I find myself sitting on a metal bench waiting for the Greyhound. I’d walked in
from the sweltering July heat, cursing Detroit with every bead of sweat that ran into my
eye. Why the hell did they have to make the city blocks so large? I’d seen the remnants
of tram lines peppered between tawny abandoned warehouses, with gaping wounds
where their windows used to be, but I suppose this being “Motor City USA,” they wanted
you to drive whether you liked it or not, young man. In this bus station, with beautiful air-
conditioning, I watch the late afternoon sun sink below rooftops through the glass wall
facing the embarkment platform and look at the people here with me. I make
assumptions as I scan the tiled room: ‘He’s in construction’, ‘He’s definitely on
something’, ‘She looks abused’, ‘I feel sorry for the life that kid’s gonna have’, and on
and on. I noticed first and foremost a wide-eyed old man with a grey bushy beard
reaching his sternum and a matching long bushy hairdo. He looked not merely to be a
graduate of the school of hard knocks, but possibly the principal. He sat in his dark,
worn clothes and chatted with some other old white men waiting, repeating “I’m going to
California!” with great mirth. I didn’t focus on him too much at first; the blank schedule
boards for some odd reason leeched my confidence, and I was frantically checking the
information on my ticket and the Greyhound website. My concentration was soon
broken by the grating sound of a good-ol-boy mutilating the Spanish language in an
attempt to flirt with a much younger Latina woman:
“Usted es muy bonito”
“Jaja gracias”
“But yo soy muy gordo y muy feo”
“Jaja, no no, no pienso eso.”
After she started laughing, I guess he figured he had an in, and quickly whipped
out his phone and began Google translating his advances. When she told him she was
from Venezuela, he responded, “…had been to Venezuela three times to buy oil for
the U.S. government.” And I thought, yeah, sure, buddy, if that’s the case, why are you
slumming it on the bus with the rest of us? He then began to regale her with a tale of his
past life as an Abrams tank commander, which I’m sure she and I both listened to with
great doubt and enjoyment, especially enjoying the fool he was making himself out to
be. It was as if he had had much practice. At this point I turned and looked over my
shoulder so I could have a better appreciation of the situation, and really be able to
paint a scene in my head when I turned back around; I noticed now, that this woman
was there with her eight or nine year old daughter and suddenly I felt more than just
second hand embarrassment for this balding ex-husband who’s children no longer
speak to him, but I felt somewhat angry, these bloody Americans wouldn’t know
common decency if it bit them in the arse, but keeping my thoughts aside my attention
drifted back to the old man. I watched him get up and walk towards the door with a pack
of cigarettes in his hand, it was a brand so cheap and rubbish that even a chain smoker
looks on in disgust. I thought to myself, he seems interesting, he’s had a hard life and
has definitely done some shit, had some exploits if you will. Huh, kind of seems like an
old cowboy who’s lost his way. Around ten minutes after he came back from his pitiful
smoke, he was in high spirits as a friend of his dropped off some liquor with him, while I
found myself more nervous as no schedules appeared nor announcements rang out as
to the whereabouts of my proletarian people-mover. I was, however, slightly reassured by
the knowledge that there was only one Greyhound station in Detroit and I was indeed
sitting inside of it. Finally, the bus comes, I’m unsure if it’s mine at first as the bus serials
don’t match, but my ticket scan confirms everything, and I step on.
I walk towards my seat, the discomfort of my heavy backpack digging
into my shoulders, balanced out by the smile on my face as I tell the man in front of me,
shivering in the 30-degree weather while struggling to load his baggage into the
overhead, “Take your time, it’s okay”. After a brief eternity, I see the seat assigned to me
ticket, the tank-driving oil baron breathing down my neck, and I see the old cowboy,
head shakily swivelling from side to side, his eyes listless and scanning and all I can
think is, no way, he looks like he’s in the seat next to me, c’mon, this can’t be real, well of
course. If it’s gonna happen to anybody, it’s gonna happen to me. I smile at him and
try to wrestle my bag into the overhead compartment, but after trying and failing the
heat on my neck from the eyes of the passengers behind me moves me to sit with the
bag uncomfortably beneath my legs and my coat irregularly folded on my lap.
