The brick wall of the station brightened as the car came to a stop, the spread of beams narrowing as they neared. Dust and moths flitted and fell in the light. Two women got out of the car, darker than the illuminated air. Both heavyset, they struggled from their seats with a helping of sighs and groans and began tugging their stubborn bags from the backseat of the plastic coupe, muttering soft curses as they pulled. One of them looked up and noticed the pre-dawn quiet and emptiness all around.
‘You think we missed the bus?’
They kept pulling at the swollen duffels in the back. One squeezed through the gap between the seat pulled forward and the door and slumped to the gravel like a struggling child. ‘Girl what you got in this bag?’
The silver bus came roaring up the road, stopping at a red light. The intersection was empty, but the bus had to wait for the signal to change.
‘That's it, here it come,’ said Mattie from behind her thick red glasses. She had taken off work to spend two days in a bus to San Diego to see her nephew graduate from high school only to turn around and come right back.
The bus roared in the white light of the parking lot, reflecting its own reflection in the windows of the station. The driver stepped down and inspected Mattie's ticket, then gave her a claim for her bags. Her friend stood with her arms fatter from being folded, an impatient look on her obtuse face. ‘It's early, she's just tired,’ thought Mattie, always embarrassed to be an inconvenience, and the two embraced in a tender profusion of goodbyes.

David was watching them through the tinted window, his head vibrating against the pane. ‘Now, there are black people and then there are niggers,’ he thought, still uneasy with the seats, the smell, everything on this bus. He does not like how loud they are and he does not like that they touch each other and are wild. His own desire to be wild has been diverted, misplaced. But he liked her face as she stepped tentatively down the aisle looking with big, glassy eyes for a place to sit while clutching with one hand the fabric heads of the aisle seats and with the other a plastic bag of soda and snacks for the road.
One of the few open seats was next to him. He closed his eyes, tensing his body, hoping he could somehow deflect her with that tension. But she sat next to him, and now all he could do was try to ignore the swishing of her plastic sack, the crinkling of her candy wrappers, her bare arm crossing the boundary of the arm rest and touching his, the crude tinge of perfume losing out to the garlic of her body odor, the periodic sighs and murmurs that punctuated aloud her mute reasoning.
The bus roared on and the woman next to him settled in, folding her hands across her lap and leaning her head back. David kept his forehead against the cool, shaking pane, watching the dim outlines of the ruined towns and desolate stretches of road. Soon they will regain the main highway and there will be nothing to look at but the other cars and the billboards selling Coke and beer, abstinence and insurance, gambling and real estate.
There are many hours left. The trip is interminable, but David has patience. He never asks time to go faster, he knows that everything comes to an end and is never heard from again. The ryegrass blown by the rushing vehicles and the sprawl of towns repeat each other and fold over each other and are no more. And in a bus nothing needs him, he can make no error. The past is behind, the present is oblivious, and the city ahead, splendidly built up in his mind with its Biblical range of sins, will resolve at last his deepening doubt of God and absolve him.

Mattie could never sleep on the bus. Her only tactic was to close her eyes as soon as she sat down and try not to open them again. The regular bouncing over rough pavement, the engine accelerating, the intermittent conversation in the seat behind and the fear of her leg falling asleep would always pull her partially back, so that at times it was hard to tell if she was thinking or dreaming. She put her leg in a different position and sighed. Even with her eyes closed she could feel the discomfort of the man next to her, the tension of his proximity. She hoped the bus wouldn’t break down like it did on the way to Iowa to see her brother. They all sat fanning themselves with magazines waiting for another to come, and some of the passengers, deranged with boredom and heat, began to get unruly, cursing and threatening the driver and each other and nobody could do anything. A girl too young to have a kid began spanking her crusty-mouthed toddler who screamed and ran up and down the aisle and started vomiting. A slight incline made the puke flow down the aisle and pool in the back causing everyone to gag and shriek, so they all got off the bus to stand baking in the furious heat.
Mattie opened her eyes and studied the blue and grey specks woven into the seat in front of her, recalling too clearly the smell of vomit. She thought of her nephew, whether he was taller, and about her sister whose veins gave her leg trouble. Good to be out of that nursing home. That job isn’t easy, feeding and bathing and picking up and turning over, and with every death she is robbed of the awe of death that is everyone’s sacred terror. Out in a field an oil rig dips its head and drinks.

