Greyhound

by Piper, Steffan

  “Good morning, boys,” spoke an elderly lady with dark curly hair and large glasses that made her eyes look wide and large like an owl’s. She was happy to see us and greeted us warmly.

  “Nothing like the first customers of the day,” she continued with a beaming smile.

  “Morning, ma’am,” we answered. I dropped my case against the wall just inside the door. The store had room for only a few seats, as the bulk of the floor space was taken up by glass display cases. It was intended just as a place to purchase coffee and donuts to go. A sign next to the cash register read No Checks, No Credit, No Trouble.

  Marcus ordered two cups of coffee and a half-dozen assorted donuts. Still aching and tired, we eased into chairs next to the front window. It was hard to let my eyes rest because of the busy décor surrounding us. The walls were covered with strange oil paintings of several different churches. None were the same, but they all had the distinct feeling of being painted by the same hand. They looked like paintings done by a child. The only problem was that there was something about them that made me feel compelled to stare at them. I scanned each one carefully.

  “You like my paintings?” the old lady asked, as she set our coffee and donuts on the plastic gingham table cover.

  I shook my head, nodding yes. “There sure are a lot of them,” I said, mesmerized and trying to figure them out, as if they were a puzzle.

  “They’re all for sale,” she replied in an upbeat tone. “You two boys live near here?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m supposed to be meeting my grandparents here this morning. They should’ve been here already,” I answered. Her curiosity was piqued.

  “Oh, really? Who are your grandparents? Perhaps I know them. Mount Vernon’s not that big.”

  “My grandfather’s John F. Kennedy. Do you know him?” I asked. I looked over to see Marcus smiling. He turned his gaze out the window and stirred his coffee.

  “Well, not that John F. Kennedy, Marcus.” I laughed a little, seeing the humor in it.

  “Old John? Sure, I know him. He’s a bit of an old buzzard. Is he your grandfather?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I replied positively, with my face connected to my coffee cup.

  “My, my,” she said, half under her breath. “Have you ever met your grandfather?”

  “No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?” I responded. Marcus didn’t say a single word. He just sat quietly, taking it all in and biting into his donut.

  “He knew you were coming too?”

  “He does…or they do. My grandma as well,” I answered again. She had a lot of questions, but since she knew him, I was trying my best to be polite.

  “Well, your bus was on time and he’s not here. You just want to wait for a while, I suppose?”

  “Is that okay?” I questioned.

  “Sure.” The old lady slipped back behind her counter and into the kitchen to continue sliding donuts around on trays. The whole exchange was a bit strange, but maybe she knew something I didn’t.

  “She didn’t say anything good about your grandfather. You did notice that, right?” Marcus responded to her comments pointedly, and in a very low tone.

  “That thought just occurred to me, actually,” I admitted. I wasn’t smiling, and I was beginning to be a little afraid of the prospect of actually having to meet John F. Kennedy. The clock on the wall said twenty-two minutes after five, and there wasn’t another soul to be encountered anywhere.

  Marcus was gazing out through the huge window and trying to get a clue on our surroundings. “Is that a graveyard?” he asked under his breath.

  “Well…our bus should get here just after seven if Germaine radioed back to the other bus,” he continued. My mind was already leaving town, even though my body was still firmly fixed in Mount Vernon.

  “You didn’t have to get off, Marcus. I don’t think anyone’s coming, and I feel a little silly for even bothering,” I responded apologetically.

  “No, don’t feel bad. I told you I wouldn’t leave you hangin’ in this place all by yourself. It’s a little too quiet.” His eyes darted to the sides, trying to be both funny and spooky simultaneously. I nodded in acknowledgment. Outside, the world was getting a thorough rinsing. The rain had been unceasing since Blythe and had followed us across the last four states. The thunder made its presence known somewhere off in the far distance. Almost six seconds later, lightning strikes cracked the earth. I didn’t know if I was supposed to count the thunder or the lightning. Either way, it probably didn’t matter.

