Greyhound Read Free Page A

interested.
    “Huh?” I replied, looking up at him blankly, curious but confused.
    “The pencil and notepad in your shirt pocket, Douche!” His index finger was pointing straight at my heart like a gun.
    “Ohh,” I muttered, finally aware. “Maybe, I guess.”
    “Don’t f-f-f-forget to st-st-st-stutter, I mean write!” Dick teased. He was working in his final jabs at me while he could. “Dou-Dou-Douche stain.”
    “Don’t call him that, Dick,” my mother interrupted, laughing as if it was a joke, guffawing at his boyish humor. It seemed to be his favorite word—he called me “douche” or “douche bag” every chance he got when my mother wasn’t around. It was the first time he’d used the word in front of her. She was giggling as if it was something said by Johnny Carson, as a punch line on The Tonight Show. Making fun of my stuttering, though, was nothing new, and my mother never said anything to Dick about his mean streak toward me.
    “Sorry, Charlotte, honey. I was just teasing the poor little stut-stut-stuttering runt. Maybe if I tease him enough he’ll stop doing it,” he suggested. I wanted to reach out and strangle the life out of him. Maybe I could make him stop. He didn’t have any reservations about punching me in the face, and I had no desire to get on the bus with a bloodied lip or wake up in the morning with a black eye. It was just one of those things that I had to let go, like always.
    I scratched my head to feel more comfortable, but I only felt more out of place. My mother bent down one more time, kissed me on the cheek, looked me over, and stood back up to light another cigarette.
    “Okay, off you go. And don’t forget to call.” She was acting as if I were going to have dinner with a friend on the next block over, instead of traveling across the country, possibly leaving her for the last time. An elderly black man wearing a thick blue jacket and a cap with a Greyhound patch came over to us. He took my bags and gave my mother a ticket, which she immediately handed to me. The porter witnessed the whole exchange and was watching my mother with an extremely concerned look and a frown.
    “Hold on to that ticket, son. You’ll need it to get these bags back. How far ya goin’?” He was looking directly at me now.
    “Pittsburgh, sir.”
    “Pittsburgh!” he parroted in exclamation. “That’s one hell of a long trip, boy. All by yourself?”
    My mother grunted.
    “Yes, sir,” I answered.
    “Well…” he smiled, looking at both my mother and Dick carefully as if getting a mental picture in case he had to later describe them to the police. “Just make sure that you tell the driver.” It was the third time that I’d heard this instruction, and it began to sound more ominous. For the first time, I really began to question if this was a good idea and did so aloud, or rather, tried to.
    “Maybe…”
    “Just get on the bus and get a seat up front,” my mother growled at me, pushing me up the stairs. I went begrudgingly, but after I took the first three steps upward, I was face to face with an old, meaty-faced driver. It was then that I realized that I had crossed the point of no return. Everything had just begun.
    When I turned around to take a last look at my mother and Dick, they had bolted off and were quick-stepping it off the platform. They were already on the precipice of crossing back inside the lobby. She didn’t look back at all, and from the side of her face, it seemed as if she was laughing. Dick looked back, though. He glanced at me before slipping away with my mother through the sliding glass door. It suddenly felt as if it was all a part of some master plan of his that I was only just now being made aware of. The whole thing was over quickly and was meaningless.
    “Ticket,” the driver announced. I turned back to see the old man who was seated behind the wheel staring at me with his hand out. I made out his name from the plastic badge on his shirt: Jim