The John Maclay

by John Maclay

  He sat staring out into the false underground night. He knew bus stations well, from this past year of traveling: college dropout, sometime guitar player, wanderer from job to odd job. Ironically, this was one of the best of them; there’d been cold gas stations, street corners with nothing but a sign, tiny lobbies with nothing but stale vending-machine food. The places were all tired, like the people who rode, long and tired, in the vehicles they harbored. In 1995, they were the lowest in the hierarchy of plane, train, bus. Even in the daytime, they called forth perpetual night.

  Now, for the first time, he looked around at the other travelers in this fuzzy purgatory. The black woman, possessions in four fat shopping bags, two thin children kicking a soda can on the tiled floor in front of her. The old guy, hanging onto respectability by wearing a stained suit jacket, but surely on his way from nowhere to nowhere, now and for a long time. All the lost people of the bus world, waiting in the underground station’s glare that somehow gave no light.

  But then, as they sometimes did in such places, his eyes found the young woman, the girl.

  She was sitting several seats over from him, and as usual, was close to a perfect match. Same long, tousled hair, same leather jacket, same jeans, same boots. Same look of the wanderer, the dropout, in her tired and too soon knowing eyes. Hair blond instead of black like his, those eyes blue instead of brown, knit top instead of wrinkled shirt, but the same. And her body, though a complement to his—swell of breast, slope of hip, swell of thigh—still more like than unlike, the same.

  And in their shared, soporific state, as usual, they came together.

  He knew how it went. A few words in the station, not really looking at each other, though they might have found faces and minds attractive, then a narrow seat on the next bus. The warmth of the vehicle’s heater, and that of their touching bodies, now doing more then words, being all that was needed against the world outside. Then some kissing of tired mouths, some furtive groping of breast and groin, and the unspoken agreement to get off at the next stop. A walk across cold concrete, a moment in the glaring office of a cheap motel, a room that looked like any other. Finally, at the time of nakedness and beyond, an unaccustomed waking, a brief thrill, even the thought that it could be different after all. Nothing suddenly becoming everything at the moment of peak and release, and the sleep in each other’s arms afterward almost a home.

  But then, when the dawn light penetrated the faded curtains, nothing again. And the bus waiting in the mist outside the door.

  Now, in the Philly station, he simply followed the ritual. Moved down next to her, repeated the words.

  “Hi. Where you headed?”

  “Hi. Up to Easton.”

  “Me too. Go to school?”

  “No. Used to.”

  “Me too. Ride with me?”

  “Yeah.” And that was all there was.

  Now the bus pulled in, a former Greyhound with the shadow of the dog—running where?—under the new, local paint. Twin duffel bags were picked up, half dragged across the tiles, out the glass door to the oily cement; tickets, small and simple like the mode of transportation, handed to the burly driver. Then up the narrow metal steps again, down the aisle past sleeping and cloth-smelling huddled forms under weak amber lights, to a double seat, and the closeness.

  No talk, just the contact of leather on leather, denim on denim, only the hint, like a half-remembered dream, of flesh of a different gender underneath. The driver climbed behind the wheel—a sign, “Safe, Reliable, Courteous”—the amber lights went off, removing whatever wakefulness there’d been, and the bus backed out of its stall like a heavy cow, then moved, powerful and ponderous, up the ramp and out into Philadelphia again. City of deserted sidewalks, naked orange lights, cold blocky buildings, none of it basically different from the mood inside and below.

  Winter-dark Eastern city, he thought, and the eyes of his female companion, lit alternately by passing street lamps, seemed to reflect it. Drives you deep into your soul.

  Accelerating, the bus swung ship-like around the few landmarks: gray bulk of City Hall, with its phallic tower, castellated Temple, home of the rooms of some order traveling east unknown to him. The few lighted windows of the tall buildings—stacked cages by day—seemed menacing, hinting at the inanimate bulk of that which couldn’t be seen; he moved a bit closer to the warmth of the girl. Then they bore north, toward even bleaker landscapes, toward the university and the bombed-out rows.

