Twelve Stories in a Bus Station

1

As we approached the main drag from a side road, my forearms resting atop my duffel, I looked through the driver’s side window past the girl driving the car. The art deco Greyhound bus station in the small New Mexico town stood out, a little over three blocks away and across the street. The glow of streetlights at the front highlighted the chrome and the blue ceramic blocks. A vertical blue neon Greyhound sign hung at the near side of it.

A moment later she stopped at the stop sign, then looked to the left for oncoming traffic and pointed vaguely above the steering wheel through the windshield. “There’s the station. Pretty in the dark, isn’t it?”

I only nodded.

As she looked past me for traffic from the other direction she hesitated. “Are you sure you have to leave tonight?”

There was no traffic. The town virtually rolls up the sidewalks at around 7 p.m. She was the only exciting thing in the whole town, a waitress in Scotty’s Bar where I’d played a borrowed guitar for tips the past two nights, Friday and Saturday. She and I had taken a shine to each other. A little apologetically, I said, “I am. I have to be back before tomorrow night, and it’s a twelve-hour trip by bus.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s almost 1 a.m. now. I think my bus leaves at 1:30.”

She only nodded. “That’s right. I think you told me.” She glanced quickly in both directions again, then let off the brake, pressed the gas pedal, and turned left onto the main drag. “It was great getting to know you. I was hoping we’d have one more night.” She shrugged, glanced over at me and smiled. “You know.”

As we neared the building I studied it through the windshield. Absently, I said, “Yeah, that would’ve been nice.” The sex had been incredible.

2

The bus station was one of those buildings that always looks shiny and new even though it’s twenty or thirty years old. Every other building in town was either whitewashed or brown adobe, whitewashed or brown stucco made to look like adobe, or run-down, single-wide trailer houses on trash-strewn dirt lots overgrown with tumbleweeds. Most of the trailers had blue tarps on the roof just in case it ever rained again, and old tires kept the constant wind from blowing the tarps away.

As she pulled the car up to the curb, I preemptively worked the handle on the passenger door.

“Wait. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I patted my duffel. “No, I think I have—”

She giggled, but in the reflection of streetlights off the hood of the car, her eyes were sad. “A kiss goodbye?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” I leaned over in the seat and pecked her on the lips, then turned away and tugged at the door handle.

“Check the lock, John. It does that sometimes.”

I grabbed the top of the door lock and tugged. It came up. I glanced back. “Thanks. It was great.” I stepped out, then up onto the sidewalk.

She leaned down in the seat and looked up at me. “You have my mailing address, right?”

I put one hand on the roof and leaned down a little to look in. “Yeah, I think so.”

“And I should have a phone in the next month or so. I’ve been saving up, so—”

“Right.” I pointed across my body with my left hand. “I really gotta go. I’m not sure when—”

She studied me for a moment, then nodded. “I understand. Take care, all right? I hope to hear from you.”

“You too.” I closed the door and watched for a moment as she pulled away. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do. Then I turned and walked the thirty feet or so back to the door that opened off the sidewalk.

3

The door was shiny aluminum and glass and it slid from one side to the other when anyone got close. I walked up to it, my bag dangling from my left hand, and reached for the door handle with my right.

The door waited just long enough for me to see there was no handle. I frowned and flinched a little, thinking about going around the side to look for another door. Then it caught up with me and slid open, grinding sand in the track.

Inside, the room was maybe forty feet square and warmly lighted by two long florescent lights under white shades that dangled from the bottom of four wide, slow-moving fans. Those further dangled from black steel rods that hung from the ceiling. The ceiling was off-white, the floor of square linoleum tiles with a little blue diamond at each junction of four corners.

Ahead of me in the back wall two closed windows revealed the ticket counter, but stacks of paper and small boxes were stacked on the counter behind the left window. Behind the right window was a bent, skinny little man with a bald head and a fringe of white hair. He wore a green plastic visor like he was dealing poker back there. He was looking down, busy with something.

Above the ticket counter a round, black-framed clock with a white face and large black numerals indicated 12:56.

Below the ticket counter were those same blue ceramic blocks from outside—or ceramic tiles that looked like blocks—from the floor up to about three feet. Then the thick brown faux-wood counter.

The segment of blue tiles ran all the way around the room at the same height. Above that the walls were the same off-white as the ceiling.

To my right was a pinball machine, a pop machine, and a cigarette machine, then the door to the asphalt where the buses pull in and stop to load or unload passengers.

To my left a big grey trashcan sat just inside the door to the street, but bits of paper and a wad of pink chewing gum on the floor nearby proved people sometimes miss and don’t care. If I lived here, I probably wouldn’t care either. Beyond the trashcan a door marked Ladies interrupted the blue ceramic tiles, then a bank of small square grey lockers sat above them, five columns wide and three rows high. Each locker was a foot across and a foot tall. On the other side of the bank of lockers, another door labeled Gents.

