The bus shows up precisely on time, despite my fervent wishes for it not to. Every morning I try to manifest some cosmic intervention— a ten car pileup, driver heart attack, complete transport shutdown— to excuse me from work in a spectacular and unforgettable way. The ideal alibi would garner genuine sympathy from Garreth without resulting in any warnings or reprimands. The crowd starts merging into a depressing line around me though, and my crackle of hope subsides. Oh well, I tell myself, tomorrow is another day. Anything is possible, after all; anything solid can break, even the most rigid laws of nature.

Climbing the stairs seems to require a herculean effort, like slogging through mud in lead shoes. The bus starts up with the wheeze of an asthmatic and its door hisses shut behind me as I move past familiar glazed faces staring forward. If I breathe too deeply, I fear, I’ll catch their disease of stale complacency. So my head stays lowered as I brush through their protruding knees and briefcases, slinking into my usual seat at the back.

If I’d transferred to the fifth street Queso Loco when I moved downtown, I could have avoided this 30-minute commute altogether. But I didn’t want to start all over with a fresh batch of coworkers. You always have to invent a dozen new languages just to make each one understand that this job is merely a stopover for you; Sorry, Trisha, but I’m destined for bigger things. It’s nothing personal, Rudy, I’m just not going to be your new best friend. We’re two different kinds of people, that’s all.

And I may be out of the taco-slinging game even sooner than expected. An invitation showed up in my inbox last night, a call to action that proved impossible for me to ignore. Naturally I was a bit skeptical of the claim I’d been “handpicked” to learn the passive income system used by self-made millionaire and motivational speaker Brendan Wilson. I’m on the guy’s email list, for fuck’s sake. But the testimonials from past students actually showed screenshots of their bank balances, and you can’t fake numbers like that.

Space in the Money Magnet MegaCourse was limited, so I signed up right away. The tuition cost more than my rent, but I see it as an investment. I mean, it’s not like I’m blowing my life’s savings on Twinkies and wine coolers. It’s a mindset thing. Poor people spend their money; rich people invest it.  And you have to trust your instincts. When something feels right, you know it. 

This bus ride is actually one of the more tolerable portions of my day. I have a little pastime I engage in, a solitary version of the game my dad and I used to play on road trips when I was a kid. As the engine hums and lumbers forward, I turn toward the window and a new round of “Fortunately, Unfortunately” begins. 

We were a father-daughter team against the world back then, our tiny Jetta deftly navigating a sea of massive trucks and SUVs. Playing “Fortunately, Unfortunately” conjures a whole slew of sense memories for me; the jingling of the coins in the ashtray, the faint smell of Dad’s shaving cream, the slushies and nachos I got whenever we stopped for gas. 

One trip we took between fourth and fifth grade shines in my memory as a particularly fun adventure, a magnificent blur of cornfields, scattered little billboards and trailers. I don’t think I complained once on that trip. I don’t remember whining “I’m bored,” or “are we there yet?” in an obnoxious little brat voice. I don’t think I knew where “there” was, and honestly, I don’t think I cared.

“Fortunately, Unfortunately” is more of an improv exercise than a game. You take turns adding to a made-up story, incorporating things you see out the window as you drive along. One person’s lines all have to start with “fortunately” and the other’s with “unfortunately”. Entire states flew by in an epic succession of plot twists, and there was an addictive element to it. Sometimes even after we stopped, Dad would initiate a new round. During long gaps in our dinner conversation, he would lean over the table with a twinkle in his eye and I always knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Feeling fortunate?” he would ask.

Without my dad, I alone speak for fortune and misfortune combined these days. In the game as in life, it’s a role that feels perfectly fitting to me. 

It’s a bright April day and the sky is full of airplane streaks. At a cafe with outdoor seating, I spot my first protagonist, a man sitting alone and frowning behind a large laptop. “Fortunately, the cafe wasn’t too busy and it had free wifi, so Darren could plan his arson attack away from prying eyes.”

Dad didn’t talk much about the reason for that trip. I guess he didn’t want me to worry. He was visiting hospitals in every major city across the Midwest, searching for a diagnosis to explain the periodic stomach aches, rashes and dizziness he’d gotten over the past year. He always made early appointments so he could slip out of the motel while I slept, and I’d wake to find him coming back all frustrated with no answers. The doctors always blamed it on stress from his job at the community college, seeing he’d been symptom-free since the summer began.

