Greyhound Bus Stories

Greyhound Bus Stories

I.

Taki’s eyes opened to the smell around her.

 

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with the back of her hand and saw a wiry man with greasy, slicked back hair smelling of body odor and cigarette smoke sitting beside her.

 

The man was directing a woman holding an infant in one arm and the hand of a toddler with her other hand to sit in the seat in front of them.

 

He was also directing a boy and a girl about Taki’s age to sit in the seat beside them.

 

And a teenage girl and boy to sit in the seat behind them.

 

None of them were paying any attention to the man, but he kept on talking as if they couldn’t function without him.

 

“Lissen yere,” he said a bit too loudly. “Git yourselfs settled down now. We got a ways to go, and we don’t need no cryin’, wigglin’, playin’ nor poutin’. Hope we’ll be thar ‘fore nightfall.”

 

The man had one bag, a tattered olive green rucksack that looked as if it had seen action in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, that must have held the traveling goods of the whole family.

 

He tried to stuff it in the luggage bin above their heads, giving it a hard whack with his bony fist as the driver moved toward him. 

“Hey,” said the driver sternly, “That won’t fit in there. Give it here so I can put it in the storage bin below the bus.”

 

“Well god dammit then,” cursed the man, “Least let me git out the bottle for the baby. It belongs to that thar girl. You can see she ain’t old ‘nough to make no milk, so we got to feed it this yere ‘spensive stuff.”

 

The teenaged girl turned bright red, her ears the color of the morning summer sky over the Chukchi Sea, as the man looked away from her and back to the bus driver, who was wrestling the bag back up the aisle to the door.

 

The other passengers had to lean toward the windows as he passed by.

 

Taki wondered if they did this because of the size of the bag or the smell of it, for it had taken on the odor of it’s owners.

 

“Wait one more minute, thar,” commanded the man.

 

The driver ignored him much the same way his family did.

 

“Well shit,” the man sighed as he collapsed beside Taki.

 

“I needed my Bible out from thar,” he whispered. “It’s good luck to hold it when our lives are in the hands o’ somebody like that thar driver,” he winked at her.

 

Within a minute, the man’s head dropped back against the padded seat of the bus and he was asleep.

 

Taki listened carefully and heard a crackling in the man’s lungs and a whoosh click in the man’s heart.

 

“Hmmm,” she thought, “This man has had a hard life. He’s too young for his body to sound like that.”

 

The teenaged boy who was sitting behind her leaned over the seat and put his hand on her shoulder.

 

He pushed until she turned and looked at him.

 

“Hey, you one’nem Meckicans, ain’t you? You speak English or only Meckican?”

 

Taki looked into the boy’s cloudless blue eyes.

 

She was surprised by what she saw there.

 

The boy had heard the words he had asked her, though not in a question.

He had heard them in an accusation.

By a whole community.

 

“Look at them damn Meckicans,” he had heard. “They come here to ‘Merica and take everthin’ from us and don’t give nothin’ back!”

 

Taki held his stare in her earthy brown eyes.

She turned back toward the road in front of them without saying a thing.

II.

The Greyhound bus chugged out of the station in downtown Charleston into the South Carolina night. 

There were 4,000 miles between Charleston and Point Hope. 

"That's about how far blue whales migrate from Mexico to Alaska," thought Little Salt. "If they can make it, maybe I can make it, too."

This first part of the journey would take four days. 

He closed his eyes. 

He felt the tires of the bus thump against the road, listened to the soft snore of a soldier in the seat behind him, and swayed gently from side to side as the driver moved from lane to lane around late night drivers. 

He drifted off to sleep and became a blue whale, the thump of his giant fluke in the deep waters moving him along at 14 miles per hour, the songs from other blue whales from different waters touching his great heart, his giant body swaying from side to side in the Pacific Ocean waters.

He woke to the hand of a frail, old woman on his shoulder. 

"'Scuse me," she whispered, "I hate to wake you up but my ticket says I'm 'sposed to sit here beside you."

"Yes ma'am," said Little Salt. 

He rubbed his eyes with the fists of his hands and looked up into the face of the woman in the soft glow of the bus lights.