“Hi, I’m Jamie, and it looks like I’m your seatmate!” I stick my hand out to meet
his, my worries starting to fade with the firmness of his handshake and his jovial tone,
“Hi, Oren-Andrew, nice to meet you.” He shoots me a puzzled look and asks me to
repeat it. On the third try, it sticks. “Hmph, well I ain’t never heard no name like that
before, how’d you get it?” I explain to him that my parents are two culturally opposite
eccentrics, and my name was a compromise between two people who couldn’t make up
their minds and definitely wouldn’t give the other the satisfaction of claiming victory over
my name. At this point, the bus driver, a short black woman with prominent cheekbones,
a button nose and shoulder-length hair streaked with blonde, got up and gave the
following announcement: “Alright, listen up now. I am the driver of this bus; this bus is
heading to Pittsburgh with one stop in Cleveland, and between now and then, there is no
higher authority than me. I will not stand for any drinking, smoking, swearing or fighting
on this bus. I can and will throw you off this bus for breaking any of these rules.
There’s a bathroom in the back, and if anyone is breaking any of these rules, you come
and tell me right away, and I mean right away. O-kay, now let's get on the road.”
We chat a bit longer about my parents and how nice it was that they were still
together in this age of “divorce-o-mania,” as he called it. “So, what year did you
graduate?” He asks, I smirk and reply, “High school or college?” This brings a hearty
laugh from him, exposing his worn teeth (at the moment, it was too dark for me to
realize just how many were missing also), “Oh ho ho, you’re smarter than the average
cocksucker I see!” I return the laugh and figure he’s alright for an old coot, “So you’re a
lot younger than me, huh? I’m class of ’77. High school, not college, ya little bastahd.” The
mental math I start to do shocks me. Mathematics was never my strong suit, but I
cannot believe that this, who looks to be a bosom buddy of Davy Crockett, who
looks as if he was at Custer’s last stand and can remember how much eggs cost in
1937, is only 66 years old. “So, where are you from? I don’t wanna be rude, but
your accent doesn’t sound American.” “I’m originally from South Africa, came to America
about four years ago, then New England, now Pittsburgh.” “Oh, Africa,” he says, “you
know, I saw a program on the history channel a little while ago that said we used to go
down to Africa and steal up a bunch of niggers and bring ‘em back here to work the
fields and stuff. And, you know, I just wanna tell you that frankly I think that was just
plain wrong.” I laugh softly, pleasantly surprised the anecdote didn’t end the way I
thought it would, “Well, as an African,” I say as I offer my hand, “I appreciate you
thinking that way.” He laughed as we shook hands, and I noticed his hands were rough
and calloused, but his skin was still thin with age; numerous cataracts gave his eyes the effect
of a blue sky peaking through the clouds, and his teeth that remained were brown and
crooked.
“Where are you from?” I ask,
“Me, I’m from Mackinaw.”
“Where about is that?”
“Oh, it’s in Mackinaw County, right after you cross the Mackinaw bridge.”
“I’m really sorry, but I have absolutely no clue where those places are.”
“Michigan, out in the sticks near Lake _____, big tourist town, my parents used to run
these cabins for tourists in the summer. Worked for them as a kid, handyman for the
cabins, errand boy for the folks who stayed in ‘em.”
“You live there all your life?”
“No, I lived in California for about 45 years. Was a concrete laying man when I wasn’t in
prison.”
Thankfully, the streetlamps we passed were not bright enough for him to see how
big my smile was. ‘Your intuition was right!’, screams a little voice in my head, ‘There’s
a hell of a story behind this guy.’ A slew of questions bustles on the tip of my tongue, but I
know I have to play it cool, build up a rapport before I can hear the juicy details that
humans so perversely seek out, the vulgar, horrid, voyeuristic snippets that we use to
paint imperfect pictures and reassure ourselves.
“So, what made you go to California in the first place?” “I was 18 years old, and
my father said to me, ‘C’mon, you little bastahd I’m going to California, and you’re coming
with me.’ He and my mom got divorced, and I can’t remember why I wasn’t at home much at
that age, and Dad never talked about it. So we loaded up the car and off we drove to
California, I’d never left Michigan at that point, so it was really something to see the
country, ya know, the Rockies and the deserts, oh, oh, and I pissed in the Mississippi, that
was a hoot!”
