Greyhound

by Piper, Steffan

  “You’ll take the 1443, which leaves here in five minutes on platform number 2 to Los Angeles. After an hour and a half layover in downtown L.A., you’ll transfer to the 1364 through Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Amarillo. You’ll have a stop in Mount Vernon, Missouri, and you can reboard at any time if you just show your ticket. Continuing on to Pittsburgh and into Altoona, Pennsylvania. Three days, 2,575 miles. Please check all the schedules at the stops for changes and have a good trip.”

  “How much is the total?” my mother hissed.

  “Fifty-one dollars and forty-eight cents.”

  “Is that the rate for a child?” she clarified.

  “No, that’s the adult rate,” the lady replied. My mother shot me a look and just thumbed her nose at the woman in silence.

  “An unaccompanied minor?” The ticket lady looked back at my mother as if she were insane. It was a fact that she may have suspected but I had already known.

  “Yes, that’s right. Just the boy,” she spat venomously.

  “Uh…forty-four dollars, please,” she announced, as she raised up in her seat to see me standing quietly out of view at the counter’s edge. When she saw me clutching at my two cases for dear life with an incredibly frightened look across my face, she smiled.

  “Oh my God, darling…you sure are adorable, aren’t you? Driving across the United States?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Honey, you are about as precious as they come.” She smiled again and sat back down. As she did, the smile on her face vanished and crumpled back up into an irate glare. Judging from her reaction, I wondered for a brief moment if she already knew my mother. My mother shifted around nervously and averted her eyes, trying hard not to make eye contact. The sound of a loud machine under the counter seemed to vibrate the partition and the small glass window in front of her. The woman handed my mother the tickets and her change.

  “Have a nice trip. Remember to tell the driver that you’re traveling alone, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” I responded, smiling back. I thought she was nice, but my mother seemed upset and was grumbling under her breath all through the lobby of the terminal. Dick trailed just behind us carrying the one bag that didn’t have wheels. It must’ve been his one and only kind gesture. It was far too early in the morning to worry about what was going to happen next, or what Dick would say, or leaving my friends again—which was lately something that I did frequently but never got used to.

  The bus terminal was clean but small. The lobby was adorned with a few rows of plastic chairs and lots of incredibly bright lights that seemed well intent on keeping everybody wide awake. Loud music played through a speaker near the ceiling, but a woman’s voice was constantly interrupting whatever song was playing.

  “Now boarding 1602 for San Francisco on Platform 5. Final call.”

  I wasn’t the only person traveling alone, but I was the only person who wasn’t an adult. There were several soldiers carrying large green bags that looked more like tube sausages than luggage, and they were all traveling by themselves.

  No one noticed me walking next to my mother in her gaudy orange dress with the strangling vines. And no one cared who I was, or why I was about to embark on a coast-to-coast journey by myself, possibly being swallowed whole in the midst of it. The thought of it made me tremble. Something inside of me was hoping that somebody would approach us, give my mother the third degree, and put a stop to it, but I knew that nothing like that was about to happen. I couldn’t say anymore that I had any real family. I definitely didn’t have any real friends, and I sure didn’t believe in saviors. So far I hadn’t seen even a glimmer of proof.

  Standing next to the open doorway of the large, vibrating metallic bus on platform 2, I started to feel a little scared again. The air around me smelled of gasoline, oil, burnt rubber, and something else that I couldn’t quite label.

  “You going to take notes, kid?” Dick asked me, seemingly interested.

  “Huh?” I replied, looking up at him blankly, curious but confused.

  “The pencil and notepad in your shirt pocket, Douche!” His index finger was pointing straight at my heart like a gun.

  “Ohh,” I muttered, finally aware. “Maybe, I guess.”

  “Don’t f-f-f-forget to st-st-st-stutter, I mean write!” Dick teased. He was working in his final jabs at me while he could. “Dou-Dou-Douche stain.”

