The Colossus of New York Read Free

aisle to find the seat shrunk while you were away.
    THE DRIVER IS some kind of priest, changing gears for their salvation. A blank space follows the words, The Name of Your Driver Is. More and more frequently he falls asleep at the wheel for whole seconds. If you ask him to turn the heat up, he might do it. He steers behind dark aviator glasses. He announces a ten-minute rest stop and the prisoners scramble out into the exercise yard. They scramble for fast food, the last chance to eat for who knows how many miles. She recognizes that guy over there from the bus and has a cigarette. As long as he stands there the bus hasn’t left yet. Forced to prioritize, some choose food over phone calls to loved ones. Pennies accumulate. It is tense in the fast food lines, how long is ten minutes. To stand there in the parking lot with hot french fries looking at the departing red lights of the bus. Best to cut these missions short. When they get back to the bus there is still plenty of time and they stand there stupidly, too fearful to make another attempt. Everybody has forgotten napkins.
    IT IS THE biggest hiding place in the world. The inevitable runaways. The abandoned, only recently reading between the lines. After the beauty contest this is the natural next step. All the big agencies are there. He saved his tips all summer and to see them disappear into a ticket quickened his heart. Not the first in the family to make the attempt. The suitcase is the same one his father used decades before. This time it will be different. The highway twists. She will be witty and stylish there. With any luck he will be at the same address and won’t it be quite a shock when he opens the door but after all he said if you’re ever in town. Hope and wish. In the light of the bonfire she realized the madness of that place and was packed by morning. They will send back money when they get settled, whatever they can. A percentage. Reliving each good-bye. Practicing the erasure of her accent, she watches her jaw’s reflection in the window. Wily vowels escape. No one will know the nickname that makes him mad. This is the right decision, they tell themselves. And then there is you.
    THEY REFUEL between towns, gliding down ramps for gasoline. Diesel oases. After all they have been through together, the drivers switch without farewells. What is a passenger to a driver. Apparently those fingerless leather gloves are standard issue. One driver, she never saw his face, just his sure shoulders. The bus changes when you are not looking. It is possible to fall asleep and wake up and everyone is different, all the scalps and haircuts accidentally memorized over miles are transmuted. Everyone reached their destination and got off except for you and it might be the case that all these new people will reach their destinations before you and only you will remain, in this seat, the lone fool sticking for the terminus. In one seat successively sit an infant, a small child, then a teenager and the next occupant will be the next stage older, he is sure of it. But then time is a funny thing on a bus.
    IF THEY THINK those two words New York will fix them, who are we to say otherwise. They wait for so long to see the famous skyline but wake at the arrival gate and with a final lurch are delivered into dinginess. This first disappointment will help acclimate. The weather is always the same in there. It may be day or night outside, or sunny or rainy outside, but inside the terminal the light is always the same queasy green rays. In effect, no matter what time of day it is, everyone arrives at the same time, in the same weather, and in this way it is possible for all of them to start even. At other gates buses heave in and head out according to schedule. They roar. The fleet returns bit by bit. The buses depart with the ones who need to leave and come back with replacements from every state. The replacements are a bit dazed after the long ride and the tiny brutalities. Row