Time: Present
Setting: A bench at a bus stop along 125th Street in Manhattan
Anita sits alone, working intently on the Times crossword puzzle. She doesn’t notice when Bobbi sits quietly next to her.
Bobbi: …Elfman!
Anita: Wha… Who are you… what did you say!?!
Bobbi: Uh, Elfman… Danny Elfman?
Anita: Elfman? Who…?
Bobbi: Elfman! The crossword? The answer you’re stuck on? Danny Elfman? Wrote “The Simpsons” theme? Lead singer with Oingo Boingo? Wrote the score for Forbidden Zone? You have heard of Forbidden Zone, right?
Anita: Nooo… what’s it about?
Bobbi: Oh boy! “What’s it about?” … Hmmmmm…Let’s just say that if you saw it in a movie theatre they’re probably wouldn’t be any members of Partnership for a Drug Free America in the audience.
Anita: Anita
Bobbi: No, it can’t be! Anita has five letters and…I’m sure it’s Elfman! That’s E-L-F-M….
Anita: No, I’m Anita…Thanks. Are you waiting for the M4?
Bobbi: I think so. I’m Bobbi. I’m heading to the Port Authority bus terminal. Is the M4 an express bus?
Anita: There is no express bus to Port Authority from this stop today. You need to take the M4 to 5th Avenue and West 41st Street…
Bobbi: Oh. Thanks, I…
Anita: Then walk over to East 42nd and Madison and transfer to the M42…
Bobbi: Thanks, I…
Anita: …It takes a little over an hour.
Bobbi: Um… Thanks! I’m meeting up with friends and catching a bus out to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania…to the Sands Casino? A special deal, thirty dollars round trip! Three thousand slots, dinner at Emeril’s Chop House…
Anita: Nice.
Bobbi: When’s the next bus?
Anita: About twenty minutes.
Bobbi: I guess I should have paid more attention to the schedule. Have you taken this bus before?
Anita: …Six days a week for the past nine years.
Bobbi: Gee! So… you must be on your way to work. What do you do Anita?
Anita: I’m a seamstress. I work in the garment district.
Bobbi: Gee! I thought all those sewing jobs went to China and places like that.
Anita: When you’re as good a seamstress as I am there are plenty of fashion houses paying good money for someone who can help produce their collections. My Mom taught me to sew. We commuted together… until she passed…
Bobbi: I’m so sorry… What about your dad?
Anita: He… he’s home. I take care of him.
Bobbi: Hey, Ok, anyway… Why do you get here so early, since you seem to know the schedule so well? Did you miss the last bus?
Anita: No I did not miss the last bus! I never miss the bus!
Bobbi: Hey, Ok, sorry…
Anita: It’s just that I need to make sure I get a seat up front… so I can steer.
Bobbi: So… you… can… steer…
Anita: Not actually steer. Well…
Bobbi: Then what do you…?
Anita: I sort of help the driver… unofficially.
Bobbi: You… you help the driver…
Anita: My father used to drive the M4. He loved to drive! My strongest memory as a child was getting into the car with him and Mom and driving, anywhere and everywhere, but only after he’d washed and waxed our car to within an inch of its life.
Bobbi: He sounds like a great Dad.
Anita: He is. Driving a bus for the city was a dream come true. He couldn’t believe they actually paid him to drive, although it turned him into kind of a showoff I guess.
Bobbi: What do you mean by ‘a showoff’?
Anita: Well… he was just so proud. He wore a fresh flower in his lapel every day, and he got to know his regular passengers by name.
One day he asked me to go on the route with him… so he could kind of show me off I guess…
No, not show me off… show me how much he loved the job, how much his passengers respected him…
Until…
Bobbi: What happened?
Anita: He… he was pointing out some of the landmarks along the route… introducing me to the passengers… his passengers… yeah, showing me off, I guess…
He didn’t see the woman with the carriage crossing against the light… he was making a left turn across traffic and didn’t see her until it was too late, even if he hadn’t been telling everyone on the bus — on his bus — how proud he was of his little girl…
He didn’t see…but I did.
