Greyhound (12 page)

“I don’t think so,” a voice spoke very calmly just on the other side of the metal wall from me. It was Marcus. The man’s face turned away quickly, then I heard a cracking sound. Marcus had punched the guy, and he buckled into the door and out of view.

“Get the fu…” he protested, unable to finish. Marcus hit the man hard again, but I couldn’t see it. Something inside of my head told me to get up and move. When I stood up and tried to escape through the front seat opening, I hit face first into a large piece of chain-link fencing that I hadn’t been able to see in the darkness. I scrambled to the sliding door, trying to get out, but I couldn’t find the handle or anything to open the door, as I fumbled around in the darkness. The windows in the back of the van had been boarded up and wouldn’t open.

“Marcus!” I screamed in sheer terror. “I’m here!” He was still scuffling out of view with the man in the suit, punching him repeatedly. I was quickly becoming hysterical inside the van, trying to find a way out.

“Hang on, I’m coming!” he finally answered. A moment later, the door slid open, and I jumped out as if I had been spring-loaded. “Holy shit!” I swore, terrified, immediately clutching onto Marcus. He quickly grabbed a hold of me and maneuvered me around the van and back to the driver’s side door, where the man who had tried to kidnap me was still lying on the ground, groaning.

“Wait a hot minute, Sebastien. You need to see this,” Marcus spoke. I felt no desire to approach him, even in his current state of being beaten down and prostrate.

“Get a good look at his face, and don’t ever forget it.” Marcus was talking in almost a whisper. When the man rolled slightly on the ground, I finally saw his face again, but he didn’t look near the same as he did when I saw him at the bathroom sink or even a moment ago. Marcus had crushed his nose, and he was bleeding badly. A large area on the left side of his neck was starting to swell as well.

“Help me,” he pleaded. Marcus lurched down and grabbed a hold of the man and pulled him headfirst onto the bench seat of his van. What he did next surprised me. He yanked the man’s wallet from his back pocket, opened it, and quickly dug out his driver’s license.

“I got your goddamned license now. Ya understand that?” he yelled at him angrily, only inches away from his face.

“Here, keep this and don’t ever lose it.” Marcus quickly thrust it into the palm of my hand. I was still in shock, but Marcus was in complete control. He shoved the rest of the man’s body inside the van, slamming the door twice on his foot before he got his whole body inside.

“C’mon,” he spoke with great urgency, “we got a bus to catch.” Marcus grabbed me by my opposite arm and broke into a sprint across the parking lot at top speed and rounded the side of the terminal, not bothering to go through it. As we came around the corner, I saw Monty standing at the bottom of the steps, looking nervously at his wristwatch. We were both sprinting for the bus, and there was no way we were going to stay in Flagstaff, Arizona, to explain everything that had happened. Even I knew it wouldn’t be good for either of us.

“Where the hell y’all been?” Monty looked at us both, obviously concerned. “You two got some explainin’ to do.”

Marcus pushed me up the steps, getting me safely back on the bus. I turned back to see Marcus give Monty a very serious look. “We need to go, pops.”

“That’s all you had to say,” he responded, without any questions or formalities.

My head was swimming as I headed for the back toward my seat. Several people looked up at me, annoyed that I had held everyone up. My face was without expression, and I had little thought for any of them considering what I had just been through. Usually, I would’ve been ashamed, but I didn’t know how to feel.

The pale-faced girl was sitting in the aisle seat now and looking directly at me. She wasn’t upset at all, judging from her expression, just finally awake. She pointed with her finger and touched the corner of her mouth. I raised my hand up and felt warm blood where I had been slapped across the face, slightly cutting my lower lip. She handed me a Kleenex. I took it and sat down, lightly dabbing at the corner of my lip a few times. I leaned forward a moment later.

“Thank you,” I said.

“It’s okay,” she replied softly.

As the bus very quickly pulled away and rotated around the terminal and back out onto the main street, Marcus and I both got a long, last look at the brown van still parked in the front lot of the terminal, unmoved. I exhaled and sat back as we drove farther away and deeper into Flagstaff.

