The Wayward Bus

by John Steinbeck

  She tried wearing severe clothes, but that didn’t help much. She couldn’t keep an ordinary job. She learned to type, but offices went to pieces when she was hired. And now she had a racket. It paid well and it didn’t get her in much trouble. She took off her clothes at stags.4 A regular agency handled her. She didn’t understand stags or what satisfaction the men got out of them, but there they were, and she made fifty dollars for taking off her clothes and that was better than having them torn off in an office. She’d even read up on nymphomania, enough, anyway, to know that she didn’t have it. She almost wished she had. Sometimes she thought she’d just go into a house and make a pile of dough and retire to the country—that, or marry an elderly man she could control. It would be the easiest way. Young men who were attractive to her had a way of turning nasty. They always suspected her of cheating them. They either sulked or tried to beat her up or they got furious and threw her out.

  She’d tried being kept and that was the way it ended. But an old man with some money—that might be the way. And she would be good to him. She’d really make it worth his money and his time. She had only two girl friends, and both of them were house girls. They seemed to be the only kind who weren’t jealous of her and who didn’t resent her. But one was out of the country now. She didn’t know where. She followed troops somewhere. And the other was living with an advertising man and didn’t want her around.

  That was Loraine. They had had an apartment together. Loraine didn’t care much about men; still, she didn’t go for women. But then Loraine got caught short with this advertising man and asked her to move out. Loraine explained everything when she told her not to come around.

  Loraine was working in a house and this advertising man fell for her. Well, Loraine had got gonorrhea, and before she even had a symptom she gave it to this advertising man. He was a nervous type and he blew his top and lost his job and came bellyaching to Loraine. She felt responsible in a way so she took him in and fed him while they both got cured. That was before the new treatment,5 and it had been pretty rough.

  And then this advertising man went on a sleeping-pill pitch. She’d find him passed out and he was pretty vague, and his temper was bad unless he had his pills, and he took more and more of them. Twice Loraine had to have him pumped out.

  Loraine was a really good girl and things were hard because she couldn’t work in the house until she was cleared up. She didn’t want to infect anybody she knew, and still she had to have money for doctor’s bills and rent and food. She had to work the streets in Glendale to make it, and she wasn’t feeling good herself. And then, with everything else, the advertising man turned jealous and didn’t want her to work at all in spite of the fact that he didn’t have a job. It would be nice if the whole thing had blown over by now and she and Loraine could have the apartment together. They had been a good pair together. They had had fun, good, quiet fun.

  There had been a whole series of conventions in Chicago and she had saved some money from the stags. She was taking busses back to Los Angeles to save money. She wanted to live quietly a while. She hadn’t heard from Loraine for a long time. The last letter said this advertising man was reading her mail so not to write.

  The last passengers were coming through the doors and getting into the bus.

  Louie had his legs crossed. He was a little timid with this girl. “I see you’re going to L.A.,” he said. “Do you live there?”

  “Part of the time.”

  “I like to try and figure people out,” he said. “A guy like me sees so many people.”

  The motor of the bus breathed softly. The old woman was glaring at Louie. He could see her in the mirror. She would probably write a letter to the company.

  “Well,” Louie said to himself, “the hell with the company.” He could always get a job. The company didn’t pay much attention to old ladies’ letters anyway. He glanced back down the bus. It looked like the two Hindus were holding hands. The Chinaman had both Time and Newsweek open on his lap and he was comparing stories. His head swung from one magazine to the other, and a puzzled wrinkle marked his nose between his brows. The dispatcher waved at Louie.

  Louie swung the lever that closed the door. He eased his gear into compound-reverse and crept out of the concrete slip, then swung delicately and wide so that his front fender cleared the north wall by a part of an inch. He swung wide again in compound-low and cleared the other side of the alley by a fraction of an inch. At the entrance to the street from the alley he stopped and saw that the street was clear for him. He turned the bus and it took him over to the other side of the street. Louie was a good driver with a perfect record. The bus moved down the main street of San Ysidro and came to the outskirts and to the open highway.