Bobbi: You did… God! Why didn’t you warn him, Anita?
Anita: I couldn’t say anything…
Bobbi: Why the heck not?
Anita: I froze… I couldn’t interrupt Daddy…
Not when he was sitting behind the wheel, in charge of that big old bus.
Not when he was looking so proud… proud… to be showing off his daughter to his passengers!
Bobbi: …What happened to the woman and the child?
Anita: …The woman, the child’s Mom, was shaken up, but Ok. The child… her son… lived, but…
Bobbi: And your Dad? What about…
Anita: They ruled it was an accident. They let dad drive again, but they assigned him to another route in a bad part of town…on the midnight shift.
Bobbi: But… they said it wasn’t his fault!
Anita: It wasn’t! He’s the one who held that child until the ambulance came…
He relives that day every day ever since. And I could have prevented it if I’d only…
…That’s why I need to sit up front. To help the driver. To make sure it never happens again…
[After a long, uncomfortable pause…]
Bobbi: I helped my father build a boat.
Anita: You built a boat?
Bobbi: I said I helped, sort of… It was a little boat with an outboard motor. He called it his… his Dream Boat. To go fishing on the bay. He dreamed about having a boat since before I was born I guess, but we didn’t have much money, so for all that time that’s all it was… a dream.
Anita: But you said you helped him…
Bobbi: He sent for a catalog of boats you could build from a kit. He was like a kid in a candy store! He spent hours looking at different models, options, choosing the color of the paint…
He finally settled on the Sea Skimmer, a 14-footer. A little small for the bay, he said, but it was all he could afford.
Oh Anita, you should have seen his face when that big truck pulled up in front of the house! I never thought the delivery men would stop unloading the boxes! I watched his face as he open them, it was better than Christmas! Sheets of plywood, mahogany boards, cables, pulleys, a big red steering wheel…
And these polished chrome things for the rope… they’re called “cleats” my father told me. And a heavy wooden box filled with shiny brass screws.
Anita: So, he built the boat… his “Dream Boat?”
Bobbi: Oh, yes! It was like, like the dream of having a boat had come true and cast a spell on him! He spent every weeknight and weekend for weeks, poring over this big book of instructions, drilling, sawing…
The hardest part was bending the plywood to shape the hull. My dad figured out that by covering the plywood with heavy blankets and pouring lots of boiling water on it he could soften it enough to form the bow. I must have carried 100 kettles of boiling water out to the garage! It…
Anita: What went wrong, Bobbi?
Bobbi: What… why do you think…
Anita: You’re trying very hard to be cheerful, but your story doesn’t sound like a story with a happy ending either.
Bobbi: …OK…OK…so…the big day comes, and he’s going to take the boat out on the bay on its ‘maiden voyage’ as he called it…
Anita: What did he name his boat?
Bobbi: How, how did you know he named it?
Anita: It’s what people do, Bobbi…
Bobbi: Oh, right… Rosie Too. After his wife… my mother…
Which was pretty funny, since she was scared silly of the water. She wouldn’t even go wading in the ocean when we went to the beach, let alone get in a boat my father built.
She wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I never saw her go out to the garage, not once. He tried not to show it, but I think she broke his heart by refusing to share in his dream.
Anita: So… he went out on the bay without her… and without you?
Bobbi: He said that mom and I would be his welcoming committee, and he expected us to be waiting at the dock when he came back…
Anita: But he didn’t come back, did he?
Bobbi: He knew I wanted to go with him! I helped him build that boat! I wanted to be there with him! Maybe I could have…
Anita: No Bobbi, you couldn’t have. But you helped him make his dream come true. And you’re here, ready to share this beautiful day with your friends. And with me.
Bobbi: And there’s no way you could have warned your father in time Anita! Think about it. Big bus, little girl… no way you could have seen. Fussed over by your Dad and everyone else, you couldn’t have known what was happening until it had already happened!
Anita: Thank you Bobbi.
Bobbi: …Thank you, Anita.
Anita: Hey, here comes the M4, right on time.
Sit with me?
…Maybe I’ll let you help me drive.
George Point lives in Lawrenceville.
