My name's Frank. I drive the number 47 bus through downtown Portland, which is like saying I herd schizophrenic cats through a meth lab while the building burns down.

I've been doing this for eight years. Eight years of piss-stained seats, crack smoke, and people who think "public transit" means "mobile therapy couch." My liver's given up, my back's given up, but my mortgage hasn't, so here I am.

The bus smells like a unique cocktail of despair—part diesel fumes, part unwashed ass, part that weird plastic stench of someone smoking fentanyl in the back row. The floor is sticky with a substance I pray is just spilled Monster Energy.

The dispatcher's voice crackles through the radio like a demon with a sinus infection: "Frank, you got a 10-56 at Pioneer Square, possible code brown." Code brown means someone shit themselves. Again.

Morning shift starts at 5 AM. The early crowd is the saddest—nurses finishing night shifts, their eyes dead; construction workers OUT of work and already drinking; and Carl, a regular. Carl sits in the front row and tells me about his hemorrhoids. I know more about Carl's asshole than I know about my own children's birthdays.

Then there's the meth heads. There's a woman—let's call her Crystal. She thinks my bus is a fucking time machine. Every fucking day she yells: "Driver, take me to 1987! I left my baby there!" Lady, I can barely get you to Gresham on schedule. If I could travel back in time I would go back far enough to when it was normal to live in a fucking cave.

The junkies are the worst. Not because they're dangerous—most of them are too busy nodding off to be threatening—but because they die. Quietly. Slumped over in the back seat, just... gone. I've found three bodies in eight years. The first one fucked me up. I called 911, cried, took a week off.

The last one? I just checked his pulse, sighed, and kept driving. Dispatcher said keep to schedule, the coroner'll meet me at the terminal. I got a $50 gift card for my "composure." Bought whiskey. Seemed fitting.

But the homeless guys? They're a different breed. They're not trying to escape reality; they're trying to punch it in the dick. Take Jerry. Jerry's a regular. Rides my bus like it's his personal limo, which I guess it is. He's got three teeth, hasn’t showered since God knows when, and has a way with words that puts poets to shame. He’s a real charmer.

He never pays. I don't make him. Some battles you just can’t win.

"HURRY UP AND GET ME TO THE FUCKING LIQUOR STORE YOU CUNT!!" He yelled, slightly more agitated than usual.

“That bitch Stacey stole my fucking tent!! If you see her crossing the street, you fucking hit her. You understand me, Frank? You fucking run her over!”

Now, I've been called a lot of things. Asshole. Dickhead. Motherfucker. But "cunt" from Jerry? It's his way of saying "I acknowledge your existence." I don't take it personally. I used to. Now it's just ambient noise, like the screech of the brakes or bums asking other passengers for change.

"Jerry, sit the fuck down before I brake-check you into next week."

He doesn't sit. He leans closer. "I need my medicine, Frank. The good stuff. Not that Listerine shit they sell at the shelter."

"Your medicine is gonna kill you."

"Everything's gonna kill me. At least this way I get to choose." He tapped the plexiglass divider with a finger that might have been broken at some point and never healed right. "Come on. Take the express route."

There is no express route. This is a bus. It stops at every goddamn corner because if it doesn't, some Karen calls TriMet and I get written up. But Jerry's desperate. I can see it in his eyes, which are the color of a swimming pool after a dog shits in it. He's not just drunk. He's detoxing. Shaking. Sweating. He’s sitting on a time bomb that’s going to blow up in his asshole if he doesn’t drink soon.

I should kick him off. Policy says I should. But policy also says I should've kicked off the guy who was jerking off to anime on his phone last week, and I just turned up the radio and let him finish. I'm not a hero. I'm a facilitator. I facilitate people getting from point A to point B while slowly losing their minds.

"Fine. But you sit in the back and you don't talk to anyone."

Jerry's face splits into a grin that shows off his three remaining teeth. "You're a prince, Frank. A fucking prince."

He stumbles to the back, and I pull away from the curb, already regretting this. The liquor store is three stops away. I can make it in five minutes if I hit the lights right. I start running reds. Fuck it. What's one more write-up? My file's thicker than the Bible and about as depressing.

At the next stop, a guy gets on who looks like he was carved out of a block of pure asshole. Polo shirt, khakis, Bluetooth earpiece. The kind of guy who says "synergy" unironically. He scans his pass, looks at Jerry in the back, and sighs loud enough for the whole bus to hear. "Great. Another fucking junkie."

