Looking for Przybylski

by K. C. Frederick

  He’s grateful for the company when he rejoins Lennie and Roy Spears in a booth at the station restaurant. “St. Louis,” Lennie is saying excitedly. “The gateway to the West. Who’d have thought I’d make it this far?” Jesus, Ziggy is thinking, was that really me I saw? A smudge? He remembers the moaning in that john under the station, like the lament of some lost traveler who was never going to be able to get back on his bus.

  Spears laughs at Lennie’s exclamation. “Gateway maybe,” he says. “But, shoot, we’re nowhere near the real west yet. This was a big city even in the nineteenth century, full of bankers and merchants. You want to find the real west, you have to get a few hundred miles beyond here. By the way,” he says, dropping his voice, “did you fellows see the lady who’s joining us for the next leg of the trip?”

  “No.” Ziggy’s pleased to have some distraction.

  “Young,” Spears says, “a real pretty face. She’s a little heavy, got some meat on her bones, but she has a pleasant personality. I’d say she’s no more than twenty. Says her boyfriend ran out on her in North Carolina and she’s on her way to see her mother in California, but I’d say she doesn’t seem very brokenhearted. She’s traveling with her own pool cue, case and all, and I think she’s having a ball seeing a little of the country.”

  Ziggy smiles. “Sounds like the talkative type if you know all that about her already.”

  Spears nods. “That she is, all right. But I can tell that she’s a goodhearted kid, and I’d hate to see her taken advantage of by some of these sharks you always find on buses.”

  “Sounds like you’re appointing yourself her guardian,” Ziggy says. “Maybe guardian angel.”

  “Well,” Spears admits, “there may be a bit of truth in that. The fact is, she might very well be able to take care of herself, but yeah, I intend to keep an eye on the young lady.”

  “Has anybody been keeping an eye on our driver?” Lennie asks, looking at the clock. Their departure is already late. “I mean, shouldn’t someone have seen him by now?”

  “Well, now,” says Spears, “you’re right about that. I wonder if he might have taken sick all of a sudden. He did look kind of upset, didn’t he?”

  “He didn’t look sick to me,” Lennie offers. “I’m thinking something else. Do you guys think it’s possible that he might have just decided to skip out on us?”

  Spears frowns. “That would be pretty radical.”

  “But you said he was in a hurry to get someplace, didn’t you?” Lennie says. “It sure looks as if we’re hopelessly behind schedule now. Maybe he decided to ditch the bus and take a plane.”

  Spears frowns. “I don’t know . . .” He ponders the possibility a moment. “Hell, I’ve never heard of a driver just abandoning his bus like that.”

  “Isn’t that like a captain deserting his ship at sea?” Lennie asks. “I mean, could he be court-martialed or something?”

  Spears shakes his head. “That’s a little melodramatic, but you’re right, a driver sure as hell isn’t supposed to walk away from his bus. Damn,” he says,” I wonder if you could be right.”

  “How would we find out?” Ziggy asks.

  “I’m going to the information counter,” Spears says. “I’m going to have him paged. We’ll find out something that way.”

  “You know his name?” Ziggy asks.

  “Sure. Bob Cormier. It’s on his uniform.”

  When Ziggy and Lennie return to the bay where people are waiting to re-board the bus, Lennie pulls back sharply. “Let’s keep back here,” he whispers. “There’s someone I want to avoid.” He indicates a woman, probably in her fifties, whose gray hair is pulled back in a bun. “She’s a librarian whose hobby is visiting the graves of presidents. If she corners you she’ll never let you go. ‘People have been unkind to Mr. Hoover,’ he mimics a schoolteacherly singsong. ‘History will remember him as one of our greatest leaders.’ Old Herbie is buried in Iowa, by the way.”

  “What’s the matter,” Ziggy kids him, “don’t you like history?”

  “I don’t want to get to the point,” Lennie says, “where the two of us are bent over her collection of pictures of Millard Fillmore’s grave.”

  Before long it’s become clear that the bus is nowhere near ready to leave and the crowd starts to get restless. Soon the story that the driver might have abandoned them begins to circulate and people begin spilling back into the station, looking for answers.

