Bus

Buses are TRAUMATIC. Think about it… Forty young people in a steel-cased rectangular prism, minimal seatbelt wearing, hurtling down a bitumen road at 100km/h.

On our way to a swimming competition in high school, the bus we were travelling in hit a dog. It was terrifying and saddening and wouldn't wish that upon anyone. Later in that trip, we almost got stuck under the Montague Street Bridge. And just a couple of hours after this I struggled to complete a 100m butterfly. I can remember two of my friends swimming the 100m breaststroke and backstroke, and after they finished, they lay on the pool deck claiming that it wasn't worth it, to give in, to save myself. This memory has nothing to do with the bus, but there's probably a connection somewhere — swimming bus trauma.

Whilst travelling to a volleyball tournament in 2003 on a minibus, I really needed to go to the toilet. I had been drinking 4 litres of water a day in the lead up as challenge with a friend. Why we thought internally drowning ourselves would be beneficial, I have no idea. I can remember getting 15 minutes into the trip and knowing I couldn't make the 2-hour journey. But with some great pep talks from my friends Emma and Jenni and some fascinating contortion and pressure load-bearing, I made it. Upon our arrival at our accommodation on Orrong Road, I hobbled out of the bus and onto the pavement. I somehow traipsed inside and painfully emptied my bladder. It was a relief, but it didn't feel like it — bladder bus trauma.

In my teenage years, some friends and I would travel to Melbourne on the V-line bus during school holidays. We'd wake early, get on at our respective stops (Inverloch, Cape Paterson, Wonthaggi, Anderson, Bass or Grantville), spend the day in Melbourne and return home late at night. There was always one or two unsavoury characters on these trips. During one of the return trips, I woke to feel someone playing with my hair. I sank into my chair so hair-fondler could no longer reach me — hair bus trauma.

School buses have hierarchies. Your seat position is determined by year level, and your popularity or amount of social weight one possesses. The younger you are, the closer you sit to the front. The older you are, the closer you sit to the back. However, there are some slight anomalies here. If you happen to be a Year 10 who is more popular or holds more social weight, you will outrank a Year 11 who is less popular or has less social rank.

Figuring out where one sits can be shown in the following simple equation:

The higher the number, the closer to the back of the bus you sit. There are many anomalies, like a Grade 6 can't sit further back than a Year 8, or a popular Year 9 can't bunny-hop over any Year 12.

However, this can get a little tricky as how we determine popularity and social weight is exceptionally problematic. In bus hierarchy's case, popularity and social weight is determined by the oldest and the most popular or one who holds most social weight.

We could talk about perceived popularity/social weight and actual popularity/social weight in more detail, but it would throw out my simple equation, and I can't be bothered figuring out how to type equations and make them look good.

In Years 7 to 9, I used to have to take a shuttle bus from the senior campus to the junior campus in the morning and vice versa in the afternoon. This was always nerve-wracking. The Cape Paterson students would have to hop on an Inverloch bus and find a seat for a quick 5-minute journey across town. I was lucky in that my friends Ellen and Rory were on this bus and I would usually sit in front of them. There would mostly always be seats free nearby, so I didn't have to worry too much about straying from the pack. However, on the odd occasion that there wasn't a seat free, I would have to fend for myself and sit wherever possible.

I vividly remember one scorching summer afternoon at the start of Year 7. I was somehow not as organised as I usually was and arrived late to find minimal spare spaces. Being me, I was also sweating profusely. There was one seat available next to someone who I had grown up with and was also a year older than me. Now, their actual popularity/social weight was high and sitting next to them was like a privilege. I'm pretty sure they were dating one of my sister's friends at the time, so not only were they high on the actual popularity/social weight scale, they had a girlfriend who was two years older. I mean, come on. They also happened to be (and still are) a genuinely lovely person. I think they could sense the panic in my eyes as I stepped into the aisle and saw that my familiar spot was not available. They raised their eyebrows as to say "Come and sit here. You're safe", and I can't express how at ease they made me feel.

Bus trauma. It's real

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In Year 9, I became slightly more comfortable on the shuttle bus. I was no longer a shy, awkward, sweaty Year 7. I was now a somewhat cautious, self-conscious, still sweaty Year 9. However, I believe I held some social weight. Not popularity, just social weight.

We had a super tight friendship group at our junior campus. We'd spend playtime (recess) and lunchtime lounging in 'The Meadow', laughing at anything and everything, and attempting to ignore the dramas that seemed to surround many teenagers in the early 2000s.

I tried to ignore those people on the bus who didn't add anything to my daily life, yet still trying to impress them for social clout.

One afternoon we looked outside the bus window to see one of our female friends hugging another girl. I could hear snickers starting from those behind me. The hug receded, and the girls began to kiss.

Immediately there were scoffs and howls and terrible noises pouring torrentially from the mouths of teenage boys whose prefrontal cortexes would not be anywhere near developed for at least the next ten years. Some girls were laughing and pointing and saying awful things about someone for whom I cared so much.

Because it was not a replica of the pornography that they had seen, nor was it an outrageous teenage heterosexual 'pash' that many of them had partaken in, it was other and abject and grotesque.

And then I heard something directed towards me from one of these infantile and unempathetic toads. He was a nuisance. The type of boy who would bark at girls. A complete and utter misogynist.

"Oi Will, is she a lesbian?"

I'm not sure what came over me.

"And what if she is? What has it got to do with you?"

If his question was posed with force and accusation, my reply was doubly forceful and accusatory.

I'm not sure if what happened next is other people's reality, but it was my reality. I felt my whole body turn red, my breathing became shallow, and a silence fell over those surrounding me. For the five-minute journey across town, no one spoke. My world seemed like a scary place to be living for the pure reason that I said what I thought was right — gay bus trauma.

I was dealing so heavily with my own internalised homophobia that standing up for someone else was my way of telling myself that I could be better and that I would be ok one day.

To many out there, this may not seem like a big deal. However, coming from the mouth of a closeted, acned, geeky 14-year-old, this was a big deal.

The next day a friend who wasn't on the bus approached me and told me this:

"I heard what you did, and I'm so proud of you."

I think I've tried to take what I learnt on this day and have attempted to stand up for what is right since. I haven't always because of a lack of perceived physical and psychological safety, but I feel like most of the time I listen to that internal moral compass that helps guide us.

I don't catch buses anymore, but when I'm on the tram or train, I always stand as to mostly avoid trauma.