‘Where you headed?’
‘San Francisco.’
‘Got family?’
‘Yes.’
‘Me too. Goin' to San Diego, nephew’s graduating. You have to change buses?’
‘In Los Angeles.’
‘Oh, I sure hope this bus don't break down. Happened to me once.’
‘Oh.’
Silence. Mattie started rummaging through her bags.
‘Lord, I’m hungry. You want a candy bar?’
‘No, thank you though.’
David watched her devour the chocolate from the corner of his eye, then closed his eyes again so as not to be bothered. But he liked the sound of her voice. He looked out the window. An old Chevy sped between the bus and an aging shopping center, and David pretended it was thirty years ago and he was still young. These were the kind of games with time he played in his mind.
‘Got kids?’
He tensed his brow. ‘Yes. A son. That's who I'm going to see.’
‘That's sweet. How old is he?’
‘Twenty,’ he guessed.
‘Oh, mine grew up so fast. But I sure enjoyed it, even when it was tough and I got mad I still enjoyed it. Children are a blessing. They turn out just fine. And now I have a little peace, but it’s quiet,’ softly shaking her head, pausing to re-wet her mouth. ‘My daughter Kendra is the oldest, she's going to HJC, and my son Darien just graduated, and he's going to be a mechanic, work on cars, maybe start his own shop, something like that, we’ll see.’
David didn't know what to say, so he nodded and stared at her polished red fingernails, the dark, dry knuckles and the lighter skin on her palms. He realized she wanted him to offer his own story.
‘I have only one son. I don’t know what he does. Might find out.’
He could feel her staring at his face, studying his lines. They did not speak again, and soon he was asleep.

Drops of rain fell upon the windshield and squirmed like amoebas before streaking downward. The smell of wet street was overwhelmed by pungent smoke. A slight tink as the lighter touched the glass pipe in Julian’s hand. Sorrowful strains of Beck’s Mutations rose and fell in the cabin of the car as the rain abated, the speaker on the right door rattling at certain frequencies. A white cloud exhaled into the air like an escaping spirit and dissipated. On days grayed by clouds Julian felt calm, his mind clean.
Driving down the highway with the streaking sound of tires displacing water and the squeak of windshield wipers when the glass dried. Julian imagined the wipers were two children in a game of back and forth, almost touching each other and always pulling away. Was the car not level? What’s the rattling? There might be a flat tire and it will explode at such speeds and shreds of rubber go flying and the car crashes into a tree. The long pause, instant eternity.
But nothing happened. ‘I’m driving too fast.’ Five under the limit. His eyes flicked from mirror to mirror only to do so. Behind him was a blue truck driven by a bearded man wearing a baseball cap. He looked like an icon of Julian’s father, the face reduced to cap and cheeks and beard just as they had been by the dream lenses of childhood.
Funny thinking that it was his father, that he was shooting at his tires and would shoot him. That it was not him, that he would think that, that he knew it was not. All flashed through Julian’s mind, the instant triplicates of thought. His eyes checked the mirror. The truck had stopped to turn, was growing smaller, had one signal blinking.

Julian Kennard was listed with number and address in the heavy phonebook sullenly provided by a barista in a café that smelled of burnt coffee and toasted croissants. An incomprehensible music played from the ceiling, weaving with the crowded murmur of conversation and the clatter of ceramic and stainless steel. David would find a payphone outside and dial the number and his relationship with his son would begin again.
There was a payphone outside but no phone there, only a hole with a tangle of twisted wires. The next thing to do was find the house. A cylindrical, automated public toilet featured a tri-colored, cartoon map of San Francisco, a maze of streets and symbolic green, threaded through with bus lines and scenic routes and the names of a hundred neighborhoods. In David’s mind an illegible chaos of the city imagined and abstracted into fear and dream, the map a detailed overlay of that fantastic and infinite unknown.
Starting with the helpful downward pointing arrow – you are here – his finger traced circumlocutions around that coordinate until it stumbled on the street name, ‘Fell’. Number 612.
What strange houses lined the exhausting hills. They stood close to the street and close together, with no yards but the sidewalk extending to the garage door and flowers and jade plants lining the wooden staircases that led to their brightly painted Victorian facades. What a strange city, almost mute in its hilly repose, serenely looking out over the ocean. There were none of the crowds, none of the life and bustle, that he thought of when he thought of cities – even Dallas had more nerve, jutting its glass architecture into the sky as though to say, with the approval of God we have conquered the heavens.
The air was perfumed with saltwater and eucalyptus, and the wind brought a strange chill, not common to summer or winter and it was June. The sky appeared to be overcast, but it was too low, too thin to be that, and only when David saw the cold steam sifting through the faltering eucalyptus trees and capping the hill did he realize that it was a special kind of fog, pure and condensed, that softly shielded the city from the sun’s heated terror.
God, this hill. Four busses passed him a row, whirring and sparking along the electric line. The vantage finally leveled off without revealing anything but the dip behind and the city furthering itself lowly ahead. A few people, busses, bicycles, and storefronts with outward hanging hand-painted signs rocking slightly on their hinges. A dentist’s office, a record store, dress shops and shops that sold things people only buy when they just feel like buying something, anything. A cobbler with mummified little shoes that might fit a shriveled witch’s foot sitting in the window next to old framed photos of that same street in a more authentic time when everything served its original purpose.
A local emerged from a metal gate that David had not thought would be there between two shops. It shut with a suppressed racket and the local, wild-haired and simply dressed in flannel shirt and pressed pants, stood looking out over the street with his hands on his hips and the wind warping his shirt. He lit a cigarette and seemed content to stand there until the late morning arranged for afternoon.
David asked where he could find Fell Street. Accustomed to tourists and proud that he belonged to the city, the local agreeably pointed him two blocks that way. David wandered slowly off, leaving the local to stand there wondering after him, who was behind those faded blue eyes? Life has so many stories that walk away without ever being heard.