I can feel the fight coming like a storm front. Jerry's on his feet. "The fuck you say?"

"I said you're a junkie. A waste of oxygen. Why don't you get a job?"

Jerry's hands are fists. "I had a job, you fucking yuppie cocksucker! I built houses! I had a *life* before the fucking pills and the fucking booze, and the fucking—"

"Excuses," he says, scrolling through his phone. "Personal responsibility. Look it up."

I should intervene. I should say something. But I'm driving, and besides, I'm curious. Jerry's never talked about his past. He's always been just... Jerry. The crazy homeless guy.

Jerry lunges. It's embarrassing. It's not cinematic. It's a desperate, flailing thing, like a drowning man grabbing for a life raft. The yuppie cocksucker attempts to sidestep, tripping over himself. Jerry lands a lucky, ungraceful strike, then falls face-first into empty seat in front of him. The bus erupts. People are filming. Of course they're filming. Everything's content now.

I pull over. Hit the hazards. Stand up. "Everybody off."

They stare at me. "This is my stop," says a woman with a stroller.

"Your stop is now the sidewalk. Get off."

They file out, grumbling, phones still recording. The yuppie is smug. "You're kicking him off, right?"

"No. I'm kicking *you* off."

The smugness flickers. "What? He attacked me!"

"He's sick. You're an asshole. Assholes don't get to ride my bus."

"You can't do that! I'll report you!"

"Report me. My name's Frank, employee number 44782. Tell them I said you can eat my ass, but only if you promise to kiss it first."

He gets off. They all get off. It's just me and Jerry, alone in the bus. Jerry looks ahead expectantly. Waiting. CRAVING his fix.

I don't say anything. I just drive. The liquor store's coming up. I could stop. I will stop. I’ve had enough shit already and the day’s still young.

I arrive at the liquor store, post haste. Other drivers are honking as they pass by, giving me the finger.

Jerry stares at me; with glossed over eyes. “You see Stacey? You hit that fucking cunt. No exceptions Frank. You tell them it was an accident. I’ll cover for you. It’s my word against hers, and she’ll be dead. Then I’ll get my fucking tent back.”

I roll my eyes, already too drained of the emotional capacity to respond.

He walked off the bus, marching to his second home; with purpose. The bus is empty. I drive the rest of the route in silence. No one else gets on. It's just me and the hum of the engine and the ghost of every bad decision I've ever made.

At the terminal, my supervisor's waiting. Write-up in hand. "Frank, you're a goddamn liability."

"Yep."

"You can't just go off route because you feel sorry for some drunk."

"Yep."

"You're suspended. Three days. No pay."

"Okay."

He stares at me. "That's it? No argument?"

"What's the point?"

He shakes his head. "Get the fuck out of here."

I go home to my shitty apartment. Microwave some ramen. Open a beer. Check my phone. There's a new post on r/Portland. Title: "Bus driver goes off route to help local drunk! Take away his job!"

The comments are mixed. Some call me a hero. Some call me an enabler. One guy says I'm just trying to get my dick sucked by stinky homeless drunk. That one gets the most upvotes.

I turn off my phone. Drink my beer. Think about Jerry and his tent problem. Will he ever get it back? Probably not. We're not the kind of people who get even. We're the kind of people who get by.

The next morning, I'm back on route. Three-day suspension turned into one day because they needed drivers. We're always short. Nobody wants this job. Nobody wants to be the guy who drives the mobile asylum.

Jerry's at the shelter stop. He doesn't get on. Just waves. A new liquor store opened close by. I feel bad for them. They have no idea what they’re in for. I wave back.

I drive. The city rolls by, a beautiful disaster. The bus fills up. The crazy comes in waves. A guy wearing a dinosaur mask. A woman screaming about Jesus. An old man hitting the side of a chair with his cane like it’s his dick.

This is my life. This is my route. I keep the wheels turning, try not to kill anyone (Fuck you Jerry, I’m not running over the bitch that stole your tent).

The vlogger in the back is talking to his camera. "So I'm on this bus, and it's like, so authentic. Real Portland. Real struggle."

The radio crackles. "Frank, you copy?"

"I copy."

"We got a 10-56 at 82nd. Possible OD."

"Fuck."