There were deep wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and across her forehead.

They didn't seem to be wrinkles of worry that he'd seen form on his mamí and abuelo’s faces as they worked the fields and lived among strangers in small southern towns. 

No, they seemed to be wrinkles of kindness that might have come from years and years of loving and hoping, the kind of wrinkles you get when you cradle a baby in your arms and rock it deep into the night, the kind that come when you study the small, quiet things in the world and wonder why so few people see or hear the beauty they hold.

She tried to keep her eyes open, but they stayed closed a bit longer with each blink, and her head nodded to each passing mile along the highway. 

Her breathing came into rhythm with the wheels of the bus on the road. 

The bus moved around a curve and she slid ever so slightly against little salt’s body. 

His small shoulder sank into her tired, withered breasts and his smooth cheek rested on the folds of skin on her thin, bony neck. 

Her gentle breaths made a soft whistle through her nose, so soft that no one who was not as close to her as little salt could not hear it. 

He not only heard it but also understood the story the whistles told.

- When my chi'ren were yo age, they walked to school 'long a dirt road. 

'Bout haf way dere, a school bus'd pass ‘em by, ev'ry day. 

It'd stir up mo dust'n you evah seen'n yo life and dat dust'd swirl 'round my chi'ren, cling to dey skin, and turn de water in dey eyes to mud. 

"Why won't dat bus stop and pick us up, momma?" dey asked me.

Well, I knew dey'd come a day when I'd haf to sit wid'em at de table and tell'em 'bout de way things was, 'bout how a school bus wit white chi'ren on it couldn't haf black chi'ren on it, too, 'cause dats de laws of men's hearts.

But I know'd dat day hadn't come quite yet. 

I hoped so much in my own heart dat 'fore dat day came, a new day's come when de laws of God's heart'd overcome de laws of men's hearts and dat bus'd stop, op'n it's doors, and welcome my chi'ren on board.

"Don't you all worry 'bout dat bus now, you hear?" I answered my chi'ren. 

"Lissen now, when dat bus passes you by, you stop for a minit and think 'bout dat dust all 'round you. 

Breathe deep and let it come into yo lungs 'till you breathe it out wit yo breath. 

Den take de back a yo hands n'rub'em in you wat'ry eyes 'till de mud comes off on 'em. 

You think 'bout dat dust and dat mud. 

You 'member dat dust is made up'a tiny little dust particles, so small you cain't see 'em 'less dey all together. 

And you 'member dat mud is what we all made of, all of us, folks inside de bus n outside de bus, and one kind'a mud ain't superior to another kind'a mud, it's all just de stuff God made us out of. 

'Member dat, my loves. 'Member dat."

Little Salt listened to her sleeping, listened to the soft whistles of her breathing, and listened to her face.

"A blue whale's heart is as big as a Volkswagon Bug," he thought. 

"It must feel love very deeply and widely, because it's heart is so deep and wide. 

I wonder if the blue whale could love her more than me. 

My heart is just the size of my fist. 

I don't think it can hold as much love as a blue whale's heart. 

I surely feel a deep and wide love for her, though.

Maybe it's because we're both the small, quiet ones who no one sees or hears, in our own ways. 

I hope my heart is as beautiful as her. 

I hope I whistle her same beautiful song.”

He put his tiny hand on top of hers. 

You've heard of the narwhal whale, haven't you? 

Along with the bowhead and beluga whales, it is an Arctic whale, living all it's life in the icy waters of the Arctic ocean. 

It's called the unicorn of the sea because it has a single horn that protrudes up to nine feet out of it's forehead. 

In older days, it's horn was given to the kings and queens of Europe to use as scepters, for many thought there was great power and even magic in it. 

It's not really a horn, though. 

It's a tooth. 

Like a human tooth, it is very, very sensitive. 

If a narwhal tooth breaks, it causes the poor narwhal a sharp and abiding pain. 

When that break happens, an amazing thing happens in the life of narwhals. 

Another narwhal places it's tooth into the broken tooth of the hurting narwhal and that act of kindness assuages the pain.

