The Busride They'll Never Forget.

“Happy birthday Sam,” she said with a radiant smile. She brought out the cake, thirteen candles burning brightly on top of Donatello’s head. She remembered my favorite turtle.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Sam, happy birthday to you.”

I’ve never been a fan of the birthday song but when she sang it for me I swear it was the best song I’ve ever heard.

“Make a wish!”

I wished for her to be with me forever. And for my taste to come back.

Freddie Feldmen was a big kid. Not Double Cheese pounder big but more like the single cheese single patty size. Regardless, he still outweighed the whole school by a good twenty pounds, easily. He had this hunger. This mad hunger that I’ve never seen from any one till this day. Ketchup, mustards and peanut butter sandwiches. Two a day for as long as I knew him.

“What did you wish for?” she said.
“Well.. I can’t tell you now can I? It’d break the wish.”
“Fine… why are you acting so distant Sam?
“You didn’t hear what happened?”

We grew to know Freddie for this sandwich. Anyone that knew Freddie knew him for that disgusting sandwich. Every day at lunch he would sit down, at his own table, open up his brown paper sack and bring out the most foul smelling, more rotten than freshly squashed road kill, worse than a thousand dead bodies, this was the most vile, putrid, death-infused smell I’ve ever smelt. And that was just the start. After that cyanide burned it’s way into his digestion, his body did the only thing it could do. We knew when it was coming too. He’d slightly tilt to his left, just enough for the toxic gas to silently evaporate into those few unfortunate kids sitting across from him who didn’t know who Freddie was just yet.

It was a Tuesday. I had brought myself a turkey club with fat free mayo, harvest cheddar sun chips and I purchased a low fat milk from the cafeteria. It was the first day of school and wasn’t informed as of yet who Freddie was.

First to go was my nostrils. The sewer swamp smell flared my nose into two giant elephant years. Then the sting. My eyes shot back into my head like recoil from a shotgun to escape smell. And then, the taste. Salty, like the sea, except more fish piss and decaying whales. And like Freddie’s natural bowel movements, I could only give in to my bodies demand to heave up my fully finished lunch. The vomit had my turkey laced in the red speckles of harvest cheddar, all floating in this hot mess of my low fat milk.

I later found out that this was a somewhat weekly occurrence, where unsuspecting victims would fall sour to Freddie’s unrelenting gas. People would laugh, calling him reek freak and Freddie McFartster and, he knew this was going on but, I now had this sympathy for the guy that only came with the stench of experience.

“Do you know who Freddie is?” I asked.
“Oh my god. Is that… why you’re acting like this?” she replied.
“Yes,” I said lowering my head.
“I’m so sorry. “ She put her hand over her mouth. “I know what you mean. This just happened to me too!”

“It was a Wednesday. We were going on a field trip with Mrs. McGillis and Mr. Thompson’s science classes to the Space Center. We left around nine. We were suppose to take two separate buses but Mr. Thompson had rearranged for us to all fit into one as he felt it was his environment responsibility to do this. I sat up front with Sarah. It was about twenty minutes into the drive when I heard this splatter come from the back of the bus. Someone had thrown up. Some kids were trying to hold her hair back but that’s when it really started to happen. I heard more splashes, followed by more and more, I could actually see it moving it’s way towards me like an enormous wave. And then it hit me. It’s exactly as you described it. It took only a second before all of my morning eggs and sausage breakfast spewed itself all onto Sarah’s lap.

She jumped up and proceeded to return to the favor to the unlucky sap sitting in the next seat over, Mr. Thompson. It was this uncontrollable chain reaction! Boyfriends were barfing on girlfriends. Teachers were regurgitating on students. We tried to pull down the windows but they were absolutely stuck. It must have looked like a horror movie from everyone watching outside. Kids were clawing at the windows, puckering their lips out at the windows crevices to get even the tiniest glimpse of air. The aisles ran green with milky blood and half digested breakfasts of cinnamon toast crunch; it really is “the taste you can see” with the tiny sugar sparkles shimmering in the upchucked upchuck.

“Oh my god, I heard that story! You were on that bus?”
“YES. It was exactly as horrid as you described it. I can never wear those shoes again, not after what they’ve stepped in. It was the underbelly of the underworld of the underness. That’s the only way to describe it.”
“I’m so sorry. Got to admit though, he got his point across well don’t you think?”
“What could you possibly be talking about Sam, he nearly gave Mrs. McGillis post traumatic stress disorder.”
“Well, this is what Bobby B. told me.”

After they arrived at the Space Center, prior to hitting one stop sign, running two stop lights and driving over three curbs, one of which was said to have “yelped”, the entire bus evacuated in seconds. Meanwhile, Freddie Feldmen is just sitting in the back of the bus, smiling this sadistic look of content, arms crossed and feet raised up on the seat in front of him.

Turns out he had planned everything. Before the class trip that day, he ate FIVE onion, ketchup and peanut butter sandwiches with extra onions, piled up high. Then after that, he ate two raw eggs, some week old buttermilk and to top it off, a can of extra spicy baked beans. He only had one thing on his mind, revenge. Word has it that when everyone scrambled off the bus, Freddie coolly got up and walked down the aisle, eyeing over the multi-colored stained seats, filled with whirls and swirls of all colors; Jazzberry Jam pink, Cornflower blue, Macaroni and Cheese yellow, Inch Worm green. This was a work of art.

Remember those windows you couldn’t get down? Turns out Freddie came into school really early that day and used industrial superglue to keep them stuck like that. Genius. Meanwhile, kids were dying on the Space Center parking lot. Some were crying, other were laying on the ground, fetal position, holding their stomachs, moaning in pain while the few kids who could walk now tried to help them out by smearing off the vomit or telling them “it’ll be alright.” Freddie just smiled. He knew it wasn’t going to be alright. As he stood in his bright yellow rain boots, he started to walk into the apocalyptic aftermath, eying over all the kids that made him feel so lonely and hated, his smile only grew more and more until he couldn’t hold it anymore and gave into his bodies demands one last time; he laughed. He walked into the Space Center after his body count (17) for surely one of the most enjoyable field trips he would ever take. Can you imagine that?