Nick Athens, who has lived alone on a school bus for about a decade, knows what he needs.

Root canal surgery and a new cell phone would be nice. A trip to Greece before December would be a dream.

“I’m not happy in my bus or in Evanston,” the 86-year-old architect said Monday, sitting in the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave. “It has been a waste of my professional time.”

The 45 parking violations he has accrued since 1999 — including four in the first three weeks of September — also have been a waste of his time, he said.

Athens moves his bus nearly every day from street to street — between cafes, parking lots and a veteran’s center — evading Evanston parking enforcement officers who, he said, are relentless in writing tickets. The small, battered bus Athens calls home is a common sight around Evanston.

In August his bus was towed because he had not paid $1,000 in parking fines. Left homeless without the bus, Athens asked Evanston City Council to return it.

He got the bus back, and to his surprise, a west suburban couple paid his parking fines.

“I still don’t know their names,” he said, “but I feel very grateful.”

But since getting his bus back, Athens has accumulated at least four more parking tickets and hit a parked car, said Jean Baucom, Evanston’s parking system manager.

“I don’t expect him to pay (the tickets) off soon,” she said.

Ten years ago Athens bought the bus for $350 from a Chicago church. He didn’t have anywhere else to live, he said, and wanted to travel.

Though several of the windows are broken, Athens has boarded them up with painted plywood. The floor is littered with newspapers, a mattress and boxes of clothes. Also inside is a six-foot architectural model of an arch he hopes will be built in Greece.

Athens, a 1941 graduate from the University of Michigan, is hoping the arch will be erected for the 2004 Olympic Games, he said. This is the third version of his model.

For him, moving to Greece is not a matter of if, but of when.

“I’m desperate to get to Greece,” Athens said. “I have to get there by the end of the year.”

Nearly twice a day he plays the lottery on the same number, hoping to win by the year’s end.

“I have been on that number forever,” he said. “It’s due to come up.”

He pays for the lottery tickets, food and cheap hotels in the winter with money from Social Security and veteran’s benefits. He recently celebrated his birthday at McDonald’s with a Filet-O-Fish sandwich.

Athens has a long history of living in vehicles around the Chicago area. He was kicked out of an apartment many years ago, he said.

Nearly 30 years ago Chicago police found Athens living in a two-and-a-half ton truck with 11 cats, he said. In another Chicago incident, someone torched Athens’ truck on July 4, 1980.

Athens spent some time in an Evanston boarding house and since 1993 has lived in both Chicago and Evanston on the bus.

About a year ago, Athens started parking in Chicago to avoid the Evanston police. The Chicago Sanitation Department stripped his bus and took everything to the dump, he said. He lost a white oak bench, drawing equipment, clothing, bedding and tools, which totaled about $10,000.

“I’ve not been functioning since then,” Athens said.

On Wednesday Athens will be forced to move boxes of books and belongings that he has been keeping in a storage shed to somewhere else. He doesn’t know where he will put them.

On top of everything, Athens said he’s also trying to find a wife.

“I haven’t given up on the idea of fathering a child,” he said.

Until then he’s planning for his trip to Greece. And, of course, he wants to ship his bus there, too.