  The sky and the sun were washed and clean. The colors were sharp. The ditches ran full of water; and in some places, where the ditches were clogged, the water extended out onto the highway. The bus hit this water with a great swish, and Louie could feel the tug at the wheel. The grass was matted down from the force of the rain, but now the warmth of the sun was putting strength into the rich grass and it was beginning to rise up again on the high places.

  Louie glanced in the rear-view mirror at the girl again. She was looking at the back of his head. But something made her look up at the mirror and right into Louie’s eyes, and the eyes with their dark lines and the straight, pretty nose and the mouth painted on square photographed permanently in Louie’s brain. When she looked into his eyes she smiled as though she felt good.

  Louie knew that his throat was closing, and a rising pressure was in his chest. He thought he must be nuts. He knew he was shy, but mostly he convinced himself that he was not, and he was going through all the symptoms of a sixteen-year-old. His eyes flicked from road to mirror, back and forth. He could see that his cheeks were red. “What the hell is this?” he said to himself. “Am I going to go ga-ga over a chippie?” He looked at her more closely to find some thought to save himself, and then he saw deep forceps marks along her jaws. That made him feel more comfortable. She wouldn’t be so god-damned confident if she knew he saw the forceps marks. Forty-two miles. The figures came into his head. She’d get off in forty-two miles. Louie would have to make time. He couldn’t waste a minute if he wanted to throw a line over this little hustler. And when he tried to speak his voice was hoarse.

  She leaned close behind him. “I couldn’t hear you,” she said.

  Louie coughed. “I said the country looks nice after the rain.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  He tried to get back to his usual opening. He noticed in the mirror that she was still leaning forward to listen.

  “Like I said,” he began, “I try to figure people out. I’d say you was in the movies or on the stage.”

  “No,” said the girl. “You’d be wrong.”

  “Aren’t you in show business?”

  “No.”

  “Well, do you work?”

  She laughed, and her face was very charming when she laughed. But Louie noticed that one of her upper front teeth was crooked. It leaned over and interfered with its neighbor. Her laughter stopped and her upper lip covered the tooth. “Conscious of it,” Louie thought.

  She was ahead of him. She knew what he was going to say. It had happened so many times before. He was going to try to find out where she lived. He wanted her telephone number. It was simple. She didn’t live anywhere. She had a trunk stored with Loraine with some books in it—Captain Hornblower,6 and a Life of Beethoven,7 and some paper books of the short stories of Saroyan,8 and some old evening dresses to be made over. She knew Louie was having trouble. She knew that blush that rose out of a man’s collar and the thickness of labored speech. She saw Louie glance apprehensively in the mirror at the rear of the bus.

  The Hindus were smiling a little at each other. The Chinaman was staring up in the air, trying to work up in his mind some discrepancy in the stories he had been reading. A Greek in the rear seat was cutting an Italian cigar in two wi
th a pocketknife. He put one piece in his mouth and thoughtfully placed the other half in his breast pocket. The old woman was working herself up into a rage at Louie. She directed an iron look at the back of his head, and her chin quivered with fury and her lips were white with the tension of their compression.

  The girl leaned forward again. “I’ll save you time,” she said. “I’m a dental nurse. You know, I do all those things in a dentist’s office.” She often used this. She didn’t know why. Perhaps because it stopped speculation and there were never any more questions after she said it. People didn’t want to talk much about dentistry.

  Louie digested this. The bus came to a railroad crossing. Automatically Louie set his air brakes and stopped. The brakes hissed as he released them and went through the gears to cruising speed again. He sensed that things were closing in on him. The old bitch was going to start trouble any minute now. He didn’t have forty-two miles at all. Once the old bitch put in her oar the thing would be over. He wanted to make time while he could, but it was too soon according to Louie’s methods. He shouldn’t make a play for a good half hour, but the old bitch was going to force his hand.