  “So, are you going to tell me what’s in those cases that are so damn heavy?”

  “Clothes,” I answered, without missing a beat.

  He laughed out loud. Not as loud as on the bus earlier, but loud enough that I knew he wasn’t going to be satisfied with such a simple answer.

  “No, no. I want the real story about what’s in them cases. Clothes? C’mon, man. Be straight with me.”

  “They are pretty heavy,” I admitted with a grin. I stared into my coffee cup, fiddling with the handle. “I don’t know what to say, but I wish they had just burned up under the bus. It would’ve been easier.”

  “Just tell it like it is,” Marcus prodded. “That’s all.”

  “If I tell you, you’re not going to be mad?”

  “You just asked me a question and put a condition on it. I can’t guarantee you how I’m gonna feel, but I’m probably not gonna lose it,” he answered. I hadn’t thought about it like that before, but I guess I was just afraid of what he was going to say.

  “Both of those cases are filled with women’s clothes. Dresses, shoes, stuff like that.” It was better to just put it out there than sit there and fuss over it.

  “Pardon me?” Marcus responded.

  “I filled those suitcases with my mother’s dresses before I left. They had left the house for a couple of hours the night before they put me on the bus. I switched everything out then.”

  “And why would you do that?” he asked, more confused now than before.

  “She cared more about her dresses and her damn shoes than she ever cared about me or my sister.”

  “Beanie,” he replied, still seeing the humor in her name. “It just seems a little strange that you would empty out your momma’s wardrobe and haul it across America.”

  “I’m not gonna wear it,” I said. “If that’s what you’re trying to say.”

  Marcus put his hands up in the air, backing away from the subject. “Take it easy, now. It’s not like that. You’d have to be pretty messed up for that. But what are you planning on doing with all of it?”

  I scratched my head and didn’t respond. I stayed quiet as the old lady skirted the counter and approached us one more time with hot coffee. She very carefully refilled our cups, giving Marcus a long look.

  “Thank you,” Marcus replied, motioning toward his coffee cup.

  “Ain’t nowhere to go until Ben Franklin’s opens up just after nine, but you’ll probably be gone by then. Did you want me to call up to your grandpa’s house? His name is listed in the phone book.”

  “What’s Ben Franklin’s?” I asked, still trying to catch up, distracted.

  “It’s a department store that sells odds and ends, crafts mostly. It’s located just down the street and across the square. It’s the biggest store in town. You want me to make that call? You should let them know that you’re waiting,” she crowed, just above my shoulder.

  Marcus seemed a little disengaged, as if he was watching me every step of the way to see how I was going to handle it, like it was a test.

  “She’s probably right, big man. It’s all you now.”

  “Ain’t no ‘probably’ about it,” she said, interrupting and chiding Marcus. “The phone book’s sitting right there on the side table.”

  The pay phone stuck to the wall in the corner across the small café looked old but well taken care of. On a wire-rack table beside it stood a neat stack of phone books. One yellow and one white—both were about as thick as a Reader’s D
igest. I took a seat on the stool next to the phone and thumbed through the white pages, looking for the name John F. Kennedy. I wondered as I flipped the pages if he got a lot of prank calls in the middle of the night. “Hello, is this the President?” I imagined it would probably start. I slowed as I got to Keller on the bottom of the page and turning, discovered the same exact name on the top of the next one. I ran my finger past several other names and settled on Kennedy, John F., 24 Brooks Street. I found a quarter in the pocket of my jeans and dialed the number. The storm was strong enough to hear the swooshing of the static as the phone seemed to idle in silence for an eternity. I thought the line had died, but as I lifted my hand up to cancel the call, it rang. The sound of the ringer was different and seemed far away. Not the probable five or six blocks that it was in real life. I felt my body freezing up inside, knowing I was required to speak. As it continued, the sound of the ringer became the loudest sound I’d ever heard. I thought my eardrum was going to pierce from the pain with every ring. I wanted it to stop, even if someone picked it up, but it just rang.

