The Right Stuff was a short story written by Ted Phillips on February 3, 2003 for an assignment in his eleventh grade Advanced Placement English Language and Composition class. The Right Stuff was inspired by a 1979 Tom Wolfe book of the same name, from which the class had read selections. Ted's short story was based on his own frustrations with public transportation in New York City.
The Text
We stood in a circular room painted dull blue with no windows and five corners. The ceiling was lower than most of us were tall and the metal chairs against the curving walls were rusty, damp, and home to several species of invertebrate living harmoniously on the underside. Our vessels waited outdoors glistening under the gray light and the torrents of rampaging cats-and-dogs. Premature thoughts of promotion from command of smaller to larger vessels scampered through our minds with each maddening pitter-patter that penetrated the saturated singly sheet-rocked paper-thin wall.
"Take a look at the person on either side of you." Everyone's eyes shifted to either side for a moment to obtain a faint glimpse of everyone else. Then the man speaking to us, wearing a ruffled button-down shirt, mayonnaise stained pants, and untamed red hair, would add: "One of the three of you is not going to make it!" -- meaning, not be hired or would be fired within a short period of time afterwards.
After interviewing us each briefly about the type of person we were, the leader allowed us to remain in the dank empty room instead of journeying home through the storm while in his cardboard box of an office he decided which applicants to accept and reject for the next four hours. Within five minutes we could hear Rocky’s high-pitched squirrel voice and the man cursing the bad reception on his fifty-year-old Zenith television set.
When he finally emerged from the "room," the man bit off a chunk of his pink donut and informed us that we had all been accepted. Having heard this news, I was overjoyed that I would finally fulfill my lifelong dream of joining the Metropolitan Transit Authority and commandeering a vessel of my own, a city bus. Within just a few days, it began to be clear which of the twelve original applicants had actually had the right stuff.
When reports of four crashed city buses and 35 passengers injured or dead reached the big man's ears, Jimbo Jones, who had careened over a streetlight and through the north wall of St. Salisbury preschool on Schley Avenue, and Steve Oedekirk, who couldn't reach the brake pedal and splashed into the Long Island Sound, were the first to be fired because neither had a valid driver's license -- Jimbo was surprisingly still only 11 years old, and Steve was a double amputee from World War I, who had worn such a long trench coat on the day we all applied that no one could tell that he had no legs past the top of his pelvic bone.
The next one to go was Hazel Motes after two full months in the service. Everyone knew he was blind from the start, but we all had money on how long we each thought it would be before the Man found out the truth and fired him. Hazel Motes had blinded himself several years before, preceding a near-death experience, after which he chose to try his luck with the transportation industry. Finally accepted in New York, the man had not even looked at his application, which was gibberish scrawled randomly on the sheet, because Steve Oedekirk had gone out in the storm that first day for a smoke where he saw every application soppy and running. Hazel Motes, knowing his route and the timing of the traffic lights only through routine, had had a good run -- especially for an alcoholic, but unfortunately no one got to know him before he ran down five second graders on a school crossing. Except for these minor physical handicaps, any one of these men would have had the right stuff.
The signs on a city bus read "No Radio Playing," "No Smoking," "No Food or Drink," "Stand Behind Yellow Line," and "Do Not Talk to Driver While Bus Is in Motion." Of course if you had the right stuff, you the driver would seek ways of distracting yourself from the road in order to exercise reflexes and to test the extent of one's focus. However, the Man doesn't necessarily promote this kind of activity. Rumor has it that he got a desk job because he tried to throw some unruly teens off his bus fifteen years ago. The bus came to rest in the path of a freight train that tore the bus in half and threw him into shock that emptied him, and he never used any transportation personally again. He literally lived in his cubicle. I suppose if he couldn't emotionally handle a freight train balding him, then perhaps he doesn't have much to say about who does have the right stuff, but then again, who would park city property in the path of a speeding locomotive unless they truly possessed the essence of the right stuff?
