Everywhere You Don't Belong

by Gabriel Bump

  “My little man,” Paul sniffled. “Little, little man.”

  Grandma let him rest against her.

  We walked home in a solemn procession, ordered pizza.

  Janice and I went out onto the porch after dinner.

  “I’m not coming with you,” Janice said.

  “I figured,” I said.

  “It was a stupid idea,” Janice said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “I’m not like you,” Janice said. “I can’t leave.”

  “Sure you can,” I said.

  “Fine,” Janice said. “I won’t leave. I don’t want to leave. Missouri sounds horrible.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “This guy got me a job downtown,” Janice said.

  “Six figures?” I asked.

  “I’m too young to serve liquor,” Janice said. “They call it hostessing?”

  “A hostess?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Janice said. “At this club.”

  “Are you happy?” I asked.

  “Are you happy?” Janice asked.

  “I might be,” I said.

  “You want to know what I think?” Janice asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I think happiness is an illusion,” Janice said. “Are you making your own decisions? Are you taking your own chances? Are your failures worth it? Do you make dynamite?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We’ll be okay,” Janice said.

  Two days later, Janice was gone. She moved into a studio apartment up north. She filled her duffle bag with wrinkled dresses. Her club was called Barcelona.

  Sunset

  Paul said to look scary so people wouldn’t sit next to me. We were standing downtown waiting for the Megabus. To our right a man in a wrinkled blue suit crouched down and hugged two children. He was crying. The children were too. A woman stood behind the children; her arms were crossed and she was tapping her foot. After a few moments she pulled the kids away. She turned her head when the man in the wrinkled blue suit tried to kiss her forehead. The woman and children left, disappeared behind an office building. The bus was already fifteen minutes late. I only had a duffle bag. Paul and Grandma were going to mail me everything else. Microwave, Emmett Till poster, waffles, toaster, et cetera.

  “At least you’re not like that guy,” Paul said, loudly enough for the man in the wrinkled blue suit to hear.

  Paul had spent the whole morning trying to cheer me up. I told him I wasn’t sad, which was true. He insisted I was in denial. Grandma couldn’t bear my leaving. She protested, was still in bed when I left. After I bent down and kissed her forehead, she rolled over, pulled the sheet up to her nose, turned her back on me. I heard “I love you” when I closed the door. Or “Fuck you.”

  The ground shook my feet.

  “Here it comes,” Paul said.

  The Megabus driver slammed on the brakes. He hopped out. He was wide-eyed and shaking.

  “Let’s do this,” he said. “Let’s take y’all to another planet.”

  “It’s not too late,” Paul said as he hoisted my duffle bag in next to the other luggage. It was too late. He wasn’t crying. I could tell he was trying his best not to. He probably thought his crying would make me cry. It wouldn’t have.

  “Remember,” he said, “fart or burp if someone tries to sit next to you.”

  He didn’t stay after I got on. He crossed the street and disappeared.

  I-55 takes you from Chicago to Missouri, takes you through parts of Chicago I forgot existed: the Mexican neighborhoods that were once Polish neighborhoods, the Polish neighborhoods that were once swampland, the large chain auto parts shops that were once mom and pop auto parts shops. You have to take I-55 to get to Brookfield Zoo. Brookfield was out in the suburbs. I heard that zoo was nicer than ours.

  I-55 ended in St. Louis. Almost everybody got off in St. Louis.

  We got on I-70, which cut straight westward through the gut of Missouri. The bus drove into the sunset. In Chicago, I’d never seen a sunset. The buildings blocked the sun as it dipped below the horizon.

  Interlude

  Outside Springfield, a giant neon horseshoe sparkled over us and the gas station. We had twenty minutes to do whatever we had to do: eat, smoke, go to the bathroom, sit and watch the cars pass on the highway, sit and look out into the flatness.

  I saw two bus stations that day, hundreds of miles apart, similar in almost every way except in noise and bustle. Here: a short man cried atop a pile of luggage, under a faded streetlight; all the streetlights were faded, illuminated soft scenes.