  “Sometimes I get into L.A.,” he said. “Is there someplace I could call you and maybe we could—have dinner and go to a show?”

  She was friendly about it. There wasn’t anything mean or bitchy about her. She said, “I don’t know. You see, I haven’t any place to live now. I’ve been away. I want to get an apartment as soon as I can.”

  “But you work someplace,” said Louie. “Maybe I could call you there.”

  The old woman was squirming and twitching in her seat. She was mad because Louie had kicked her out of the front seat.

  “Well, no,” said the girl. “You see, I haven’t got a job. Of course, I’ll get one right away because you can always get a job in my profession.”

  “This isn’t a brush-off ?” Louie asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, maybe you could drop me a line when you get settled.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Because I’d like to know someone to take out in L.A.”

  And now here it came, the voice as shrill as a whetstone. “There’s a state law about talking to passengers. You watch the road.” The old woman addressed the whole bus. “This driver’s putting our lives in danger. I’m going to ask to get off if he can’t keep his attention on his driving.”

  Louie closed up. This was serious. She really could make trouble. He looked in the mirror and found the girl’s eyes. With his lips he said, “The god-damned dried up old bitch!”

  The girl smiled and put her fingers to her lips. In a way she was relieved and in another she was sorry. She knew that sooner or later she would have trouble with Louie. But she also knew that in many ways he was a nice guy and one she could handle up to a certain point. She knew from his blush that she could probably stop him by hurting his feelings.

  But it was over and Louie knew it. The girl wasn’t going to get herself in a mess. He had to make time while the bus was rolling. He knew that. Once you got to a station the passengers wanted out as quick as possible. Now he’d lost out. At Rebel Corners he would stop only long enough to let her off and unload that god-damned crate of pies. He hunched over the wheel. The girl had folded her hands in her lap and her eyes would not raise to meet his in the mirror. There were lots of girls prettier than this one. Those forceps scars were damned ugly. They’d give a guy the shivers. Of course, she wore her hair long and forward to cover them. A girl like that couldn’t wear her hair up. Louie liked hair up and, Jesus! suppose you woke up in bed and saw those scars. There were plenty of pigs in the world and Louie could get along. But in his chest and his stomach there was a weight of sorrow. He fought at it and picked at it but it wouldn’t move. He wanted this girl more than he had ever wanted anyone, and in a different way. He felt a dry and grainy sense of loss. He didn’t even know her name, and now he wouldn’t get to know her. He could see Edgar’s eager eyes questioning him when he came back to San Ysidro. Louie wondered if he would lie to Edgar.

  The great tires sang on the road, a high, twanging song, and the motor throbbed with a heavy beat. There were big, wet, floppy clouds in the sky, dark as soot in the middle and white and shining on the edges. One of them was creeping up on the sun now. Already, ahead on the highway, Louie could see the shadow of it rushing toward the bus, and far ahead on the highway he could see the towering green mound of the oaks that grew about the lunchroom at Rebel Corners. He was filled with disappointment.

  Juan Chicoy came to the side of the bus as it pulled in.

  “What you got for me?” he asked as the door opened.

  “One passenger and a flock of pies,” said Louie. He got up from his seat, reached around, and lifted the girl’s suitcase. He climbed down to the ground and held up his hands, and the girl put her hands on his arms and stepped down. They walked toward the lunchroom.

  “Good-by,” she said.

  “Good-by,” said Louie. He watched her go through the door, her little behind bobbing up and down.

  Juan and Pimples had the crate of pies off the top of the bus. Louie climbed back into the bus.

  “So long,” said Juan.

  The old woman had moved up into the front seat. Louie levered the door shut. He went into gear and moved away. When he was in cruising speed and the tires were ringing on the highway, he looked in the mirror. The old woman wore a look of mean triumph.

  “You killed it,” Louie said to himself. “Oh, you murdered it.”