  Ziggy has a chance to meet the tall, long-haired woman Spears mentioned, who’s wearing jeans and a denim jacket. “Are you the one who’s traveling with her own pool cue?” he asks, pointing to the skinny case she’s carrying. “If so, that’s a pretty short stick.”

  She gives him a naughty smile. “It comes in two parts,” she says. “Don’t worry, when I screw it together, it’s plenty long enough.”

  Ziggy’s already seen enough to conclude that this woman doesn’t need any guardian angel to protect her. She may only be about twenty, as Spears said, but she seems as if she can handle herself.

  “Hi,” she says, extending a hand to Lennie. “I’m Sharlene, that’s with an S. Hey, you’re kind of cute. Do you shoot pool?”

  “Sorry.” Lennie’s hand goes to his glasses.

  “I could teach you,” she suggests, “at one of our stops. I’ll bet you’d pick it up pretty quick.”

  Lennie is agitated. “Do you realize our driver might have abandoned us?” he asks her.

  Sharlene smiles broadly. “Well, funny things happen, don’t they? Who knows? Maybe it was meant to turn out that way. I always say, don’t make too many plans. You’ve got to be ready to make the most of whatever comes your way.”

  Lennie throws up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I find all this pretty disturbing. I mean, how are we supposed to feel when the guy who’s supposed to be leading us just decides to bug out?” He looks around the station as if he thinks he might be able to catch a glimpse of Bob Cormier before he skulks off, and maybe get him to change his mind. “I’m going to see if I can find Roy,” he says to Ziggy. “I’ll find out what I can.”

  When he’s gone Sharlene turns to Ziggy. “You’re not his dad, are you?” Ziggy shakes his head. “I was just funning with him. Though I do have a fondness for short men.” She tilts her head. “Well, usually not intellectuals like him, though, but he’s a lively little feller, isn’t he? Jumps around like a Mexican jumping bean.”

  “I didn’t know Lennie was an intellectual,” Ziggy says.

  “I guess I meant the glasses.” She squints, as though trying to remember what he looked like. “The thing is, you can never tell about some of those deep thinkers. They can surprise you.”

  When Spears and Lennie return, it’s to confirm that the driver has indeed jumped ship. “Nobody in authority can get in touch with him, so they’ve decided he’s gone. He must have figured there was no chance he’d get to see his daughter at this rate,” Lennie opines. “This is incredible,” he says.

  Ziggy looks at Spears. “You ready to take over?” he asks. “We’re lucky to have a replacement riding with us, aren’t we?”

  “Real funny,” Spears says. “Actually, Greyhound says they’ll have another driver,” he tells them. “They say within the hour, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  Lennie shakes his head. “I still can’t wrap my mind around this. What a disaster. We’re late already. How much longer are we going to have to wait?” He sighs. “I’ve had a bad feeling about this trip from the beginning, and now I’m wondering, how do we know we’re even going to make it to California?”

  “Look at the bright side,” Sharlene gives him a big smile. “I guess we’ll all have a chance to get to know each other a little better.”

  They all return to the restaurant, where they’re joined by a wiry little guy named Wayne who Sharlene has managed to pick up in the last couple of minutes. Wayne, who works on river barges, is going to be a fellow passenger for the next segment of the trip. “I’m not going far,” h
e tells the others. “Just to the other side of the state.” His words are accompanied by the sly smile of someone who seems to know more than he’s letting on, and he keeps stroking his chin when he’s not talking. He’s just worked thirty-eight straight days, he tells the others, and now he’s going back to Pitt Corners where he has a little house. “I’m going to call ahead when we’re about a hundred miles away,” he says. “There’s a lady who looks after my place. I’m going to have her turn the heat on.” Once more he looks at the others and strokes his chin. “Been all over the world,” he declares, “but there’s no place like Pitt Corners.” His eyes are on Sharlene. “My, that’s pretty,” he says, admiring the roses embroidered on her denim shirt.

  “I did that myself,” she says.

  “You’re a very talented lady, I can see,” he says. He strokes his chin and smiles to himself. “You know,” he says, “you really ought to see my place. I’ve got a real nice pool table in the basement.”

