the old bus reappear wearing a new pair of sunglasses. He saw me but apparently wasn’t about to make eye contact. He shifted sheepishly across the platform and stood out by the open door smoking a cigarette as if nothing had ever taken place. His face looked a bit swollen but hadn’t yet bruised. Maybe he was just hoping to make up the money for the shift. I watched him climb the stairs, start the engine, and usher all the passengers aboard. It was a steady but even and predictable process.
“Final boarding call, 1442 to San Diego. Platform 2. Final boarding call.” I was directly under the speaker, and my head rang with the echo of each word. The giant door of the bus swung shut with loud “shooshing” hydraulics. My eyes fixed on the backward American flag painted just off to the side of the closed door. I had remembered reading that an upside-down flag meant treason and was a signal to others during the Civil War of trouble. I wondered what type of signal a backward flag could mean? It seemed like a bad omen, but I was now putting some good distance between myself and my mother, and it couldn’t have all spelled doom.
Perhaps everything was now going in reverse, or that I had somehow entered a mirror universe of the world that I was originally supposed to be in but wasn’t. In the other world, I speculated that if I were still on the bus, I was probably traveling with my mother and father. If it was to set everything right, I might as well set it all right. I was going back to live with them and my grandma in Altoona because everything was better and I didn’t feel the way I had anymore. I didn’t want things to end as badly as I longed for them to. I was confused about this line of thinking and decided to give it up. It was making me feel even more unhappy than I already was. What was the use of feeling this way? I had already been thrown to the wolves, and nobody cared in the slightest, except some perfect strangers. But maybe that was what made them perfect. I just couldn’t tell anymore. I felt useless, my situation felt useless, and I wondered where my aunt was.
For almost two hours, I sat perfectly still, poised on that bench as if I were put there like a forgotten doll to be a dull witness watching buses, people, and homeless folks come and go. People boarded and got off, and their expressions were all the same. I knew I should’ve felt differently about it, but I didn’t. Nobody seemed happy, and I was aware of it. The only people at the bus terminal who were smiling were the people who were living there, its permanent residents. The homeless parked in front of static-screen TVs, either half asleep or apparently drunk and laughing at everybody with a type of madness that no one wanted to get near. Most of the folks tried to ignore it and were just busy getting from one bus to the next or hurrying to get out to the front of the terminal.
I could’ve sat there all day, and no one would’ve noticed me. Every seat outside on the platform was taken; all the benches were filled except mine. I felt isolated, and it seemed like no one wanted anything to do with me. Something in the world wasn’t right, but I didn’t need to be sitting on a Greyhound bus all day to know that.
“Everything okay?” A voice called out above me like it was coming from the speaker. I turned and saw Mr. Hastings standing beside me.
I sat up. “Uhh, maybe they forgot,” I said. He had two cups of hot liquid in his hands.
“You drink coffee, young man?” he asked, taking the open seat next to me on the bench. He handed me a red paper cup that was almost full of hot coffee. “Here. I came out earlier and saw you nodding off. Thought this might do you some good.”
“I thought for sure they would’ve been here by now.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted, fully resigned.
I looked over at him. The whole thing finally came together for me. “They’re not coming, are they?”
“They never do.”
“I’m not the first
“Final boarding call, 1442 to San Diego. Platform 2. Final boarding call.” I was directly under the speaker, and my head rang with the echo of each word. The giant door of the bus swung shut with loud “shooshing” hydraulics. My eyes fixed on the backward American flag painted just off to the side of the closed door. I had remembered reading that an upside-down flag meant treason and was a signal to others during the Civil War of trouble. I wondered what type of signal a backward flag could mean? It seemed like a bad omen, but I was now putting some good distance between myself and my mother, and it couldn’t have all spelled doom.
Perhaps everything was now going in reverse, or that I had somehow entered a mirror universe of the world that I was originally supposed to be in but wasn’t. In the other world, I speculated that if I were still on the bus, I was probably traveling with my mother and father. If it was to set everything right, I might as well set it all right. I was going back to live with them and my grandma in Altoona because everything was better and I didn’t feel the way I had anymore. I didn’t want things to end as badly as I longed for them to. I was confused about this line of thinking and decided to give it up. It was making me feel even more unhappy than I already was. What was the use of feeling this way? I had already been thrown to the wolves, and nobody cared in the slightest, except some perfect strangers. But maybe that was what made them perfect. I just couldn’t tell anymore. I felt useless, my situation felt useless, and I wondered where my aunt was.
For almost two hours, I sat perfectly still, poised on that bench as if I were put there like a forgotten doll to be a dull witness watching buses, people, and homeless folks come and go. People boarded and got off, and their expressions were all the same. I knew I should’ve felt differently about it, but I didn’t. Nobody seemed happy, and I was aware of it. The only people at the bus terminal who were smiling were the people who were living there, its permanent residents. The homeless parked in front of static-screen TVs, either half asleep or apparently drunk and laughing at everybody with a type of madness that no one wanted to get near. Most of the folks tried to ignore it and were just busy getting from one bus to the next or hurrying to get out to the front of the terminal.
I could’ve sat there all day, and no one would’ve noticed me. Every seat outside on the platform was taken; all the benches were filled except mine. I felt isolated, and it seemed like no one wanted anything to do with me. Something in the world wasn’t right, but I didn’t need to be sitting on a Greyhound bus all day to know that.
“Everything okay?” A voice called out above me like it was coming from the speaker. I turned and saw Mr. Hastings standing beside me.
I sat up. “Uhh, maybe they forgot,” I said. He had two cups of hot liquid in his hands.
“You drink coffee, young man?” he asked, taking the open seat next to me on the bench. He handed me a red paper cup that was almost full of hot coffee. “Here. I came out earlier and saw you nodding off. Thought this might do you some good.”
“I thought for sure they would’ve been here by now.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted, fully resigned.
I looked over at him. The whole thing finally came together for me. “They’re not coming, are they?”
“They never do.”
“I’m not the first
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