  The woman looked up and caught his eyes in the mirror. Deliberately Louie made silent words with his lips. “You god damned old bitch!” He saw her lips grow tight and white. She knew what he meant.

  The highway sang along ahead of the bus.

  CHAPTER 8

  Juan and Pimples carried the crate of Mother Mahoney’s Home-Baked Pies near to the door of the lunchroom and set it down on the ground. Both of them watched the blonde go through the door. Pimples whistled a low gurgling note. The palms of his hands turned suddenly sweaty. Juan’s eyes had lowered until only a little glint of light shone between his lashes. He licked his lips quickly and nervously.

  “I know what you mean,” said Juan. “Want to take time out and go over and lift your leg on a tree?”

  “God Almighty,” said Pimples. “Whew!”

  “Yeah,” said Juan. He bent over, turned the latch on the crate, and raised the hinged side. “I’ll take a small bet, Kit.”

  “What’s that?” Pimples asked.

  “I bet,” said Juan, “I bet two to one you already got in your mind the idea that you didn’t have a day off for two weeks and you’d like to take today and ride over to San Juan with me. Maybe it would even help if the bus breaks down again.”

  Pimples started to blush around his eruptions. He raised his eyes uneasily and looked at Juan, and there was so much humor without poison in Juan’s eyes that Pimples felt better. “God damn!” he thought, “there is a man. Why’d I ever work for anybody else?”

  “Well,” Pimples said aloud, and he felt he was talking to a man. Juan understood how a guy looked at things. When a cookie went by, Juan knew how a guy felt. “Well,” he said again.

  “Well,” Juan mimicked him, “and who’s gonna take care of the gas pumps and fix the flats?”

  “Who done it before?” Pimples asked.

  “Nobody,” said Juan. “We used to just put a sign on the garage—Closed For Repairs. Alice can pump gas.” He slapped Pimples on the shoulder.

  “What a guy,” Pimples thought. “What a guy!”

  The pies were held by little traylike slots which gripped the edges of the pans and left each pie separate from all the others. There were four stacks of twelve pies—forty-eight pies.

  “Let’s see,” said Juan, “we get six raspberry, four lemon cream, four raisin, and two caramel custard cream.” He pulled out the pies as he spoke and laid them on top of the crate. “Take them in, Pim—Kit, I mean.” />
  Pimples took a pie in each hand and went into the lunchroom. The blonde was sitting on a stool drinking a cup of coffee. He couldn’t see her face but he felt the electricity or whatever it was she had. He put the pies on the counter.

  As he turned to go out again he felt the silence in the room.

  Mr. Pritchard and the crabby old guy and the young fellow, Horton, were entranced. Their eyes rose and washed the blonde and fell away. Miss Pritchard and her mother looked pointedly at the piles of bran in back of the counter. Alice was not there, but Norma was in front of the blonde, wiping the counter with her rag.

  “Like to have a snail?” Norma asked.

  Pimples paused. He had to hear the tone of the blonde’s voice.

  “Yes, I guess so,” she said. A quick spasm kinked Pimples’ stomach at the throaty tone. He hurried outside and gathered up more pies.

  “Get moving,” Juan said. “You can look at her all the way over to San Juan, unless you’d rather drive.”

  Pimples rushed the pies in. Sixteen pies out. That left thirty-two. Juan closed the side of the crate and turned the catch. When Pimples came out the last time he helped Juan put the pie crate in the big black trunk of “Sweetheart,” the bus. She was ready now. Ready to go. Juan stood back and looked at her. She was no Greyhound but she wasn’t bad. Around the windows a little rust showed through the aluminum paint. He would have to touch that up. And the hub caps could take a new coat too.

  “Let’s get going,” he said to Pimples. “Lock the garage doors. Right between the benches under the radiator hose connections you’ll find the sign to put on the door. Jump now if you want to get your clothes changed.”

  Pimples leaped for the garage door. Juan straightened up and stretched his arms from his sides and moved toward the lunchroom.