From Chicago Bus Driver to The God Man by Rae Ann Fugate

Author:Rae Ann Fugate [Fugate, Rae Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781490839837
Publisher: WestBowPress
Published: 2014-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

As a night shift bus driver I went to work at twenty minutes to nine at night and then I was finished at twenty minutes to six in the morning. One time, probably in the 1960s, I came out of the loop carrying enough passengers to comprise a small group of seated people. When I came to Clark Street at Division Street a black man, who looked to be middle aged, boarded the bus. He had been drinking but he did not make a fuss. He paid his fare and went back and sat down in the middle of the bus. I continued delivering people home. He dozed off. When I arrived up north, near the end of my run, near Howard Street, I had only two little old ladies left on the bus besides this man. The ladies got off a couple of blocks apart, and then this fellow woke up and came to the front of the bus near my driver’s seat. “Where’s I at?” he said.

I said, “You’re right near the city limits on the north side,” I said, “Where do you want to go, where do you want to get off?”

He looked at me and said, “Well,” he said, “Maybe I’s gonna hold you up.”

“Oh, man,” I said, “That’s a bad thought.” I said, “Do you know, if you hold up a bus driver while he’s in the process of driving a bus, you get a year in jail and a ten thousand dollar fine?”

He pulled out a knife and opened it up and said, “Well,” he said “Maybe I’s gonna hold you up.”

To be perfectly honest, I was frightened. I looked out, looked to see if there was some kind of patrol car going by. I was ready to flash my lights or do something but I had to bear up. There was nobody in sight. I said, “Man, you’re making a big mistake.” Now let me pause here.

I am convinced that God gave me a certain amount of discernment where I could line up a situation, make a decision on how to approach it, one way or another, and step right into it. When this man took out his knife, I said, “Boy, that’s a big mistake, it ain’t gonna work, and you’re gonna be in deep trouble.” In the meantime, I reached down into my bag and pulled out my little pen knife that I sharpen pencils with, and opened it up. I flung it full force into the wooden tray next to my register. It stuck there and quivered! Then I reached out and pulled it out of there, holding it in my hand and I said, “You know, fella, when I was in the Marines, they taught me how to cut a man’s heart out and throw it in his face before he died” and I just glared at him as mean as I could look.

He said, “Do you know how to use that knife?” He looked at me with a surprised look on his face and said, “Yessir, I believes ya.

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