Greyhound

by Piper, Steffan

  I pulled out the rest of my café vouchers and slid them across the table. “Here, you might as well have these. I won’t be needing them at my grandma’s house. They gave me a bunch of them back in Los Angeles when our bus got hijacked.”

  Marcus was immediately shocked by this revelation. “Say what? You never told me about that.” His hand slapped down on the table, and all the silverware bounced in unison, making a loud noise.

  “Yeah, what can I say? It’s been one of those weeks,” I confessed lightly. We both found it funny.

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Marcus.”

  “Hey, you going to go see if there’s a message from Monty at the information booth? We only got a few minutes left.”

  “I almost forgot,” I rejoined.

  “I’ll handle the waitress. You go check it out, just in case,” he suggested.

  I’d almost forgotten about Monty’s message. I walked quickly out of The Road Grill and through the long stretch of lobby toward the information counter, which was on the other side of the terminal. I had seen it on the way in but had dismissed it completely.

  A smell of cigar smoke and body odor emanated from the doorway of the small office that was marked Information by a small brown plaque jutting out into the hall. An old red-faced man with a bulbous, bright-red nose was telling a story to another Greyhound driver. I knocked on the half-size door, but neither of the two men acknowledged me. The second time, I knocked firmer and much louder.

  “Hello!” I announced. They were both a little taken aback that I had interrupted them, but they didn’t budge. The old man just swished the cigar around in his mouth.

  “I’m looking to see if I have a message,” I spoke. The two men went stale and silent, staring at me. I felt like I was being examined; it was disturbing.

  “A message? What’s your name?” he barked. I knew he was going to ask, but it didn’t make a bit of difference.

  “My name? It’s uh, like…”

  “What the hell’s your name, kid. Stop the goddamned mumbling and spit it out. This isn’t a goddamned petting zoo,” he yelled. The other man laughed and leered at me, creeping me out.

  “Ranes,” I squeezed out through my hardening vocal cords. “Sebastien,” I continued in a truncated fashion.

  “Ranes? Sebastien?” he groaned. “Which is it, punk?”

  “My name is Sebastien Ranes.” The words came out of my mouth like huge pieces of rusted metal. My gums and lips were dry. I was sweating and nervous.

  “Got problems with the English language, huh?” he commented unsympathetically. The other man just sipped his coffee.

  “Lemme just check the books,” the old man growled from behind a continuous puffing of smoke. He flipped through two pages slowly and seemed surprised as he came across something. He finally looked back up after a brief hesitation.

  “What the hell…you do got a message.” My heart started racing even faster now, and I felt hot underneath my thick Greyhound coat.

  “I do?” I responded, stunned. The old man didn’t say anything at first. He put the log book down on the small shelf built into the flimsy Dutch door affixed to the office wall. He thrust a pen at me and pointed with his thick digit to a blank line in the book.

  “Sign it and date it first,” he ordered, sharply.

  “What’s today’s date?” I queried, not looking up.

  “May thirteenth,” he replied, annoyed. Hung on the wall, beside the man’s head, was a small paper flip-calendar with dark numbers that took up the entire square. Thirteen was the size of his red face, and the word May was harder to read but still visible. I wished I had looked up before asking, rather than the other way around. I quickly signed and dated the register, then handed him back his pen.

  “All it says is: Message for Sebastien Ranes. John Oates and Sara.” The old man read it off aloud, never letting me see the original in the book. After he read it a second time, realizing that it wasn’t much of a message, he grew confused and a little bewildered. “What’s the matter with you now? You look like someone just walked over your momma’s grave.” I stood still, as it felt as if every ounce of blood had just dropped out of me through my shoes. I was probably as pale as a sheet.

  “Thank you,” I replied, quickly making my way outside. Marcus was smoking a cigarette on the platform when I caught up to him.

  “Well?” he asked, as he watched me quickly making my way up the parking island. “Was there a message?”

  “Yeah…” I rejoined gravely. His face immediately shifted to show concern.

  “John Oates and Sara,” I whispered, still heading for the bus.