No one really knew what was required of us, and no one spoke to the Man except regarding refilling the racks with bus and train maps and schedules. Finally, two were questioned about complaints in response to the "How's My Driving?" signs and late arrivals at regular stops, but no one had been killed, so from what we could see through the windowless walls, the Man simply let them out of his office with pink frosted donuts. The rest of us were awestruck, because the right stuff had been discovered in these two drivers. We added nitroglycerine to their fuel tanks for not sharing their secret, but we now believe we have truly found the right stuff. Our concept has been accepted universally now, and as a rule of thumb every bus must now be at least twenty minutes late to each stop scheduled -- and as a bonus can even skip them entirely after the long wait, all this in the name of the right stuff.
"Take a look at the person on either side of you." Everyone's eyes shifted to either side for a moment to obtain a faint glimpse of everyone else. Then the man speaking to us, wearing a ruffled button-down shirt, mayonnaise stained pants, and untamed red hair, would add: "One of the three of you is not going to make it!" -- meaning, not be hired or would be fired within a short period of time afterwards.
After interviewing us each briefly about the type of person we were, the leader allowed us to remain in the dank empty room instead of journeying home through the storm while in his cardboard box of an office he decided which applicants to accept and reject for the next four hours. Within five minutes we could hear Rocky’s high-pitched squirrel voice and the man cursing the bad reception on his fifty-year-old Zenith television set.
When he finally emerged from the "room," the man bit off a chunk of his pink donut and informed us that we had all been accepted. Having heard this news, I was overjoyed that I would finally fulfill my lifelong dream of joining the Metropolitan Transit Authority and commandeering a vessel of my own, a city bus. Within just a few days, it began to be clear which of the twelve original applicants had actually had the right stuff.
When reports of four crashed city buses and 35 passengers injured or dead reached the big man's ears, Jimbo Jones, who had careened over a streetlight and through the north wall of St. Salisbury preschool on Schley Avenue, and Steve Oedekirk, who couldn't reach the brake pedal and splashed into the Long Island Sound, were the first to be fired because neither had a valid driver's license -- Jimbo was surprisingly still only 11 years old, and Steve was a double amputee from World War I, who had worn such a long trench coat on the day we all applied that no one could tell that he had no legs past the top of his pelvic bone.
The next one to go was Hazel Motes after two full months in the service. Everyone knew he was blind from the start, but we all had money on how long we each thought it would be before the Man found out the truth and fired him. Hazel Motes had blinded himself several years before, preceding a near-death experience, after which he chose to try his luck with the transportation industry. Finally accepted in New York, the man had not even looked at his application, which was gibberish scrawled randomly on the sheet, because Steve Oedekirk had gone out in the storm that first day for a smoke where he saw every application soppy and running. Hazel Motes, knowing his route and the timing of the traffic lights only through routine, had had a good run -- especially for an alcoholic, but unfortunately no one got to know him before he ran down five second graders on a school crossing. Except for these minor physical handicaps, any one of these men would have had the right stuff.
The signs on a city bus read "No Radio Playing," "No Smoking," "No Food or Drink," "Stand Behind Yellow Line," and "Do Not Talk to Driver While Bus Is in Motion." Of course if you had the right stuff, you the driver would seek ways of distracting yourself from the road in order to exercise reflexes and to test the extent of one's focus. However, the Man doesn't necessarily promote this kind of activity. Rumor has it that he got a desk job because he tried to throw some unruly teens off his bus fifteen years ago. The bus came to rest in the path of a freight train that tore the bus in half and threw him into shock that emptied him, and he never used any transportation personally again. He literally lived in his cubicle. I suppose if he couldn't emotionally handle a freight train balding him, then perhaps he doesn't have much to say about who does have the right stuff, but then again, who would park city property in the path of a speeding locomotive unless they truly possessed the essence of the right stuff?
No one really knew what was required of us, and no one spoke to the Man except regarding refilling the racks with bus and train maps and schedules. Finally, two were questioned about complaints in response to the "How's My Driving?" signs and late arrivals at regular stops, but no one had been killed, so from what we could see through the windowless walls, the Man simply let them out of his office with pink frosted donuts. The rest of us were awestruck, because the right stuff had been discovered in these two drivers. We added nitroglycerine to their fuel tanks for not sharing their secret, but we now believe we have truly found the right stuff. Our concept has been accepted universally now, and as a rule of thumb every bus must now be at least twenty minutes late to each stop scheduled -- and as a bonus can even skip them entirely after the long wait, all this in the name of the right stuff.
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