Next the bus passes a cluster of roof tiles painted an ugly shade of yellow, standing on a patch of grass behind a clump of trees. “Unfortunately, Darren knew the building he planned to set ablaze – his ex-wife’s Pilates studio – had excellent security cameras, as he’d helped install them.”

I probably romanticize that trip – this game too – because they were the last fun times my dad and I shared as a complete family unit, just the two of us.  A few months later he finally got the right tests done; there was boric acid in his system of all things. Even crazier was that it turned out his coworker and sometimes paramour Judy had been slipping ant poison into his coffee creamer all along. I guess she wanted him to be sick so she could swoop in and play nursey-nursey to him. Talk about an unfortunate plot twist. In all our hours of wild story-crafting, I don’t think Dad or I could’ve ever come up with something so sadistic. 

Eventually the bus starts making less and less frequent stops and the scenery changes to bland suburban sprawl. Out the window there are no people or cars to look at right now, just the giant stucco wall of an Olive Garden restaurant.

“Fortunutely, Darren’s disguise worked. No one could identify the shadowy figure shaped like a bread stick that was seen hurling a Molotov cocktail through the window of the Pilates studio.”

I still can’t believe Dad forgave Judy. He even argued for leniency in her case, saying she was just a sick and lonely woman, not a bad person. He felt sorry for her because of her mental problems, which was interesting, as he never gave two shits about my mental problems.

It seems like I barely blink and suddenly I’m clocking in at work. I pull my apron off the hook and run my finger over the name Lori Larson to make sure it’s still there; Garreth likes to play little tricks on me, and the other day he replaced my name tag with a sticker that said “Loosey Licksalot”. His faint British accent and round silver glasses allow such blatantly indecent conduct to pass for charm, I guess. I feel guilty for the way I can’t stop playing the tape of that moment in my head. But I know better than to really try and stop playing it. After all, trying to stop any thought from happening only makes the thought grow stronger. This I know for sure.

I mean, I was lonely too, dammit. Did he ever stop to consider that? He put an abrupt end to our adventures without even consulting me. I should’ve gone to the psych hospital instead of Judy. At least then he would’ve made an effort. He would’ve visited me like he did her. He would’ve turned on the charm for our weekly phone conversations. Maybe if I’d been the one locked up, the most disastrous plot twist of all could’ve been avoided. 

As unbelievable as it sounds, my dad married Nurse Looney Tunes two years after she got out of the nuthouse. Yep, the bonehead married his stalker and sent his only daughter off to boarding school. Guess I just wasn’t sick and lonely enough for him.

But there was just something compelling about the way Garreth touched my arm before I started my shift that time, the way he pointed at my chest and said, “How do you pronounce that, love?” And then let go as I looked down and noticed his little prank. On the outside, I was exhaling through gritted teeth and rolling my eyes. On the inside, I must admit, I was electrified.

Seriously, though, who chooses a deranged narcissist over their own daughter?

“Good morning, Petal,” Garreth calls to me from his office, spinning a Queso Loco visor around on his forefinger. I nod but don’t say anything, painfully aware of the sudden wakefulness in all the most private areas of my body. 

Unfortunately, I’ll be working the drive through with Jean-Marie today. Already I’m bracing myself for the pounding headache her voice gives me. Jean-Marie is a six-foot-tall gelatinous blob of straw-like hair and tanned skin who thinks I’m interested in the sordid details of her sex life. I never ask, but she delivers every update as though I’d begged for it. 

“Have you ever had a hickey on your butt?” she asks me, before I’ve even put on my headset.

I could give my two weeks’ notice today. The Money Magnet MegaCourse offers an optional seven day fast-track for students who are ready to fully commit, and God knows I’m ready. Ever since I watched the welcome video I’ve felt insanely fired up, like a hungry tiger just pacing back and forth in a cage.