  “Don’t call him that, Dick,” my mother interrupted, laughing as if it was a joke, guffawing at his boyish humor. It seemed to be his favorite word—he called me “douche” or “douche bag” every chance he got when my mother wasn’t around. It was the first time he’d used the word in front of her. She was giggling as if it was something said by Johnny Carson, as a punch line on The Tonight Show. Making fun of my stuttering, though, was nothing new, and my mother never said anything to Dick about his mean streak toward me.

  “Sorry, Charlotte, honey. I was just teasing the poor little stut-stut-stuttering runt. Maybe if I tease him enough he’ll stop doing it,” he suggested. I wanted to reach out and strangle the life out of him. Maybe I could make him stop. He didn’t have any reservations about punching me in the face, and I had no desire to get on the bus with a bloodied lip or wake up in the morning with a black eye. It was just one of those things that I had to let go, like always.

  I scratched my head to feel more comfortable, but I only felt more out of place. My mother bent down one more time, kissed me on the cheek, looked me over, and stood back up to light another cigarette.

  “Okay, off you go. And don’t forget to call.” She was acting as if I were going to have dinner with a friend on the next block over, instead of traveling across the country, possibly leaving her for the last time. An elderly black man wearing a thick blue jacket and a cap with a Greyhound patch came over to us. He took my bags and gave my mother a ticket, which she immediately handed to me. The porter witnessed the whole exchange and was watching my mother with an extremely concerned look and a frown.

  “Hold on to that ticket, son. You’ll need it to get these bags back. How far ya goin’?” He was looking directly at me now.

  “Pittsburgh, sir.”

  “Pittsburgh!” he parroted in exclamation. “That’s one hell of a long trip, boy. All by yourself?”

  My mother grunted.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered.

  “Well…” he smiled, looking at both my mother and Dick carefully as if getting a mental picture in case he had to later describe them to the police. “Just make sure that you tell the driver.” It was the third time that I’d heard this instruction, and it began to sound more ominous. For the first time, I really began to question if this was a good idea and did so aloud, or rather, tried to.

  “Maybe…”

  “Just get on the bus and get a seat up front,” my mother growled at me, pushing me up the stairs. I went begrudgingly, but after I took the first three steps upward, I was face to face with an old, meaty-faced driver. It was then that I realized that I had crossed the point of no return. Everything had just begun.

  When I turned around to take a last look at my mother and Dick, they had bolted off and were quick-stepping it off the platform. They were already on the precipice of crossing back inside the lobby. She didn’t look back at all, and from the side of her face, it seemed as if she was laughing. Dick looked back, though. He glanced at me before slipping away with my mother through the sliding glass door. It suddenly felt as if it was all a part of some master plan of his that I was only just now being made aware of. The whole thing was over quickly and was meaningless.

  “Ticket,” the driver announced. I turned back to see the old man who was seated behind the wheel staring at me with his hand out. I made out his name from the plastic badge on his shirt: Jim.

  “Los Angeles,” I managed faintly, as I pulled out the ticket, handing it over.

  “Have a seat, Bucko,” he answered, returning my stub.

  “I’m traveling alone,” I announced.<
br />
  “So is Jesus. Now stop advertising and find a seat, chief,” he grunted, pulling the doors closed with a big handle that was right at eye level and closer to me than I first thought. I flinched, thinking it was going to whack me.

  “Take it easy, kid. Find a seat,” he said, shooting me a concerned look. Now I was locked in with no escape and no way to change my mind. I realized that I never had a choice in the matter anyway. Several seats were vacant, but only toward the back. The very back seat was a row of three seats next to a toilet door with a small light near the handle. The whole rear end of the bus smelled like Pine-Sol or some type of cleaning product. Now, close up, I recognized it as the smell I had detected earlier out on the platform but couldn’t identify. I thought to make a note of this as soon as I got settled.