  Spears glowers darkly as she answers, “Actually, my plans are pretty loose. Going to get to Ventura eventually. But I don’t have any timetables.”

  “Hey,” Lennie says, “they just called our number.”

  “I’m not sure our new driver is an improvement,” Lennie says a few miles into the next leg of their trip. “I’m already beginning to miss grim Bob Cormier.”

  “I don’t know,” Ziggy counters. “Maybe you could pick up some tips from him. He obviously thinks he’s pretty funny.” The driver, whose broad, amiable face and athletic build give him a vague resemblance to President Ford, has kept up a constant stream of chatter since they left St. Louis.

  “Ever wonder why they call Missouri the Show-Me state?” he asks breezily, then answers his own question: “Because so many people who live there keep asking, ‘Can you show me the way out of here?’ ” He pauses a couple of beats before a quick shift in tone, “Just kidding, all you fine folks who come from Missouri. It’s a wonderful state, really.” This is followed by a naughty chuckle. “I hear that up there in the capital, Jefferson City, they have at least a dozen people who can read and write.” Again, the husky sincerity. “Just a little joke, folks. Just trying to make your trip a little more pleasant.”

  Lennie makes a sour face. “This guy’s got himself some real problems: first, he needs to get someone else to write his material; then he’s got to do some major work on his delivery.”

  It’s a sunny morning and they’re traveling through a rolling, thickly wooded area of the Ozarks. Ziggy is surprised to see such lush vegetation—of course, they’re pretty far south by now, he reminds himself. He doesn’t know what he was expecting from Missouri. He remembers a little book J.J. gave him during the war that was full of dirty jokes about hillbillies, with illustrations of skinny guys with long black beards who wore overalls and tall black hats. One of them was likely to be sitting high-kneed and sleepy-eyed on the rickety porch of a falling-down shack, a jug of moonshine by his side. The picture might include a floppy-eared mule or a pig that looked as if it had just guessed its ultimate fate, and in the distance would be a teetering outhouse with a half-moon on the door. The jokes were mostly about outhouses, moonshine and sex. He remembers one cartoon showing a naked woman who’s just come out of a swimming hole. Seeing a hillbilly guy looking at her from behind a bush, she’s frantically covered her front with a metal tub. You see her from behind, as Ziggy remembers, just her back and shoulders, her hands gripping the rim of the tub. Even though you can’t see her expression, you can imagine the look on her face as the grinning hillbilly says to her, “I bet you think that thar tub’s got a bottom to it.” That kind of stuff. The Ozarks. Could have been Missouri, or maybe Arkansas.

  Ziggy hadn’t thought of that book until just now and yet it’s all come back, the way the pages smelled as he flipped through them at the Chene-Trombley Bar, the radio in the background carrying war news. He and J.J. and Zeke the bartender were laughing. Nobody knew how anything was going to turn out.

  The bus driver is talking again. “Don’t want to scare you people, but they say these woods we’re passing are full of fugitives, scads of folks on the run from the law: you know, army deserters, exes who are tired of paying alimony, boyfriends who have angry fathers chasing after them. Shoot, you know that fella they’ve been trying to catch for the last couple of years, the one they call the Missouri Slasher? There’s a good chance he could be looking at us from behind one of those trees as we’re driving by. Mm, mm—scares you to think of that, doesn’t it? Then too, there’s all those caves in this state. Heck, who knows who or what you’d find in them? Back in the days of the old west, the James gang used to use ’em as hideouts.” He laughs to himself. “All I know is, I’m not picking up any hitchhikers around here.”

  Lennie rolls his eyes and gives a thumbs-down sign.

  Later, as they’re passing through a small town made up of a handful of plain frame houses set on grassless plots, each dwelling with a propane tank at its side, the driver points out a gray structure made of cinder block that houses Miss Eloise’s College of Beauty. “I don’t know,” he says, “as many times as I’ve passed through this town, I can’t say I’ve actually seen one of Miss Eloise’s graduates.” He waits a couple of seconds. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some people who flunked out, though.” The ripple of laughter encourages him. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you, kindly.”

