OMAHA
“Sorry buddy, closest we can get you is Seattle.” the bus station ticket man croaks.
“Online says you got buses that go straight to Anchorage”
The man shakes his bald head slow, eyes pinched shut. “Nope, nope. You read wrong. Maybe Peter Pan does. Not us” He pecks at his keyboard. “But I can… get you on a bus to Jefferson City in an hour. Do that and you got a layover, but then it’s a straight shot to Seattle.”
“How long is the layover?”
“Two days”
My older brother said you can get a fishing job in Alaska if you get there early enough in the season. “One summer pays for your whole year”. March’s bleeding away.
“That’s not gonna work.” I say. “You don’t have anything quicker?”
The man readjusts, his ancient chair squeaks. “You might have better luck in a bigger city. It’s mostly shorter runs out here.” He says. The ticket man’s cool skin shimmers in the computer light. Looks like my dad’s uncle. Drank so much colloidal silver he turned blue, like those men on Oprah. Ticket man says, “I can get you on a bus to Omaha in half an hour”
I fork the $60 over and chainsmoke in the dark. A bus rumbles into the parking lot, yellow LED letters spell “OMAHA” across the front. The headlights are bright, blinding me as the bus whips around into the boarding area out back. I cut through the station. The man that sold me the ticket is asleep at his computer, I can hear him snoring from 20 feet away.
The bus smells like old cornchips. I skulk down the aisle, looking for a seat. It’s packed. Bodies twisted, heads slumped against windows, phones glowing in tired hands. Parents murmur promises to their kids, we’ll get there sooner if you sleep. Confused, grumpy toddlers frown, shake their heads.
The only open seat’s near the back. Someone’s backpack is in it. Next to the backpack is a woman with blonde hair and grey roots, her eyes are shut.
“Excuse me” I say, waving in the dark in front of her face.
Nothing.
I tap her on the shoulder. “Ma’am?”
“What the fuck?! Don’t you fuckin touch me!” She barks, finger stabbing the air. I jump, her eyes look like bugs caught in a spider web of skin.
“I need this seat”
“What?”
I nod at her bag. “This is my seat”
She blinks at me, then her bag, then me again. Rolls her eyes
“Jesus fuck.” She groans, clamps the armrests, and pushes herself up crotch first, like a cow being hoisted out of a flood. She grabs her bag, hurls it into the rack above. My face burns. I slide my bag next to hers and sit quietly.
She yanks a blanket up to her chin and turns away, “I’ll never get to fuckin’ sleep”
Morning crawls in. The sun’s a glimmering line slathered across the tops of the trees like orange jelly. I look out the window, past the sleeping woman but not too long.
Across the aisle, a man with bushy eyebrows and a missing canine chats with a woman whose neck looks like it’s melting. She giggles like a schoolgirl at everything he says.
“I’ve never been to a city bigger than Reno.”
“Oh, you’re gonna love Omaha,” she rasps.
“Is it big?”
“It’s wide.”
“I can handle wide.”
They laugh. I put my headphones in. The woman’s arm brushes mine on the armrest. I don’t move. Our arms touch for 30 minutes. She sneezes, both hands to her face. I win. I don’t smile.
45 minutes later I’m just under the surface of sleep. The woman next to me laughs, then her laughing collapses into coughing. I open my eyes and glare at her.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry!” through her fingers. She shows me her cracked phone screen. There’s a dog with cucumbers on its eyes floating on its back in an above ground pool. “My daughter just sent me this”. Tears are running down her face.
I puff air out of my nose.
She collects herself. “Sorry. That really got me.” She wipes her eyes, sighs. She’s still smiling.
I smile, nod, look forward.
“So where are you headed anyway?”
“I’m headed up to Alaska” I say, “Gonna get a job fishing for the summer”
She smiles. “Fishing? Really?”
“Mhm” I say, looking forward again. “Fishing”
“I’m headed to Omaha to see my daughter. Haven’t seen her since she was 15.” the woman says. “She invited me out of the blue, bought the plane ticket and everything but I said, ‘Honey, thank you but I do not fly.’ I wanted to come so I got the bus ticket myself”
“Very generous of you”
“Yeah. She was taken from me, you know”
“What?”
