Sauce

The mother (the one with that pragmatic pitch-black ponytail, drugstore shades, and beat Stan Smiths) struggled to board the bus. She had a stroller, the plastic type all glued together into one awkward piece, and a bag of groceries: bread, onion, tomatoes still on the vine, chiles, ground meat of a sort, the works. This was the stop in front of the Casa Guadalupe market, and it was early morning right as people had finished their breakfast and were beginning the march to their jobs downtown. A line of construction workers wearing reflective vests and carrying donut shop coffees had built behind the mother. In normal circumstances they all would have instinctively jumped to help, but something about how ferociously she was gritting her teeth, and how dextrous she was in balancing her bag against her hip as her other leg attempted to work its way into catapult position, well, they were all thinking let’s see where this goes.

The mother managed to slip her knee underneath a very plasticky part of the stroller, her mouth gritting nearly twice as hard as she was gritting before. She leaned the stroller back and pushed hard with that one knee, such that the front managed to catch against the edge of the bus platform. Unfortunately, this was as far as her body could strain, and she had to rest with the stroller awkwardly suspended between knee and bus.

Her son giggled. He was two, and his mother seemed to put themselves in so many situations where she would have to bounce, juggle, teeter, and sometimes even throw him towards their next destination. Today was no different and he mirthly clapped his fat little hands together as the stroller now tilted at a near 45 degree angle. To an observer, this was an angle that felt dangerous for a one-piece-of-plastic 30 pound stroller, but the son seemed blissfully unaware. The mother was frustrated at her predicament, and could only continue to grit her teeth as she brainstormed her next move.

A young man, a teacher barely months out of college, was sitting towards the front of the bus in a rear facing seat when he caught sight of the struggling mother and son pair. He had a naturally selfless personality and an almost naive passion for wanting to help the world; we suspect this was also what made him the first on the bus to leap up and volunteer aid for the mother.

To everyone else on the bus, it felt like a silly endeavor (especially to the teenage student whose face caught a full contact swing of the teacher’s messenger bag as he stood up). Here was someone who could barely qualify as an adult, thin rectangle glasses and a crisp tucked-in shirt, nearly 20 feet away in a separate section of the bus, hoping to dance his way through the crowd in time to grab the stroller (which was now past 45 degrees and nearing 50)!

But the teacher was fully committed, and had already begun to dance his way over, his hips loosely swaying in order to dodge around the other riders. Some of the bystanders decided to help, such as Maria Velasquez (who had ridden this bus every day for the last 26 years to her job at the Hyatt downtown); she quickly shifted against the window, pulling her purse against her chest and making her already tiny 5’1 frame as small as possible. There were also those that were a little less helpful, such as the group of O’Connell High students camped out in the middle compartment. They spread their gangly legs, comically stilted on top of oversized Jordans, and prodded with their bony knees that had been left behind by their summer growth spurts. All of them glared at the young teacher spinning by, in full solidarity of their friend who was still wincing from the solid punch delivered by the messenger bag. But his swaying proved stubbornly effective, and he whipped in front of the open passenger door in what seemed like mere seconds.

The struggling mother chose that moment of landing, as the teacher swung into her view, to expel one final grit of her teeth, pushing her weight underneath the stroller that was now near horizontal, and somehow levering it and the child inside it onto the bus platform, right on top of the young man’s foot.

Ow!

Instead of being able to be a source of help, the teacher now awkwardly paused in the pathway, nursing his throbbing big toe and not sure if he should expect an apology. It quickly became apparent there was none coming, and so he took a meek step to the side, allowing mother, stroller, and son to wiggle past to an empty seat. Collecting the last of her energy, she croaked out thank you.

With the conversation emphatically ended, the teacher had no choice but to make his way again past Maria, the O’Connell clique, and now the four construction workers from public works that had started the morning behind the stroller, but had somehow managed to position themselves in the middle of it all. As if it wasn’t already clear that the teacher’s current position towards the end of the bus was just going to be where he stood until the end of his ride, an old man floated through in a fog of cologne and cut off the last sliver of pathway with his top hat and cane. There was a swollen imbalance of people filling up that section - students, teacher, mother, Maria, old man, amongst others - and just in time as the bus driver closed the doors and took off.

