Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The buses are fueled and cleaned, lined up side by side and shimmering beneath a near-full moon. They are long and silent--placid, metal whales in the massive MTA Division 15 lot in Sun Valley.

One by one they come to life with moaning engines and belching brakes. At 8 p.m., they awaken to face the chaos of L.A. traffic, the gritty streets and noise, the sharp points that carve the names of street gangs into their sides and windows.

Ruben Hernandez, known to passengers by his Native American name, Running Wolf (he is part Apache), inspects them carefully. On this, his final night on Line 180, he has been assigned a newer bus. He prefers the older Neoplans for their responsiveness and maneuverability, so he requests a change.

He has been driving this 18.2-mile route, between Hollywood and Pasadena, for about six months. If you have been on his bus, you will recognize these words: “Hold on. Trust me.” He repeats them each time he bulls through a curve. On corners throughout the route, he has tagged the streets with tire marks, created by simultaneous forces of speed and changing directions.

Except for the woman who threw a burrito at him or the guy who pointed a gun to his head, he is well liked. Passengers recently voted him the most popular of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s 4,000 drivers, in connection with honoring the system’s 1-billionth rider. He received a certificate.

Running Wolf, 36, is friendly and courteous, greeting passengers in one of seven languages he speaks to varying degrees.

“He does the things that used to be considered common courtesy in society,” says Michael Henderson, an MTA supervisor. “He pulls to the curb, helps people with packages, helps people in wheelchairs.”

If Running Wolf misses a day or two, people will call the division to check on him, Henderson says. In a city where many people would rather crawl backward on their hands and knees than ride a freaking bus, Running Wolf has attracted a following. Beyond his regular passengers who sometimes let buses pass until his comes along, there are about 10 who periodically ride all night with no particular destination.

“It’s like ‘Cheers’ on a bus,” Running Wolf says, and, indeed, they know each other by name. On most Friday nights, one passenger brings pizza for everyone on the bus. Sometimes there are hot Buffalo wings, chips and salsa. One night, Bonnie, who works at the MTA credit union, brought chocolate chip cookies.

But this night will be Running Wolf’s curtain call. He has been bumped from his route by a driver with more seniority.

Because the bus yard is so huge, D.D. Campbell, equipment records specialist, drives him between two long rows of buses, turns right at the end of the lot and weaves back through another column, as Running Wolf searches for a Neoplan.

Standing alone to the left, a bit more tired looking than the others, is Bus No. 3638.

“That one,” he says.

*

It’s 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, 38,840 pounds. Bus 3638 was built in 1984 and has survived more than 675,000 miles. “Best in the system,” Running Wolf says of the Neoplans. “They outmaneuver, outdrive any other bus we have.”

He goes through a mental checklist to make sure the bus is in proper order, then pulls carefully out of the lot. He stops for two passengers before he arrives at his starting point at La Brea and Hawthorne avenues in Hollywood.

Ebony, a student at Cal State Northridge, is a regular who rides to her mother’s home in Pasadena. Helen, just returned from visiting a Native American reservation up north, is way too independent to be a regular anything, but she will ride all night.

Traffic is backed up on Highland Avenue near the Hollywood Bowl, so Running Wolf takes a back way and arrives in front of the Bulldog Gym a bit past 9 p.m. The gym is open 24 hours, and, during his break later in the evening, he will get in a brief workout.

The Running Wolf Show begins shortly after he yanks the bus onto Hollywood Boulevard, which is bustling on a Friday night. A little behind schedule, Running Wolf’s pace is brisk between stops.

“Did you see ‘Phantom’ yet?” a woman calls out from a quarter of the way back as they approach the Pantages Theatre.

“Not yet,” Running Wolf replies. “Nov. 16.”

He announces the stops in his own unique way: “Ellenwood,” he says over the public address system, and adds, “And so would I.”

Later, it’s “Maywood”--then a brief pause. “At least she used to.”

After an especially rousing stretch, where he gathers speed and makes the lights, he pulls hard to a stop, and as passengers disembark, he replaces his “Thank you and good night” with a “Thanks for flying MTA.”

Running Wolf used to drive this route before, for a one-year period starting in ’94. He had a different following then. Sometimes during layovers, they would stop at a Pasadena movie theater, and the attendant would let him and his passengers in for free. They would munch popcorn and watch a movie for about 20 minutes, load back up and be on their way.

It’s a new group now. Jeff climbs on board in Glendale. A high school student with silver studs in his ears, he wears an MTA shirt and operator pants and hopes to someday operate a bus. Another regular is Carlos, also a high school student with plans of working for the MTA.

Awhile back, Running Wolf noticed that Carlos was riding too late too often. He asked if he was going to school. It turned out Carlos was cutting classes, and Running Wolf told him he couldn’t hang out on the bus again until he brought signed statements from his teachers.

“When I passed my English class with an A-plus, he treated me to dinner,” Carlos says. “He’s more than a bus driver to me. He’s one of my best friends. We’ve confided in each other.”

But the question remains: What can possibly be so entertaining about being on a bus that people would want to ride all night?

“We hang out, talk, chill, meet other people, fall asleep,” Carlos says. “We talk about anything. We’ve laughed together and cried together.”

*

It’s an eclectic mix with many subplots.

Thomas is an aspiring comic book artist. Yes, he says, it’s a bit odd that a group of people would come together in such a way. But there is much to see, much to learn about life from a bus. His observations have helped bring some of his cartoon characters to life, he says. His wife, Rebecca, works and takes college classes, but they still find time to ride one to three nights a week, even though she sometimes gets motion sickness.

