“Wait!” Eng Cheong called out as he dashed to the bus stop and up the steps into the bus. Thank God he had not missed the last bus, he thought to himself with a sigh of relief.
An old conductor stood akimbo beside him to balance himself as the ancient bus swayed and bounced. Eng Cheong handed him a five dollar bill and the old man gave him back four dollars eighty cents and a twenty-cents ticket.
He stared at the ticket for a moment. Twenty-cents. Do buses still charge that kind of rate or was he in the wrong bus? He looked about and noticed for the first time that though the interior was clean, the seats were thinly cushioned and covered with stiff vinyl. And instead of dangling hand grips for the benefit of standing passengers, there was only a single metal rail crossing the length of the bus.
Eng Cheong turned to the friendly old lady beside him and asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, where is this bus going?”
“It is going home. But it does stop to pick up people and let off those who couldn’t pay the full rate.”
“Will it pass Chinatown?”
“Is it going where you are heading?”
Eng Cheong looked out the window and saw the approaching red glow of the signature Chinese archway. “Yes, it seems to be.”
“Then you only need to ring that bell to stop it,” she said and pointed to a red button embedded into the carriage wall just above his head. Then she said, “But you can go farther if you want.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need twenty cents to ride the bus to its final stop. Else you will have to walk or wait for someone to give you some so you could catch the next bus.”
Eng Leong saw his stop loomed into view and he stood up and pressed the bell. As the bus slowed to a stop, he thanked the old woman and stepped out. He was surprised to see his neighbor Mr Wang waiting at the stop and smiling from ear to ear. After nodding and smiling to the old man he turned to go but stopped when he heard the conductor ask, “Do you have money?”
That was rude, Eng Cheong thought to himself and turned back to confront the conductor just in time to see a forlorn Mr Wong who was left standing on the sidewalk and the moving bus disappearing like a smoky fog.
He stared and stared and then he turned his head about. Where had they gone? Where is Mr Wang? A laughing couple passed him and the man asked, “What up, brother? Seen a ghost?”
Eng Cheong came to himself and bolted all the way to his grandparents’ bread shop then thundered up the side stairway, fished for his keys and hammered his fist on the apartment door.
His mother Mei opened it and said, “Cheong! Have you forgotten your keys?” Then she looked down and saw him clutching the keychain in his hand which was trembling so hard it made the bunch of keys tinkle. Immediately her annoyance turned to concern and she dragged him into the house and latched the door.
“What happened? Did someone try to rob you?”
“I…I saw Mr Wang.”
“That’s impossible. He fell down the staircase this afternoon, and has not woken up since.”
The front door lock clicked open and the knob jiggled. His mother unlatched it and let his grandparents in.
“Ah yo,” his granddad said, “Why did you latch the door? You know that we were coming back tonight.”
“Cheong was scared. He said that he saw Mr Wang.” Mei went into the living room, lowered the volume of the noisy TV and collected her unfinished basket and tools from the floor, unmindful of her parents’ stare. “I think it is wonderful that he is awake again.”
Grandma said, “Mei, our neighbor died twenty minutes ago. We were just at their shop apartment. Your father was asked to call the wailers for the mourning ceremony.”
Eng Cheong walked into the living room with his shoes on, and sat down on the floor. Granddad latched the front door and settled in an armchair by his side. He asked, “Did he say anything to you?”
“No,” Eng Cheong sobbed as he stared at the moving images on the muted TV screen. “He didn’t say anything. He wanted to get on the bus but the conductor won’t let him because he had no money. He didn’t have twenty cents.”
“Twenty cents?” granddad asked.
“Yes, that was how much it cost me to get home.”
Suddenly his mother was beside him. “You were on that bus? You were in it?” she screamed. “I told you not to work in that video store. I told you not to. Why can’t you just help us here in the bakery? It is safe here.”
Eng Cheong dug into his pocket and pulled out the ticket and change he received in the bus. On seeing the crumpled yellow hell money, he dropped them at his granddad’s feet as though they burned.
His granddad went to the kitchen and came back out with an empty oil can. He picked up the hell money and made Eng Cheong return to the bus stop with him. There they burned the money in the can and said a few prayers. Eng Cheong began to relax as he recalled the face of the friendly old woman and the excited Mr Wang. He felt a well of happiness bubble inside him, the kind he got when someone hugged him out of love. The fire faded and a wind blew the ashes away. As they turned to go, Eng Cheong caught the scent of diesel fuel wafting out of the empty street.
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