I climbed onto the bottom metal step, fed two dollar bills into the glass farebox, and took a high vinyl seat three rows back from the driver.

“Riding all the way downtown?” the driver asked, eyeing me in his wide overhead mirror.

“Central Avenue, please,” I said.

The ride lasted forty-two minutes, stopping every other block to let off store clerks, hospital workers in blue scrubs, and middle schoolers lugging heavy backpacks.

Through the tinted glass, I watched the rows of stucco houses give way to older brick buildings, little repair shops, and broad sycamores lining the older neighborhoods.

We went past Willow Creek Lane at three forty, where a lone painter up on a tall wooden ladder was scraping the white trim on the front porch of a two-story Craftsman house.