“How long has it been?”
“Almost two years now,” I replied without thinking.
“There it is again…that magic two years.”
“What do you mean?” I started to ask, but stopped myself short. I knew exactly what he was driving at.
“Damn, Sebastien, that story you just told me?”
“Yeah…”
“Damn, it was so cold, it’s ‘Ghetto Cold.’”
“It’s probably ‘Grotto Cold’ too,” I replied, trying to shake the heaviness and make light of it.
“Probably is,” Marcus admitted with a chuckle.
“Let me tell you a quick story about a friend of mine. You’ll laugh.”
“Is it funny?” I asked.
“C’mon now,” he quipped. “My old friend Big John, he didn’t know his pops either. The man left when he was a baby, see? Well, Big John was a really nice guy all the way around, never started any trouble with anyone. One day, his momma said that his old man was coming to see him. Big John was really bothered by this for quite some time. He didn’t know what he was going to say to the coward that up and ran off on his momma and his sisters like that. He wasn’t happy about it any way you cut it.”
“What did he do?”
“What do you think he did? He whipped up on the man and beat his ass within an inch of his life. He realized that there wasn’t much needed to be said between them at that point. His dad was ’bout twenty years too late. Big John laid into that stranger until he couldn’t pick himself up.”
“Did he kill him?” I was taken aback by Marcus’s violent story. It definitely wasn’t as funny as I had originally been led to believe.
“No, he didn’t kill him. But let’s just say that he didn’t live much longer either.” I felt flushed and wondered in the darkness if I was turning pale.
“So that’s the story?” I was stumped.
“Let me get to the end,” he rebutted. “So Big John’s momma went to that man’s grave every Sunday for a year. At first, Big John thought maybe she went because he’d been gone so long and she missed him. Women can be like that, see. But after about six months, he got really curious about her going to the gravesite. And every Sunday, right after church, off she went. One Sunday, he followed her to see what was going on.”
“She was putting flowers down.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s one way to look at it, but not quite,” he remarked. “When Big John’s momma got up to the grave, she looked around, got directly over top of it, and grabbed hold of the headstone. Unexpectedly, she lifted her dress, squatted down, and defecated without warning.”
“Defecated? What, she puked?”
“She took a shit. She crapped on that man’s grave,” he answered in a burst of laughter. “Then she rubbed her butt up on the stone, straightened herself, and went on home.”
I burst out laughing at the thought of the old woman pooping. Just then, Monty’s voice came on over the loudspeaker.
“Okay now, boys. Take it easy back there.” Even though Monty hadn’t heard the story, I could hear the humor in his voice too.
“Some people are gonna get theirs, that’s fo’ sho’. You can count on it.” Marcus spoke in a whisper now.
“I guess I have something to look forward to,” I replied. Marcus covered his mouth to stop from laughing out loud.
“Did Big John ever find out?” I asked.
“Of course he did. He told that story to me in prison, the day after I heard about my pops dying.” Marcus sighed again, this time in some kind of relief.
“Look…just remember this, Sebastien. There will always be cowards everywhere you go. That’s why it’s important for you to be a man and know the difference. Big John may have taken his anger out on his absentee father for abandoning him, but I believe his mother was the one who experienced the real satisfaction. That’s what I think the lesson was. It’s just a matter of patience.”
“I guess.”
“There you go again, ‘I guess,’ hmmph.” Marcus laughed a little as he fished out his Walkman. It was blacker outside now than it had been before. Clouds had rolled in and blotted the thin edge of the moon that had previously lit the night in a blue-gray tint. It was late, and I felt like closing my eyes. I pulled my jacket over me and moved around in the seat until I was finally comfortable. I only lay there a moment or so before I drifted off, but the last thought I had was of Big John’s mother squatting over that grave.
“Flagstaff,” Monty announced, as the bus swayed and he rounded a sharp turn off the boulevard and into the terminal.