  Marcus quickly stomped out his cigarette underfoot and pointed at the open door of our transportation. “Hurry up and get back on. Let’s just get the hell outta here, if we still can.” His tone was urgent. We were both nervous during the last five minutes in Columbus as we waited to pull out and get back onto the road and deeper into the world. I had intended to listen to my Cat Stevens tape on the way to Pittsburgh, but the never-ending barrage of bus fumes, coupled with sheer exhaustion and raw nervous tension, knocked me out cold. I drifted off as soon as we turned left and headed down the on-ramp, merging back onto the freeway and toward whatever was going to be waiting for us in Pittsburgh.

  When I opened my eyes again, my head hurt and I felt absolutely awful. I was congested and had to wipe my nose on my jacket cuff to stop it from running. Overhead, my mind registered the words Welcome to Pittsburgh followed by a loud clicking noise, as if someone was cocking a gun next to the speaker. I looked over, and Marcus was still fast asleep, which was uncharacteristic, as he seemed to be awake and alert at all times. I had to nudge him back to life.

  “Marcus…we’re here. Wake up,” I said, pulling on his arm. He quickly came around and rubbed his eyes.

  “Man, I’m dead-ass tired,” he announced, sitting up quickly and yawning. The bus was already in the terminal, and people were pouring themselves down the metal stairs.

  “I guess this is it,” I said, looking over at him, waiting for a response. He just smiled, grabbed his stuff, and started slowly down the aisle.

  “C’mon, kiddo. We’ve got one more thing to get done before all that.”

  Once we were off the bus, we both waited with everyone else on the platform for my bags. One of the porters came over to us.

  “Name?” he queried.

  “Ranes. Two cases,” Marcus replied, interjecting with expedience. I didn’t say a word, but I was thankful that I didn’t have to speak. A moment later, the man came back with my cases and set them down on the pavement in front of us.

  “The tags say that we’re supposed to transfer these to the 4692. You still traveling on to State College or Altoona?”

  “My bags are traveling separate,” I announced. I gave the man the two stubs that I had been given three days before back in Stockton and finally redeemed my luggage. As soon as we picked them up and moved a mere ten feet down the platform, we heard the overhead announcement.

  “First call. First call. Now boarding Greyhound 4692 on aisle 4 to Altoona, Hollidaysburg, and State College. First call.”

  We both stopped and looked at each other, unsure about what to do next. I looked up and realized that Marcus was obviously getting a kick out of this, judging by the ecstatic grin across his face.

  “This is the most entertainment I’ve had in days!” he admitted.

  “What are we going to do, Marcus?” I asked, now frantic.

  “You got anything inside you need or that has your name on it?”

  “Uh-uh. Nothing,” I responded.

  “Hurry up and take your Greyhound tags off the handle,” he pointed out. The paper tags were being held on by white rubber bands that easily broke when pulled at with any amount of force. Marcus quickly peeled off the red Trailways sticker that had been slapped across the case he was carrying.

  “C’mon, let’s get to the front of the building. I�
��ve got an idea,” he said. We hurriedly made our way around the terminal through an alleyway that opened out onto the main street in front of the bus station. Even for three-thirty in the morning, it was busy. The bus station sat on the corner of a huge intersection that was brightly lit by a barrage of streetlamps. People were coming and going from the terminal or hanging out on the benches, waiting for a city bus to come pick them up. Marcus was looking around for something or someone.

  “Here we go,” he exclaimed. “Follow me!”

  I ran after him, dragging the suitcase with what little strength I had left, as we made our way down the sidewalk and away from the bus terminal toward an old homeless lady pushing a shopping cart a half a block away from us.

  “Excuse me, ma’am!” Marcus called out to her. At first she didn’t turn around, but as we got closer, she slowed and eventually turned her head and her whole body toward us. The old woman was dressed in multiple layers of clothes and rags, which were all filthy. She was hauling two baskets full of what looked like worthless and random junk. As I stood beside her, next to Marcus, I began to notice how badly she reeked. I never thought anything could smell like that, but it was awful. She smelled ten times worse than the man who had defecated in his pants back in Phoenix. I tried not to let it show on my face, but I was overwhelmed by the smell. When she saw me, she smiled, and her face lightened and relaxed.

