Teenage Troubles

In high school I was a skinny awkward misfit who sat at the lunch table with the other oddballs with no social life. Perhaps this is why I am uneasy with the rush of high school kids who pack the bus around 2:30 in the afternoon. Suddenly I'm transported back 25 years and kids are slugging me in the stomach until I pass out and wake up staring at the nurses office ceiling, becoming the school's source of laughter for the next month. Harris and Klebold were hardly the first to fantasize about wasting those who ostracized them. Fortunately, punk rock was more my style than semi-automatic weapons.

Riding the Ventura Rapid line back from Target we stop at Winnetka Ave with over fifty Taft High students squirming to get on. At the back door waiting to get off are a teenage girl wearing Sony closed headphones in black jeans and t-shirt and a younger boy talking into his cell phone. The back door does not open, but they just stand their as the Taft students push their way onto the bus. I suppose they recognize the busdriver is busy managing the crowd and has forgotten to open the back door to let them out. After a minute or so, the two of them start looking anxiously towards the front of the bus. Finally, the boy says somewhat weakly "back door," but the door doesn't open.

All the students are now on and the driver shuts the front door. The bus is packed with chattering high schoolers, many with their cell phones in one ear, seamlessly integrating conversations through real and wireless space. The bus begins to pull away. "Back door!" The boy has apparently lost his patience. The bus stops for a moment, but only until the light turns green, when it starts off again. The girl begins knocking on the door's window. Once again, the bus stops--but the driver's just waiting for a car to pass so he can merge into the center lane. We fly on. The boy waves his hands hopelessly, "what the...?" The girl just stares silently outside the door and the rest of the bus seems oblivious. The next stop is Reseda--a long two and a half miles.

Ah, the humiliations of youth. But it will all be over soon. In a few years she'll have her Associate's in Phlebotomy and earn 30,000 a year drawing blood in a Valley lab. And he'll pull down 12 an hour re-shelving dog-eared books and magazines deposited by dawdlers at the Hollywood Border's--or at least the one in Glendale.