  I wanted to tell Janice about the boring things I saw. I wanted to hear about her new job. I could hear her voice clearly—swearing, sweet—echoing in my head. I tried to call. She didn’t pick up. I didn’t leave a message.

  I used the urinal between two wide men wearing Cardinals jerseys. They spat dip into their piss. They gave me sideways glances. I couldn’t go.

  Outside, I tried to call Janice again. The bus driver yelled and honked as I tried to leave a message.

  Part Two

  Missouri

  Icebreaker

  RA Tom escorted us, our entire floor, into the common room. He asked the sleeping person on our common couch if he lived here. The person said no without opening his eyes. RA Tom told the person to please leave. We all stood there while the person walked out without opening his eyes. We stood there until he disappeared into an elevator and was never seen again, at least, not on our floor.

  “Great!” RA Tom slapped his hands against his cargo shorts.

  We had to sit in a circle, legs crossed, name tags visible. Some of the sad-looking kids chose to lean against the wall with their feet barely in the circle. Some of the kids with piercings wrote crude nicknames on their name tags. Prince Dick, for example.

  I sat next to my roommate, Kenneth. He smelled like dust. Pimple scars ran from his ears down to his chin. He had short, sharp hair like broken spaghetti.

  We had to say three things: name, hometown, major. If we were feeling adventurous and open—“No pressure,” RA Tom added, “only if you want to”—you could say what animal you’d choose as a partner for the apocalypse.

  “I’ll go first,” RA Tom said. His dress shirt looked too big for him, even with the sleeves rolled up and the bottom tucked into his cargo shorts. He didn’t pull off his look: the spiked blond hair and flip-flops and ankle bracelet. His face was too formless, his eyes, too black.

  “My name is Tom . . . Oh, when you say your name, we’ll all say ‘Hey, blank!’ My name’s Tom.”

  “Hey, Tom.”

  “I’m from Kirkwood. My major is agriculture with an emphasis on animal husbandry. And, let’s see, animal, animal, animal. Oh! A cow. A strong and loyal cow. Okay. Next.”

  “Hey. My name’s Molly.”

  “Hey, Molly.”

  “I’m also from Kirkwood. Funny. Um, my major is biology. I think. I might switch. I’ll probably switch. I don’t know.”

  We were bored after Molly, after RA Tom, really. We were bored and agitated after Bradley, Jayson with a Y, Samantha, Justin G., Justin S., Justin Q., Samuel, Bertha, Justine, David B. from Kansas City, David B. from St. Louis—we were ready to lose it.

  “I’m Claude.”

  “Hey.”

  “Where are you from, Claude?”

  “Chicago. Sorry.”

  “Like D Rose?”

  “Like Chief Keef?”

  “Like Obama?”

  “You’re like Obama.”

  “You know Chief Keef?”

  “You’re just like Obama.”

  “And that’s it! Thanks for bringing us home, Claude!”

  The Prairie Executioner

  Whitney tore my second draft to shreds, right in my face, right on my lap, and kicked over a tiny garbage can; Whitney was disgusted. Her brown hair, frizzed in the humidity, created a wild frame around her sunburned face. She had just gotten back from a Caribbean
island, and her pale skin was red and peeling around her shoulders.

  Whitney sat on my desk, looked at my shredded 250 words on the volleyball team’s bake sale, drummed a pencil on her lap—What are we going to do with you, Claude?

  “How are you adjusting, Claude?” Whitney asked.

  “I’m good,” I said. “I just need to use the bathroom.”

  My desk was the type of desk you found in classrooms, a seat with a plastic slab raised over the lap. Whitney was small enough to sit on the plastic slab without the plastic slab moaning, the only person small enough; other people wouldn’t dare. You didn’t want to stick out for the wrong reasons: breaking a desk, burning toast, deleting the front page, spelling Tennyson with an i, spilling hot coffee on your shirt, spilling hot coffee on your pants, screaming at hot coffee soaking through your jeans, showing up late, showing up on the wrong day, showing up when no one needed you, not being needed. Two months in and I stuck out. Other editors and reporters listened to Whitney while she drummed her pencil and sucked her teeth. Typing slowed down; conversations turned to murmurs.