Erica has been riding about four months. “I got on the bus one time, and I didn’t have enough money, but I was wearing a low-cut shirt,” she says. “I told him I didn’t have enough to get on the bus, and he said, ‘Yes, you do.’ ”

She ran away from her home in South Dakota at 13 and hitchhiked to Hollywood. “I was a street kid,” she says. “Been there, done that.” She’s now 20 and has a 3-year-old daughter.

The conversation wanders and weaves. Sometimes it’s about politics or religion, music or who said what to whom. In various ways, they amuse themselves.

“Why did Smoky the Bear never have children?” Erica asks Steve, another regular. Steve shakes his head.

“Because every time his wife gets hot, he beats her with a shovel.”

Steve, who earlier took a healthy swig of scorching salsa on a dare, doesn’t get it, and Erica shakes her head.

Sometimes the language gets racier, and Running Wolf has to tell them to tone it down, especially when children are riding. He’ll tell them to take it to the back of the bus or get out.

Carlos and a guy known as Johnny the Beanpole sometimes get into it. Running Wolf is not opposed to putting them in their place.

“When they do that, it shows lack of respect for people on the bus and lack of respect for me,” he says. “But it doesn’t happen very often.”

Chris wears a stocking cap and carries a backpack filled with papers. He spends a lot of time in libraries, he says, and his research tonight seems to focus on Asia, its proximity to Russia, indigenous tribes and sushi. Throughout the evening, as he studies his papers, he interjects random facts from his findings.

Margaret keeps a green transistor radio close to her ear as she rides. Jerry climbs on with a harvest of aluminum cans.

At the end of the first run, near Pasadena City College, there is a 10-minute wait before heading back to Hollywood. Part of the gang gets out to play video games at the Western Arcade. Jeff places a banner at the front of the bus. “On a scale of 1 to 10,” it proclaims, “You’re the best.” Throughout the night, he has had passengers sign a card for Running Wolf to mark his departure. Music pounds from a boombox.

He and Helen, who has ridden all night only a few times, hang balloons from the railings. When Running Wolf announces it’s time to go, passengers return to the bus. Margo, on her way to work, takes a moment to say goodbye. She has written a letter to Running Wolf wishing him well.

“I love his spirit,” she says. “I told him in the letter that God has a lot more lives ahead of him to touch in the same way he’s touched mine. He’s a unique person. He makes riding the bus fun. . . . You can feel the positive energy.”

She will miss him, she says, but it’s no surprise he’s moving on. “A spirit like his, you can’t contain.”

Back in service, Running Wolf pulls from the curb, and Bus 3638 departs into the night.

*

Passengers say that Running Wolf always seems happy, that his joy seems to become a part of those who enter the bus. And, for the most part, he says they’re right, but there have been struggles in his life--friends from childhood killed or imprisoned. A brother and sister are now in jail.

Until recently, he was living in a garage so he could afford the $1,000-a-month child-support payments for his four children and IRS back payments. Now he rents a room in a friend’s house for $200 a month.

He grew up on the streets of Pacoima, where he was known as Mr. Bandit for a vocation he once took seriously and performed well. He belonged briefly to a gang when he was 11 but was jumped out two weeks after he was jumped in.

“I didn’t like being part of a pack,” he says. “I still hung out with them, but I wasn’t a member. I’m too much of an individual.”

He stayed with friends and relatives, spending a night here, a night there. His home was at his grandmother’s house, distinguishable as the place “where I kept my clothes.”

He learned to take care of himself, which served him well in the Army. “If I hadn’t gone into the military, I would have gone to jail or died. . . . I think there’s a time in everybody’s life where they don’t care about what happens to them. I didn’t care if I lived or died.”

A few years after his discharge in 1987, he started driving a bus. “Where else can you get paid for driving all night and pick up women?” he says.

But there is a deeper meaning to his work that has to do with interacting with people.

“Not long ago, this guy comes on the bus, and, man, I would say he was hating life, but I never use that word ‘hate.’ I asked him what was wrong. This guy’s like 15, 16, and he says, ‘Man, I want to end my life.’ He talked about how his girlfriend left him and his parents were kicking him out of the house because he was on drugs.”

Running Wolf told him he couldn’t give up, that he was young and could change his life and that there were people worse off than he.

“Right after I said that, I picked up Turbo,” he says. “Turbo’s a guy in a wheelchair with no arms and no legs and happy as can be. He works as a bookkeeper at Glendale Community College. I asked the guy, ‘How would you like to trade places with that man?’ and he said, ‘You’re right.’ I haven’t seen him since, but I know he’ll be back, and I hope he’s doing OK.”

Running Wolf worked for a time in gang intervention and continues to coach a youth football team. He says he will always work with young people, but he’s not sure how long he will drive a bus.

“I told myself 10 years,” he says. “Then, I’m not sure. I think about doing PR work for MTA. I think I could do a lot to draw us closer to the community.”

As Friday night becomes Saturday morning, most of the remaining passengers are regulars. There is music and dancing. At a brief pause in front of a Kinko’s, passengers climb out and dance on the sidewalk, as Running Wolf goes inside to say hello to store employees.

The ride continues. Erica does card tricks. Chris spews out newfound information about Korea and Japan. One by one, as the end of Running Wolf’s 8 1/2-hour shift nears, they reach their final stops, hug him and say goodbye.

“I believe that when you leave, part of me is going with you,” he says, “and a part of you stays with me.”

People are like clouds, he says. “Every cloud is a miracle, it cannot be reproduced. People are the same way, each person is a miracle.”

Just before he arrives back at the shop, he announces, “This is it, the last of the Mohicans.” He will be driving different routes for now, filling in here and there. Perhaps, he will come your way. Heed his warnings. Hold on.

Trust him.