  The academic buildings, close without campus on this city street, seemed mocking, though he tried not to let them. He’d known he was right to seek the road again, the wide-open vistas of Montana, the revelatory moments with real people, even the soporific state of the bus. Guthrie-like, Seeger-like, he’d gone forth, living and believing in something that was so true, even if only a few saw it, even if everyday life seemed to go on without it, maybe had to forget it in order to go on. The Indians had it, the Asians had it; Whitman was its American Christ. Why spend four years learning, over and over, only the dry facts that surrounded it, proving for the millionth time things that needed no proof, or were even irrelevant or counter? In vain were the arguments that dues had to be paid, rituals had to be performed, before even this truth would be credited. His guitar spoke louder to his mind than his mind did. Still, there were the unpleasant memories of buildings like these. And the memories of the friends he’d left behind, who’d made the really tiny accommodations he couldn’t, who’d in turn received the larger world while he was alone with the real one.

  But now the university was behind him again, and the bus floated on, through timed lights on a wide, trafficless street, past the rows of derelict houses. If he’d been an entrepreneur, he’d have salvaged houses so close to a college, as had been done in Baltimore; made of them yuppie and preppy havens and along with that, a fortune. As it was, three-storied places identical to one in which he’d once lived were gutted, burned-out; their copper bays and pillars stripped for scrap. Menacing, again, to see, like a nightmare of one’s home after a future war.

  Yet the bus, safe and reliable, went on, and the girl was beside him. His mind subtly switching gears to sleep as positive, removal as positive, he began to think again of the warm bed, the moment, however transitory, of peace and release.

  “Place to stay in Easton?”

  “Uh-uh. Find one.”

  “Stay with me?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Sleep with me?”

  “Okay.” A tired smile, and a hand on his jacketed arm.

  Sleep… A rumbling underneath the floor. An uncanny noise. A sudden-cessation of power, a soundless coasting. Smoke. The bus ground to a halt.

  * * * *

  Five minutes later, and he and the girl were standing on cold concrete again, but not on the way to a warm bed, or to Easton, or to anywhere. The late cocoon of the bus sat smoking, then outrageously beginning to burn, no longer even a temporary shelter while help came. Soon it would be a blackened hulk, like the rows of dark houses its former occupants could feel at their backs, empty and menacing. The two dozen people, driver, suddenly stripped of his power, included, stood huddled together, collars turned up, hands in pockets, stamping their feet like a lost herd of cattle. They’d been birthed from a dark womb into an equally dark, surreal night.

  The others would stand there, probably, shaking with cold and city-slum fear, until a police car or fire truck happened by and some sort of accommodation was made. But he and the girl, unspokenly, being part of a life that was already flow, fugue, and imperative motion, shrugged, shouldered their gear, and started walking back toward the hazy orange of downtown.

  * * * *

  …Booted feet crunching broken glass of wine bottles, even an occasional syringe. Bare trees, dead and broken trees, of what had once been a neighborhood. The three-story house-fronts, beyond short, paper-strewn yards, staring open-doored, no-doored, win
dowless, obscene. No lights inside, not even a late night drunk in the street to disturb what was no longer peace, no longer anything. A neighborhood that, in no longer being one, had reversed itself into a dark mirror image, a cold, dark hell. And everywhere the smell of charred wood, infinitely worse than a burning.

  Guitar case on back, duffels in hands, hand in hand. Long hair ruffled by vagrant air, chill breath in lungs.

  “Scared.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Me too.”

  “Been through worse. Got raped once.”

  “Damn. Nothing like that. Once went in a house like these, sleep the night, old man, red eyes, breath like acid, stuck his face in mine, kitchen knife in ribs, ripped off my money. He was like metal, I was only skin and bones.”

  “Yeah. Know what you mean.”

