Wilbo Crosses San Antonio in the Wee Hours as a Major Thunderstorm Crosses the City Too

March 4th, 2020

South San Antonio

The morning bus ride brings me stories. On my way to my first stop, I met a preacher on his way to give a sermon, lead a service. He carried a well-thumbed Bible in his left hand. I admired his fresh pinstriped shirt, looking very natty considering it was Four in the morning. I gave him directions. He thanked me. Who leads services at 4:30 AM in the morning?

I arrived at the bus stop. A man carrying a duffel, full of items, sat down beside me at the stop. He asked me, "Does the bus take credit cards"? I concluded that the man didn't have change. "I don't think so". And then I told him how he could use a credit card to buy a pass online. "Yeah", he said. He probably didn't have a credit card nor a smart phone. People still pay with cash to ride the bus because they don't have a credit card and a smartphone, paying more. I said, "The drivers are usually pretty cool". "Yeah", he replied. He got on and got close to the driver and I noticed he was issued a transfer. "I just want to go wherever this bus is going", I heard him say to the driver.

I had  a wait that was too long to pick up the 42, the bus that follows the path of the missions, the Camino Real, to the south part of San Antonio. I cooled my heels on the deck of Cafe Gwendolyn, a fine restaurant overlooking the San Antonio Riverwalk at Pecan Street. The wrought iron gate had been left ajar. I enjoyed the peace on the garden terrace, the water passing below me so slowly, I couldn't tell which way was downstream.

When I came back to the bus stop, a woman approached me and asked, "Would you like to share a soda? I'm dying from thirst". "Share a soda"? "Yes, I only have a dollar". "No, thank you. The soda will only make you more thirsty. It contains corn syrup. Drink water. It's better for you". "The bus station agent won't let me get a drink of water". She asked the next person who came up to the stop, "Would you like to share a soda? I'm dying from thirst".

My wait of twenty-five minutes ended. The bus, route 42, drove south, south of the high school and south of Mission Concepcion. The mission grounds still house a children's home and a Catholic church. The mission house stands on a green, but doesn't have as many buildings as Mission San Jose further south, a mission with extensive grounds. A special bus, route 40, visits all of the missions along the San Antonio River, a bus intended for tourists.

A woman asked the bus driver. "Is this where I get off to catch the Southcross"? I didn't hear what the driver said to her, but he stopped the bus and she departed. I looked at the street sign. The Southcross goes by the corner of White and Roosevelt. We were a distance north of White, so I worried that the driver gave her bad information. However, I wasn't the driver. I didn't drive the route every day. Maybe the driver knew what I didn't know. I wanted to say something but I kept my silence.

A cloud burst struck as I awaited my next bus. The bus shelter would have protected me had the rain fallen straight down, but the wind blew almost horizontally and I backed away from the front of the shelter. Lightening flashed and thunder crashed, the storm cell passing right over my head.

I remembered how quickly the rain storms arrived in the Sangre de Cristos mountains when I backpacked with a team of boy scouts from Flint, Michigan. I had just turned fourteen, out on an adventure forty years ago. We would hear the thunder and then the storm would pass overhead and drench us, lightning and thunder simultaneous. A drenching amount of rain would fall in minutes and then the storm would move on and the sky would clear. This morning's storm stuck and lifted as fast as those storms of memory at Philmont Scout Ranch.

The rain soaked my pants from the knee on down and dampened my shoe. On the bus, I had only four stops before transferring. I pulled on a flimsy rain poncho. I stepped off the bus. The cloudburst had moved to the east. The streets flowed with water, a wide stream in every gutter. I found no place where the stream abated, so I tried to leap over it. I wound up with a left shoe full of water. I knew my shoes and pants would dry, and I was grateful that my blazer and my shirts felt dry. Just a rainy squall, over and done. I watched as two grocers, running a fruteria on the corner, took pictures of a yard full of freshly delivered watermelons in crates. I silently wished them a sell-out.

The bus, route 515, called the Southcross seems to go a long way, but I'm at the school in less than fifteen minutes. The driver gets a break, and he got out to smoke. I took a small nap as he lit up and puffed, a smoke taking three minutes. Three minutes often is all I need to feel alert during the day. I dreamed briefly of planting a field of watermelons on the green of Mission San Jose, running irrigation lines from the nearby San Antonio river. The watermelons grew fat and sweet and I woke up and the driver boarded and we turned onto the street where the school awaited. I walked into the cafeteria and bought two bananas from the cashier. I longed for a slice of watermelon.

My trousers have dried. My left shoe no longer squishes when I walk.