I passed by five dark-stained oak benches, approached the ticket agent, and set my duffel on the counter. Even with me standing there, he didn’t look up until I tapped on the window with a fingernail.

He raised his bony face, stuck one index finger into the air, and slid the window open. He flashed a crooked yellow smile. “Leavin’ us, young man?”

“Yes sir. One way to Yuma?”

He nodded, looked down at something and muttered the cost, then said, “We don’t take checks.”

I’d already counted out the bills—four tens, two fives, and a one—before he looked up again. I said, “Is cash all right?”

He frowned. “You’re a regular joker, aren’t you?” He swiped the money off the counter, carefully counted it, and put it into a cash till, then double-stamped a ticket and passed it to me.

I grinned. “Friendly town you’ve got here.” At least one part of it was friendly: Sharon. Or was it Sheila? Anyway, I was glad I’d met her. She was one to remember.

He shook his head. “Regular joker.” He passed me a ticket and slapped the window shut.

4

The benches I’d walked past faced pinball and vending machines and the door that opens on the sidewalk. I took a seat on the back bench and set my duffel next to me, then looked at my ticket. I was wrong. My bus was scheduled to depart at 1:40.

I thought about the girl again and wished I could remember her name. Sheila, I think. Or Sharon? Or maybe Sherrie? Something that started with Sh. In my defense, we used mostly pet names, and that was in the heat of passion.

In addition to me and the ticket guy behind his window, there were only three other people in the place. They were all seated on the first bench, and they were obviously in one family.

Must be nice.

I’d noticed them when I came in. The Mexican man was in his early 30s and dressed in heavy, scuffed boots, jeans, and a long-sleeve grey work shirt. No hat or cap, a thick head of black, conservatively cut hair, his left arm was draped along the back of the bench, protective of a woman, who appeared to be in her late 20s. She was dressed in white leather thong sandals, a frilly white blouse, and a long colorful skirt.

Pretty, but she couldn’t hold a candle to Sheila.

Or Sharon. Shylia? No that isn’t it.

I assumed they were man and wife.

Next to the pretty young woman was an elderly woman of indeterminate age. Probably a mother to one and a mother-in-law to the other. When she glanced around nervously, her eyes told me that was the case. She was both happy and sad to be here.

They all spoke Spanish. From what I could make out of their conversation they were enroute to El Paso and points south.

Other than their quiet conversation, the only sound in the place was the constant creaking and ticking of the fans. I recognized the rhythm as blues, but I never felt so much as a breeze off of them.

5

I’d been in the station probably twenty minutes when a skinny young man appeared outside the front door. Next to him was a very pregnant young woman.

He made the same mistake I’d made. He reached for the nonexistent door handle. Just as he withdrew his hand, the door ground a little more sand into dust. I was happy to see I wasn’t the only one who fell for that trick.

He recovered well though. He smiled at the woman, took a half-step back, and gestured toward the opening. It’s nice to have someone to show off for.

6

I’d met my latest girl at the bar in Scottie’s on Friday as I asked the bartender if I could borrow the guitar he was quietly plucking when I walked in. He wasn’t very good, and the guitar was entirely too quiet. Or maybe too timid. Plus the tune was strictly instrumental. The place was packed and buzzing with conversations, but from what I could see nobody was paying any attention to the soft music. Or maybe they couldn’t hear it. I smiled at him. “Could I maybe borrow your guitar? I’m good.” I shrugged. “I’m just between gigs. I’ll play for beer and say five bucks an hour?”

He nodded and passed the guitar over the bar, then dipped a glass and rammed a wadded up bar towel into it. As he worked the rag back and forth, an ash fell from the end of a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “You’ll play for tips. If you’re good, I’ll give you a twenty after and you can come back tomorrow night for another twenty.”

With the guitar in my left hand, I grinned and extended my right. “Deal.”

I am good. With my range, I can cover every major artist from Webb Pierce and Hank Williams to Johnny Cash.

He slipped his palm across mine instead of actually shaking on it.

That’s when Sheila—or Sharon, I’m sure it was one of those two—set a round tray on the waitress station. Slender with a great figure, long black hair in a ponytail, a white peasant blouse with the tails knotted over a flat tummy, jeans that looked like she was poured into them, and white sneakers with pink laces. She glanced at me and smiled, then looked at the bartender. “Three fingers neat from the well, Bob. Plus a Bud and two Coors.” She had a great voice. Light and very feminine, but in charge. She smiled at me again, one hand on her hip. “So you’re the entertainment?”

I nodded. “Anything you like?”

She shrugged. “Hank Williams for the older stuff, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash for the newer. Maybe some Buck Owens? Maybe some Willie?”

I grinned. “I can do that.”