  I looked over at Marcus and shrugged. I replaced the handset back on the metal casing in relief. I heard the quarter flop through the guts of the machine and meet an end at the coin slot. I collected myself and my money and went back to our table at the window.

  “Maybe they’re on the way or something?” I suggested.

  Marcus smiled. “Maybe…let’s see if they show up.”

  “Let’s just be clear, Marcus,” I asserted. “I hope they don’t show up. I’d have some explaining to do if they did.” I motioned at the cases. “I’m sure my mother called them already and told them.”

  “What are you going to tell them when they get here?” he asked bluntly.

  “I don’t have any idea. Probably better not to say anything at all. I don’t think they care too much for me or my sister. Whatever happens, it’s not going to go well.”

  “Well, you can say that again. But I can only help you so much, buddy.”

  “I know.”

  “So what are you going to do with these cases full of women’s dresses and shoes? You were never really planning on taking them all the way back to Grandma’s. That much I do know.”

  “No, I just thought that the first chance I could get to ditch them, I would. Maybe give them away. Burning up under the bus would’ve been cool.”

  “Well, we do have to change buses in Columbus later tonight. Maybe during the layover we can think of something. If it’s not in Columbus, it’ll be in Pittsburgh.”

  “You’ll help me get rid of them then?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? It’s not like I need them, that’s for sure. Your moms is gonna blow a gasket when she finds all that stuff gone.” The look on Marcus’s face seemed to be him imagining my mother’s surprised expression as she opened her closet door to find the back of it empty.

  “I just felt like it was something that I had to do. I’d thought about it for quite a while. I also thought about setting the place on fire, but someone may have gotten hurt, and I wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  “How thoughtful,” he replied sarcastically. He shook his head at me while chewing on a pink-frosted donut with sprinkles. The old woman turned on a radio that sat on the counter above the register. The music wafted out at us, barely audible, but we both listened to it intently. It sounded like the same stuff my grandma listened to on her AM radio in the kitchen every morning. It was the “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” song. I didn’t know the title, but I’d heard it lots of times and knew most of the words.

  “Wow, he was on the bus too,” I remarked on the lyrics.

  “Just got out of prison as well,” Marcus added with a laugh.

  “Was it wrong of me to take that stuff?” I asked Marcus, concerned.

  “Well,” Marcus began, just as he always did, “I wouldn’t necessarily say it was wrong, but I would say that stuff like that happens. If all she lost was a handful of pretty dresses and a few pairs of shoes, she got off easy.”

  I scanned the street out front nervously, looking for any signs of life. The only person who came into view outside was the local sheriff. He parked his truck directly in front of the shop, left the engine running, and slipped inside under the protection of his umbrella.

  A bell attached to the top of the door jingled as it opened. He shook off and adjusted the plastic cover on his cowboy hat. “Whew, it sure is coming down out there, Lilah,” he spoke, as he dabbed his face with a white handkerchief, sorting himself out. He looked a lot like my grandpa in Altoona. He had well-combed white hair and a bushy white mustache. He finally saw us out of the corner of his eye and turned toward us.

  “Morning, boys. I didn’t see ya there. Coffee hot? Hopefully you left me some,” he said. He was peering at us, perhaps sizing us up.

  “Good morning, Sheriff,” Marcus responded cheerily, like he was welcoming the conversation. “Coffee’s good. How are ya today?” The old sheriff made a step toward us, holding his hat in his hand, and leaned on a chair from the other table.

  “Not bad so far. A little wet, but thankfully it’s quiet. Hopefully, it’ll stay like that.”

  “Keeps raining like this, it just might be the slowest day of the year,” Marcus remarked coolly.

  The sheriff laughed at his comment. “You just might be right. You never can tell.”

  “I hope not. I’ve got a business to run,” the old lady chimed in. “Good morning, Sheriff. Everything is all ready.” Her tone was familiar and snarky. She slid a hot cup of coffee in a mug across the counter and set down a big pink box of donuts beside it. She was filling out a receipt and listing off what was in the box, mostly under her breath.