“Just like Patton pissing in the Rhine when he crossed into Germany, eh?”
“Something like that!”
“I saw the Grand Canyon. Now that was a fuckin’ sight to behold, the sun hitting
all those colours at the bottom and you’re just lookin’ down with a queasy stomach,
wondering how they got there. Then eventually we got to California, and we were
working in a paper shop, ya know, the place made and sold all kinda paper for
businesses. Me and him used to go to this bar after work, we called it the ‘beer bar.’
because it only sold beer, no hard stuff, and I suppose that’s where it all went wrong, the
drinking.”
“I was at this party in the suburbs, I’d driven there in my Firebird and man I loved
that thing, beautiful car, fun to drive and attracted a lotta skirt. Anyways, we’re all having
a good time, drinking, smoking some reefer, and this girl starts asking me if she can
drive my car, well I say girl, but she was really more of a fucking cunt than a girl.
Normally, I don’t let anyone drive my car, but boy, do I love me some pussy, maybe even
more than liquor, so I let this cunt drive my car, and what does she do? She drives it
right into a fuckin’ lamppost! I remember being in the house and then hearing a crash
down the street and just knowing what had happened, I ran out the house and when I
got to the car she was shaking and crying and I really wanted to sock her a couple times
in the face for what she’d done to my car, but I saw she was already bruised up from the
crash so I figured she’d learned her lesson. Still, I cussed her out before telling her to go
back to the party and that I would take care of the car. I didn’t want the car to get
impounded if the police came, so I drove home.”
“So is that what you went to jail for? Drunk driving and destruction of property?”
“No, I went to prison for killing a man. The first time I went anyway.”
Suddenly, a car sped by the bus on the shoulder, and the bus swerved to the right,
accompanied by the driver laying into the horn.
“Jesus, who the fuck is driving this thing? Is he trying to get us killed?” says he,
“Actually, it’s a she.”
“OH well, that explains it.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a travel-size bottle of bourbon, uncaps
It, takes a swig and offers me some.
“No thanks, I don’t really drink.” I lie,
“Hehehe, you’re a good kid, I’ll try not to corrupt you.”
He downs the rest of the bottle, and drops it on the floor,
“God, I hope she ain’t the one taking me to California.”
“I don’t think so, because this bus is heading east, not west.”
“Oh fuck,” he reaches back into his pocket, “I can’t make heads or tails of this ticket,
can you help me out?” He pulls out a rectangular piece of paper that looks like any other
ticket until he pulls it apart like an accordion, revealing a foot of paper and ink. I take his
ticket and cannot believe my eyes. His route goes from Bay City, Michigan to Cleveland,
Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then down to Charleston, Virginia, up to St. Louis,
down to Amarillo, across to Phoenix and finally onwards to San Diego before ending in
San Bernardino, California. While trying to figure out what flavour of sadist gave this old
man such a circuitous route, I see the cherry on top at the end of the ticket. A receipt for
$617! Christ, Lewis and Clark probably spent less on their provisions and canoes than
he did.
“Oh fuck. Now who the hell thought up this fucked up route?”
“Who bought you the ticket?”
“My stepdaughter. Listen,” he leans closer and his dry elbow grates against mine, “I’mYou and
an old man and you’re a good kid, I’m gonna need your help to make sure I get to
where I’m going.”
“Jamie, I’m only going as far as Pittsburgh, but I’ll help you up until then, alright?”
“You promise?” His eyes were full of worry, and he looked less like a wild man and more
like a scared animal.
“Yes, I promise.” I extended my hand to him, and he grinned like a Cheshire cat while
shaking it.
“We’re fightin’ a revolutionary war, and you’re my sweetheart!”
Things started to quiet down, he seemed to retreat into his thoughts, and I started
to doze off, before a tap on my knee brought me back. “Where are we?”
“What?”
“Where the hell is this woman taking us? This doesn’t seem right.”
“Somewhere in Michigan, close to the Ohio border, I think.”
“How did we get here?”
“What?”
“How did we get here?”
“We’re on a bus, Jamie.”
“Oh shit, I don’t wanna go to Ohio, I gotta get to California.”
Rising out of his seat, he looks around, “I gotta speak to the driver, somethin’ ain’t right.”
“No, no, Jamie, you’re heading to California, we went over your ticket, remember? You’re
gonna end up in San Bernardino.”
