CHAPTER 2 continued...

The day was broken between naps, food, and lying in the sun. I was sprawled on a blow up mattress in a half sleep, the sun sucking the alcohol out of my blood and evaporating it off my body.

“Loic, what time is it?” I asked, cracking one eye open and looking across at his watch.

“It’s 5:45pm.”

“Shit. I am going to be late for the Sweetwater.”

Lyrical looked up drowsily, barely paying attention to me, in the way a sleeping dog looks up disinterestedly at a child, who wants to play with it. I jumped up and rushed inside. I had a quick shower, threw my clothes on, and grabbed my guitar before sprinting down the winding hill towards the bus stop. I was, unsurprisingly, once again running late for my only regular gig of the week, playing the Sunday acoustic session at the Sweetwater, Marin County’s most famous grassroots music venue.

Through the trees in the distance, I could see the bus nearing the end of my street. I ran faster. My tired legs were rolling down the hill, likely to give way at any minute, resulting in a catastrophic crash of guitar, body, and pavement. I was, however, fully willing to take the risk of severe personal injury, as it was the only bus that could get me to the Sweetwater on time. I was almost at the bottom of the hill, when I heard the clank of the closing doors and the rev of the engine, as the clutch engaged and the bus crept away from the stop.

“Hey! Phil! Wait up! Please wait up!!”

The bus slowed to a stop as I bounded around the corner, my guitar almost taking me out as it followed. I approached the bus’s now open door and slowed down. I tried desperately to look cool, as if I hadn’t just ran down a hill, risking my life, whilst screaming like a schoolgirl late for her first day of high school.

“Shane my friend, how are you doing on this fine Sunday evening? You almost missed me again. Lucky for you, I saw you coming down that there hill from miles away.” Phil, the driver, said.

“So, why did you pull away from the stop then?” I said bending over, my hands on my knees and panting.

“I just wanted to see you run faster. Boy, you sure can move when you need to. Pheeeyooo, you almost started a forest fire you were moving so fast.”

“Yeah, cheers for that.” I said with as large a dollop of sarcasm, as I could possibly muster.

“Huhuhuh, no problem buddy.” Phil let out a deep guttural chuckle, making his whole body vibrate in his chair.

Phil and I had hit it off, from the very first time I got his bus to my first ever gig. He was an African American man well into his 70’s, who had been driving the same route for over twenty years. He knew the town of Mill Valley better than anyone else and was as close to a town statesman, as you can get these days. He wore his signatory dark aviator sunglasses and black leather gloves, which he said protected his hands from getting dry with driving all day. He would wave at the shopkeepers, as we went by, and even some times pull over for a conversation, if he saw an old friend in the street. Whether the bus was on time or not was irrelevant in his mind. He simply drove it round the route all day picking up people and dropping them off, whenever he got around to it.

I paid my $1 fair and moved down the aisle of the bus. I would be sharing my journey with the same people, I shared it with every week. There were the two middle-aged women, who talked inappropriately loud about whatever they felt was the hot gossip of the day. There was the old homeless man, who Phil let ride for free, because apparently he was a Vietnam War veteran. There was the teenager coming back from football practice, doing everything he could to block out the surrounding world. He wore a hood tied tight round his head, big, mirrored sunglasses, and a set of studio headphones plugged into a brand new bright yellow iPod.

I took a seat at the back of the bus with the Vietnam vet. I leaned across and offered him half my sandwich, which he accepted with a toothless smile, before turning back to look out the window.

“You gonna play a song for us today Shane?” Phil shouted from the front of the bus.

The first time I got the bus Phil had forced me to sing a song, before letting me on. Ever since then, he has tried to get me to play, while on the way to the Sweetwater.

“Not today Phil. I want to preserve the voice for the stage.” I replied.

The two women stopped chatting and one of them said. “Oh please, play a song. We could do with a bit of a pick-me-up. Brenda’s daughter has just found out that her husband is cheating on her with the nanny and she...”

“OK, OK, ha ha. I will play something, if you promise not to tell me anything more about your personal problems.” I said laughing at her openness.

I could see the moody teenager look away in disgust. He took out his iPod and turned up the volume.

“What would you like to hear?”

“We don’t mind, whatever you think yourself dear.”

“Well, I know you ladies like The Eagles, so how about ‘Desperado’?”

“Oh, we do love that song. Yes play that one.”

And so I did. I played it on the bus, as the Vietnam Vet’s dog howled along and the two old women talked the whole way through it.