Greyhound Read Free

layover in downtown L.A., you’ll transfer to the 1364 through Phoenix, Flagstaff, and Amarillo. You’ll have a stop in Mount Vernon, Missouri, and you can reboard at any time if you just show your ticket. Continuing on to Pittsburgh and into Altoona, Pennsylvania. Three days, 2,575 miles. Please check all the schedules at the stops for changes and have a good trip.”
    “How much is the total?” my mother hissed.
    “Fifty-one dollars and forty-eight cents.”
    “Is that the rate for a child?” she clarified.
    “No, that’s the adult rate,” the lady replied. My mother shot me a look and just thumbed her nose at the woman in silence.
    “An unaccompanied minor?” The ticket lady looked back at my mother as if she were insane. It was a fact that she may have suspected but I had already known.
    “Yes, that’s right. Just the boy,” she spat venomously.
    “Uh…forty-four dollars, please,” she announced, as she raised up in her seat to see me standing quietly out of view at the counter’s edge. When she saw me clutching at my two cases for dear life with an incredibly frightened look across my face, she smiled.
    “Oh my God, darling…you sure are adorable, aren’t you? Driving across the United States?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
    “Honey, you are about as precious as they come.” She smiled again and sat back down. As she did, the smile on her face vanished and crumpled back up into an irate glare. Judging from her reaction, I wondered for a brief moment if she already knew my mother. My mother shifted around nervously and averted her eyes, trying hard not to make eye contact. The sound of a loud machine under the counter seemed to vibrate the partition and the small glass window in front of her. The woman handed my mother the tickets and her change.
    “Have a nice trip. Remember to tell the driver that you’re traveling alone, okay?”
    “Sure thing,” I responded, smiling back. I thought she was nice, but my mother seemed upset and was grumbling under her breath all through the lobby of the terminal. Dick trailed just behind us carrying the one bag that didn’t have wheels. It must’ve been his one and only kind gesture. It was far too early in the morning to worry about what was going to happen next, or what Dick would say, or leaving my friends again—which was lately something that I did frequently but never got used to.
    The bus terminal was clean but small. The lobby was adorned with a few rows of plastic chairs and lots of incredibly bright lights that seemed well intent on keeping everybody wide awake. Loud music played through a speaker near the ceiling, but a woman’s voice was constantly interrupting whatever song was playing.
    “ Now boarding 1602 for San Francisco on Platform 5. Final call. ”
    I wasn’t the only person traveling alone, but I was the only person who wasn’t an adult. There were several soldiers carrying large green bags that looked more like tube sausages than luggage, and they were all traveling by themselves.
    No one noticed me walking next to my mother in her gaudy orange dress with the strangling vines. And no one cared who I was, or why I was about to embark on a coast-to-coast journey by myself, possibly being swallowed whole in the midst of it. The thought of it made me tremble. Something inside of me was hoping that somebody would approach us, give my mother the third degree, and put a stop to it, but I knew that nothing like that was about to happen. I couldn’t say anymore that I had any real family. I definitely didn’t have any real friends, and I sure didn’t believe in saviors. So far I hadn’t seen even a glimmer of proof.
    Standing next to the open doorway of the large, vibrating metallic bus on platform 2, I started to feel a little scared again. The air around me smelled of gasoline, oil, burnt rubber, and something else that I couldn’t quite label.
    “You going to take notes, kid?” Dick asked me, seemingly