Greyhound

by Piper, Steffan

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Polite, too. You want some bacon and eggs?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t worry then, I’ll take care of you. Just sit right there and relax. Okay?” She was watching me from across the Formica countertop.

  I smiled in agreement. “May I have a cup of coffee?” The name printed on her tag read Jenny, but I felt awkward using it. I had never had coffee before; my mother never allowed it.

  “Coffee?” She laughed again, shaking her head. “You sure take the cake, sweet stuff. What’s your name?” The inner panic inside my head began once more. It was the million-dollar question, and even though I had the answer, getting it out of my mouth clean was a gamble.

  “Um…it’s a…Sebastien Ranes.”

  She repeated my name back to me slowly. It sounded nicer coming from her mouth than it ever did from mine. I always felt awkward about my name and tripped across it as if it were a foreign phrase I barely recognized. She poured me a cup of coffee, put it in front of me, and placed a hand on the counter, watching me, stupefied. “Would you like some condensed milk with that?” she suggested.

  “Yes, please,” I responded quietly.

  “How far are you going, Sebastien Ranes?”

  “Just past Pittsburgh.”

  “Oh good Lord, child! Just past Pittsburgh? You make it sound like it’s just down the street. Baby, that’s on the other side of the planet!” she exclaimed, surprised.

  “I’m going to go live with my grandma and my sister.”

  “You’re going to go live with your grandma and your sister,” she repeated. “Do your folks know about this?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My mother put me on the bus last night in Stockton.”

  “Your mother put you on the bus last night in Stockton!” She did it again, but now slower. “Did she manage to give you any money?” It seemed like the obvious next question.

  “Thirty-five dollars,” I replied, without considering my own words.

  Jenny’s face glassed over and turned gray, which seemed to be the theme. She stared long at me as if she wanted to repeat what I had said one more time but couldn’t. She scrambled around the counter and came directly toward me.

  “Let me get a better look at you.” She ran her hand through my hair and across my face, looking straight into my eyes. I had no clue as to why she was examining me in such a manner, but her hand was soft, and it felt nice against my cheek. She hugged me, which caught me by surprise.

  “Good gracious, you are adorable. But you’re a half-starved little scarecrow, aren’t ya?” It was strange, but when she hugged me, I felt different. I couldn’t recall the last time my own mother had hugged me, apart from quickly shuttling me onto the bus the night before. This was different, though. It felt as if she really cared about me, and it didn’t make any sense. Five minutes before, she had never laid eyes on me. Now it was as if I was her only child coming home from a bad day at school. How could it be? My mind felt heavy and dry like cork or cardboard. Something wasn’t right.

  “I’ll get you fixed up so you won’t be hungry. Does that sound like a good idea?”

  “Sure,” I answered.

  Jenny disappeared behind the counter to put in my order with the cook and tend to the other customers. At the end of the counter, the tall, bald man in the suit from the bus was eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. He looked at me, but only briefly. He ate his food, and I took care of putting the condensed milk into my coffee. The intercom system came on again, this time announcing my bus.

  “1443 to Los Angeles and San Diego on platform 7, departing at 7:30.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall and noticed I still had another thirty minutes. I wasn’t in any hurry. A few minutes later, Jenny approached with my food, which consisted of scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, wheat toast, and hash browns.

  “Coffee good?” she asked. “And don’t say ‘Yes, ma’am’ either.”

  “The coffee’s good. Thank you.”

  “That’s better. Now eat up.”

  Music came on overhead, and I lost myself in my breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before, which was only a box of macaroni and cheese in a kitchen that I was destined never to see again. I wondered what my mother was doing at that moment. I imagined she was probably asleep in her bedroom with Dick. It was still too early for either of them.

  The coffee was hot, and I slowly began to feel a little more like myself. I heard Jenny repeating my name again off in the distance to no one, as if she was astounded by the sound of it, or possibly trying to memorize it for later reference. The darkness that had surrounded me earlier, regarding traveling the country alone, began to lift. I thought if everyone was going to be this nice to me, I wouldn’t have that bad of a journey. After all, it was only three days and some change.

