Sweet Access Calgary

Sept 27, 2010

Zoe and I took the Access Calgary bus to the Deerfoot Mall on Saturday. I am not driving and for the price of a bus ticket, I can book to accompany her on public transportation. The contract for the transportation is held by Associated Cabs and the drivers know all of the clients after a while.

There were 10 of us on the bus. I was the only one who the driver came back to check on as to whether she had her seat belt done up. Before he pulled out onto the road, the driver checked his rear view mirror and his accented voice was yelling instructions at someone but I didn’t know who? It was when he finally called, “It is the one sitting by Zoe that I am talking to” that I figured out it was me who was to put down her arm rest.

For a fleeting moment I wondered why he didn't have the rider on the other side of the row, a couple of seats ahead of me, pull down his arm rest as well, but then, what did it matter.

“We are about to take flight,” he continued, “and you might fly off the side of the seat.

His concerns were warranted. The bus jolts and lumbers, forward and backward, to the left and the right – at the very least it is due for a new set of shock absorbers. Zoe is oblivious to the conversations going on in the bus ... who is having a birthday party the next day, why isn’t the driver being invited, questions to each other as to whether they have remembered their bowling cards or not. Annette tried to get into a conversation with Zoe, as she does every week. Zoe stares straight ahead, as she does every week.

Zoe demonstrates an initial spark of life when she gets into the bowling alley and sees the canteen where she can order fries and chicken strips. But even the food loses its charm when the leaders announce that the athletes can take their places in the bowling lanes. Then her face glows with happiness.

“Five strikes and three spares,” she told me when the games were over.

Wyona and I had talked about the odds of putting her on the bus, alone and having her return home. I thought the chances would be quite low and Wyona concurred. There is just that moment when standing waiting for the bus home that Zoe goes through a door from which I think she will quickly return. And when she doesn’t I know it is time to look for the closest vending machines, which she seems to have previously spotted but whose positions I have been oblivious to.

Waiting for the ride back is really fun. Two Access Calgary buses pull up, but when we go to each of their open doors, the drivers fumble through their papers and then call out to us, “Zoe, you aren’t on my list.”

A yellow wheel-chair accessible taxi drives up and the driver gets out and says, “I am your driver today, Zoe.”

Amazing how all of that is organized and I am the only one who doesn’t know what is going on.

Arta