The Darker Side of Things

It was just last week.
We were on our way home, I'm squashed against the window like a fly as usual, but the traffic is unusually bad. Someone notices that a bus is stopped in the middle of the road ahead and so--logically--everyone heads to our side of the bus to see what's going on...I feel the bus lean heavily on its right two wheels and I brace the seat in front of me--it's going to tip over, I know it, and I'm going to be crushed on this road beneath all of these people. I look away, out the window as we inch by the stopped bus. The bus looks just like ours, but it's empty...empty from the back...until the driver's seat where a body has clearly been covered by a white sheet. The bus looks just like ours. I release the seat in front of my to cover my mouth. "Holy Shit," I whisper. We continue to inch up the road. The road is full of the evacuated passengers, staring in disbelief at the bus. There are police. We continue to inch by the bus that looks just like ours. I gasp, I look away, I stuff my head into my fleece because, like snatching my hand of a hot pan before feeling the heat. I look back. On the road, a hand reaches out from underneath a white sheet....blood is spilling everywhere. If the window was open, I would have vomited. But I replace my head in my fleece as my hands and legs get shaky and weary, just like after you almost get into a car accident. I've never seen anything like this.
My friend Jacob is sitting next to me. And I turn my head toward him, still resting on the fleece and ask, "What happened?"
"Gangs. They were shot."
"But, why?"
"The bus drivers have to pay off the gangs in order to drive through their territories. If you don't pay, they'll hunt'ya down."
"That's terrifying."
"Yep." But Jacob I want to scream--we drive through gang territory every day! Our bus looks like that...and I'm sure that bus driver had just as much religious iconography in his bus, so I'm sure that won't help us...how can we be sure that....????
But Jacob knows all this. He's worked here for a year. I'm baffled. I'm terrified. I'm confused. What am I doing here????