  When I finished, Jenny brought me a piece of pumpkin pie with a scoop of ice cream. I didn’t think I would’ve ever had room for that much food, but I might as well have inhaled the thing whole. I couldn’t refuse.

  “Thank you,” I uttered.

  “Don’t you fret, sugar.”

  I looked her over as she walked away. Her whole body swayed with an importance that I hadn’t seen before. She reminded me of one of those models on the calendars that hung on the wall of the mechanic’s garage and looked like artwork from the 1950s. I watched her serve plates of food, pour more coffee, and take orders. She was a striking figure, and everyone was glad when she came by and tended to them.

  A few more young men filed into the café, soldiers again. These men were wearing well-pressed blue uniforms and appeared more refined, unlike the men in Stockton, who were rough, shabby, and constantly smoking. These men seemed smart, polite, and much more reserved. I figured they were probably officers. Several of them had a small set of wings, a few inches wide, pinned on their light blue shirts just above their hearts. Their uniforms seemed more complex. I was pulling money from my pocket when Jenny returned.

  “Put that away, child,” she commanded. I looked up at her, dumbstruck. I slowly went back to trying to fish out the smallest bills.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it,” she insisted, as she came around the side. She pulled me in close to her again, and my head sunk into her large breasts. She was soft and smelled nice, like flowers, butter, and makeup. Her hands were warm and gripped tightly onto my arms.

  “You don’t smell like cigarettes,” I said. As soon as the words had left my lips, I felt stupid for saying it.

  “What an odd thing to say,” she replied, startled, as she rocked me from side to side. “Of course I don’t, baby. I don’t smoke. That’s an awfully nasty habit.”

  “My mother smokes and smells like an ashtray. You smell really nice,” I rejoined.

  She laughed. “Why, you sure are a smooth talker, aren’t you?”

  I smiled again and thanked her for breakfast. She kissed me long on the cheek and rubbed my hair lovingly. I finally began to settle down and not feel so edgy from being out in the world alone. Without any warning, she handed me a brown paper sack.

  “Here, sweetheart, you take this with you on the bus. We usually have these for the drivers, but they never want them, and we always throw away more than we give out.”

  “That’s awful nice of you.” I looked inside. It was a sandwich that smelled of peanut butter and jelly, a box of raisins, and an orange.

  “Okay now, Sebastien Ranes. Make sure you sit up front, and you tell the driver you’re traveling alone.” I couldn’t believe it; she gave me the same advice as everyone else. I was beside myself. But at least she was nice and she smelled good, and to me that was all that seemed to matter anymore. She hugged me a third time, pulling me close, before releasing me back into the wilderness of the world. It was almost painful when she let me go. I waved as I stepped across the threshold of the café back into the lobby. She was leaning against the counter, smiling and waving. My mind was taking snapshots of her. A
ll I could think of was how pretty she was and how I wanted her to hug me one last time.

  I straggled nervously around the terminal, trying to kill time, feeling weird and out of place, before I realized I needed to go to the bathroom, which was located at the far end. In front of the men’s toilet, a man and a woman were arguing and shouting. The woman kept pointing her finger at the man and calling “ass hole,” “shit-head,” and “fucking retard.” I had heard much worse at home many times before. I was no stranger to arguments or even knock-down, drag-out fights. The man just kept telling the woman to shut up and called her a “fat cow.” I laughed as I walked by them and slipped into the restroom. I glanced behind me a moment later, concerned that they might’ve heard me.

  I wandered into the low-lit, dark green–tiled bathroom and went pee. The bald man in the suit from the bus had come in right behind me. He saw me as he slowly walked past and closed himself into one of the stalls. After I finished, I shifted over to the sinks to wash my hands.

  “Hey, boy…” I heard him speaking softly. He was whispering from the other stall, but I didn’t respond.

