You work inside but you’re outside. You’re always moving but you sit all day. You deal with hundreds of people but no one knows your name,” said Pat, a bus driver for more than 20 years.

Towles performs his latest project onboard a King County Metro bus. Behind the Wheel: Life on the Metro Bus, a one-person performance, attempts to see the world through the eyes of a King County Metro bus driver. Towles interviewed dozens of drivers and explored the social and physical landscape of the bus. He learned how Enrique built a fence to protect himself from the long hours of public interaction, the ways that Nate looked after the safety of his passengers, and how Cindy, an adrenaline junky, thrived in the daily confrontations on her route.

When asked about his bus driving experience, Nate remembered Vietnam. “You put on your flight jacket, grab your weapon and all of a sudden your adrenaline is there. It’s like this job. Once you sit in that bus seat it’s the same. You got 60 to 70 people, You’re rolling down the freeway at 50 or 60 miles an hour. Anything can happen and sometimes it does.”