Bus driver on the intercom; “We’re pulling into Shenandoah, 10 minute break. No longer than 10 minutes. Good time to smoke or use the bathroom. I will leave you behind if you are not onboard after 10 minutes.”
The bus pulls off the highway into a parking lot of a rest stop.
“Her dad. He took her from me.”
I nod. “I’m sorry” I swallow hard, my throat is tight. I pat her shoulder. The woman looks over at me, her eyes wet, nearly overflowing. I feel insane.
“Yeah, it was hard. Just destroyed me. But she called me 6 months ago and said ‘I’m getting married Mom and I want you to be there.’” her voice wavers.
That’s just great.” I pull her in for a stiff hug. My chin bumps her temple. She smells like peppermint and old bus seat. I pull back, her eyes are shattered glass.
The bus stops. The door hisses open. I get off. My legs are stiff. I stretch in the parking lot, bending at the waist and twisting. The woman’s leaning ass first against the bus. Eye contact, I look away. I check my phone. It’s almost 10 AM. I don’t think it’s much further to Omaha, then it’s onto Alaska easy.
I take a cigarette out of my crushed pack, light it.
“You know, you really shouldn’t smoke.” the woman says.
“I’ll stop sometime” I say.
“You should probably stop now”
“I like smoking”
“Mm”, she looks away. “You know, I smoked for 20 years” She holds up two fingers.
“I still got plenty of time then.” I say, smiling.
A long pause.
“I’m Avery by the way” she says, offering her hand. I take it, shake it. It’s warm. Rough too.
“Nice to meet you Avery”
“Pleasure to meet you, also”
“You wanna see a picture of my daughter?” Avery says, turning her phone towards me. Her screen is cracked, her daughter is beautiful.
“She’s real pretty” I say
“She didn’t get that from me.” Avery says, laughing.
I laugh too. I don’t know what to say.
“You think I got time to go inside and get a coffee?” Avery asks.
“Oh yeah,” I say, “plenty. I won’t let him leave without you”
“Oh he’s full of shit anyway” Avery says, laughing, walking towards the door. She stops, turns. "Keep an eye out?"
"Yeah," I said. "Go."
She nods, smiles, turns back and heads through the double doors. I finish my cigarette, drop it on the asphalt and stomp it out. A freezing gust of wind blows through my jacket .I sigh. Jesus.
“Okay folks, 2 minutes!” the bus driver bellows from the open bus door. A line forms, stragglers from the gas station jog across the parking lot. I don’t see Avery anywhere.
I join the line at the very end. I look over my shoulder into the store but don’t see Avery. She’s vanished. My turn to climb the steps into the bus. “Hey I think there’s a lady still inside” I say to the driver.
The driver’s just taken a big sip from a reusable mug, his mouth is full of liquid, eyebrows furrowed. He twists around his seat and looks into the bus. Turns back and swallows. “Looks full to me!” he says, gasping for breath. “Now have a seat, we have to get going”
“I really think we should wait”
“I said sit the hell down son” the bus driver hisses.
I trudge to the back. Avery’s seat’s empty, her blanket a neat rectangle. There’s a peppermint wrapper in the crack. The engine rumbles. Heat floods the vents. “Hope you got to pee during the break, we got about an hour until our next stop” the intercom crackles. The bus door closes. We rumble forward slowly.
Through the bus window, I see her. She’s sprinting through the automatic doors, arms waving and crossing the parking lot. Through closed windows you can hear her shouting “Hey Hey Hey Hey!”
I look around. Is anyone going to do anything? Can anyone hear her? Across the aisle, the man missing a tooth is bobbing his head, headphones on. His seat mate is looking out to an open field. The driver is locked forward.
Avery’s smacking the flank of the bus, screaming “STOP STOP STOP”. It’s barely audible over hot air blasting out of the vents. I close my eyes, I don’t want to see her.
Her palms reach up and hit windows, nobody looks. The bus picks up speed, Avery tries to keep up but can’t. Her strikes move down the length of the machine like rain. When it reaches me I look. A mop of blonde hair with grey roots and two palms hitting my window. The bus surges forward, her hands slide away, then I see sunlit asphalt. Then nothing.
Artwork by Max Shoham.