  Walk another dead black block, another. The chill, the fear, now digging deep, moving over the line to the physical; heavy gut, fast heart, weak legs. But atmosphere still worse than actuality, maybe…

  At the end of the next block, silhouetted by what light there was, legs spread, arms braced: the four figures, black or white.

  Don’t turn. Don’t run. Just walk up to them, by them, nod. Though it’s three A.M. in the city of death, don’t show you’re afraid.

  Boots sound too loud, hearts the same. But almost there…almost past…the four guys hard, inhuman, dirty denims, on drugs but no less sinewy, catlike. The other strain of American rebel, bred of violence, reacting with it. Past…oh God, some distance now…

  “Hey, guitar man!”

  “Hey, little mama!”

  Footsteps quick behind, flash of knives seen over shoulder.

  Run!

  Surreal. The life, the road, the bus; the dreams and nightmares, hundred seats, hundred gravelly highway shoulders, motel rooms, strangers, rare kindred spirits, even the long-ago not-so-long-ago time of childhood, innocence, security, all come to this. Real enough.

  They dash down the dark cold sidewalk, baggage dropped, only guitar case thumping on his back, stripped like prey for fight. Boots pound, hearts pound, lungs start to ache, legs move faster than willed, automatic. He runs a bit ahead, propelling, hand locked on hers, feeling cold sweat. What’s passed, what’s seen of it, looks like the day after Dresden, day after some future holocaust, feels like worse. A dream he once had flashes, of a burning row of houses, flames rising to orange night sky, and a boy and girl fleeing to the cold country, he maybe to become a prophet, she a saint before they die. But what’s behind…

  Suddenly, a pitch-dark corner. He turns sharply, nearly slips, drags, they dart down a side street. Without looking, up the cracked steps of the first dead house, across the broken porch—ankles turning—inside. Up the filthy stairway—glass crunching underfoot, paper slipping—through the first solid door, closed behind, inside. A bedroom, bare, couple of chairs, cracked paint, peeling wallpaper, dust, raw gust in through glassless windows, wan streetlight beyond.

  But no steps following, for now.

  “Gee.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Looked back once, they were half a block behind.”

  “Won’t give up. Not them.”

  “Right. No witnesses. Kill us if they find us.”

  “Yeah. Their turf. Jungle.”

  “Can’t run anymore. Ankle.”

  “God…”

  Then slowly, with no more words, the merging of the same but different happens, not in a hot motel room in the not-to-be north, but here, here. He isn’t protector, she isn’t consoler, they’re just two becoming one. Arms reach, hug, long hair’s smoothed back with caring hands, still-panting lips meet, denim presses denim, through hard leather jackets, breasts meet breast. He sinks back onto a shaky chair, unbuckles like an out-of-date warrior, she smiles, reaches to her belt, jeans below ankles, flash of white thigh, shuffles forward like a lost goddess…

  Only the dark, and the soft sound. On his lap, facing, he holding, the local warmth, sharp thrill of entry, slight motion, but then all of it getting lost again in space and time, especially since it could be the last. Go this way, maybe, right beyond the peak into nothingness. Could be worse, the life we’ve led, free at least, the dream, true at least, this, real at least.

  Only the dark, and the soft sound, the beautiful lost music from her throat.

  Afterward, they buckle up, sit cross-legged, facing, on the dusty floor. She reaches in pocket, pulls out a candy bar, breaks it in half. He digs in jeans, comes up with a crumpled pack, one last smoke, passes it. Leaves the lighter open, sets it between them, not enough for outsiders to see, but enough for them till it dies. Cold and death kept at bay one more time. Enough.

  Then he opens the battered case, takes out guitar…and tries to echo, not loud enough for them, what he’s just heard from her.

  It was never any good, really. Thinking you could say something that would change it. Stop the machine, the death in life. The people who held the towns and the daylight, who put you off onto the roads and into the night while they slept even deeper. Into the drift, the state of the bus world that was nevertheless more valid than they’d ever know. And now to this, to an end maybe fittingly at the raw hands of those even farther lost or found in the darkness. But at least you could try.

