The Boy on the Bus

In 1993, I was a counsellor at a Girl Scout Camp. We had just gone rafting on the Kern River with girls from my 4th-6th grade rafting/climbing/hiking group. On the shuttle bus back, a group of men with one boy who looked maybe 13 got on after the girls and I were already in our seats, and they sat in the seats right behind us.

Immediately, the men started teasing the boy. “Oooh, lucky you, you’re on a bus full of girls.” Elbow nudge. Chuckle. We Girl Scouts got comments all the time for being (gasp) a group full of girls doing actual outdoorsy things, so we were used to the occasional comments and we ignored them. The boy seemed to be at that age when any mention of being attracted to members of the opposite sex is mortifying. Plus the boy probably saw — better than the men did — that girls in my group were probably 2–4 years younger. Thirteen year-old boys probably generally don’t feel much attraction for girls who might hang out with their younger sisters.

The men kept talking, and general talk about being on a bus full of girls turned into asking the boy, “What kind do you like?” Then that turned into talking — openly and loudly — about physical attributes of specific girls in my group. “That girl has long legs. Are you a legs guy?” “That girl has blond hair. Do you go for blonds?” The boy looked like he wanted to sink into the bus seat.

When I was 21, I probably still looked like a teen. But I had just finished my junior year at Berkeley and I had learned some things about dealing with creeps. I turned around, and I said loudly enough for the whole bus to hear, “The girls in this group are between nine and eleven years old. It is really not appropriate AT ALL for you to be making comments about their physical appearance.” The men goggled at me for a minute. Then, once I’d turned around they started talking loudly about their experiences with various drugs, because they were classy that way.

At the time I just ignored the men and got the girls talking about something else or singing a song or something. I’d figured we maybe had about 15–20 minutes left on the bus and figured it would be best to ride it out. I mean, what were the guides supposed to do? Leave the men on the side of the road? Leave us on the side of the road and come back for us? Say something to the men and risk not getting a tip?

I remember talking with the girls around the campfire that night. When they said that the men made them feel awkward, I’d said that sometimes you just need to ignore people. Now, I wish I’d told the bus driver these men were harassing us and that they needed to do something. But maybe I should forgive myself. It was 1993.

I remember feeling sorry for the boy. He seemed to be an OK kid, but what were these assholes with beer guts teaching him about girls, and about himself?

I wonder where that boy is now. I guess he would be about 40 now. I wonder what he became. Now, I watch these men with beer guts bring their guns to “counterprotest” BLM rallies, or to refuse to wear masks and who even mock people who wear them or who become confrontational when anyone says anything about it. I wonder where they came from, how they were raised, and what brought them to a point where their masculinity is so fragile that they perceive wearing a mask to be a threat. I wonder how they can not just back Trump, but celebrate his “grab them by the pussy” statements and his attacks of Clinton and now Harris. I wonder what brought them to this point and where it started.

What happened to the boy on the bus? Is he with them? Or did he find other people to follow besides the men he was with that day?

Image credit: Jeff Kowalsky/ AFP via Getty Images, posted by Business Insider “The Hypocrisy of the Anti-lockdown Protests”