Flashback

Driving the city bus route during rush hour carried both incredible responsibility and stress. A stress that Walter Kennedy was all too familiar with. Forty years old, and a retired Army vet, Walter had experienced the kind of hell no man should ever have to bear witness to, but one that countless souls had endured in the past and continued to endure at this very moment. He was one of the lucky ones. At least that’s what everyone had told him. He’d lived through his tour in the desert—the sandbox as his brothers and sisters so affectionately called it—and had managed to transition into civilian life with relative ease. However, while he was told he was lucky, and he was grateful for the blessing of overcoming certain obstacles others like him had struggled with, there was still the single most common issue men and women in his situation had struggled with. A problem he had not been fortunate enough to escape. They called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD for short. His was classified as severe, but that didn’t prevent him from being able to handle the stressful, yet important, city bus route he drove every weekday during afternoon rush hour.

It was never the same any two times. Not exactly anyways. Traffic would ebb and flow in an inconsistent manner. Some days it was light, most days it was heavy, but sometimes it was gridlocked—usually the cause of one jerkoff’s mistake. Walter was of the belief that it only took one person to ruin it for everyone else, and those instances backed up that world view.

Walter turned over his shoulder and looked at the gray and black splotched Australian Shepherd sitting in the front passenger side seat of the bus. “Good boy, Tank.” He said reaching his hand out. Tank was a service dog that was paid for by the department of Veterans Affairs as part of the disability benefits he was granted. The dog leaned forward and touched his nose to its owner’s fingers. Walter smiled as he scratched the bridge of its nose and then scratched behind its ears. Walter turned back to face the windshield. It was time to start his shift.

Walter drove out of the bus depot and into the day; the sun cut through the windshield and blanketed him in its warmth. Another smile stretched across Walter’s face. He had learned over the course of his duty that it was the little things that brought the most joy to him. “To enjoy the little things means to extract the most joy from life.” That’s what he used to say to his soldiers, and it was something that he still held as true.

Traffic was normal. It was the kind of day that could swing either way, but luckily for the city and its commuters, adapting was one of his many talents. Everything seemed normal as the day went by; he stopped, the kind folks would show Walter their pass, give Tank a pat or two, give him a small treat, and then make their way to their seats. The out-of-towners took longer to gawk at the dog or sometimes take a selfie. Whether they were locals or visitors; everyone had grown to know Walter and Tank over the last few years, and it seemed that everyone liked them. He even heard that Tank had a fan page somewhere on the internet, but he’d never looked for it. He would often hear horror stories from some of the other drivers; tough situations he was thankful to had never dealt with, and while he didn’t know whether it was the fact that they knew he was an Army vet or that Tank was always watching, or something else entirely, Walter was glad that the regular commuters were always respectful when he was behind the wheel.

Walter pulled up to the Fifth Avenue stop and put the bus in park. He took a sip out of his water bottle, looked across the road, and that’s when he saw it. A black mass sitting in the middle of the street, cars passing on either side. Is that? His mind stuttered and he was back in the desert. Back in hell. He saw the faces of the lives he’d taken and of those he’d lost. He felt a stab of pain.

Three heavy raps at the door startled him back with a gasp. A balding white man with a long, crooked nose stood waiting. Walter pulled the lever next to his knee and the doors opened with a hiss of air. “Hey! How’s it goin’ Walt!?” It was Larry Jenkins. A disheveled man with a ragged suit and tie. He was a regular commuter. Someone Walter had seen almost every day he drove this route over the last few years. He wasn’t sure what Larry actually did for work, but he picked him up from the Fifth Avenue spot every afternoon.

Walter gave a fake smile. “It’s a beautiful day, friend. It’s a beautiful day!”

Larry gave a friendly chuckle and trotted up the steps and started rubbing Tank behind both ears. “Who’s a good boy!” He asked rhetorically. Tank repaid the kindness with a couple face licks, and Larry was off to his seat. The next man was peculiar. He was tall, with short blonde hair and a chiseled jaw. He was heavily muscled, wearing a horizontally striped tank top and cargo shorts. Walter had never seen him before, and the stranger avoided eye contact and made no attempt to present a pass of any kind.

Walter grabbed his wrist. “Hey buddy, gonna need to see your pass.”

The man whipped his head and met Walter with a cold gaze. His icy blue eyes pierced him like daggers, and a horrible feeling stirred in his gut. A white-hot inferno stoked by an overwhelming anxiety had awakened a demon that had long been asleep. His heart fluttered, his breathing quickened, and it took every ounce of will power to not shrink into a ball. But this wasn’t right. While his normal commuters were always kind, that didn’t prevent a rotten apple every so often. He could handle difficult people normally without issue, but there was something about this man—his vibe—that his soul was trying to warn him about.

The man stared at him for a few eternal seconds before ripping his wallet out of pocket. “Sorry man!” He said, rifling through the small leather pouch. “It . . . It has to be here somewhere!”

Walter could only muster shallow, empty breaths. The world had become foggy and distant. His eyes flipped between the strange man and the black mass in the middle of the street, and he knew in his bones they were connected. It had gotten hot. Sweltering. Sweat dripped from his brow. His blue button-up shirt stuck to his back and tightened around his neck; lightly choking him. The man spoke but it was useless—his words echoed, distorted by the fog. He trembled. The rush of emotions, the memories, the horrible memories hitting him like a wave trying its damnedest to sweep him out to sea. It was as if his trauma was trying to say: “You bastard! How could you forget them? How could you forget the lives you took!?” But it was wrong. He hadn’t forgotten. It was impossible to forget. He knew these thoughts were his own and they betrayed him.

A hand gripped his shoulder. Panic shot through his chest and he made a quick, instinctive movement. A scream snapped him back to the bus. A sea of eyes stared back at him from blank faces. Tank whimpered next to him. He stood over the muscled man, his arm twisted in his hands, his muscled body forced into a kneel. Walter took slow, rhythmic breaths. The man grunted from below him.

“Sorry about that, friend.” Walter said solemnly. He released the man’s arm from his grasp and turned. “Your ride’s on me.”

Walter took his seat and looked out at the black mass in the road. There was a break in the traffic now and he could see it clearly. It was a gym bag, unzipped, with some clothes spilled onto the street. Walter sighed. It’s not an IED. He thought. There hadn’t been a connection between the man and the bag at all. Tears welled in his eyes and sorrow pierced his heart.

“You all right?” The man asked.

“I’ll live. Not sure if I’ll get to keep this job though.”

“I have a friend who was in Iraq.” Walter met the man’s gaze. His eyes were soft. “You don’t have to worry.”

Walter realized in this moment that the treatment regimen was working. Tank, the medications, and regular therapy sessions made it so that he couldn’t remember the last time he had an episode. Walter pulled the lever, put the bus in gear, and pulled away from the stop.