“Oh, okay. ,.”
His hand snakes back to his pocket and pulls out another travel-bourbon, and within a
couple of seconds, it follows the fate of its brother. Watching him, I figure this is as good
a time as any, “I hope I’m not prying, but may I ask… what’s the story behind your first
time in prison?”
“No, it’s alright. I had this friend from high school, his name was Peter, but everybody
always called him Dagwood. So, Dagwood decides to come down to California to visit
me, and every day we’re hangin’ out and raisin’ hell just like I’m sure you do. One day,
we’re at the beer bar with my dad, and Dagwood wants to go somewhere else; he wants
something stronger than beer. We go to a different bar and just start throwing back
vodka drinks. After a while, Dagwood says he’s gonna go take a nap in the backseat of
the car, and I don’t think nothin’ of it. I wanna stay in the bar. A little while later, I went out
to get some fresh air, and it was really goddamn cold so I decided to get in the car. Sat
there a couple of minutes, and it was still goddamn cold, so I turned the engine on to get
some heat, and I was sitting there listening to the radio when I thought, ‘Why am I sitting
in a car with the engine running and nowhere to go? Eh, a right, go straight for a
few miles then left on Elm and I’m home.’ So off I went, and it was a clusterfuck from the
start. I peeled off like a bat out of hell and hit the curb and one of them mail collection
boxes on the other side of the street, and that ricocheted the car across the street again.
At this point, all I remember is Dagwood comin’ over my shoulder and grabbin’ the wheel,
then the car wrapped itself around a streetlight. Next thing I know, I’m waking up inthe
hospital with my leg in traction and a bandage around my head, an IV and all the fixings.
Next to the bed, my dad was looking at me, and he said, ‘Son, you’ve been in a car wreck,
a real bad one, the car’s totaled but the doctor says you’ll be okay.’ I asked him where
Dagwood was, and when he told me he was dead, I freaked out.”
“Like crying?” I ask,
“No, like swearing and thrashing, they had to sedate me and hold me down and all that.”
“Jesus. Well, he was your friend. Terrible twist of fate to kill your own mate, sorry that
happened to you, Jamie.”
“Just one of those things in life. Can’t do nothin’ about it now.”
“So you went to prison for manslaughter?”
“Yep, a year and a day in San Quentin State Penitentiary, second degree
manslaughter.”
“Seems like a short sentence, but I guess they balanced it out by sending you to San
Quentin. Is it all right if I ask you what it was like? I don’t want to offend you or anything.”
“Oh, it’s fine, the only people who get offended over questions about their time are the
guys who either got turned into bitches or snitches. That was never me, see I’d been to
juvie back in Michigan, but the records were sealed and never brought up in my trial in
California, so they gave me a lighter sentence for no prior convictions.”
“But if you were living out in the boonies, how much damage could you have possibly
done.”
“Christ, I was out of control, grand theft autos, burglaries, raping bitches at 14 years old,
shit, I feel bad now thinking about all the times I made my mom cry and all the trouble I
caused my parents.” A sudden feeling of the most intense revulsion I have ever felt in
my life sprouted from the pit of my stomach and crawled over my skin and down my
throat, until ensconced in every fissure of my body. All I wanted was to be as far away
from him as possible, but just like that fateful two-star bed and breakfast in Bethlehem,
the place was full up. “San Quentin wasn’t too bad, so long as you could protect
yourself. In all the time that I was there, I ain’t never had anyone try to take me, and I
never joined any gangs on the inside, but I was cool with everybody. One time I
remember, the Mexicans wanted to shiv this white boy over a fight between him and
one of the Mexicans. So he comes over to me, not knowing too many people at this
point and begs me to help him… and ya know I could’ve made him my bitch… I actually
thought about it for a minute when I saw he was really down and out, but I thought to
myself, what for? I love pussy too much to ever be a faggot, so I just told him to put
money on my books every month, and then I took care of his problem.” Slightly rattled
but damned curious, I had to know more: “What did you do when you got out? Did you
go back to the paper shop?”