Jean Marie does get laid with astonishing frequency for such an annoying fatass. I used to assume her numerous partners saw her as easy prey, but I’ve come to realize it’s a unique brand of shameless confidence and targeted aggression she’s got going on. She leaks her disgusting pheromone gasses everywhere, like noxious fumes from the dank basement of a smoke-filled casino. It’s torture to watch it happen, to know it’s going to work every single damn time and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

That Marky kid is outside digging through the garbage can next to the exit again. I’ve kept tabs on that poor little S.O.B. for months now, watching him waddle around in a daze with a hospital-issue blanket slung over his shoulders and those oversize jeans fastened around his thighs. He notices me and waves; I pray he won’t walk up to the window while Jean-Marie is there, because she would probably rat me out for talking to him. I’ve already been warned once after the time I let him use my phone. 

The ground was coated in ugly gray sleet that day. I’d taken my break outside so I could listen to podcasts and not talk to anyone. Marky stepped over the bright orange tile wall, spitting on the concrete before plunking himself down at the table where I sat and introducing himself. He asked if he could call his mom, which sounded innocent enough. I dialed the number for him and held the device near his face, close enough that I could hear it ringing on the other end. “Hang up if a dude answers,” he directed me. Eventually, a tired-sounding woman picked up.

“Mom,” Marky whined, “Can you bring me 20 bucks? I’m out here by the Queso Loco in Ridgefield Plaza.”

“Why did you leave the group home?”

“They wouldn’t let me smoke no weed in there or nothing.”

The next part of that conversation was sad as hell, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I could hear the desperation in Marky’s mom’s voice; she invited him to live rent free in the building she managed, promised him there’d be no supervision and even upped the ante with bribes like a PlayStation and fast-food gift cards, but Marky deadass refused her. I got the idea his stubbornness had something to do with the building’s owner, a guy named Gary.

“Gary’s a bitch,” Marky said, more than once. “Why you gotta stay with him, Mom?”

By the time the call ended, she’d agreed to bring him ten dollars, some socks and a Xanax on the expressed condition that he would at least come take a look at the apartment. 

“Tell Gary he’s a bitch,” he said before pulling his face away from the phone and motioning me to hang up.

I asked Marky why he chose to live on the street when he didn’t have to, and he mumbled something about not being like regular people. I wanted to tell him we probably had more in common than he thought. 

Unfortunately, I never got the chance thanks to Jean-Marie, who went running to Garreth, who in turn ordered me into his office. 

“Look,” he said, “You’re a sweetheart, Lori, and I’m not saying you should change your personality. But you’ve got to set some boundaries, love. Having a bunch of lowlifes hanging around the restaurant looks bad.” 

And now Jean Marie is watching Marky with mean squinty eyes, and I can tell she’s about to say something that will make me want to punch her in the face. 

“Gawd,” she delivers, right on time. “I can smell those piss-stained jeans from here. Somebody call an exterminator.”

Fortunately there’s a break in customers right then, and Jean-Marie slips away to fill her coffee cup. I don’t have time to say what’s on my mind, to tell her I’m surprised she can smell anything at all over the eye-watering vapors of her sleazy French whore perfume. I wish I’d said it, but I’m also glad I didn’t; this way, I retain my sweetheart status. 

When Jean Marie comes back, her cheeks are flushed. She tells me in a conspiratorial whisper that she and Garreth are getting together for drinks after work. “He didn’t have to ask me twice,” she says, giggling and emptying three sugar packets into her coffee at once. A wave of nausea overcomes me. I tell Jean-Marie I’m going to take the trash out, even though it’s not that full.

“Bring some coffee creamers,” she calls after me. “We’re almost out.”

            The dumpster behind Queso Loco leaks a gnarly black fluid— rotten beans, meat grease, salmonella, chemical cleaning agents and God knows what else — into a small downward-flowing stream that the Spanish-speaking staff all refer to as the “Rio Del Muerte.” I stare at it for a few seconds, trying to calm my nerves by not thinking. I can make it through the rest of my shift without any unfortunate incidents, I tell myself. All I have to do is not think. 

“Hey,” someone calls. I turn and see Marky leaning against the wall with his hoodie pulled tight around his face. “You got a lighter?” 

I shake my head no, then pat down my empty pockets with an apologetic shrug as proof. I tell him I’m not supposed to talk to him while I’m working, but the rejection doesn’t seem to faze him much. “It’s cool,” he says. When he flashes me his toothless smile, it’s as if he’s just aged 40 years.