  “Are you alright?” she asked me. “Why are you out so late?” Her words seemed out of place, like she recognized us. She was talking to me as if everything was perfectly normal.

  “Sorry to rush, but these are for you,” Marcus informed her, putting the cases down next to her. “We both wanted you to have these and thought you might get some use out of what’s inside,” he added. She smiled, stared at Marcus, and then started to feel the outside of the cases with her hands.

  “Ohh…now these are really lovely,” the old homeless lady pointed out. “Let me get you a receipt for these.”

  “We’ve got to get back. We have a bus to catch. Kind of in a hurry, okay?” We both scratched our heads as she fumbled around in her basket for a moment, looking for a “receipt.” When she turned back around, she was holding two empty bags of pretzels and handed us one each.

  “One for you…” she said, giving an empty pretzel bag to Marcus, “and one for you,” she stated, patting my shoulder and looking closely into my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Alright, boys. Have a nice trip and don’t miss your flight. Call me when you get in,” she followed up.

  “C’mon, we’ve gotta get back to the bus,” he said, as he headed down the sidewalk. I felt a little strange as I turned away from the two suitcases and picked up into a full sprint after Marcus, racing to the bus in the middle of the night. We rounded the back end of the terminal and returned to where we had started. We took a second to catch our breath and watched people climbing aboard our buses, which were parked beside each other. Sweat beads were running down my face, and we were both panting for air.

  “This is it, Sebastien Ranes,” he said, sticking out his hand. I felt compelled to give him a hug.

  “Thanks for everything, Marcus Franklin,” I replied. I patted him on the back twice and then backed off, feeling odd. Even though I had only known him for three days, it felt as if we had been friends for much longer.

  “Oh, here…” I interrupted myself, distracted, and handed him a small piece of paper. “I wrote down my address in Altoona. Maybe you could write me during the summer, tell me how everything’s going up in New York.”

  “Okay…look forward to it, then. I’ll send you word, alright?”

  “Final boarding call, 4692 to Altoona, Hollidaysburg, and State College. Final call. Final call.”

  “Damn!” I swore. “Gotta go.”

  “You be good, Sebastien. Stay safe,” Marcus called out, as he stepped over toward his bus. It was an odd moment getting on the new coach without him, and it felt strange, bleak, and unsettling all at once. Everything had gone smoothly, and I was almost home. I would be there in a few hours, and I wondered how much of all this would begin to fade out and be forgotten. Nothing ever felt permanent. Sitting in the back of the bus for the last time, I looked over at my old bus and saw Marcus in the window, waving goodbye. He was standing up and had his palm against the glass, giving me the thumbs-up. I did the same and watched him smiling as we pulled backward, away from the terminal, beeping the whole way.

  10.

  MAY 14, 1981…

  ALTOONA, PENNSYLVANIA

  As tired as I was, and as early as it was, I should have just tried to sleep the next four hours away, but I couldn’t. I was wide awake. My brain had fallen into the habit of automatically tuning out all the background noises, the groaning engine, the muffled coughing, and the endless pockets of people snoring. Now it was absolutely dead quiet, and it was disturbing. Most of these people were just making a short road trip to an out-of-the-way place in the middle of the state. They weren’t road-weary, filthy, and exhausted like I was. I felt like a thoroughbred of travelers now. I was a real professional. Now that I was finally alone, just as I was when I had started out, the entire experience of the last three and a half days began to wash over me and sink in. I felt older, and I could sense that I’d probably feel like this for the rest of the summer. Or at least I hoped so. My thoughts shifted back to Marcus, and I knew that he was somewhere on this same stretch of highway, sitting in the backseat and wondering how I was doing, and if someone would be there to pick me up once I got to Altoona. It was a safe bet. In the past, every time we had moved, I had left behind a few friends, and sometimes it would hurt to leave. But after so many moves in such a short period of time, I had slowly become numb to it. Now I was feeling sad for not getting to spend more time in Pittsburgh saying goodbye, even though I knew it was something I was going to have to deal with all day long. No one had ever been a friend to me like Marcus, and no one had ever spent so much time talking with me as he had.