“Nah, they wouldn’t have me back at the paper shop. For a while, I just hung around like
a lost fart, watchin’ TV at home or drinkin’ down at the beer bar, till one day I’m over
there with my dad, and he’s talking to the owner, Mr. Anderson, and he gives me a job as
the bouncer, $8 an hour and back then that was real money! You could’ve survived the
week on 8 dollars back in the day. Working there was alright, I guess, really just dealin’
with ornery drunks and people who can’t pay. Hanging around the bar and gettin’
discounted beers.”
“You ever get into any fights as a bouncer?”
“Only one,” he says with a grin and a giggle, “a real-deal catfight. These two
broads were fighting in the pool room, and I mean really goin’ at it, they’re throwin’ jabs and
hooks, then the brunette grabs the redhead and slams her onto the pool table, gets on
top of her and started whaling on her bam-bam-bam, God, I’ll never forget that.
They were up, and her shirt had been pulled apart, and her tits were just on the edge of
coming out. Anyways, while I was enjoying the show, Mr. Anderson started hollering at
me to get them out. By the time I’d walked over to them, they’d rolled off the table, onto
the floor, and the brunette was really doing a number on this girl, so I grabbed her and
pulled her off from behind and dragged her out, kickin’ and screamin’. She was
scratching at me and kicking me, and when I got her outside, I let go of her and was
gonna give her a piece of my mind, but she spun round quick as lightning and bit my
goddamn nose off!”
“Bit your nose off!? Wait a second, correct me if I’m wrong, but that looks like your
original nose on your face there. Wouldn’t you have a prosthetic if it were really all
gnawed off?”
“Well, I guess it wasn’t all the way off, but Jesus, it was hangin’ on by a thread! Blood was
pouring down my face, and she stood there laughing at me! I kept trying to shout and
cuss at her, but what with my nose floppin’ round and the blood dripping down my throat
I must’ve sounded like a gagging muppet or something. I went back into the bar and Mr.
Anderson went whiter than a ghost, “I-I-I told you she was trouble!” he says all shaky-
like, “Call the police on this bitch!” I say, then I run back outside to try and stop her, and
she’s gettin’ into her car! So I run to the parking lot, and as soon as I get in there, the
engine turns over, and she shoots out right into a beetle parked behind her, then she
guns it straight towards me! I jumped out of the way an’ she only reversed right back to
me! I got up and kicked at the taillight but ended up hitting the bumper, and somehow,
by the grace of God, my pants got caught on the damn thing, and she dragged me for a
block and a half before I got loose! I hobbled back to that goddamned bar, put a rag on
my face, and someone took me to the hospital. Can’t remember who. Asked Anderson
for a beer. Wouldn’t give me one. Stingy bastahd.” All I can do is chuckle while I picture
him getting dragged down the California streets like a 14th-century peasant who’d stolen
some goats, “What happened to that girl? She gets arrested?”
“No, we ended up living together for 17 years.”
“What the fuck? You just thought it was so sexy the way she spat out your blood and
tried to kill you?”
“Ah, she was just drunk. I caught up with her a week after, my face all bandaged up, and
she started laughing at me again! I was about to blow up at her, but there was just
something about the way she laughed, and I started laughing too! Yeah, that’s how we
ended up together. Her name was Lisa, she had a kid named Millie, and I was the only
dad that girl ever knew. Raised her from six or seven to twenty-two. Maybe
her mama and I weren’t always good for each other, but we were always there for each other.
There mighta been drugs in the house…and we mighta been screamin’ n’ swingin’ at
each other…but, but I tell you that fuckin’ kid always had everything she needed, food,
clothes, shit for school. It. Was. Always. There.” With the last few words, he smacks his
fist into his palm at each pause, turning his head to look me in the eye, he asks, “You
understand me? You pickin’ up what I’m layin’ down?” “I understand.” I say with a
subdued nod, “Whatever happened to Lisa?” “Millie left after she was 18, and then a
couple of years later, she left too. I get it, with the life I was living.”
“Because you were in jail?”
“Sort of. After Dagwoo,d I kept drinkin’ and driving, and I landed in front of this judge who
said to me, ‘I can’t keep seeing you here, if you don’t change your life around, you’re
going to end up dead or in jail again. There’s a program for people like you at the
Salvation Army, if you’re not there by 3 pm on Sunday, you’re going back to jail.’”
“Did you go?”