My pity for this shadow of a human deepens as I watch him skulk off down the alley and something small falls from his ripped backpack. A plastic baggie with a pea-sized drop of something black in it lands delicately atop the Rio Del Muerte, almost disappearing. I’m no expert, but I’ve watched enough cop shows to know that substances packaged in tiny plastic bags like that usually don’t have very wholesome effects on the people carrying them around. I retrieve the item and slip it into my shirt pocket, pleased with myself for the accidental intervention.

When I get back to the drive through window, Jean-Marie is chortling girlishly and writing her phone number on the coffee cup she’s about to hand over to the customer in the car, a sweaty bald guy in a Hawaiian shirt. “Did you get the coffee creamer?” she asks me. 

“Oh, shit,” I mumble, and turn to go back to the stockroom.

It’s her own damn fault, really. If she weren’t such a coffee creamer fiend herself, we wouldn’t constantly be running out of the stuff and this whole situation could have been avoided. See, I can’t hear the words “coffee creamer” without thinking about boric acid. I take my coffee black, and it’s not because I like the taste. I take it that way because I have to, because it’s the only way I can keep the intrusive thoughts at bay. 

I mean the woman uses like four coffee creamers at a time. Who does that? And she guzzles coffee all day long like it’s a sacred tit she can’t wean from, and she assumes everyone else on earth is like her, like we’re all a bunch of caffeine-crazed psychopaths who need to have everything thoroughly whitewashed for us. So she gives every customer who orders coffee a fistful of those damn coffee creamer packets with her giant hulk hands whether they ask for it or not. So of course, we run out all the time. And that makes it impossible for me to get through a day without the triggering words “coffee creamer” entering my brain, as if maintaining my peace of mind weren’t already hard enough.

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose for what seems like two seconds, and suddenly I’m back on the bus heading home. The events of the last few hours start coming back to me in a series of strange dream-like flashes; Jean-Marie’s broad back as she leaned out the window to flirt with every driver of every car that pulled up. Her Queso Loco travel mug filled with band-aid-colored liquid, ever present next to the register. Then the surreal part; the swirl that the little death-drenched mystery nugget made in her mug after I turned the baggie inside out and stirred in three slow circles with my finger. The way the phrase “stop dreaming, start doing” kept repeating in my mind, the way it’s still there now, along with the peppy corporate music from the background of the Money Magnet MegaCourse video.

I mean I needed to dispose of that nugget somehow. I also needed Jean Marie to chill the fuck out, so the circumstances just sort of presented themselves in a way that left me no choice. Jean-Marie would be fine. It was only a small amount, after all. No bigger than a pea. And Marky was still walking around, wasn’t he?

Now I’m remembering the look on Garreth’s face when I told him I needed to take some time off from work because my mom had cancer.  It was priceless; pure unadulterated sympathy. I’m glad I get to remember him that way. I wasn’t lying about my mom having cancer, either. I just left out the part about how my mom’s been dead for twenty years. I also may have neglected to mention that I’m never coming back to work. 

You have to take risks in life if you want to rise above the gloomy trap of capitalism.

The bus glides past an expansive Subaru dealership that is having its annual sales extravaganza. Men, women and children of all shapes and sizes mill about, there are balloons everywhere and I think I see a deejay booth. The air is sizzling with possibility. Each one of these protagonists could change their life drastically in an instant if they wanted to, but they probably won’t. Do they even know the power of their own will? Most of them have never had it tested. 

I see a sign for a cell phone store, remember yet another overdue bill I have to deal with, and for a second, I almost regret today’s actions. But I bat the thought away. There are positive events in life and negative events, some of which we can control and some of which we cannot. It’s how we respond to such events that determines how successful we will be.

The bus stops to pick up several passengers in front of the Golden Meadows Retirement Village. An old man sits down next to me, and we smile at each other. I’ve given up my seat for this man more than once on days when the bus was full, so he recognizes me and asks with what feels like genuine interest how my day is going. The answer I give him is automatic, the first sentence to pop into my mind. But I’m pleasantly astonished by the unintentional accuracy of it.

“I’m feeling fortunate,” I tell him, and turn my smiling face back toward the window.

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