Fortunately for our mother, she was finally sitting down with all four wheels of her stroller touching ground, and the groceries were deftly perched on her thighs. Yet it didn’t mean she could fully relax, as this was the 49 bus at 8:30 in the morning after all, and you could never be too alert about the bumps you might receive. A dogwalker with a golden retriever (named Lucy!) sitting next to her wrinkled his nose in annoyance, and emitted an audible sigh to demonstrate the invasion of personal space. But the mother was completely unphased, and instead was focusing her remaining attention on something most concerning: the old man, who earlier had wobbling on his cane, also somehow had managed to tuck a jar of Prego spaghetti sauce under the opposite armpit.

The old man seemed utterly unperturbed at the dangers of securing a glass container in the way he had. When the bus hit a jagged pothole in the road, the jar somersaulted within his armpit, yet somehow stayed nestled. Even when the bus suddenly swerved to avoid a cyclist, our tomato sauce caretaker only momentarily removed the jar in order to curse and shake it at the driver, before nonchalantly returning it to its original position. The mother was horrifically drawn to how deeply red the liquid was. Can an unopened jar of sauce go bad?, she thought to herself. The label said Chunky Garlic, but she couldn’t seem to find any evidence of chunky or garlic- if there was it had been fully enveloped by the deep red liquid elements. She peered into her grocery bag and looked at her own tomatoes. Whereas earlier she had picked them with an imagination of making a tomato and egg stir fry, or perhaps mixing a pico de gallo, she now stared at them with a bit of disgust.

As the potholes got bigger and bigger, the man began to attract the attention of the other riders. The young teacher from earlier, who had continued to look for opportunities to reclaim his old seat at the front, had paused his efforts and now nervously retreated against the bus door. For the more veteran riders, they made sure to maintain discreteness while still fanning out to make space, adhering to the unspoken rules of keeping your headphones in your ears and your hands in your pockets, but most importantly, your eyes to yourselves.

Thonk. Thonk.

The sound of the bus wheels slapping against the pavement as it bounced against uneven gravel. The mother looked out the window to see construction tape obscuring a jackhammer and hard hats. She tightened her hold on her stroller and bag.

Thonk.

An especially bad divot forced those who had, until now, been successfully balancing on just two feet to have to throw out their hands in desperation. A lucky few were able to find a pole, but the rest clumsily ended up grasping their neighbor. Shockingly, the old man, sauce still barely secured between arm and torso, stayed upright through this.

Driver! Watch it!

The driver glanced up. He had an interesting driving style, in that he liked to steer with as little bend in his elbows as possible. Now was no different, and his arms were about as flexible as a pair of wooden dowels attached to the wheel. The light turned yellow and he jerked his entire torso left, arms and wheel following in tandem.

Thonk.

The left turn swung too wide, and the bus happily skipped onto the curb. Maria shouted. The teacher had been flung against her general direction, and his right hand had landed on the only thing within the vicinity- her head.

Driver! I said watch it! I’ve got SAUCE!

Immediately, eyes turned towards the source of this announcement. There was an immediate shift in behavior, fueled by past experiences of sitting next to someone trying to drink a full cup of coffee, or standing next to someone balancing a potted plant on their shoulder. All it took was a bad bump, a sudden break, and sauce would suddenly be a danger to open toed sandals and white pants.

The young teacher momentarily paused mid apology, as Maria, distracted from the bruise on her head, nervously pulled the cable requesting a stop about 7 blocks too early. The construction force, four of them, grunted and pushed their hands even deeper into their pockets, bracing their bodies for some type of potential impact. The O’Connell kids giggled and scooted themselves into one row of seats, just a Jenga tower of gangly teenagers. Mrs. Chiew, just a day out from her 80th birthday and on the way to Chinatown to visit her brother’s newly renovated store, woke up from a half hour nap to raise an eyebrow and pull her cap further past her face. Even the skaters in the back, usually trusted to sit blankly in a slouched stupor until their stop, all sat up a little bit more straight towards the source of the announcement.