“You alright?” Marcus asked. Maybe it hadn’t fully sunk in yet, but I was already trying not to think about it.

“Yeah…I’m fine,” I responded mechanically.

“No, Sebastien, you’re not fine. You’re safe, but you’re definitely not fine. Don’t confuse the two.” I looked down at my hand. I was still clutching the driver’s license that Marcus had made sure I kept a hold of. I took a closer look at it, not thinking to just put it away.

The title
California Driver License
was written across the top of the card in capital letters. His picture was below, and his name and address were listed beside it.
“Leigh Allen.”
Marcus was glancing over my shoulder.

“Vallejo. Long way from home, don’tcha think?”

“What does it mean?” I wondered.

Marcus exhaled a long breath. “Well, if I had to take a guess…he gets on the bus and looks for easy targets.”

“Like me.”

“Yeah, like you,” he admitted. “He seemed to know exactly what he was doing.”

“Should we tell someone?” I asked.

“What exactly are you going to tell them? He’d just deny the whole thing. They’d think you were making the whole thing up, and they’d put me back in prison for giving him a beating, even though he deserved it.” Marcus had a way of telling the truth that made sense even to me. He was right about the whole thing too. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d be somewhere else right now, probably traveling in the opposite direction.

“I want to tell you thanks,” I said. Marcus looked at me thoughtfully and nodded.

“It’s cool. You didn’t do anything wrong back there, so don’t go inside your head over it. Okay?”

I nodded yes. “Thanks…I mean it,” I repeated.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Cowards and men, Sebastien. Cowards and men.”

“I felt like a coward back there,” I admitted.

“Don’t go into your head,” Marcus chided. “Look, when you’re older…you may have to do the same for someone else. You’ll have to see if you’re a coward or a man. You’ll get your moment.”

“I hope I’m a man,” I whispered contemplatively.

“You will be, don’t worry.”

Flagstaff was very quickly behind us. I put Leigh Allen’s driver’s license away in my inside jacket pocket in case I needed it later. The bus followed the freeway as it twisted in different directions through the desert and past a multitude of road signs. One sign in particular read
Welcome to the Navajo Nation.
The engine whined as we climbed several times but went quiet as we crested over high edges and slipped through the downgrades. The traffic on the roads became more spare the earlier it got. It was desolate for near three a.m. There were moments when it looked as though we were the only Greyhound bus left on earth. Semi trucks traveling in small groups in the opposite direction would pass us periodically, out of nowhere, and vanish again moments later as if they were passing into the afterlife.

Marcus was listening to his Walkman, but wide awake. Having to beat off the man in the suit made him more alert and more quiet than I had seen him. He had to use the restroom several times to wash the backs of his hands, as he’d skinned his knuckles and was bleeding. We didn’t have any bandages, and he probably had no desire to ask for any, so he just got by using the brown paper towels that were stacked on the side of the sink.

After we’d traveled far enough away and had completely settled into our seats for the next few hours of driving, Marcus lit a cigarette and relaxed. The pale-faced girl had turned around and quietly asked him for one as well, which he very politely produced for her. She thanked him after he lit it for her. She turned back around in her seat and remained quiet. Marcus had the same look of satisfaction about him that my mother had after smoking. She seemed to need one every hour though. Marcus was more controlled about it and rationed his smoking to after meals and just before sleeping.

The smell of the cigarette made me wonder about Charlotte and Dick one more time. I considered if they would’ve actually sent someone as dangerous as Leigh Allen to come kidnap me, getting me out of her life for good and securing sympathy from everyone in the process. Then I would be just one less thing to worry about, if that was really the case.

I squirmed around a bit, trying to get adjusted again on the two bench seats at my disposal. I stopped thinking about Charlotte and Dick, as it only upset me to picture her in a wedding dress for the third time. As much as I despised them both, lying there I made up my mind to never live with her again. Living with Dick would be dangerous. I knew there was something definitely wrong with him and that I’d never be able to turn my back on him. He didn’t seem that different from Leigh Allen, and after the run-in in the parking lot, I felt as though my eyes were all the way open and my senses on fire.