“Oh yeah, sure enough, my ass was there by Sunday. And that’s where I did smack for
the first time.” He leans in closer and again his rough, crusty elbow rubs up against
mine, “Everybody staying in there was using, guys like me who’d never done anything
more than smoke a little reefer were getting turned into junkies and customers in there.
Shootin’ up way in the back of the hall and in the bathrooms. That’s how I got started,
and I realized that there was a lot of money in H, so I started selling, and by the time I’d
finished the program, I walked outta there with a nice chunk of dough. After that, I got into
concrete laying and between the concrete and the H, I was making good money. But
Jesus, let me tell you, when meth came around in the late 80’s, I never shot up again.
That was my drug of choice. Because when you did smack, you were a fuckin’ zombie,
couldn’t do shit, but with meth, you could do anything. Think faster and clearer, stay up
for days working, and you could move it a hell of a lot faster than heroin. That’s when I
really became a criminal. I was thinking ten steps ahead and saw a way to get rich, so I
did it. You give a couple of people a free taste, and they get hooked, they keep coming
back to you until they’re broke, and you tell ‘em start selling for me, and we both win.
Maaaaan, people would do anything for a smoke, steal from their family, pimp out their
grandmas, you name it. Shiiiit, when you get these little hoochies all strung out, you
would not believe the shit that they will do. For you and to you!” His laughter is met by
my silence, and he, too, goes quiet with a wry smile for a few moments before continuing,
“I wasn’t just into meth, too. I diversified, like a stockbroker. I was snatching up all the
guns I could get my hands on, I was happy to trade guns for drugs ‘cause there’s
always a market for guns in Cali, and I was sellin’ the guns for more than the drugs were
worth. But you know what they say, ‘pride comes before you fall’. And I fell hard! When
the sheriff’s department came for me, they didn’t knock, brother, they kicked my shit
down! I had just over a hundred guns in that house, forty or fifty rifles and shotguns, a
couple of dozen pistols, and that was it! Curtains for me!”
“Federal prison for that, a twenty-year sentence, but I got out in 12 for good behaviour.
That was a tougher stint than San Quentin; it takes a certain kind of man to make it
through a federal penitentiary. I don’t know about you, you’re soft and pretty, but I’d take
care of you... Yeah, I’d take care of you. You’re helping me get to California,” he flashes
a crooked tawny grin, “you’re my baby, and I’m taking you with me!” He rounds it all out
by putting his hand on my knee, “Sorry, Jamie,” I say as I move his hand, “but I’m your
buddy, not your baby.”
“Hehehe, yeah, you are. You’re my baby. I’m gonna get some shut eye.” He says with a
yawn. Other than that, little dozing earlier, I’m dead tired, and all I can do is adjust my
cramped legs, pull my coat over myself and follow suit.
Something is moving on my lap. I stir a little, and my coat is pulled off me, snapping me
half-conscious. The first thing I see is Jamie holding my coat above me, and I snatch it
from him, “What are you doing?!”
“Did I piss on this?”
Now I am wide awake. Phone flashlight in hand, I check my coat while holding it as far
from myself as possible. No piss.
“Did you or did you not piss?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus, stand up and let me check the seat.”
Gripping the seat in front of him and the armrest, he shakily pulls himself up so I can
look. No Piss.
“Where are we right now?”
“Somewhere in Ohio,” I say with my head in my hands,
“Oh shit, what the fuck am I doing in Ohio? I need to get to California.”
“You are heading to California, you’re just stopping in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and a
hundred other towns before you get there.”
“Shit. Well, I really gotta piss.”
“There’s a bathroom at the back of the bus on the left.”
“What’s that?”
“Huh?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means there’s a place in the bus where you can piss. A whole different room just for
that.”
“Oh. Where is it?”
“All the way at the back of the bus,” I point, “on the left there’s a door, you open that and
There’s a toilet you can piss in.”
“Alright, let me out then.”
I get up and move my bag, and he steps into the aisle and starts walking towards the back. I
look over my shoulder, and he’s making slow progress, holding onto every seatback as
he walks, stumbling in tune with the bus. He stops three rows from the bathroom and
looks to his left, sticking his hand out for a door and finding nothing. Leaning closer, he’s
almost face-to-face with the person sleeping in that chair, and finding no toilet, he turns
and starts back up the aisle. He almost walks past me, but I reach out and stop him,
“What happened back why didn’t you go to the bathroom?”