She offered her hand and said either Sheila or Sharon, I’m all but certain, and I said, “John. Really good to meet you” through a patented smile.

She said, “We’ll see,” and she picked up her tray of drinks and turned away.

I played and sang every song for her. Mostly ballads of course.

7

When the skinny young guy at the door stepped back and smiled and gestured toward the opening, the pregnant girl glanced at him, then came through. She didn’t smile.

She’s his sister maybe? That or he’s about to be dumped. I was betting on the latter.

He followed her in, gangly and seemingly without a clue about how to talk to her. In the light of the fluorescents, he looked to be maybe 17 or 18 in a yellowish straw western hat, black western boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved white shirt with pearl-looking snaps down the front.

The woman looked to be a few years older. She wore white sneakers and jeans, and not the pull-up ones with the expandable panel. Above them she wore a thin, almost gauze-like white blouse. Through it the jeans were tight and buttoned just beneath her belly.

Moving in strawman jerks and starts, the boy showed her to the opposite end of the bench in front of mine.

She eased herself down to the bench, then turned to face the small bank of lockers on the wall. Her copper-red hair reached to just below her shoulder blades.

The boy remained upright. When he gently cupped the back of her head, she looked up, her eyes a little wide and her freckles stark under the florescent lights. She smiled tentatively, but she flinched away when he tilted his head a little to one side and bent to kiss her.

He straightened almost too quickly. “Oh. Okay. It’ll be okay.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll, uh—bathroom.”

As she nodded he turned away. He glanced at the door on either side of the bank of lockers, then crossed the room and pushed on the door labeled Men.

The woman bowed her head for a moment. She took an audible breath, then quietly said, “It’s for the best. I have to keep emotion out of this.” I imagine her fingers were lacing and unlacing from each other in her lap.

A moment later the boy came out of the bathroom. He sat next to her and started to reach for her again, but she shook her head. Quietly, she said, “No, Del.”

He put his hands on the bench and slid away a few inches.

Crazy. How does he not know he should be on his knees?

8

To my left, a bus pulled in with the engine idling. The brakes squealed, then sighed with a loud hush as the driver released the pressure.

The door of the bus swung open and the first passenger—a thin, middle-aged Mexican woman in a flowing red dress—stepped down. She hesitated, then straightened her shoulders and walked to the aluminum and glass door.

I eyed the bus again, expecting to see a man step down to accompany her, or maybe to light a cigarette and wait. But nobody else stepped down.

As the woman in red pushed open the door, the diesel exhaust from the bus filtered in and the glass window behind me slid to one side. The little old man said, “You folks who’re heading for El Paso, that’s your bus. Give ‘er a couple of minutes.”

As the woman in red crossed the room, looking neither left nor right and her red leather purse dangling from one arm, the Mexican man and the younger woman on the first bench stood up.

The man side-hugged his wife and she smiled up at him. They both moved to help the mother and mother-in-law to her feet. The man bent, pulled two large bags from under the bench, and waited as the two women talked quietly and exchanged three separate hugs and nodded and cried a little.

The woman in red pushed open the ladies’ room door.

I expected the window behind me to slam shut again, but it didn’t. The ticket guy said, “You other folks, about ten minutes for the westbound bus: Tucson, Yuma, Lodi, Bakersfield, and points west. We don’t go to Hawaii though.” He cackled a little.

Regular joker, that guy.

I glanced at the pregnant girl.

Crap. I’d bet money she’s going west, and probably alone.

I thought about Sheila or Sharon, alone in her little stucco made to look like adobe apartment, set in a lonely row in a dusty dirt lot with three other apartments, two attached together with a double carport and then two more apartments. It was depressing. Well, to me. To her it was reality. For a brief time I’d been part of it.

I’d been fortunate to be part of it.

9

Sharon or Sheila and I hadn’t been horizontal all the time. We’d sat in her little living room and talked. We’d eaten too. We’d gone out for breakfast on Saturday morning to the local steakhouse and then to a pizza place for lunch and then to the steakhouse again for supper and then to the bar. But whenever we weren’t in the bar and busy with our different gigs we were intimate.

I mean really intimate. We talked. A lot. I know all about her life and how she came to be here and that she’s two years younger than I. And she knows things about me that I’ve never told anyone else because she’s just that receptive and just that special and— Why am I hurrying to a gig that might or might not even work out?

Well, because after I missed the last paying gig in a town about sixty miles farther up the road after my bus broke down outside this drab little town and the best they could do was bring me here and let me fend for myself. And except for my time with Sharon or Sheila I’d fended pretty well, professionally, I mean, even with my guitar already in the next town down the road, even with borrowing Bob’s guitar and earning a little money that Sheila or Sharon wouldn’t let me spend on breakfast or lunch or supper, all because I played a few stupid songs for her and she thinks I’m just that damn special. Only I’m really not or else why am I here and waiting only another ten or fifteen minutes to escape?