“Hey, I’m getting off for a few minutes. Got some business to see to.” Marcus was already out of his seat and ready to step off the bus. Most of the passengers were either asleep or staying put.
“Phone call?” I asked.
“No, gotta see a man about a grave,” he joked. I knew what he meant though. Someone had plugged the commode shortly after we’d left Phoenix, and it was mostly unusable. People still filed inside. Some came out pretty unhappy, but Marcus told me that they were peeing in the sink and that they were animals.
“I’m getting off too,” I said. My mouth was parched and tasted like dryer lint and ammonia. “I’m going to see if I can get some ice water if the café’s open.”
“Cool.”
Marcus must’ve really had to go, as he disappeared inside before I even stepped down.
I was met by chilly air and a light sprinkling of rain. Small dark dots were collecting on the ground around my feet and tapping me slowly on the shoulder. I stopped for a brief moment to stretch and listen to the sound of rumbling thunder colliding far off in the distance. No lightning yet—just wind gusts and skittering debris across the flat tarmac.
After I stepped into the lobby, I had only taken a few steps when surprisingly I was approached by a police officer. But when I looked up at his face, I realized it was the man in the suit from Phoenix. I was shocked to see him again. He stood directly in front of me with his hands on his hips. I couldn’t help but look at his gun holstered at his waist.
“Sebastien Rain?”
“Ranes,” I answered, slightly blank and frozen. I was in trouble.
“You better come with me,” he said. His voice was harsh and commanding. I felt as if I was being pulled away by a string without any will of my own.
“Why? What’s happened?” I asked instinctively.
“We got a call from your mother, and she asked us to hold you here until she comes, but you have to come with me now,” he replied. His voice had a sense of urgency to it as he ushered me away from the door and across the terminal to the front exit. A Greyhound employee brushed past us as we neared the door, but she didn’t want to make any eye contact. The woman probably assumed that I was a runaway.
“What about my luggage? Let me get my bags,” I said, slowing. I hesitated and tried to turn back. The man in the suit, now the man in the policeman’s uniform, grabbed me by the shoulder and kept me moving in one direction.
“Don’t worry about that, you can get it later. They’ll take care of it,” he replied bitterly.
When we stepped through the front doors and back outside into the dark morning air, I immediately got a strange sense of something being wrong. I was expecting to see a police car parked by the entryway, but there were only a few cars in a small parking lot that was attached to the front of the terminal, none of which were a black-and-white cruiser.
“Uh, where’s yu-your p-p-police car?” I asked.
“Shut up, kid. Hurry up, and don’t talk.” He gripped my shoulder tighter, sensing that I might try to break free. The thought of escape hadn’t crossed my mind at all, as I still felt powerless to react. He was now pulling me across the parking lot and had quickened his pace. A brown van was the only vehicle in our vicinity, and we were closing in on it fast. “Wait a minute,” I said, trying to protest. I looked up at him, finally making eye contact and trying to gain control of myself again. His face was locked i
n a fierce and angry grimace, and he was grinding his teeth.
“Stop talking,” he barked, as he grabbed me by the front of my jacket and then slapped me hard across the face. “And don’t look at me either!”
He reached out, slid the side door of the van open, and threw me inside. I landed on the carpet and rolled. The man quickly slammed the door shut on its rails, enclosing me in total darkness. For a brief moment, I couldn’t see or feel anything else around me but the musty carpet beneath me. My stomach felt heavy, and my chest quickly became constricted, making it hard to breathe. I wanted to scream or yell for help, but something was smothering me from the inside out. My hand extended and felt the metal wall confining me. I heard the man outside jingling his keys and opening the driver’s side door. I looked up and saw his face at the opening. But then there was something else. The rain was spitting on the top of the van like thumbtacks, but I heard something else—like footsteps on asphalt, but running. And then someone spoke.
“I don’t think so,” a voice spoke very calmly just on the other side of the metal wall from me. It was Marcus. The man’s face turned away quickly, then I heard a cracking sound. Marcus had punched the guy, and he buckled into the door and out of view.