  “Hey…can you get me some paper from the stall? This one’s out. It’s all empty in here,” he beckoned. I didn’t know why he was whispering. Maybe he felt embarrassed. I wiped my hands on the towel roll on the wall after forwarding the cloth to a would-be clean spot. I wondered where all the dirty towel went, as it seemed to disappear back inside the plastic housing. I slowly walked back toward the stall to check out what he wanted.

  “C’mon, kid. Help me out, would ya? I could use some paper,” he pleaded. He was in the third stall down, the very last one in the row. I opened the door to the first empty stall and saw a full roll sitting on top of the holder. I grabbed it and turned to head back out of the stall, but he was immediately behind me at the stall door. I was surprised that he had moved so quickly. Another man came into the bathroom at that same moment; the door squeaked loudly on its hinge.

  “Sorry, kid, I thought that you’d left me hanging. Thanks, though.” The bald man smiled, took the roll, and headed back into the stall and locked the door. He started coughing nervously and clearing his throat. I shrugged the whole thing off and left.

  “1443 to Los Angeles platform 7, now boarding. Five-minute call.” The music came back on after the announcement. I had heard the song before. It was “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” The song reminded me of the waitress. Walking back to the bus, I began to notice a lot of people sleeping in the terminal. It made me think back to all of those nights at the YMCA, stuck sleeping on a cot next to my older sister, Beanie. I had too many of those nights to forget. My mother always called it “rock bottom,” but I never knew why. The security guard was asking different people to show him their tickets.

  “Can’t you see I’m trying to watch TV? I’ve paid for it!” The obese black man from before was angry and yelling at the guard. I quickly walked back outside hoping to get a good seat on the bus and not miss my ride. I didn’t want to end up getting stuck here. As nice as Jenny was, I thought it might be uncomfortable if I had to see her again and explain that I was stupid enough to miss the bus. Everything with her seemed perfect. I didn’t want to mess it up. It was the beginning of a good memory, and it was something to take note of in my journal.

  I stood at the back of the line of people who were reboarding the bus. It didn’t seem as if we had picked up many more riders. When I climbed the stairs, I saw Jim staring down at me with a smile and a cigar in his mouth.

  “Here he comes, the luckiest man alive, I swear!” he bellowed and guffawed. “I saw you over in the Grey Café all deep in that broad’s jugs. Good God, son!” I was stunned by what he said. It was as if I had been hit by a wave of thick air hearing the driver’s descriptions of Jenny. I was embarrassed and probably blushed.

  “Good job, chief!” he exclaimed. “A woman in every port! That’s my motto.”

  I didn’t know exactly what to say, so I made my way toward the back of the bus. The back row was once again completely open. A man was sitting on the opposite side against the window reading a book. I thought maybe he wanted to be near the toilet. I sat back in my seat and looked out at Fresno in the afternoon. Fresno seemed, from where I was sitting, like a forgotten town in a sea of concrete at the far edge of the world. The sun was cooking everything within its reach. I felt the heat oozing through the aluminum bus and slipping through the air-conditioning. It was the only thing the old people on the bus seemed to be talking about. I listened to their comments, not really having an opinion.

  I pulled the notepad and pencil from my shirt pocket and wrote down three sentences, soon to be a memory, of my thoughts on Fresno.

  Paper bags with peanut butter sandwiches. A waitress with soft hands. She hugged me in a sea of concrete.

  As we pulled away from the bus station and back out onto the main street heading toward the freeway, I struggled to say more, but realized that three sentences were enough. Then I wrote the name Jenny in the margin.

  We pulled out onto the freeway again. The road signs said it was the 99. After the bus built up speed, Jim came on the overhead speaker one more time.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Just want to welcome you to the 1443 to Los Angeles. Our travel time is approximately four and a half hours, which should put us in Downtown just after noon. A little later than first expected, but close enough. This portion of the drive is pretty steady and mostly downhill, so we may pick up a few minutes. Please remember, no drinking alcoholic beverages on the bus, and thank you for choosing Greyhound.”