  “Look,” Whitney said. “No one is a natural. This is an unnatural enterprise, getting in people’s business.”

  You also didn’t want to cry. Not in the newsroom.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

  “Go,” Whitney said. “Come back and finish.”

  She got off my desk and my desk didn’t make a sound. Before she disappeared behind a row of filing cabinets, she gave me the same thumbs up and frown she had given me every day.

  The Prairie Executioner claimed the oldest history of any student newspaper in the Union or Confederacy. “Fuck the Crimson, Harvard fucks” was chiseled into the kitchenette tiles. We Keep Them Honest was the official motto underneath the masthead. The newsroom was beneath Mark Twain Hall, in a basement with little else—unisex bathroom, boiler room, separate office for the editor-in-chief, two broken vending machines. The Prairie Executioner once had its own building. That was before the Civil War broke out and Confederate sympathizers burned down the newsroom. The Prairie Executioner claimed the first abolitionist editorial stance west of the Mississippi.

  I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and called Janice.

  “You again?” she asked. She was on a boat. I could hear the waves and the sliding champagne glasses.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said.

  “You keep fucking up,” she said. “Nothing wrong with fucking up.”

  “I miss you,” I said.

  “You keep saying that,” she said, “and I’m going to start believing you.”

  She hung up after a loud horn sounded somewhere across the water.

  I stared at my phone, hoped she hung up and forgot about me by accident. After a few minutes, I went back to the newsroom.

  All new reporters had a desk like mine; editors were across the room in a row of cubicles, ten of them, seniors with columns and internships lined up. In between the editors and reporters: the Pit.

  The Pit was a twenty-foot snakewood table crowded with chairs; second- and third-year reporters shared the Pit. When I got back, Whitney was on the table telling everyone to gather around and shut the hell up. Whitney made all her announcements from atop the Pit. She extended her arms, made herself big, stirred fear into the tension.

  “Feeding time!” Whitney yelled, like she always yelled before the afternoon meetings. Whitney started with the editors.

  “Peanut,” Whitney said. “Sports?”

  “Soccer, good to go. Volleyball and cross country, good to go by five.”

  “Bowtie,” Whitney said. “Art?”

  “Fauvist exhibit is coming down this week. I think sculptures, Rodin-like, are coming next.”

  “‘Think’? ‘Like’? Specific, specific.”

  Whitney pointed at you with rolled-up papers after calling your name. She would extend her arm, unmoving, until you satisfied her question. She held her fencer’s pose as Bowtie wiped sweat from his nose.

  “Rummy,” Whitney said. “Politics?”

  “Greek life elections are next month. Should be close.”

  “Pudding Snack,” Whitney said. “Fashion?”

  “Fur boots column is 90 percent there.”

  “Carload,” Whitney said.

  A slamming door cut Whitney off.

  I had heard of Connie Stove before that moment. She once drank Tom Brokaw under the table. She was at Kent State in 1970; she was in Berlin when the wall came down. Her gray hair was starting to turn baby blue.

  Whitney stood at attention, like a sergeant or enforcer. Word had it the Times gave Connie Stove the boot after she called Arthur Sulzberger Jr. a pig with no morals, no better than the other pigs. The university wrote her a check, and there she was: faculty advisor and editor-in-chief of the Prairie Executioner.

  “Please,” Connie Stove said, “continue.”

  Whitney appeared to bow. Her neck compressed. Her shoulders dipped.

  “Carload!” Whitney puffed her chest out and lunged toward Carload. “Football.”

  “We’ve got five reporters at practice today, tomorrow, and Friday. Sit-downs with Coach Smoke tomorrow and Friday. Sit-down with John-Michael Jeremy on Friday. Three reporters at the game on Saturday. Six reporters hitting tailgates on Saturday. We’ll be ready to run Sunday night.”

