The 39

"Hey! Can you let us off here?" the lady yells at the bus driver from just behind her man's shoulder. She rattles the back doors a little, in vain; the green light above them hasn't turned on. "Hey!" she yells again, a little louder, a little higher pitched. Her man is still standing in the aisle, looking at the door or at her.

"Bus stop is across the street," the bus driver says. She barely sounds like she's answering a question, more like she's making a general announcement.

"So you ain't gonna let us off here?" yells the lady.
"No," the bus driver says flatly.
"What!?" the lady yells, "you would. You would do that."
"Yes, I would, bus stop is across the street."

There is silence for a few seconds until a baby near the front begins to cry. Finally, the bus makes it across the street. The stop is announced through the intercom by the mechanical lady who lives in the wires, "Thirty Ninth. And. Summit," a little fragmented as the machine plugs in its crossroads. As the bus slows and finally stands still, the lady begins to pace toward the back door of the bus, licking her lips, clearly still livid.

Finally she looks back up towards the front and hollers over a group of people, "I hope you sleep real bad tonight!"
The bus driver finally looks back and chuckles a little, replying "oh honey, I never do".
Her man just looks at her and says "let's go".

The rest of the bus' passengers lean back in their seats, the baby still cries, but everyone else has stopped looking either concerned or bemused and most resume the calm faces they try to put on when going one place or another.

A few stops later, a young, scruffy looking dude pulls the cord to be let off at the next stop, "39th. And. Roanoke."

As he gets off and steps out into the cold, he yells too, "thank you!" and in a trailing echo she might not have heard "I hope you sleep well tonight."