  When the speaker made the clicking sound again, I noticed it was louder than Jim’s voice, which was jarring, as the speaker was just above my head. It was the hardest thing so far to get used to. In the first twenty minutes of driving, several people had made their way back to the rear of the bus to use the toilet, including the tall, bald man in the suit. He nodded at me with a smile as he disappeared inside and locked the door. The occupied light came on with the sound of the lock sliding into place. I quickly figured out that most of the people who were going into the bathroom were going in there to have a cigarette. With every person who went in, the air following them out smelled heavier and heavier. I told myself that I would never smoke when I was older, no matter how good they might be. Cigarettes made everything stink. People’s clothes, their faces, their hair, and their hands. Their teeth were yellow, the whites of their eyes were yellow, and their collars sweated cigarettes when it got hot. The smell burned my nose and bothered me to no end. But maybe it was necessary, as every adult I knew always smoked or “needed one.” My mother always said she was “fiending for one.” I had heard her say that smoking was romantic, but I just couldn’t see how. It seemed like a death ritual more than anything else. All the Catholic services that I had ever sat through always burned incense. At least that smelled better, but not by much. The thought of Jenny stayed with me. She was beautiful and kind, she smelled nice, and she didn’t smoke at all. My mother had also said that “people who don’t smoke are squares.” I had now come to believe this wasn’t true. I felt angry at her for lying to me again. But I was happy to finally be sure about something about which I used to believe otherwise.

  The bus sped quickly, and the world passed by the windows. I was just an observer but very glad to be seeing it sweep by beside me. Endless farmland, sewn together like the massive bed quilts that my grandma would make, one piece after another. Jim turned music on over the loudspeaker at a low volume to help break the monotony. I read the road signs, trying to count the rare occurrences of the letters x, y, and z. Several large yellow signs alerted drivers not to pick up hitchhikers because there was a prison nearby, but I didn’t see any signs of hitchhikers or prisons. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. Early-morning commuters started to crowd next to us on the freeway. People were driving with an intense focus, and most of them were still eating their breakfast and drinking coffee from Styrofoam McDonald’s
cups. Everybody else’s life seemed so different from my own.

  I put my attention back inside the bus. Someone else had just locked himself in the bathroom. Sitting quietly on the row of seats alone, I fully realized my boredom and wished I had brought something to read—a book, a magazine, or even a newspaper. Stuffed inside the seat pocket was yet another ad brochure like all the others conveniently placed in the Fresno Terminal.

  Lifting the leaflet from the seat pocket, I surveyed a woman’s smiling face printed across the front in full color. She had bushy brown hair and a laughing smile. It seemed over-the-top as an ad for Greyhound. The words Go Greyhound were printed in red across the front like an alert. I couldn’t figure out the purpose of the small booklet, as everyone on the bus had already clearly chosen to Go Greyhound. Opening the multipage brochure, I scanned it for anything interesting but only saw multiple photos of American landmarks like the Grand Canyon, the Saint Louis Arch, and the White House. I only knew these names as they were printed below each one, and every photo was accompanied by a short statement about seeing the world from a bus.

  I put it back in the seat, a little confused. I would’ve expected the people in charge of making the flyer to advertise the cafés inside the terminal in order to persuade anyone not wishing to disembark on a layover to break down, give in, and go have a cup of coffee, just as I had. I had a frightening thought that maybe the cafés were rare and there weren’t going to be that many as we got farther from California. If that was going to be the case, I imagined I’d be stuck eating food from the vending machines.

  I would have to pay for food at some point. I estimated that my breakfast would have cost me just over four dollars if I had paid. I slowly added the numbers up in my notepad.

  $2.85 for the bacon and eggs

  75¢ for the coffee

  $1.25 for pie

  It came to $4.85, which was a little more than I had thought. I realized I probably wouldn’t eat pie with every meal and so could deduct it from the total amount. But with pie, eating twice a day would cost me $9.70 a day. With three and a half days worth of driving, I had just enough. If I had added it up properly, I would have almost six dollars left by the time I got to Altoona. I fretted about other problems coming up and it costing me more than I could afford. If that happened, there was nothing I could do.