A selection from Seen & Overheard: A year on the bus in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Published by New Limestone Review in 2018.

26 SEPTEMBER

After several stops, I notice that the man sitting beside me is watching a video of himself taking a shower.

31 OCTOBER

A zombie, with a fake slash on her cheek pierced by safety pins, boards the bus and is greeted by a zombie bus driver.

6 DECEMBER

An elderly woman clips her fingernails, letting the nails fall into her cupped hand, while the young man beside her wipes mustard from his lip, and unwraps his second McDonald’s hamburger.

8 DECEMBER

A drunk woman, wearing a grey sweatshirt, rushes in front of me, swinging her arms, “I was here first. I’m getting on first. I’ve been standing here for a fuckin’ half hour. I’m getting on first. I was here first. I’m cold. I’m fuckin’ cold.”

2 JANUARY
“Ne ho ma. Ho ho,” the man at the front of the bus says. “I’m not being racist. I’m being nice, speaking Mandarin. It means thank you. Or Italian, arrivederci. Or French, bonjour, tabarnack. I like languages, I really do. Or just plain English, hello. I do think speaking English should be a prerequisite to coming to Canada. That I do believe.
“I’m going to be a preacher, take the fleece from the flock. Except God doesn’t talk to me. I guess it’s only paranoids who get to talk to him. Maybe I’m going straight to hell.
“And I do believe in the women’s movement…especially from behind.” He laughs.
“I guess my sense of humour is too much for some people. I used to work at
. So it can’t be that bad. Thank you, thank you very much for listening.”


7 JANUARY
A man hands an ibuprofen tablet to the woman sitting across from him.
She cups it in her hand.
“You gonna take it?” He cracks open his can of ice tea.
“Can I have a sip?”
“You got one,” he says, gesturing towards her can of ice tea.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to open it yet.”

23 FEBRUARY

“I’m twenty-six and I’m, like, just starting to be the oldest one when I go out with my friends, and I’m, like, wow, you’re so young,” says a woman with a blonde ponytail.

“Yeah you’re, like, starting to get bitter and jaded and stuff,” her friend says.

22 MAY

“I seen you around before but I didn’t say nothin’ because I was embarrassed. My wife and son died in a car accident. If they only knew how far down I went. I don’t want to go there again. In the three months since I’ve been going to meetings, all of these small rewards have turned into a big victory. It’s a culmination of doin’ all the right things and bein’ in the right place at the right time. And it’s my age; I’m forty-five, and I want to live. So you going next Sunday?”

“Yes, I go to ceremony every week,” the elder says.

9 SEPTEMBER

A teenage boy wearing wrinkled jeans and a baggy T-shirt takes off his backpack and digs through it until he finds his deodorant. He clings to the pole with one hand and reaches his free hand under his T-shirt to apply the deodorant.

22 SEPTEMBER

“I don’t wanna see mountains, I wanna see skyscrapers. I hate small towns. They’re disgusting!” says a woman with long grey hair. “I want to know New York City as well as I know this place. But I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”