In front of me, I heard the pale-faced girl, “Amber,” shift in her seat, cough, and stand up. After she finished her cigarette, she quietly disappeared into the lavatory with her handbag. My gaze was perfectly centered on the doorway, so I would be able to get a really good look at her in the light when she came out. I struggled to stay awake waiting for her but nodded off exhausted.

When I opened my eyes again, it was light out. Only a few hours had passed, but the sun had risen, and I felt as if I’d finally gotten a full night’s sleep. I didn’t want to budge yet from my spot, as I was feeling comfortable and snug zipped up in my puffy brown windbreaker. Marcus was still asleep but stirring and leaning against the lavatory wall beside him. When I saw his face as he awoke, I suddenly blinked several times, realizing that it wasn’t the sun that had awoken me but something else. Marcus’s expression was alert and signaling that something was definitely wrong and out of place. It was the smell that had awoken us.

“What’s that smell? Do you smell that?” he quickly asked me, as he sat up, catching his bearings.

“I do. What is that? It doesn’t smell like the toilet.”

Just then, Marcus looked down at his feet in shock. He was trying to avoid stepping in something, but it was everywhere and all over the bottoms of his shoes. A large sticky mess had pooled in front of our seats in the back row. I thought maybe it was soda, but Marcus looked terrified. He slowly got up from his seat and began scanning the area in front of us.

“What is it, Marcus?”

“It’s blood,” he answered. His gaze shifted and settled on the seat in front of us, and he seemed not to know what to say. I started to sit up and lean over the seat without touching the floor, but just as I could see over the seat, Marcus told me no.

“Sit down, Sebastien,” he said very calmly.

“What happened?” I asked, confused.

All I could see was that “Amber” wasn’t moving, and she didn’t look as if she was going to. She looked stiff and reminded me of one of the store mannequins as she lay across the seat with her arm hanging awkwardly down to the floor.

“Pull the emergency cord,” Marcus ordered me.

“Wha…”

“Sebastien. Please pull the emergency cord above you! We need to stop the bus.”

“Okay!” I replied, startled.

As soon as I pulled on the red emergency cord, a bell went
ding
and was then followed by a long, uninterrupted buzzer. I caught Monty’s gaze looking back at us in his large mirror.

He quickly came on over the intercom.
“You boys okay back there?”
he asked, intermixed with static. Several people were now awake, twisting in their seats and wondering what was going on.

“You need to stop the bus.” Marcus spoke loud enough to be heard but didn’t shout. Monty seemed to understand his tone.

“You want me to pull over?”
Monty asked.
“We’re only about ten minutes from the Gallup terminal, but I’ll stop. Hang on.”
The intercom clicked off and Monty slowed the bus and veered it off onto the shoulder. When we had come completely to a halt, he unclipped his seat belt, grabbed his handheld radio, and quick-stepped it to the back toward us.

“Stay seated, everyone.”

Marcus was standing at the opening of “Amber” ’s seat in front of the latrine. Monty only glanced at her for a quick second before his face sank. He reached down with one hand and placed it on her exposed neck and rested it there. I looked down at the floor and stared at the blood, trying to think what might’ve happened to her. I didn’t have a clue.

“Dear Lord,” Monty exhaled after examining her. He rose up and put his hands on his hips, looking as if he didn’t know what came next. Then, as he caught me watching him, he turned on his small radio and called out to the terminal.

“Hello, 1364 to Gallup Terminal.”

A brief moment passed while he waited for a response.

“
Terminal. Go ahead, 1364.
”

“I have an emergency situation on the bus and require medical assistance.” The bus had gone quiet. I could hear Monty talking over the radio. His voice remained calm as he reported the details.

“
What’s your twenty?
” the disembodied voice replied.

“About ten minutes out.”

“
Can you drive? Is the coach functional?
” the voice responded again.

“Yeah, I’m fine. The bus is still operational.”

“
Bring it in then, we’ll have an emergency crew meet you here. Is anybody hurt?
”

“One female passenger, deceased,” Monty announced. A sound traveled around the bus. The other passengers seemed to be shocked by this, but everyone kept quiet, trying to listen in on the conversation. There was a long pause over the radio.