He hoped his hand might somehow assuage her pain, too.

III.

He looked up from the book in his lap as the Greyhound bus squeaked to a stop at the Greenville station. 

The old woman next to him fell asleep on the trip up from Charleston and leaned her head on his shoulder. 

Her face was as wrinkled as the bark of an ancient magnolia tree, and was colored the same beautiful brown as it’s trunk and branches. 

She breathed in, and the air made a soft, whistling sound through her nose. She breathed out, and it made a gentle, flapping sound through her lips. 

“Life is a symphony,” he chuckled to himself, “Of whistles and kazoos.”

“Ma’am,” he whispered. 

She didn’t move.

She kept right on sleeping and snoring. 

“Ma’am,” he said a little louder. 

Still only whistles and kazoos. 

“Ma’am,” he said a little louder still. 

This time he reached out and patted her weathered hand. She opened her tired, brown eyes and smiled a small smile at him. 

“Thanks for a lettin’ me use yo shoulda as my pilla,” she said with a gravelly voice. 

“First time I woked up beside a man in a long time. Hope my snorin’ didn’t bother you none,” she giggled. 

“No ma’am,” he said with a giggle of his own, “It was music to my ears.”

His knees and back snapped and popped as he stood up slowly and smoothed out the wrinkles in his pants and tee shirt. 

“My goodness,” said the old woman, “You make music, too.” 

He placed his hand gently on her bony shoulder. 

“We could start a band called The Human Element,” he laughed. “People would come from all over to hear us whistle, flap, snap and pop. What do you think?”

“Yep, they’d pay us a bundle of money to hear that.”

He pulled on his jacket and waved his hand to her. “Goodbye, my friend,” he said. “Thanks for the song.”

She waved back. “Thank you,” she said. “And do me a favor. Lean on down here and let me tell you somethin’.”

He leaned down and was surprised.

She kissed him on his forehead with a light, tender kiss. 

“That’s the kiss of a guardian angel,” she whispered. “Listen to life, and don’t be afraid.”

He stepped off the bus and onto the street.

IV.

Little Salt and Taki looked out the window of the Grehound Bus together, side by side, cheek to cheek.

The heat and humidity of the Brownsville morning and the air conditioning on the bus caused the windows to fog.

Little Salt pulled his sleeve over his hand and used it as a kind of windshield wiper, moving it back and forth until he and Taki could see the Gulf of Mexico along the coastal road.

“Wow,” whistled Little Salt softly, “Do you think the lost whale is there?”

“Maybe,” whispered Taki. “I hope so.”

People began to stir and stretch and reach for their bags above and around them, but Little Salt and Taki stayed as still and quiet as the leaves on the trees that lined the street beside the bus station.

There are five foundational forces in the universe.

They hold everything together.

They bring order.

Four of them can be explained by the science of physics.

They are the GRAVITATIONAL force, the ELECTROMAGNETIC force, the WEAK force and the STRONG force.

The gravitational force keeps planets in orbit around their suns, our feet firmly planted on the ground, and whales submerged in the deep, blue seas.

The electromagnetic force causes electricity and connection. It underlies the mighty power of lightning and the gentle touch of the human hand.

The weak force brings nuclear energy. It makes stars shine.

The strong force holds quarks inside protons and neutrons and holds protons and neutrons inside atoms.

The fifth foundational force cannot be explained by physics, though.

It can only be explained by friendship.

It is love.

Taki and Little Salt stepped off the Greyhound bus into the early morning sunlight.

“Let’s go to the water,” said Taki.

She looked at the horizon between the Gulf of Mexico and the Brownsville sky.

“Okay,” whistled Little Salt. “To the water, then.”

They reached out for each other’s hands.

They walked down the road toward the gulf together.

This created that fifth foundational force. 

It keeps hearts in orbit around each other. 

It builds up instead of breaks down. 

It is life itself.

They stepped around and over heavy machinery, steel girders and concrete blocks, tools being used to build a wall that would separate Brownsville from Matamoros, the United States from it’s southern neighbors, human beings from human beings.

As the two children stood hand in hand, they hoped the fifth foundational force was really the strongest of all.