  Lennie groans. “Put a gun to my head. This is torture.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Ziggy says. “The guy’s got a captive audience.”

  The bus makes a brief stop at the army base at Fort Leonard Wood, and the sight of all the soldiers walking around nearby clearly excites Sharlene, who’s sitting a couple of rows ahead of Ziggy. She waves at the G.I.’s from the window and calls to them, though they can’t hear her. “Look at all those cute army men,” she says to nobody in particular. “Do you think they’d let me get off here for a while? I’ll bet they have some nice pool tables there. I could get on the next bus.” She turns pleadingly to Roy, though it’s hard to tell how serious she is about her query.

  “No, no,” Roy says, “they don’t let private citizens off here.” Ziggy figures this can’t be true. What about the people who work at the base? But it seems to be enough for Sharlene, who sinks back into her seat with a comic pout and contents herself with watching the soldiers from her window. Beside her, Wayne looks grateful.

  A few miles beyond the base they stop at a roadside convenience store, where they pick up a new passenger. She’s a busty woman well past her first youth who seems to have watched too many Mae West movies. Above her miniskirt, fishnet stockings and high heels, she’s wearing a short jacket that seems to be made of the fur of a domestic cat, and the flowered cloth bag she’s carrying could hold a litter of them. Her hair may or may not be real—the color, a vaguely metallic shade suggesting caramel corn, certainly isn’t—but there’s a lot of it. Getting on the bus, she moves, with much jangling of jewelry, as if she’s trying to wriggle out of a tight girdle and is enjoying the process.

  “My God,” Lennie reports to Ziggy, “our driver actually got up and helped her in. I think he’s smitten.” Sure enough, once she’s on board, the newcomer takes the seat behind the driver; and when the bus is underway again she begins a tête-à-tête punctuated by her frequent hearty laughs, which, much to Lennie’s delight, has the effect of severely cutting down his public pronouncements.

  “It’s amazing,” Lennie says to Ziggy after a while. “A real live floozie. Up until today I thought they only existed in books. But there’s nothing else you can call someone like that. Her name is probably Moll or Doll, Nell or Belle, and I’ll bet she’s got a flask of whiskey in that big bag of hers. It won’t be long before she’s offering our driver a nip. But at least she’s keeping him quiet.” Raising his eyes, he says, “Thank you, God—or whatever.”

  At the next rest stop, when Wayne goes off to phone the woman to turn the heat on in his house, Roy says, “I know
what that little weasel has in mind.”

  “We all do,” Ziggy says. “Including Sharlene. But Wayne doesn’t look too hopeful to me. I think she’s already turned him down.”

  Roy waves away Ziggy’s guess. “When he gets off that phone he’s going to try to make his big move. He’s getting pretty desperate.”

  Ziggy shakes his head. “She’s just enjoying herself. I’d say it’s pretty flattering to have little Wayne working so hard to please her. I’ll put my money on her.”

  Roy says, “I’m not going to take any chances.”

  “Is that why you bought those Snickers bars?” Ziggy asks. Sharlene has already told them that she’s partial to Snickers.

  Roy laughs. “All’s fair in love and war, as they say.” Then he frowns. “I just don’t like Wayne, don’t trust him. From the first time I laid eyes on that little bugger I didn’t like him. And if it’s the last thing I do, he’s not going to take her to that place of his.”

  “You, sir,” Ziggy says, “are a knight in shining armor.”

  “So be it then,” Roy says, moving with the Snickers bars in his hand toward the booth where Sharlene is waiting for Wayne to finish his phone call.

  In a few minutes, Lennie joins Ziggy. He’s agitated once more. “Whew,” he says, “I just got away. Miss Lathrop cornered me. You know, that librarian who’s visiting the graves of the presidents. ‘You wouldn’t believe this,’ she told me, ‘but I spent a whole summer visiting my sister in Indianapolis when she was sick, and it was only when I got back that I realized that Benjamin Harrison was buried there. Imagine, being so close to the grave of our twenty-third president.’ She still hasn’t seen it, she told me. I should have told her that’s what gives life its little sizzle: unfulfilled dreams.”