It’s an angry world we live in. How to make sense of it?
Transcript:
The Devil rides the E Line
If you’re waiting for a bus on Aurora Avenue, life isn’t quite going as you planned.
Althea was the exception. She loved the Aurora E Line. It was an oasis in her otherwise chaotic day.
Her day started at lunch time with a ride to work with her neighbor Junior Townsend. He worked at the Chick-fil-A on Aurora, so they were both heading in the same direction. It was awfully nice of him, but that man could wear you out with words.
Althea cleaned motel rooms up along Aurora. These were the by the hour variety, so she was never quite sure what she was going to walk into. She’d finish her third hotel around seven and then walk up to 145th to catch the E Line and make her way to her second job at SeaTac airport. She then spent the early morning hours cleaning the North and South terminals. Everybody assumed her first job was terrible and her second job was easy, but Althea knew all too well what the combination of too many people, too much time, and too few bathrooms can do to a population. In the morning she would catch a ride home with a co-worker and roust the grandkids up for school. This was probably the hardest part of her day – those boys are prodigious sleepers. Then she’d catch a couple of hours shut eye herself, often times in the easy chair, not even bothering to get up and go to bed. Then she’d prepare dinner for the boys for when they get back from school and start the process over. It was a long day, but Althea didn’t mind; it was the life God had given her.
Ah but the E Line. It took about thirty minutes to get from north Aurora to downtown; then she’d catch the light rail to take her the rest of the way to the airport. Thirty minutes on the E Line. Thirty minutes off her feet; no responsibilities, no tasks to be completed, no other place to be. Just leave it to the driver until 3rd and Seneca. Sometimes she would doze off, but she always regretted that; the best use of that time was just to revel in the nothingness of it all.
Best part of her day. Well, until last Tuesday. That was the day Althea learned the devil rides the E Line.
Stared off as just another Tuesday. Althea had finished her motel job and was waiting for the bus on 145th. She was waiting with Lydia, one of the women who plied her trade in the motels Althea cleaned. She liked Lydia, she had daughters the same as the grandkids. And far be it from Althea to judge what someone does to make ends meet: they were both well attuned to the concept of what the market will bear. Still, she was happy when the bus pulled up. There were storm clouds brewing to the north and, although people from Seattle were supposedly inured, Althea did not like rain.
Althea gave the driver a nod as she entered. As was her custom, Lydia made her way to the back, but Althea took her favorite seat in the front. One of the seats that face towards the inside of the bus rather than forward. These seats afforded more legroom and, truth be told, were better suited for people watching.
The bus took off and Althea settled in. She noticed a man get up and make his way to the front; he paused about halfway and, out of nowhere, reared back and slapped an elderly Asian man sitting in about the sixth row. The man’s glasses went flying off and it busted up his nose pretty good. There was blood everywhere. A couple of men stood up and grabbed the assailant, who turned and looked at Althea as he was being taken down. Althea recognized that look immediately. It was satisfaction, pure satisfaction. At that moment Althea knew the devil was on the bus. She looked around but the devil decided not to reveal himself. The driver pulled into the Lowe’s parking lot and waited for the police. And for the first time in ten years, Althea was late for her SeaTac job.
When she got home, she took out her bible. She thought she understood the devil, but she was mistaken. She understood the old devil; the one who dealt in grandiose gestures; the devil who taunted Jesus in Matthew 4:1. This was the new devil; the one of subtle gestures; the one who decayed morality one small step at a time, like dripping water slowly eroding a rock. Both paths led to evil, but the slow road took events that would previously been unthinkable and makes them, well, normal. How do you work your way back from that?
Althea would keep these things and ponder them in her heart. One thing was for sure. The E Line would never be the same again.
