These Feet Were Made for Walking...

SETTING: The 266 headed from the Green Line to Lakewood. It is 8:00pm, dark has fallen, and only the shady or the lovers are out on the street, waiting for the bus to take them to darker alleys or home, some in the same place. The one character that stands out is a contented looking hippy-ish girl in her mid 20’s, who sits in the back chatting happily on her cell phone while peeking out occasionally to her left, searching for her stop as she occasionally ruffles through her purse, making sure she has kept track of all her belongings on the days’ trip. After hanging up, she begins to look anxious as the town slips away and the bus heads out onto the freeways.

SARAH (Internal Thought) –
“We must have passed it…it doesn’t take this long to get to Lakewood…”
“Maybe the bus takes a different route at night?”
“Maybe I could ask someone…”
“Everyone looks scary.”
*Checks her GPS, which she happens to be carrying with her.
“How did I get to be 13 miles away from Lakewood?!”
“I could just get off and walk, as soon as I see someplace not so shady to get off “

After seeing a Mobil station, which happens to be the most non-threatening building in site, she runs off the bus and crosses over, hurrying to the welcoming Metro sign by the side of the street. After sitting for about 20 minutes, listening to music, she beings to look nervous once again, and asks the attendant, a primarily Spanish woman, who looks to be in her early 40’s.

SARAH-
* While buying an intriguing looking can of juice, which has an amiable parrot on it, promising health and tastiness, asks:
“Do you know when the next bus is coming?”

ATTENDANT:
*Looking with a certain amount of compassion on the obviously lost child standing in front on her.
“It come every hour…every hour”.
*Appears to be akin to a medic telling a dying patient that everything will be ok, just to lay still.
Sarah looks somewhat placated, heads outside, downs the juice, and proceeds to sit by the edge of the road for another half hour, finally pulling out her cell phone to wake up her poor sister in NY to look up the Metro Schedule:

LAURA:
“Whats up?”

SARAH:
“I know its late, but I am STRANDED, and I need you to look up the Metro schedule”

LAURA:
“They don’t have those.”
SARAH:
“They don’t?”

*Moment of Silence, heavy with tiredness on the East coast end, laden with growing anxiety on the West.

LAURA:
“I’ll look it up.”

More moments pass as Laura picks away on her keyboard, and Sarah looks fearfully at her dying cell phone battery. After about ten minutes, it has come to be absolute knowledge that the last bus ran about the same time as Sarah decided to get off the previous bus. Sarah considers hitch hiking, but also considers how much she wants to live to 25.


LAURA:
“Good luck”

SARAH, with a sigh of resignation to death:
“Thanks, goodnight”.

Sarah pulls out her cell phone again, deciding between calling her recent acquaintance Karry, who had given her rides before, the poor family who had been carting her around all week to work, or to call her faithful roommate Becca, She chose the last, in hopes that maybe coffee and breakfast in bed would help repay a wanna be taxi call to the middle of nowhere.

Answering machine.

Visions of walking down the highway like an ax-murderer fill Sarah’s head.

Cut to flashbacks of Sarah’s childhood, and every wilderness survival class she ever took.

Just kidding, she never took wilderness survival.

The phone rings, showing it to be Becca, who is slowly getting used to her roommates escapades.

BECCA:
“Hey darling! I just got your message, what is up?!” Where are you??”

Sarah reads off the address on the side of the building, showing her to be placed squarely in El Monte, a town Becca has never heard of, and is proved later to be of exceedingly shady reputation.

Sarah buys yet more juice.

After using the now dying GPS to get directions, Sarah hangs up and resigns herself to sit outside of the now closed Mobil Station. Time: Approx 10:00pm.

GPS dies.

Out of nowhere, a man of perhaps Spanish origin pulls up, and appraises the situation. We will call him Juan to protect the innocent.

JUAN:
“Is everything alright?”
SARAH:
“Yeah, I just missed the last bus, I just moved here and am just figuring stuff out”.
JUAN:
“Do you need a ride?”
SARAH:
“Are you going to Lakewood?”
JUAN:
“Lakewood?”
SARAH (while pointing vaguely down the road”)
“Yeah”
JUAN:
“I think I can look it up on the map and take you there”

Sarah is getting a bit nervous as reason kicks in, and she calls Becca, on her seriously dying phone.

SARAH:
“Uhh, this guy drove up, and says that he can give me a ride home…I could do that…”
BECCA (voice filled with horror)
“I’m only about 2 miles away, don’t go with him!”
SARAH (to Juan):
“My roommate is going to be here in a couple of minutes, but thank you, you’re very nice to offer”
JUAN:
“Oh, alright, that is ok. Are you single or married?”
SARAH (with a gulp):
“Single, but not looking”
JUAN (whose face is not quite as hopeful but still determined):
“I am single too, I was married, but I am divorced now, maybe we can go out to dinner sometime?”
SARAH:
“I’m sorry, I am really not looking”
JUAN:
“Oh no, just for fun, just for fun!”
* The third pause of the night, as Sarah is wondering who is older, her father or this man.
“Just for dinner, a meal?”
Pulls out his cell phone, and shows Sarah a picture of his daughter as she slowly edges away and looks around for the now life-saving white car to take her away.
SARAH:
“Oh, she is cute, how old is she now?”
JUAN:
“Fourteen”.
SARAH:
Well, I am going to go wait by the road, my roommate should be here any moment”.
JUAN (while pulling a card out of his pocket and gesturing to it repeatedly):
“Oh ok, well, here is my card.”
“I do lawn services.”
“That is my cell phone number”.
SARAH:
“Thanks!”

Curls up on the Metro bench, considering the times she has considered trying being homeless for a week.

Drinks yet more juice.

Contemplates the wisdom of packing more layers for cold nights.

Wishes she had such wisdom.

After a few more phone calls, which involved trying to figure out where she really was, and why the GPS told them to take a road to Pomona, Becca arrived, and carried away her very thankful roommate, who was so glad to see someone that was not out for a second wife.


Morals of the story:

Don’t drive across the country in three days burn out your car so you have to take the bus.
Unless you know the Metro system, and a lot of time, then by all means save the planet.
If you want a date, ride the Metro, it’s the second week in the row I’ve gotten asked out.