  A song, now, rising on the night. A gentle voice, words, guitar strings, all of it peace. Enough, after all, despite the other voices, the things they wanted, the cold hard facts. Something somehow, still, running under or above it all, from the real Jesus, through Walt, through Woody, a song, America, Russia, all of it that was ever any good was a song, a forgotten song. As this one would be, since only he knew it, and now she.

  And a noise, of the four sets of feet instinctively, finally on the stairs outside, then kicking at the wooden door. Making a sounding box of the death room, like the smaller box of the instrument. Bursting in…they’re gonna come get you sometime…

  In the end, before the blood, there was only the sound of a guitar, and a song.

  IF IT’S ALL THE SAME TO YOU

  For a guy of thirty who long ago realized he wasn’t going to set the world on fire, I’ve got a good life, an all-American life. Graduated in the middle of my class at Maryland. Found a job I like, where I’ve advanced slowly but steadily. Have some buddies for softball and beer when there’s time, and season tickets for the Redskins. A garden apartment off the D.C. beltway, a late-model Volvo. And, since like a lot of us today I’m not quite ready for more, my share of dates on the weekends.

  Yes, I’ve got a good life. But…

  It began a couple of weeks ago at the office when I was finishing up some quarterly reports. My boss walked in, gave me an errand.

  “Want you to run over to Velcron,” he said. “Other side of the beltway—they’re going to make parts for us.” He showed me some papers. “Go over this with them, and…”

  I guess it was the building that started it. The same as ours, I noticed when I pulled up in the visitor’s parking spot. Fake white stone; the plant in back, the offices with their tinted windows in front, the entrance with its nursery shrubs and flagstones. And inside, as I did my errand: the secretaries and women execs in the same clothes, the guys in gray suits like mine, the white-walled cubicles like each other and like ours, the vinyl-wood furniture…

  On the drive back I got to thinking. At first it made me feel good, seeing that other people had the same things I did—of course, I’d known that. Made me feel “in,” a part of today. So I looked across the wide road…saw other Volvos going by, and smiled. And more plants like Velcron’s and ours. More garden apartments like mine. I switched on the radio—Top 40—and hummed along. Then just about at my exit, the ad break came.

  Nice musical background. A soft female voice, speaking then singing.

  “Live with your friends (beat) at Field and Forest.”

  I knew it,
of course. A new complex about like mine, maybe a mile away. Three-story buildings—Tudor, I remembered, though mine was Colonial. The usual efficiencies, one- and two-bedrooms; even some townhouses. The usual thing.

  But it was the tag-line that somehow got to me.

  “Field and Forest Apartments,” the voice went on. “Six convenient locations, all around the beltway. And more…in Baltimore.”

  I hadn’t known that. Chain apartments! That like the companies and the cars…the Exxon where I filled up, the McDonald’s where I filled up me…the same malls, same stores…there was more than one, and…

  When I got back to the office, walked up the flagstones, in the glass doors and past the smiling, fortyish receptionist—ours was named Jean, Velcron’s had been Joan—l couldn’t get it out of my mind. And when I sat back down in my cubicle…the horrible thought hit me that it wasn’t mine at all.

  That would have been enough, I guess. The subject of a hundred articles, remembering college, I’m sure I could have read. “The Loss of Individuality in a Mechanized Society,” or something like that. Then I would have recognized the thing for the minor crisis it was, and gone on—after all, I wasn’t the kind to set the world on fire.

  Yes, I could have done that. But dammit, I didn’t. Instead I began looking for the similarities.

  The first one, the next week, was back at Velcron. My boss had sent me there again—on a day, a drive, much like the time before. I pulled into the same visitor’s spot, went in the same entrance…and there was Jean behind the reception desk. Or Joan, of course, I thought stupidly—Jean was “ours.”

  But it was Jean!

  I must have stood there for a full thirty seconds—clutching my briefcase, dumbly staring at her—until she gave me a practiced smile, and spoke.

  “I know it’s a shock,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be that much of one.”