Who drives the bus?

There was once a city bus that managed to get most people to their destinations. Although far from perfect, the bus tried to welcome everyone who needed a ride. But there was one group of people they actively discouraged: the rowdy bar hoppers who came to the bus station pushing and shouting, demanding that the bus driver take them where they wanted to go. Between the driver and the other passengers, the drunks were usually pushed off.

But then the drunks started offering drinks to the passengers who were waiting impatiently for the bus to come. Before long, half of the people at the station were drunk. The drunks did not like the sober people; they felt judged and belittled, and thought the sober people were just too stuck up to take a drink. So the sober people and the drunk people started sitting apart. Then they started fighting.

One of the drunks, a particularly loud and obnoxious man, was a favorite among the drunks because he had a party spirit: he was fun, eager to fight, never sober and happy to embrace anyone who was as drunk as he was. When this man decided he wanted to drive the bus, promising to take the drinkers where they wanted to go, the sober people were appalled; they could not imagine giving the bus keys to a drunk driver.

Afraid for their lives, and the lives of others, they pointed out that driving drunk was both illegal and reckless. But the drunks, who were no longer thinking clearly, believed that the sober passengers were only whining because they didn’t want the bus to go to bars. So they shoved the bus driver off and let their new friend drive.

The sober people condemned the drinkers who had allowed a drunk to drive, but this only made the drunks madder, and they began to push anyone who didn’t want to party off the bus. The drunks cheered as the bus picked up speed, thrilled to be going where they wanted to go (although they were no longer sure where that was), and too drunk to worry about the risk of crashing. The wealthy car drivers trusted that they could stay out of the way, but the other citizens – the pedestrians and bicyclists – were afraid of the erratic speeding bus; many of them had already been hurt, some killed. They begged the sober passengers to stop the bus. But it was too late to stop the party… except by accident.

– Tim Thomas, Durango