  I plopped myself down next to the window in the back row after walking past almost four rows of vacant seats. I relaxed and leaned into the wall of the back corner, which was made of an odd fake wood laminate. I felt as if I were at the end of the world now. It gave me a bad feeling to imagine why there would have to be wood on a bus. My imagination ran wild. The last thing I wanted was to get lost somewhere on this bus and have to end up pulling off the wood paneling for firewood or some type of improvised shelter. The wood only went up to my chest and shoulders and ended with a small metal grate just below the window.

  What was supposed to be air-conditioning was being pumped upward through the vents at full blast. I began to wonder why every smell on the bus seemed to make my hair stand on end and make me feel like something horrible was about to happen. It smelled like a tube was connected into the air-con system directly from the engine compartment and was blowing noxious exhaust through the cabin. I began to feel a little sick but immediately became distracted as the bus started rolling backward with a soft beeping noise. Outside, the speaker in the terminal was still announcing departures. I could faintly hear the message over the engine.

  “1443 leaving for Los Angeles on platform 2.”

  The thought crossed my mind that anybody in the terminal needing to hear that was already too late. The lights inside the bus dimmed, and we sat idling in the driveway for several moments, waiting for the driver to receive some unknown cue. I wondered if I would’ve been able to see Dick’s station wagon hightailing it away, but the bus went nowhere near the front parking lot as we pulled out.

  “Good evening, folks,” came the driver’s voice over the loudspeaker. “I’m your driver. My name’s Jim, and this is the 1443 to Los Angeles. We’re looking at a total drive time of eight hours and twenty minutes, so we’ll probably pull into the station in downtown Los Angeles around ten-thirty in the morning, just in time for lunch, or breakfast, if everything goes according to plan. So just sit back, relax, and leave the driving to us. I’ll leave the overhead lights off, so those who want to sleep, can.”

  The speaker made an odd clicking sound and then went quiet. Jim’s message set me at ease by giving me a small preview of what was to come. The bus drove down several side streets, past all the shops I was familiar with. But at night, everything looked like a ghost town from another era. The small one-screen theater was still showing Popeye. I had seen it alone, a few days before. Every street was now deserted. Every window in every shop was dark and vacant. I stared out at the diminishing city as we idled at the different red lights before pulling out onto the highway. I was feeling lonely, but I was actually glad to be rid of my mom, away from Dick, and on the road heading toward my grandma’s in Altoona. With thoughts of seeing her again and the driver’s message reverberating in my head, I was able to close my eyes and drift off to sleep for the first time all night.

  2.

  FRESNO, CALIFORNIA

  When I opened my eyes, the sun was up and shifting red across the face of the loose billowy clouds above. Only the gradual slowing of the bus seemed to break my slumber. For three hours I had managed to sleep soundly. I vaguely remembered waking at one point when the bus had stopped in the middle of nowhere, but I barely stirred long enough for it to even register. Sitting up and rubbing my eyes, I noticed that most of the passengers had disembarked during the night. My mouth was dry and tasted like Pine-Sol. I searched my pockets for the multicolored pamphlet I had picked up at the counter in the Stockton Terminal. It was a schedule of stops from Seattle to San Diego. Moving my finger down the page, I discovered that we had stopped in Modesto, Merced, and Madera for five minutes at each station.

  The bus slowed gracefully as it merged from the freeway and onto the off-ramp. A sign designated the exit as Fresno Street. Turning left at the top of the off-ramp, the bus passed several vacant lots, a few industrial buildings, and a strip of rust-colored train tracks. The overhead speaker clicked on, and the driver tried to make the last of us feel at home once again.

  “Good morning, folks. Welcome to Fresno. Pulling in, you can see it’s a good-size stop, so if you need to get out and stretch your legs or eat, now is a good time to do so. We’ll be laid over here for almost forty minutes, so enjoy yourselves, keep your tickets handy, and make sure you’re back on the bus before we pull out. Also, please secure any valuables, and don’t leave anything in the seats.”

  When he clicked off, we were slowing to a stop and parking between two other buses. Through the window, the terminal appeared busy with morning travelers. Suddenly my focus was broken by a tall, bald man in a suit coming out of the lavatory beside me. Casting me a quick glance, he smiled. The smell of the toilet threw me off. I recoiled in my spot, and I failed to respond. I now understood why most of the people riding were sitting toward the front. I could’ve sworn that the plastic fixtures started melting.