“Get the fu…” he protested, unable to finish. Marcus hit the man hard again, but I couldn’t see it. Something inside of my head told me to get up and move. When I stood up and tried to escape through the front seat opening, I hit face first into a large piece of chain-link fencing that I hadn’t been able to see in the darkness. I scrambled to the sliding door, trying to get out, but I couldn’t find the handle or anything to open the door, as I fumbled around in the darkness. The windows in the back of the van had been boarded up and wouldn’t open.
“Marcus!” I screamed in sheer terror. “I’m here!” He was still scuffling out of view with the man in the suit, punching him repeatedly. I was quickly becoming hysterical inside the van, trying to find a way out.
“Hang on, I’m coming!” he finally answered. A moment later, the door slid open, and I jumped out as if I had been spring-loaded. “Holy shit!” I swore, terrified, immediately clutching onto Marcus. He quickly grabbed a hold of me and maneuvered me around the van and back to the driver’s side door, where the man who had tried to kidnap me was still lying on the ground, groaning.
“Wait a hot minute, Sebastien. You need to see this,” Marcus spoke. I felt no desire to approach him, even in his current state of being beaten down and prostrate.
“Get a good look at his face, and don’t ever forget it.” Marcus was talking in almost a whisper. When the man rolled slightly on the ground, I finally saw his face again, but he didn’t look near the same as he did when I saw him at the bathroom sink or even a moment ago. Marcus had crushed his nose, and he was bleeding badly. A large area on the left side of his neck was starting to swell as well.
“Help me,” he pleaded. Marcus lurched down and grabbed a hold of the man and pulled him headfirst onto the bench seat of his van. What he did next surprised me. He yanked the man’s wallet from his back pocket, opened it, and quickly dug out his driver’s license.
“I got your goddamned license now. Ya understand that?” he yelled at him angrily, only inches away from his face.
“Here, keep this and don’t ever lose it.” Marcus quickly thrust it into the palm of my hand. I was still in shock, but Marcus was in complete control. He shoved the rest of the man’s body inside the van, slamming the door twice on his foot before he got his whole body inside.
“C’mon,” he spoke with great urgency, “we got a bus to catch.” Marcus grabbed me by my opposite arm and broke into a sprint across the parking lot at top speed and rounded the side of the terminal, not bothering to go through it. As we came around the corner, I saw Monty standing at the bottom of the steps, looking nervously at his wristwatch. We were both sprinting for the bus, and there was no way we were going to stay in Flagstaff, Arizona, to explain everything that had happened. Even I knew it wouldn’t be good for either of us.
“Where the hell y’all been?” Monty looked at us both, obviously concerned. “You two got some explainin’ to do.”
Marcus pushed me up the steps, getting me safely back on the bus. I turned back to see Marcus give Monty a very serious look. “We need to go, pops.”
“That’s all you had to say,” he responded, without any questions or formalities.
My head was swimming as I headed for the back toward my seat. Several people looked up at me, annoyed that I had held everyone up. My face was without expression, and I had little thought for any of them considering what I had just been through. Usually, I would’ve been ashamed, but I didn’t know how to feel.
The pale-faced girl was sitting in the aisle seat now and looking directly at me. She wasn’t upset at all, judging from her expression, just finally awake. She pointed with her finger and touched the corner of her mouth. I raised my hand up and felt warm blood where I had been slapped across the face, slightly cutting my lower lip. She handed me a Kleenex. I took it and sat down, lightly dabbing at the corner of my lip a few times. I leaned forward a moment later.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she replied softly.
As the bus very quickly pulled away and rotated around the terminal and back out onto the main street, Marcus and I both got a long, last look at the brown van still parked in the front lot of the terminal, unmoved. I exhaled and sat back as we drove farther away and deeper into Flagstaff.
“You alright?” Marcus asked. Maybe it hadn’t fully sunk in yet, but I was already trying not to think about it.