The dogwalker shook his head in even further annoyance. He glanced over at the mother sitting to his right, hoping that she had used this opportunity to move, or perhaps even stand up in preparation for her stop. Instead, the mother stayed glued to the round jar of sauce, a sauce that was potentially garlicky, potentially chunky, but 100% guaranteed to be red, wet, and messy. Without removing her eyes, she rotated her stroller so that her son fully faced her, and the back was towards the old man with the sauce. In the process of rotation, the back wheels bumped into the golden retriever (Lucy). Her owner muttered to himself, indignant at the disrespect.

Back at the front of the bus, the driver could see the upcoming stop on the horizon. The top of the shelter rose into view, and he dutifully jammed his foot into the accelerator pedal. The bus lurched into another gear of acceleration, hauling its cargo of passengers up a slight incline. Soon enough, the driver could pick out the crowd of dozens waiting for their pickup. Their faces were quickly coming into focus, too quickly, and those towards the front braced themselves for what was surely an awful collision.

The driver waited until he could make out the blades of the little weeds sprouting from the sidewalk before making his move. He lifted his foot off the gas, knee almost touching his chest, then slammed it back down onto the brake.

The rear riders had no time to lock arms or secure their belongings. Unprepared, with many still distracted by the exclamations of the sauce-carrying old man, almost all were chaotically tossed forward. A cellphone or two hit the ground, as did an errant skateboard that had escaped from the furthest back row.

In a surprising moment of improvisation, the old man dropped to his knees and was pulled sliding along the bus floor. The wool coat he had carefully chosen before leaving his home that morning, now billowed out behind him, and punctuated his movement in quite a regal fashion. On one side, his cane stuck straight out in defiance. On his other side, the jar of sauce almost slipped fully out of his armpit, but then finally attached itself to its owner for the final moments of the slide.

The various riders, after picking up their fallen bodies, coins, and other possessions, immediately switched their gaze over to the old man who only moments earlier had announced he was in possession of a fragile jar of tomato sauce. The young teacher thought How can I help him?. The high school teenagers squealed and giggled more in anticipation. Maria wished that she had taken the train today, and the mother clenched down on her stroller. However, there was a collective sigh of relief from everyone as they observed him shakily stand up, jar still fully intact and nestled in his armpit.

He stomped the ground with his feet, his face in an angry scowl, and angrily gestured towards the front.

Driver! I. said. I. had. SAUCE!

He punctuated each word with a violent jab of his cane. One, two, three, four, five; each jab so violently careless, and each jab serving to wrestle the jar a little bit further away the nook of his armpit. On the sixth jab, as he barked a final reminder of his sauce, the jar finally broke free.

It shot out, more so than slipped out, as if someone had attached a thread to its lid and then yanked very hard. You heard an unidentified Oh god!, before it shattered against the floor. Tomato sauce was slung in all directions, some as large globules, others as a litany of droplets. The first victim was perhaps one of the O’Connell boys, who tragically had laced on a brand new pair of cream high tops this morning. Victim two was our selfless teacher, whose messenger bag caught a couple of decent sized splatters. The floor was painted red, and seated passengers frantically shifted their feet and bags as the liquid shifted quickly outwards to both ends of the bus. The dogwalker, earlier so irritable and preoccupied with the other seated next to him, caught sauce on his shoes, pants, and just a couple of dabs onto his mouth. He roared in disgust, dramatically spitting and rubbing his face with his shirt.

The mother wordlessly stood up, even as the old man’s pained yelps at losing his sauce could be heard behind her. The back of her stroller was speckled with red dots, but both her and her son were untouched. Beyond the open bus doors, a new crowd of riders stood patiently waiting, aglow in the morning sun and demeanors energized by fresh coffees. She rolled the stroller over crushed tomatoes and garlic bits, past the despondent dogwalker trying to pull Lucy the golden retriever away from licking up any bits of sauce she could reach. Unlike her struggles this morning, there was no issue getting off the bus, and mom, son, and stroller all neatly dropped onto the sidewalk. Their destination was merely a block away, and she immediately entered a quick stroll to it.

The mother passed a trash can, and stopped. She turned back towards the bus, and saw the sauce had actually reached the window, so much so that she couldn’t really see inside anymore. Rather than continuing on, the mother reached into her grocery bag, fumbling for something as her son watched with silent curiosity. After a few seconds, her hand emerged with a plastic bagged filled with six bright red tomatoes, still on a vine.

She hesitated, looked one more time back at the bus, and then tossed the tomatoes directly into the trash can.