I Know Some Good Folks and Some of Them Are Just Like You

I Know Some Good Folks and Some of Them Are Just Like You
by Brittany Balyeat
I don’t like riding the bus at night. The blue-tinted lights left on for the whole ride.
These lights make the entire ride feel like a movie.
A bad movie.
A bad movie where everything is fine until some shifty character with a semi-automatic shoots up the place. And the last thing you remember are everyone’s blue-tinted faces looking at you like they know it was you. They know you were the one who just left the john up the street with out giving him what he paid for. But what were you suppose to do? You needed a fix and he smelled like your father.
How convenient that he paid you a line up front and the bus just happened to be running on time for once. So while he was struggling with his pants, you took the opportunity to run. The bus stopped just as you got to it. The john was no where to be seen, most likely still trying to figure out what just happened to him.
But you were wrong.
There he was, standing next to the bus.
How did he keep up?
None of that matters now.
His 9mm is passing over everyone. The Arab mother and daughter sitting at the front, the man you call “Sal” for reasons you can’t remember, the teenagers in the back returning from a trip to the mall. None of them are as awful as you, but you let him shoot the mother and the teenagers, not a tear in his eye or yours. He turns to Sal and pulls the trigger. No remorse. The little girl is pressed up against the window, staring at the man who shot her mother seconds ago. And you hear one last pop and her limp body falls to the floor.
Your heart is racing but you are uncertain if it’s the adrenaline or the drugs. Then he looks at you, right in the eyes and walks away. And you sit for a minute, wondering why he left you alive. Then you realize you don’t care. The mother and daughter, Sal, and the teenagers you let them die. You killed them so they could never turn into you.
You saved them from themselves.
You are the modern day Jesus.