Is that where Pregnant Girl’s going? To an escape?

Oh lord, stuck in Lodi again.

That’s certainly no escape. God don’t let her go west. I don’t want to witness it.

I grimaced. But just when I thought the window would remain open and the frail little man would save me and announce another bus—any bus that was going in any direction other than to Yuma—he slapped the window shut again.

Oh, he’s a joker all right.

10

Finally.

The Mexican man and the younger Mexican woman guided the older Mexican woman through the door that opened onto the asphalt and the Mexican man opened the side compartment on the bus and put the two large bags in carefully.

The woman in red came out of the bathroom and crossed the room and went out through the aluminum and glass door and the diesel fumes washed in and she passed by the other two Mexican women and ascended the steps into the open maw of the bus.

The Mexican man closed the side compartment of the bus, turned and walked to the two Mexican women. After a moment of quiet laughter and another round of hugs, he helped the elder woman onto the lower step of the bus and as she moved up the younger woman followed her and the Mexican man turned away, put his hands in his jeans pockets against the chill in the air, and waited.

A long moment later the younger Mexican woman came out again and she and the man walked a few steps away and turned to face the bus. Both of them raised a hand toward the dark-tinted windows just as if they could see through them. Because that’s what you do when you’re full instead of empty.

I thought again of Sharon or Sheila. No it’s Sharon. I’m sure of it.

And the door of the bus closed and the engine idled up and the bus backed out and jerked a little. A moment later it passed by the sliding glass door that opens on the sidewalk.

The man and woman passed out of view toward the front of the station and then a beat-up blue Ford pickup, purple under the streetlights, drove past the sliding glass door too.

Going home. Together.

The other bus started its engine.

11

The gangly boy on the center of the bench stood up. He reached for the pregnant girl’s hand and she took his hand and pulled herself up.

They spoke quietly and she shook her head, preserving her right to keep emotion out of it.

A tear leaked from the corner of one of his eye just as if I and the gnarled little old man behind the ticket window weren’t there or he didn’t care that we saw. Because that’s what you do.

I slipped into judging them and frowned. All I could think of was for him, and that was Don’t let go! But then what do I know? What could I possibly know?

Of course I could know what was staring me in the face.

Look at them.

His nerves are taut, his goofy long-fingered hands at his sides, helpless in his ignorance of what to say or what to do.

Her nerves are taut, her short, slender fingers working through the others, twining and untwining. And she’s pale.

For God’s sake boy, she’s pale!

The ticket window slid open again, bumped the opposing glass, and the gnarled old man barked a boarding call.

The boy flinched at the call and took the girl’s hands and I thought maybe he finally got it.

But he only said, “Please” and it trailed off into the ticking rhythm of the fans.

And she only shook her head.

“But we’ll stay in touch,” he said, jiggled her hands slightly, and tried to smile. “Right?”

“Sure,” she said, then turned away toward the door that opens on the endless asphalt.

He bent, picked up the bag, and walked beside her in defeated silence, one hand resting lightly on her lower back because that’s what you do. At the door, he reached to open it but she’d already pushed it open.

He reached past her anyway and held it open and she passed through.

The door of the bus folded open with a sigh, and he helped the pregnant girl onto the bottom step.

She turned and took the bag from him. She met his gaze for only a moment—it seemed like a silent plea—and then she turned away and ascended the steps.

12

The boy surprised me. He didn’t back away and he didn’t turn and he never glanced up at the tinted windows.

Instead he stepped away—a little too quickly?—toward the front of the station.

I frowned as I watched. His shoulders slumped just a bit too much, his gait a fraction faster than a sadness, he passed in front of the bus and out of view.

Through the window behind me the gnarled little man said, “Joker? That’s your bus. Don’t want to miss it, do you?”

Without looking around, I said, “Oh. Oh yes.” Sharon. Her name’s definitely Sharon. The bartender said it. Several male customers said it. I said it too. “Sharon. Her name’s Sharon.”

The gnarled little man said, “Who? You know you’re alone, right?” He cackled, and I no longer cared.

“Yes. Yes I do.”

I stood, plucked my duffel from the bench, and glanced toward the ticket window. “Thanks.”

He raised a hand. “Welcome. But you’d better hurry.”

I only nodded and turned away, then crossed the floor, my duffel dangling from my left hand, a smile on my face.

The sliding door at the front of the station opened without hesitation.

Home was only seven miles away.

*******

About the Author

I was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas and baked in Arizona, so I'm pretty well done.

For a time, I wrote under five personas and several pseudonyms, but I take a pill for that now and write only under my own name. Mostly.

I am a prolific professional fiction writer by pretty much any standard. In just over 8 years I’ve written 110 novels, 10 novellas, and around 280 short stories across several genres. None of that is a typo.