  For a few moments, I actually contemplated not getting off the bus for fear of losing the backseat to another rider. The urge to try to catch a few more hours of sleep before getting to Los Angeles was tempting. Once the bald man made his way down the steps, Jim, the driver, stood up and looked at me with curiosity.

  “You coming, chief?”

  I got up and nodded, acquiescing immediately. “Okay.”

  “No sense stayin’ cooped up in here for no reason, suckin’ on toilet fumes. Here…” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out some loose change. When I got to the front, he grabbed a hold of my hand and thrust the coins at me.

  “Get yourself a cuppa coffee, on me. It’s not too bad here. Just don’t get into any trouble—you got a long journey ahead from what I hear.”

  “Thank you,” was about all I could manage. I slowly eased down the metal steps and made my way off the bus.

  “Don’t mention it, chief,” he laughed, and locked the bus after we were both off. I wandered inside the terminal alone, as he stayed behind to walk around and inspect the vehicle. The building was larger than it appeared, and a lot busier. Groups of people were standing in small clusters, hugging family members who were getting ready to take a long journey. The ones getting ready to leave all had the same scared look on their faces that I had had a few hours earlier. It was one of the few things I could recognize. Their cases stood below them, well packed and prepared. Maybe there really was something insidious going on that I wasn’t aware of. Maybe this was my chance to alert the authorities or tell somebody. I just didn’t know what to say.

  In the main terminal, rows of black vinyl and chrome seats expanded out across what seemed like the length of a church hall. Many of the seats had small televisions affixed to them by metal arms. Most were occupied by various Greyhound passengers who were fast asleep, surrounded by luggage, trash, and rolled-up newspapers. A large, middle-aged black man was snoring loudly with one foot resting on top of a cylinder-shaped ashtray. The intercom system now had a man’s voice listing arrivals and departures and their corresponding platform numbers.

  “1236 to Yosemite, Bridgeport, and Lake Tahoe, platform 7. Final boarding call.”

  As I made my way through the lobby toward the smell of food, I heard the loudspeaker issue the same final boarding call at least two m
ore times. I scratched my head, wondering about Greyhound’s meaning of the word final. A security guard and a janitor pushing a mop bucket that smelled of hot water and Pine-Sol passed me. The only portion of their conversation that I could catch seemed meaningless.

  “I think he’s pissed himself, and he’s been passed out in the same…” The janitor’s voice was loud and agitated. I looked back and watched them turn a corner toward an endless bank of vending machines. I meandered through the terminal, feeling invisible and separated from everyone else by something unexplainable. Maybe it was just my age. The café was nestled past the ticket booths, near the front entrance of the building, which overlooked the parking lot. Trees encircled the building outside like Indians ominously getting ready to burn the place to the ground. The morning sky felt threatening through the glass windows. Rain clouds seemed to be standing guard with the trees, trying to keep whatever was trapped inside the terminal from escaping. The world outside the windows of the Grey Café might as well have been a battlefront. It was a dramatic change from being on the bus, but maybe that was the way they wanted you to feel. Maybe they wanted you to feel eager about getting back on the bus and not loiter around the terminal, “up to no good,” as Jim put it.

  I sat down at the counter to read what was on the lighted menu that was sponsored by Coke. I knew I had to spend my money wisely, having only thirty-five dollars and some loose change. A tall, slender redheaded woman wandered over toward me with a coffeepot in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other. She wore a gray uniform that looked similar to our driver’s outfit, except for her white apron. When she put the water down in front of me, she stared back at me, transfixed.

  “You lost, honey?”

  “No, ma’am. Just hungry.”

  She laughed. “I bet you are. You sure are a cute one.” She seemed mesmerized by me for some reason. I thought she was nice from the first moment I saw her. “Are you traveling alone, sweetheart?”