  “Four custard-filled bismarks, two old-fashioned, two chocolate rings, two regular rings with sprinkles, and two powdered jelly-filled. Comes to four dollars even. Here ya go,” she announced, as she handed him the receipt, which he gladly accepted, folded, and put in his wallet.

  “You both waiting for the seven o’clock bus?” he asked us, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. I didn’t want to say too much. I didn’t feel like telling my whole story again. My brain imagined the sheriff tracking down my mother’s father and bringing him here. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask.

  “This is John Kennedy’s grandson,” the old lady squawked, as she filled the sheriff’s thermos.

  “Old John? You’re his grandson?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re waiting on him now. He’s going to come down and see me while we wait for the next bus,” I informed him. The sheriff’s face went from happy to dour. The old lady handed him his things, which he took, never once looking away from me.

  “John Kennedy, huh? Coming down here?” he bellowed.

  “That’s what my mother told me.”

  The sheriff just grunted and sipped his coffee. His steely gaze finally broke away from me. He brought a comb up to his mustache and brushed it contemplatively.

  “Lilah…how long has it been since Old John stepped foot in here?” he asked. It was the second time that he’d called him “Old John.” I could only wonder how old he really was now.

  “That old coot…” she interrupted herself. “John Kennedy’s never stepped foot in here once in the twenty years that door’s been open. To be honest, I didn’t even know he had children.” She was still busy sliding donuts around from warming ovens in the back to the display case up front and brewing another pot of coffee all at once. They both had been speaking about me as if I wasn’t even there.

  The sheriff didn’t say a word. I looked over at Marcus, clearly bothered. He was staring out the window at a car that had pulled up across the street. A man in a dark raincoat and hat sprung from the car and hotfooted his way across the street, shaking briskly as he came inside. My heart began beating faster as I wondered if it was him, Old John, John F. Kennedy, my grandfather.

  “Morning, Judge,” the sheriff announced, as the old-timer flapped his co
at sides in the doorway. He slipped out of it and hung it on the coat tree against the wall, just above my cases. I collapsed at the table and rubbed my eyes, a little more anxious than I needed to be.

  “Well, well, well,” the rotund old geezer cheerily clucked. “Hopefully that coffee is fresh and hot, Lilah dear.”

  “It’s all ready for ya, Judge,” she answered back.

  The sheriff used his coffee cup to motion in our direction. It was like a scene right out of an Old West movie, where everyone seemed fascinated by the outsiders.

  “Judge, this here’s Old John’s grandson. Waitin’ for him now to come down.” The judge was surprised by this, and his whole demeanor shifted as he floated his huge hulking frame in our direction. He pulled his glasses from his face and tried to get a better look at us.

  “Old John, ya say? Hell, I didn’t even know that old coot had any kin, especially this young,” he announced loudly. “Let’s get a better look here,” he continued, as he put his specs back on after cleaning the rain from them. He pulled up a stool next to ours, and I now had the feeling that we were both on display and being made a spectacle. Rather, I felt this way. Marcus seemed to be completely enjoying himself now.

  “John Kennedy’s grandson! I do say…” The old judge put his porky hand on my shoulder and looked closely at my face. He just grunted. “Well, that’s probably a good thing,” he spoke, not really talking to me as much as he was about me.

  “What’s your name, son?” he asked me.

  “My name? Sebastien. My name is Sebastien Ranes.” I did my best to not stutter, moving around the words like obstacles.

  “Sebastien Rayyynes?” He repeated my name, in shock. “You French, boy? Whoever gave you a name like that?”

  “I guess my mother, sir.”

  “Your momma named you that?” he asked, literally dumbfounded. He took a deep breath and then took a big sip of coffee. “Lemme guess, no daddy. Bastard of the first degree, huh?” He gave Marcus a quick look but paid him no mind. “Don’t worry, son…I can tell these things. Your momma must be French. John Kennedy must’ve had children during the war and then abandoned them. That’s it.”