  I stared out the window into the waning light of the morning, which seemed slow to come. The moon was now low in the sky, near the horizon and thin like a fingernail, getting ready to fall off the edge of the world, plummeting into daylight. Pulling away from Pittsburgh, the driver must’ve known it was too late at night for any announcement, as it never happened, and the runner lights on the floor and along the ceiling had been placed in the off position.

  The majority of the passengers who had gotten on the bus were younger than the people riding on the previous legs of the trip, and a lot of them were wearing purple sweatshirts with a large cat head on everything. The weekend was now over, and they were probably all returning to school in State College. I really didn’t have any hard evidence, but I assumed it by the name of the place.

  The farther we got from Pittsburgh, the darker and more uninhabited the world outside became. Mountains rose up all around us, and thick rows of trees blotted out any views that might have been had. The bus slipped through tunnel after tunnel, forging through the innards of small mountains. The inside of the bus momentarily flashed with a brief amount of dim white light from inside the tunnels, illuminating the way. I relaxed and sunk into my headphones to finally listen to the Cat Stevens tape that I’d bought back in Columbus. I started to think that with as much darkness as I was surrounded by, I was bound to eventually fall asleep.

  When I popped the cassette tape in and hit the play button, I didn’t know what to expect, having never heard of him before. I turned down the volume just in case it was going to be loud. When a few seconds passed in complete silence, I turned the volume slowly back up until I heard the very faint sound of a guitar playing. Checking the back of the cassette box, I saw the title of the song was “The Wind,” which seemed more than fitting. The music was very soft and similar to the Simon and Garfunkel tape, but more soothing. As the bus went on and Cat Stevens sang, the sun rose up from the front of the bus and very slowly, mile by mile, replaced every inch of da
rkness.

  I didn’t close my eyes the whole way in. When the bus finally came to a stop behind the large red-brick building in downtown Altoona, I was overcome by an immediate sense of terrible sadness knowing that, as the engine died, my trip had finally come to an end. I was home.

  I filed off the bus behind everyone else, and as soon as I stepped down onto the platform, I saw my grandparents coming toward me, smiling. It was still a little cold out, and my grandpa was wearing a red flannel hunting jacket, which could have been spotted from several hundred yards out. I immediately thought back to the shop window in Gallup.

  “Ohh my gawd!” my grandma cried out as she saw me and finally took a hold of me. “You had us all so worried for the past twenty-four hours, Sebby, honey.”

  “Sorry, Grams. I didn’t know my mother told you that she was coming.”

  My grandpa was staring at me and sipping coffee from a white Styrofoam cup that had Dunkin’ Donuts printed on the side.

  “Let’s get you back home and into the bathtub. You smell like you’ve been working on a dairy farm,” my grandma said, as she continued to hug me. “And let’s not talk about your mother right now, okay?” she suggested under her breath, motioning with her eyes toward my grandpa.

  “You have any luggage, Sebby?” my grandpa asked, his voice booming across the platform against the cold morning air.

  “No, Grandpa, just my bag here,” I rejoined, slinging my small backpack over my shoulder. They both had horrified looks on their faces, thinking that my mother had sent me away without even a change of clothes. I could’ve said that Greyhound had lost my luggage in Pittsburgh, but I decided to just keep quiet and not complicate things. I didn’t want to start off with an outright lie that I could very easily be caught in.

  My grandma made me peel off my Greyhound jacket and put it in the trunk before getting into the car. The huge white Cordoba with the black velvet interior was just soft enough and just dark enough to put me to sleep on the ride back to the house. When I woke up, I felt my grandpa pulling on my arm, trying to get me out of the backseat. I came around after a few moments and realized that I wasn’t feeling very good. I now had a headache, and my nose was running like a faucet. When I told my grandma this, she chuckled and said that I’d feel a lot better after a hot bath and a long sleep.