Through the window of the basement apartment at 612 Fell Street, Gloria Washburn watched the confused stranger standing out front with a hesitant look on his face. Mister Dangles, the feline plenipotentiary of her window sill, watched as idly and contentedly as she did, he in his hair-strewn basket, she in her rattan chair. Both of them content to sit in their baskets and let life outside bother somebody else.
The stranger disappeared behind the wall decorated with her family photos and abstract art, dingy paintings of a caged and inchoate chaos that hung in the shaded drawing room where the two living attendants sat like watchful figurines. The doorbell rang. Gloria waited. If it rang twice more, she would answer. It rang again. The cat raised its head, adjusting its ears. A longer pause, then the third ring. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ She got up, displacing the fabric cover for the armrest which fell to the floor. ‘I’m coming.’
She opened the door a few inches, straightening her curled hair. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry to bother you. Does a young man live here?’
‘Well, yes, there are several young men in the apartments upstairs. I don’t know them, but you might try.’
David tried to peer into the furnished obscurity behind her and she pushed the door closer to closing.
‘Okay, alright then. Thanks, sorry to bother you.’
‘Okay then. Take care.’
Mr. Dangles moodily rubbed his side against her empty chair, arching his back and looking up at her. ‘I’m back, don’t worry, he wasn’t anybody.’ But the stranger would not leave her mind. She picked up the cordless phone and dialed her daughter. ‘Abby, there are strange men coming around. I don’t feel safe here… Well, come as soon as you can. And bring a lightbulb, the one in the kitchen is out and I can’t reach it.’

David wondered if he had lost his mind. When he had quit his job installing and fixing cable he had dreamed of coming here to set things right, and back then it had all seemed very simple. These journeys always feel as though they’re meant to be made, ennobled by the effort and earnestness of making them. All he wanted was to be reconciled with his son, who at fourteen had made the mistake of admitting he was gay.
The bewildered student in pajama pants who had answered the door when David rang upstairs had looked at him as though he were a fool. He had no idea where to go but could not bring himself to leave. So he stalked the house, varying his walk around the adjacent blocks, staring up at windows, cornices and gabled roofs and at the trees whose roots bulged the sidewalk like slow earthquakes breaking up the land.
Julian Kennard, 612 Fell Street.
Across the street was a long park lined with eucalyptus who towered like benevolent titans over the soft spread of lawn. Bicyclists sped down a path, ringing their bells or calling out to unwary pedestrians. A hobo pushed a grocery cart piled high with bottles and cans. His hooded jacket, soiled and grey, made him resemble a desultory shade.
David was exhausted, his head ached, and every time he passed the house his stomach knotted into a fist and he thought he would crap his pants. He had worked out different vantage points from which he could watch whoever entered or left, and while the secretive activity gave him a kind of predatory pleasure, it also made him feel criminal.
The sky began to purple in advance of the evening and the wind had grown cold and menacing. ‘Hey man, you got a light?’ He didn’t. It was an aged looking kid with a smudged face wearing a ragged jacket with pockets and patches. He tugged at the chain of a brown pit bull with black eyes who reared back just as he tried to leap forward at a Shih-tzu. The ***** pranced past leading a woman wearing white earphones who followed more oblivious than her beast.
The kid was Everett, his buddies were over there by that tree. They sat in a brown and black circle, huddled in the shade. One of them whistled. ‘Hey, I found the lighter.’
David was sitting with them, knees against his chest like a teenager. He could not follow most of their conversation and made little of his own. Someone handed him a flask. He gasped when he drank it.
‘You think they got whiskey in heaven?’
‘You don’t need whiskey in heaven.’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘You ain’t goin’ to heaven.’
‘****, party in hell, see you there.’
‘Maybe they got pool in heaven.’
‘Pool.’
‘Hey you fuckers stop bein’ all religious.’
Nobody asked him who he was or why he was there. He and Everett got up with a kid named Carson to get more liquor. It was already pitch dark and the park was enveloped in the golden haze of lamps that lit the underside of the arching trees and deepened the division of shadow.
Next to the liquor store stood an unsteady figure smoking from a small pipe. He and Everett negotiated something and made a quiet slipping of palms. David stood nearby, nervous of cops. An argument began.
‘You ************.’
The black man began swinging a chain with a padlock on the end of it. Carson grabbed it and spun it backwards against the dealer’s skull. He fell and they kicked him in the side. David melted away in horror. The street flashed red from the approaching squad car and he ran.

