“That evening I rode downtown on an unaccountably empty bus, sitting in the last row. At the front I saw a thin cloud of smoke rising around the driver’s head. ‘Hey, bus driver,’ I said. ‘Can I smoke?’ ‘May I,’ said the bus driver. ‘I love you,’ I said.”

“An invisible gas clouds his thoughts, exhaust from a bus left with its engine running in the middle of his brain.”

“Ah. Yeah, that would be better. Have you ever driven a bus?" Caine shook his head. "No, I have not." "Strangely enough," Sam said, remembering the long ago moment of terror and competence that had earned him the nicknames School Bus Sam, "I have.”

“A few other couples joined us on the dance floor and we lost ourselves among them. I'd never been able to figure out exactly what was involved in slow dancing, so I contented myself, as I had since high school, with gripping my partner to me, letting out awkward breaths against her ear, and tipping from foot to foot like someone waiting for a bus. I could feel the sweat cooling on her forearms and smell a trace of apples in her hair.”

“[His coat] emitted an odor of bus station so desolate that just standing next to him you could feel your luck changing for the worse.”

“I said, “I need to hear something that’s going to save my life.”Re: Selecting songs from a jukebox.”

“I thought you seemed like someone who might enjoy backgammon," said the kid, gravely mistaken.”