“Yeah…I’m fine,” I responded mechanically.
“No, Sebastien, you’re not fine. You’re safe, but you’re definitely not fine. Don’t confuse the two.” I looked down at my hand. I was still clutching the driver’s license that Marcus had made sure I kept a hold of. I took a closer look at it, not thinking to just put it away.
The title California Driver License was written across the top of the card in capital letters. His picture was below, and his name and address were listed beside it. “Leigh Allen.” Marcus was glancing over my shoulder.
“Vallejo. Long way from home, don’tcha think?”
“What does it mean?” I wondered.
Marcus exhaled a long breath. “Well, if I had to take a guess…he gets on the bus and looks for easy targets.”
“Like me.”
“Yeah, like you,” he admitted. “He seemed to know exactly what he was doing.”
“Should we tell someone?” I asked.
“What exactly are you going to tell them? He’d just deny the whole thing. They’d think you were making the whole thing up, and they’d put me back in prison for giving him a beating, even though he deserved it.” Marcus had a way of telling the truth that made sense even to me. He was right about the whole thing too. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d be somewhere else right now, probably traveling in the opposite direction.
“I want to tell you thanks,” I said. Marcus looked at me thoughtfully and nodded.
“It’s cool. You didn’t do anything wrong back there, so don’t go inside your head over it. Okay?”
I nodded yes. “Thanks…I mean it,” I repeated.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Cowards and men, Sebastien. Cowards and men.”
“I felt like a coward back there,” I admitted.
“Don’t go into your head,” Marcus chided. “Look, when you’re older…you may have to do the same for someone else. You’ll have to see if you’re a coward or a man. You’ll get your moment.”
“I hope I’m a man,” I whispered contemplatively.
“You will be, don’t worry.”
Flagstaff was very quickly behind us. I put Leigh Allen’s driver’s license away in my inside jacket pocket in case I needed it later. The bus followed the freeway as it twisted in different directions through the desert and past a multitude of road signs. One sign in particular read Welcom
e to the Navajo Nation. The engine whined as we climbed several times but went quiet as we crested over high edges and slipped through the downgrades. The traffic on the roads became more spare the earlier it got. It was desolate for near three a.m. There were moments when it looked as though we were the only Greyhound bus left on earth. Semi trucks traveling in small groups in the opposite direction would pass us periodically, out of nowhere, and vanish again moments later as if they were passing into the afterlife.
Marcus was listening to his Walkman, but wide awake. Having to beat off the man in the suit made him more alert and more quiet than I had seen him. He had to use the restroom several times to wash the backs of his hands, as he’d skinned his knuckles and was bleeding. We didn’t have any bandages, and he probably had no desire to ask for any, so he just got by using the brown paper towels that were stacked on the side of the sink.
After we’d traveled far enough away and had completely settled into our seats for the next few hours of driving, Marcus lit a cigarette and relaxed. The pale-faced girl had turned around and quietly asked him for one as well, which he very politely produced for her. She thanked him after he lit it for her. She turned back around in her seat and remained quiet. Marcus had the same look of satisfaction about him that my mother had after smoking. She seemed to need one every hour though. Marcus was more controlled about it and rationed his smoking to after meals and just before sleeping.
The smell of the cigarette made me wonder about Charlotte and Dick one more time. I considered if they would’ve actually sent someone as dangerous as Leigh Allen to come kidnap me, getting me out of her life for good and securing sympathy from everyone in the process. Then I would be just one less thing to worry about, if that was really the case.
I squirmed around a bit, trying to get adjusted again on the two bench seats at my disposal. I stopped thinking about Charlotte and Dick, as it only upset me to picture her in a wedding dress for the third time. As much as I despised them both, lying there I made up my mind to never live with her again. Living with Dick would be dangerous. I knew there was something definitely wrong with him and that I’d never be able to turn my back on him. He didn’t seem that different from Leigh Allen, and after the run-in in the parking lot, I felt as though my eyes were all the way open and my senses on fire.
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