Austin and I had a great idea for a fake fight and we wanted to do it at the bus depot at 16th and Jackson. It was a small place with four entrance exits, one each from 16th and Jackson, and two leading to the bus loading areas.
We dreamed about that for weeks and staked it out several times. We knew we could not do it too late at night or we would be in trouble with our parents. We also didn’t want it to be very busy for our stunt. We could not do it before 4:00 on a school day. That was the earliest we could get there. I would never be allowed to ride my bike around on a Sunday. It was a day of rest and I could barely leave the house let alone go bike riding. That left Saturday. That was a pretty busy day, but we found a hole. There seemed to be a break between 5:40 and 7:30 on weekdays. It would get dusky about 6:30 at that time of year, so we planned it for then. We were going to need help.
We talked Louis into joining is for this little escapade. We would lock our bikes at Central High and approach the bus from the 16th street entrance. Less people would see us at that entrance.
We had actually looked at it on four different days before we got up enough nerve to go for it. We wanted a day with less threatening people gathered. The day we decided to act there was one man at the ticket counter, a red cap in the bus loading area, but no buses loading or unloading, a woman with several bags and two small children and a couple of older men a couple of rows over from the mother and her kids. The plan was for me to run in and trip over the woman’s luggage. Then Austin and Bob would run in after me, pretend to beat on me for a while and we would each exit through a different door.
Show time finally arrived and I was running to the bus station with my friends only a couple of steps behind me. The run, the trip, the fall were prefect. I was barely on the floor before we hear police sirens. The ticket seller was quick on the phone to call the police. There were no 911. The beating had to be shortened so we could get out before getting caught. The boys exited through the two doors to bus loading and I went back out on 16th Street. We each ran long and hard in three different directions hoping not to get caught. We were to meet back at Central High in 20 minutes to get out bikes and peddle home as fast as we could.
That was the plan, but I don’t know if we ever did it. When you are trying to remember something 58 years later, the details are a little fuzzy. I do know we talked about it often I know we ride bikes to the bus station to check it out. I also know there was a time when I related the story as true. But to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure any longer. Memories are not 100% reliable. You can repeat a story so often with better and better results to the point of not remembering whether is actually happened. Yes you can! Especially when you have talked about it so much and for so long that these hundreds of years later.
If we didn’t do it, we should have, and if we did do it — it worked perfectly. I know I heard sirens, but that could have been anytime. Lots happened in our part of the city, and even more in our neighborhood that would attract sirens.
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