‘This tea is sweet.’
‘This is the South.’
‘Where are we?’
‘The restaurant, I took you here.’
‘No, it’s my school. That’s Elliot Badger. He’s not wearing a shirt.’
Hairy white urchins floated in a teacup that was a glass of iced tea. His father had a graying beard and the crevasses in his face became drawn out and deeper and then he disappeared. Julian’s cheek fell into the bowl of soup that was a teacup. He looked in the bathroom mirror and put his hand to the missing part of his broken face and found it was made of plastic like some kind of bionic mask.
When he left the hospital the power was out in the city and the darkened signs of civilization stood shaded and weary under the heavy sky. He left the car by the side of the highway and went up the steps to a long skybridge holding the dachshund his father had given him as a boy that had run away. The bridge was in sections and between each section was a glass door that sometimes would not open but was passable anyway. Through the wall of windows Julian saw the atomic shockwave fanning out over the spoiled metropolis, irradiating the air and stinging his mind with the imminent elimination of everything. And then there was nothing and he was awake in bed, staring at the microscopic thatching of his pillowcase, his ears still ringing with the dial tone of that apocalypse.

David never woke from his dream. He was forever wandering down sidewalks bright with sun or through days dimmed with fog, no longer startled by his changed reflection in the shop windows. He thought no more of why he had come there or if he would ever leave. He wore his failure like an old cloak around his shoulders and was indifferent to the earth turning as it did each day.
It was on such a day, late in the afternoon when liquor had already loosened what was left of his mind, that he boarded a bus without paying his fare, and the driver said nothing because the driver did not want to bother and wanted to finish his route on time.
David sat near the front where the rows of seats face each other between two women who turned their heads from his sight and smell and looked out vacantly at the street to think of something else. He raved quietly to himself about California and his birthday, the barbershop and the priest, and the idea that he was on television, then began to laugh so that others looked at him before they looked away.
‘Fell, he fell, at six twelve, 6:12.’
But once his mind settled from the chaos stirred up in it by the morning's drink and the excitement of boarding a bus, his eyes began to notice the other passengers, and some, sensing this, visibly stiffened and one pulled the rope to request a stop. He focused on the elderly Chinese lady, small and frail and stooped from her groceries. She ignored him, encased in mute endurance. Next to her was a young man wearing a black t-shirt with cracked and peeling print and had pierced nose and ears and black hair molded into shining spikes. The punk looked at him then looked away when he saw David staring back with his mouth hanging open. The passengers bounced and swayed with the jolts and turns.
‘Julian?’
Please hold on, said the mechanical voice of a man.
‘No, talk to your father.’
The bus slammed to a stop and the door hissed open. David grabbed the pole and leaned against it.
Please exit through the rear door.
‘Julian out with the Devil. What has it given you?’
The bus all but emptied at the next stop. A black woman sat in the very back with her eyes closed. David paced the aisle and then fell into a seat. The bus carried him off, to the end of its long route and back again. At night he laid his head on the earth to rest.

Somewhere, in another city, Julian blinked awake. He touched his lips to his friend’s shoulder and slid his leg out and around the other, unmoving pair. The body stirred and turned into him. They smelled of grass and sweat. In the new morning their eyes met.
‘Hello again.’
‘Hi.’
They pressed closer, sliding their legs together. The sun stretched over the bed, across the continent. David rose and slowly descended the slope into the quiet streets of the city.

Copyright 2007 Jordan Bowen
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