“
Okay, 1364, drive to the station.
”

“Roger,” Monty replied, and then turned a knob on the handheld device. Marcus and Monty both shared a look, and Monty headed back to the front of the bus. When he got buckled back in, he grabbed the intercom and addressed us.

“Just hold it together, folks. We’ll be pullin’ into Gallup in just under ten minutes. I’d advise everyone to be prepared to take all your belongings with you when you get off, as they’re most likely going to bring in another coach. If ya gotta pray, now’s the time.”
His voice was soft and had a respectful manner to it that conveyed more calm and understanding than any words ever could’ve.

In the few moments being pulled over, I was able to get a better look at “Amber.” All I could see of her was her two hands, which were now a very pale gray. One was resting on her stomach, and the other was sticking out over the edge of her seat and onto the floor. She was being held in place by her awkward position alone. I could see that her jeans and her lower torso were covered in blood, and the seat that she had been sitting in was also soaking wet. Her face was obscured by her hair. Before, I had really wanted to look at her, but now, seeing her like this, I had no desire. I knew she wouldn’t be smiling. Her eyes wouldn’t see me, they’d see past me, just like everyone else. And whatever I would say to her, she just wouldn’t respond. It was overwhelming knowing that wherever she was going, she wouldn’t make it. Her family didn’t know yet that she had died in her sleep, and everyone else, not on this bus, was still waiting for her. I didn’t know how she had died. I turned to the only person who knew me and where I was going.

“Marcus,” I asked. “How did she die?” I kept my voice to a whisper, as the bus was silent and had remained so ever since Monty had pulled back out onto the freeway.

“All I can do is guess, but it’s a bit complicated,” he answered, slowly enunciating his words and speaking in a soft whisper.

“I’m sure you know,” I asserted. After asking, I felt bad for pushing it. I would’ve been yelled at by this point if Marcus had been my mother.

“Ask me later. We’ll talk about it when everything’s squared away.” He wasn’t mad, nor did he raise his voice.

The ten-minute drive felt like twenty. The cabin of the bus was so quiet, you could’ve heard a pin drop in the bathroom. Listening to the engine was the only escape. I kept my feet elevated, and every few moments I glanced down to see that the blood on the floor had become like a thin syrup and was drying up. The smell now overtook everything and seemed to get stronger with every inhalation. Marcus had used one of the few blankets that Greyhound provided and had very gently covered her with it.

When we got closer to the Gallup station, a police car pulled in front of us to block traffic, which there wasn’t much of. His red-and-blue lights blazed, sounding us out with the siren. We parked on the main street in front of the terminal and were met head-on with the squealing whine of an approaching ambulance. Monty gave a short message about disembarking and collecting all personal belongings. For the second time during the trip, we had unloaded on the street in front of a group of onlookers and been met by police and Greyhound personnel. I couldn’t help but begin to feel important because of it.

I stood on the sidewalk next to Marcus in the morning air, and we waited while Monty unlocked the luggage compartments to start unloading. The emergency crew disappeared into the bus, followed by a few firefighters and a police officer.

“Is there a fire on the bus? Why do they need firefighters?” I questioned, staring at the unfolding spectacle.

“It’s just the way it’s done, that’s all,” Marcus replied. “They’ll probably be the ones to carry her off.”

A few people stood by on the sidewalks, gawking. Most of them looked older than my grandparents.

An old lady in a crisp Greyhound uniform with long, white, neatly braided hair was ushering us inside single file. “Can everyone from 1364 please step into the depot?” she asked. She was darkly tanned and had an angelic tone in her voice that made her sound trustworthy. Monty was off to the side talking with a few other Greyhound people and a police officer who was clutching “Amber” ’s purse. Every few words, they would glance in our direction. As we moved to go inside, it looked as if they were talking about us. The officer walked toward us and then pointed at us menacingly.

“You two, come with me.” The police officer wasn’t really asking as much as he was telling. After the incident in Flagstaff, I felt compelled to comply. I started to worry as we stepped into the terminal behind him. He marched us through a door that said
Employees Only,
which opened onto a long, narrow hallway where square offices were positioned on both sides.