  Football writers, much like the players and coaches they covered, operated under mysterious regulations. Whitney never threatened to bite off a football writer’s ears.

  “Excellent,” Whitney said.

  She continued down the list:

  Chocolate Chip, National: column rating Barack’s reaction to gun violence and recent shootings, almost done, waiting for fact checkers.

  Roses, Crime: reporters at the station trying to figure out what happened in Greek City, the victim won’t press charges; reporters checking on the recent break-ins on Red Campus; researching crime from Chicago and St. Louis spilling into the area, another shooting last night.

  Pampers, Entertainment: new Coen Brothers review good to go; Where the Wild Things Are is out next week; Missouri Theatre is getting ready to close, feature on that will be ready at the end of the month.

  Cherry, Weather and Agriculture: corn harvest is coming in slow; global warming spread should be finished in two months.

  Whitney, Editorial: continued series on diversity on campus, this time it’s a letter from an alumna; they found another burial ground during construction, slaves this time.

  “Back at it!” Whitney hopped off the desk.

  “Please,” Connie Stove said, “sit down, everybody.”

  Whitney moved closer to Connie Stove and sat cross-legged next to a dried puddle of spilled soda.

  “You may be hearing a lot of talk about our current state of affairs.” Connie Stove craned her neck as she spoke, to look each person in the face, even downward for Whitney. She moved and spoke at a patient and comforting pace. During her speech, we made eye contact four times. Twice, I blinked. Once, I looked away. Finally, I held it and saw only dead puddles reflecting back.

  “Our current state of affairs, that is, us, this thing we do, have to do—our fucking jobs. Does anyone know why I’m here? I was getting Walter Cronkite coffee when JFK got his head blown off. I once smuggled myself into West Germany to have tea with a triple agent. So why am I here? Readership is down. Quality across the country is down. Papers are cutting investigative teams left and right. Why am I here? I used to go sailing with Helen Thomas off the coast of Maine, cold water, then grab some lobsters; you could get fresh butter from the source back then. They say the field is dying. Online this, online that. They said the same thing about the radio and the television and the microwave. They said the same thing about me. I once got slapped in the face and the ass for missing a deadline. I stabbed that man with a letter opener and left him bleeding in the stairwell. I loved my first husband. He hated this world. Do you know what a light bulb overheating and popping sound
s like? Do you know what it’s like to follow that sound into the garage and see the only person you ever wanted to see, slumped over their gut, that gut you complained about over the years, since you got married, since you worked to keep your body slim for the newsroom, since you did everything for the newsroom, the newsroom stood for something, and you forgot the past four anniversaries—that kind of thing makes you question.”

  Connie Stove pushed back from the Pit and exited into her office.

  “Dismissed,” Whitney said.

  On Friday, when everybody was packing up, Whitney wanted to talk to the black reporters, the only black people on staff, about a new diversity project. There was me and one more: Simone.

  “I still have the volleyball story,” I said.

  “Don’t talk,” Whitney said. “Connie wants you two to work on this.”

  “That’s messed up,” Simone said.

  Simone grew up outside Kansas City in a house with a barn in the backyard. She smoked two packs a day and chewed three packets of gum; sometimes her cigarettes were light, sometimes her gum was strawberry. I heard her dad was Dutch or Ukrainian.

  “I know,” Whitney said. “Don’t talk.”

  “What do we have to do?” I asked.

  Whitney looked at me the same way then as she did when, on my first day, I dropped a full plate of mashed potatoes and gravy on her backpack.

  “Come back next week with ideas,” Whitney said. “This, now—this is your life.”

  “Ideas about what?” I asked.

  “Get out,” Whitney said.

  Whitney put her head on her desk when we had turned around and she thought we wouldn’t look back.

  Simone and I left the office together, for the first time.

  There was a light on in Connie Stove’s office, a soft and orange light from underneath the windowless door. A single voice came out too; it sounded like a person talking to a mirror.

  “What kind of ideas should we think of?” I asked when we got outside.