picked up the newspaper.

As my eyes skimmed the front page I was met with a mug shot. This was highly unusual for such a small town. Even more unusual was the fact that the face seemed familiar. I looked at the caption attached to the photo. It was Jerry. He had been arrested for repeatedly assaulting and raping his own daughter when she was just four years old. She was now a young woman so the period of time when he was assaulting her overlapped with the time he had spent as my bus driver.

Looking back, I can't help but shudder. I think about the way he gripped Mathew against his body and expertly subdued his attempts to struggle. I think about the special treatment he gave me, the compliments, the mysterious car driving by my house as I played in our yard completely naked. I don't know why he picked me, but there's no doubt in my mind that he was grooming me to be his next victim. I don't want to think about what might have happened if he hadn't let his anger get the best of him that day on the bus. Jerry was sentenced to a few decades in prison, I can't remember the exact number.

Jerry, if you ever get out you'd better stay the hell away from me for your own sake. I'm not that weak little girl anymore.