The bulky policeman corralled me into a small room that was someone’s office. “I need you to sit there for a few moments. Can you do that without getting into anything?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded.

He lightened up a bit toward me after noting my response. “Okay, then. I’ll leave the door open just in case. Don’t budge from that seat.”

“Yes, sir,” I repeated. He turned and slipped away into another office next door with Marcus. I could hear the door close on the other side of the wall and muffled voices, but nothing more. All I heard before the officer shut the door was: “
What’s your name?
”

I sat perfectly still for over ten minutes as I waited for my turn. The office usually belonged to a “Muriel Rodriguez.” Her name was engraved on a silver plaque that was affixed to the door. The room had no windows anywhere, and every wall was covered by bookcases. The shelves were filled with both blue and gray three-ring binders. I was sitting off to the side near the doorway, along the wall. The chair was comfortable and swiveled, but it was small.

“Can I help you?” A large woman with black hair and deep brown skin addressed me. She was now wondering what I was doing in her office.

“The police officer asked me to wait here,” I replied.

“Did you just get off the 1364 from Los Angeles?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I looked at the name tag on her shirt; it read
Muriel.

“Okay. Don’t get into anything,” she responded. She turned to leave but hesitated and spun on her heel.

“You want something to drink while you wait?”

Inwardly, I sighed in relief. “Thanks…I’m fine for now,” I replied. She turned and swished away farther down the hallway into another office.

After a few more moments, the office door where Marcus was being questioned opened, and he and the officer both emerged. When Marcus saw me, he was smiling. It was exactly the opposite of what I expected.

“I’ll grab a table for us in the café, okay?”

“Uh…sure,” I replied unevenly. The police officer was staring at me. After Marcus slipped away, the officer closed the door and leaned against Muriel’s desk, moving a few things on the surface out of the way. He was clutching a notepad and a pen, but they weren’t open, and his arms were crossed.

“Sebastien Ranes, right?” he asked. I mechanically responded yes.

“Ten years old and traveling across the country all by yourself. Where are your parents?”

“I’m twelve, actually, officer,” I spoke.

“Ohh…you’re twelve. Well, that makes all the difference.”

“Today’s my birthday,” I blurted out, nervous. I thought it must’ve fallen on deaf ears. But he laughed.

“Today’s your birthday, too, huh? One helluva present, don’t ya think?”

“I’d rather not think about it, actually.”

“I bet,” he replied, looking me over. He opened his leather-bound tablet.

“So, one more time…where are your parents?”

“My mom is getting married in San Francisco right now.”

“Today? Why aren’t you there at the wedding?” he asked.

“I dunno. Marcus asked me the same question.”

“Don’t you know that it’s dangerous to be on the bus by yourself?” he quizzed.

“Marcus is watching out for me. As long as I’m with an adult, I’m fine.”

He grunted. “Hmmph. Marcus is watching out for you, eh? Did you know he just got out of jail?” the officer asked.

“Prison,” I corrected him for the second time. “He just got out of prison.”

The police officer put his book away and stopped taking notes.

“Does your family know that you’re on the bus, Mr. Ranes?”

“Yes, sir. My mother put me on the bus the other night.”

“So you’ve been on the bus how long now?” he followed up.

“Almost a day and a half, I think. I got on in Stockton at three in the morning,” I answered. I was beginning to feel pressured.

“Who’s picking you up?”

“I have grandparents who are going to meet me in Mount Vernon, Missouri, and I’m getting off in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to go live with my grandma.”

The police officer now looked horrified. “Let me get this straight: you’ve been on the bus for almost two days, and you’re going all the way out to Pennsylvania alone?” He shook his head in disbelief. It may have been concern that registered across his face, but I couldn’t read it very well.

“I’m telling the truth, sir,” I rejoined.

“I guess you are,” he answered, not knowing what else to do with me. “Did you say anything at all to the girl on the bus?” he asked.

“Amber? No, I didn’t.”

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and made a quick note in his book. “She told you that her name was Amber?”

“No. I just thought she looked like an ‘Amber.’ That’s what I called her. The only thing she said to me was ‘You’re welcome.’”