At 3:15 pm, when Route 359 crashed through the Aurora Bridge guardrail, I was driving a trolley bus—No. 13 over Queen Anne Hill. The coordinator asked all drivers to pick up their handsets for a message. It was a fairly typical message: accident on the Aurora Bridge; reroutes for any bus crossing it; 16 go this way, 5 go that way, so on and so on. I pictured my fianc饬 Ruth, and my 9-year-old daughter, Angel, at home playing with the dogs on the living-room floor: smiles, laughs, a lot of rolling around. Then I thought about what a pain in the neck the Aurora closure was—Ruth and Angel were planning to pick me up after work to go out for pizza. Since we live in Ballard and the bridge would have been the most direct path to my base, I would have to call them so we could work out an alternate route.
It was 3:30 when my brother called Ruth and asked grimly, "Where's John?"
"At work, why?"
"What route does he drive?" My route changes every day, so my brother couldn't know which one I was working.
"13, why? What's up?" Now Ruth was alarmed. "What's up?" she asked again.
"It's not John," Steve said, relieved. He knew the bus routes. "Turn on the TV—Channel 5."
Ruth did, and saw the aerial view of the cracked bus and the broken bodies. Angel, her eyes wide and anxious, turned and heard her say, "It's not your father. He drives a trolley—there are no wires over the Aurora Bridge. . . ."
Every driver's family—more than 2,000 in all—went through their own version of this story, culminating in: "What if?" As did countless families and friends who wondered whether someone they knew was on that bus. I had friends and relatives calling from all over the country—not only to determine whether I was driving the bus, but to find a way to come to terms with a tragedy that struck emotional chords throughout the Northwest and beyond.
At 4pm, while I was on break, I called Ruth to tell her what alternate route to take. I had only heard enough to know the Aurora Bridge was out. My coordinator had confirmed the bus reroutes with a second announcement and had noted that there were multiple injuries on 359, but had said nothing about the driver, the shootings, the deaths.
"You've heard, haven't you?" Ruth asked.
"Yeah—you're going to have to take a different route to pick me. . . ."
"John, I've got the TV on right now." I had phoned her only a half-mile from the scene of the crash, and now began noticing the distant fluttering of news choppers. "A Metro bus just drove off the Aurora Bridge—they think the driver is dead."
After a few seconds of silence, I asked, "How many people were on it?"
"They don't know."
Well, I didn't have much time left on my break, so I told Ruth the best way to come pick me up, then finished my route. As passengers boarded the bus, they filled in the details the coordinator had spared me. With each new passenger came one more gruesome bit of information: The driver did die . . . more than 30 people on the bus . . . they don't know how many are dead . . . two have died so far . . . they think a passenger shot the driver in the arm. . . .
Plenty of drivers resented the coordinator's omissions, because it made them feel isolated. But I thought it prudent of him to have handled it the way he did. Something this bizarre is incomprehensible, and something this incomprehensible tends to inspire an explosive response.
As it was, I could barely manage to take in what Ruth told me. I found myself turning trite and detached when I discussed it with passengers in the ensuing minutes. I spoke of it as if it had happened in Moscow. Some passenger would be rattling off gory details, and my mind would wander strangely. I couldn't feel the steering wheel in my hands or the seat beneath me. I would turn corners without judging distances. And though my passengers kept talking, I eventually stopped hearing them.
The fact is, I couldn't begin to comprehend what had happened because it made absolutely no sense. I was numb—and I believe the entire city was numb.
AS FAR AS THE GUARDRAILS on the Aurora Bridge go, I am convinced the engineers never believed it possible that a driver of any vehicle could be shot point-blank while traveling 40 miles per hour, and that the vehicle would turn at such an efficient radius—maintaining speed and not braking—that it would actually have the necessary angle to crash through it. I am further convinced that they never envisioned a man pointlessly murdering the driver of a moving 60-foot bus, then committing suicide, thus creating a spectacle equal and opposite to what we like to call a miracle.
The number of improbabilities that surround this event make you wonder why the chief shop steward at Atlantic Base would say, "It was bound to happen."
