Loneliness of the Litterer
Buzz is bored.
Standing between him and excitement is the life he leads. Buzz doesn't think it is a bad life. He works. He sleeps. He eats vegetarian. He reads novels and nonfiction. He subscribes to literary magazines. He listens to Beethoven, Mahler, Gorecki, DJ Spooky, Portishead, Beck, and Sonic Youth.
What bothers Buzz, superficially, is that he hasn't found the cure for cancer, hasn't climbed Mount Everest, hasn't invented something so useful that it becomes commonplace, a thing no one ever thinks is inventible. He wishes, sometimes, that he had invented the plastic coffee cup lids with the perforated section that flips up allowing the harried commuter a hot and spill-free coffee. Still, that is not why Buzz is really bored.
Buzz is bored because he is alone in life. He won't admit this, but Buzz is lonely. Certainly, he has no trouble meeting women. Like many men, he has not found the right woman to stay with. Unlike many men, he does not wish to replace his mother with a wife. Deep inside, where Buzz is loathe to dwell too long for fear of the truth, Buzz knows he may never find the right woman.
Before falling asleep, or while riding his bicycle along the arboreal paths of the city, Buzz wonders at what type of woman he would like.
While going to work on the bus, on an overcast autumn day with cold rain spitting against the grubby windows, Buzz suddenly looks up from the book he is reading. He runs his hand through his dirty hair, nodding his head in agreement with himself. Buzz is looking for a friend. More than a friend, a sister he can fuck.
Buzz tries to sink back into the book he is reading. He tells himself that he hates reading on the bus. Voices from the other passengers disrupt his concentration. The conversations around him get absurd. He closes the book and stares out the window, listening to two girls talk.
That slut Latrina, one girl told to the other. They were seated across from each other and talked so loudly that Buzz thought everyone on the bus could hear. That slut is going to get her ass kicked.
What'd she do now? the other girl asks, she brushes a wisp of blond hair out of her face.
Over the weekend she went over to Tommy's house. And there was this guy, Shauntel, there, the girl pauses and pulls out a piece of chewing gum. She unwraps it and lets the wrapper fall to the floor of the bus. She shoves the gum in her mouth and chews it loudly.
Buzz wants to say something, to yell at these stupid girls. He hates people who litter. When he was their age the television commercial of Chief Iron Eyes Cody standing beside the road while families threw bags of trash out their car windows at his feet always made Buzz angry. He never litters.
The two girls have never seen the commercial of the Indian crying beside the road. Buzz knows that even if they had, the girls would not care. They are at that age that they do not care about anything except their nails and hair and boys named Shauntel.
I heard she gave Tommy a blowjob while that Shauntel guy fucked her, the girl chewing gum snaps. And when Shauntel told her that he already had a girlfriend, she said so what and gave him a blowjob, too.
Why'd she do that? the other asks.
She's a slut and she's fat, the gum chewer says.
In his seat two rows behind the girls, Buzz laughs. He'd like to meet this girl. But not if she litters. He looks around and is sure some of the older men and women are horrified at the girl's story. Buzz rings for the next stop, leaving the girls to litter and snap their gum like firecrackers.