“Couldn’t find it.”
“That’s because you didn’t go all the way to the back; you stopped right before you got
there.”
“Fuck this, I’m getting this sumbitch to pull over.”
Oh fuck, I think as I slide as low as I can in the seat, I hope people don’t think we’re
travelling together.
Halfway to the front, the bus hits a pothole, and Jamie narrowly misses falling into a
sleeping passenger’s lap. Jamie’s slew of fucks and shits don’t wake
him. He gets to the front and bangs on the plexiglass screen separating the driver from
the zoo, “I needa piss,” he shouts, “pull over!” The driver’s shock can be felt as the bus
suddenly jerks to one side, “You can’t be standing up here! Go to the bathroom!”
“I can’t find it!”
“It’s all the way in the back!”
“Just pull over, goddamn it, I gotta piss!”
“Sir,” she said, with the schoolteacher’s tone of regained composure, “you can either
Use the bathroom in the back, or you can wait thirty-seven minutes till we get to
Cleveland station.”
“Jesus H. Christ!”
He takes his seat again, and I shift my coat, bag and self as far from him as I can. He
turns to me, “So what does all that mean?”
“You were the one up there talking to her! What do you mean, ‘what does all that
mean?’” Grounded down by fatigue and my seat-mate, my tone is pleading. “You can
either go all the way to the back of the bus and piss in the toilet, or if you can hold it for
thirty minutes, piss at the bus station in Cleveland.”
“You think I can hold it till then?”
“I have no clue, I’m not you.”
The next thirty-odd minutes go by in a tense silence, except for when Jamie had
to stand up to relieve some pressure on his bladder, and started to punctuate the night
with some rather fitting mumbling and groaning. The bus pulls into the station, and I
clear out with great haste. Walking into the station, I sit down out of view from the door,
hoping that Jamie will lose track of me between now and the departure. I see him
wobble in, stand in the centre of the station and cast his cloudy eyes from wall to wall
until they rest on me. He walks over and asks where the bathroom is, I point, and he
walks off. Thirty seconds later, the bus driver is standing in front of me, “Can I speak to
you outside for a second?” Oh god, here it comes. Thrown off the bus for being kind to
the elderly.
We step outside the doors, and she starts asking me questions,
“Did you know him before today?”
“No.”
“Y’all ain’t travelling together?”
“No.”
“Listen, I know y’all have a rapport, and he’s an old guy you might wanna protect him,
But a lot of people have complained, and I know you’re not enjoying having to deal with
him, so tell me, was he drinking?”
She was right, even though he was an admitted public enemy; I did feel bad
for him, and on top of that, I’d given him my word to help him get as far as Pittsburgh. I
hesitated before answering. Then I remembered the raping and the piss.
“Yeah, he’s had two travel-size bourbons already.”
“Thank you. I’m gonna get the cops to remove him, and don’t worry, I’m not gonna
mention or involve you.”
“Thanks.”
She returned inside, and looking at the night sky, I couldn’t tell whether or not I did the right
thing. I’d broken my word and stranded an old man hundreds of miles from where he
needed to be, all for the sake of comfort. Back inside, I head to the bathroom without so
much as a glance towards Jamie, sitting down where he’d found me. Walking out of the
bathroom, I see two cops talking to Jamie. The conversation goes back and forth until
Jamie’s head droops, and he gathers his things and gets escorted out. Then the cops
return and walk up to our tank-driving, oil-buying, Spanish-butchering friend and give
him the rundown. “What?! No, no no…” He tries to argue but gets up eventually
and walks out with both middle fingers up, “You guys are Nazis!” He yells from the
threshold, “Goddamn Nazi’s! And trust me, I’ll be suing, you can’t just do this to people!”
An hour later, those of us who remained got back on the bus, and I slept the entire way to
Pittsburgh.
The woman, the kid and drugs, then the judge and drugs start at the Salvation Army,
then meth and guns and strung out hoochies,
then swat raid on the house and back to prison,
You’re helping me, you’re my baby, and I’m taking you with me, followed by no, I’m not.
sleeping, waking up with hand on knee,
then pissing in the bathroom, arguing with the bus driver
and getting kicked off in Cleveland with the other guy.
By Oren Tiven