It doesn't seem like such a long time ago - and I guess, in fact, it isn't - that I was a prisoner of the Fairfax Country Public School bus system. I say prisoner because that's what I felt like at the time. Indeed, it's difficult to describe just how much I loathed getting up at 5:30 am, so that I could board a bus filled with other sleep-deprived, and exceedingly grouchy , high school students. For over an hour each morning, the bus would weave and jostle its way through the local neighborhoods, causing me to spill my cup of 7-11 coffee all over myself and my seat mates. Then, like the old timer it was, the bus would crawl past the gates of West Potomac High, a grand total of two miles from my home. At this point, the cantankerous captives would be released, with the exception of a select few of us who were destined for yet another hour of commuter hell. We would be obliged to board a second yellow monstrosity - somehow, it was always older, louder, and dirtier than the first - that would carry us, by creeks and lurches, over several miles of congested highway to the mecca that was Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Though I was always told how lucky I was to attend such a fine institution, the morning bus ride was enough to make me curse this supposed blessing. In this respect, I was not alone. Indeed, most of the conversations among my fellow passengers/prisoners consisted of loud gripes about the commute, punctuated by fervent and, in my own case, futile pining for a car.
You see, I was one of the poor schmucks who remained bus-bound throughout my entire high school career. In this regard, I was truly one of the select few. Indeed, I can think of only two other students who shared my plight. Of course, since I was not well known among my classmates, the fact that I was a senior riding the bus did not draw much attention, negative or otherwise. But that did not make it any less of a stigma, from my own viewpoint. Only on rare occasions was I able to snag rides from friends with gracious souls or with pressing needs for money.
Frequently, by my senior year, the friends with whom I sought, but rarely got, rides were in the class below me. One of them was my pal Johnny Boy. His full name was John Corcoran, but I always called him Johnny Boy, after the character in the movie Mean Streets played by Robert De Niro. It's funny that I should have come up with this name since my friend, despite being Irish- Italian, looked nada like De Niro, If anything, he was more of a cross between Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza on Seinfeld, and Jerry Mathers of Leave It To Beaver fame. Like “the Beave,” Johnny Boy was short and had a baby face. At age sixteen, he stood only five feet four inches tall and looked about twelve. His demeanor was equally youthful and endearing. Whereas most teenage guys swung between moods of indifference and insolence, particularly with girls their own age who didn't interest them, Johnny Boy was disarmingly friendly with everyone. Often, he'd interrupt conversations between students on the bus that he didn't even know. That was how we first became acquainted.
