Sparks crackled the air around the man’s face. Bill blinked, rubbed his eyes. That should have tipped Bill off about the tall man, but Bill had been preoccupied with the mustard.
Skinny with greasy black hair and black overcoat like a spill of the deepest crude over him. Dark eyes under beetle-brows glowering like he thought of his last dollar. There was a lot of that going around, especially on this bus going up to chase a paycheck in the Titusville Boom.
The Plexiglas lobby door slapped open. The bus driver strode out, his big round belly straining his worn uniform, his face layered with grimaces. His big 9mm SC pistol lay strapped to his hip.
“All aboard!”
Bill swore under his breath.
“Can you wait a minute?” he called.
The driver called back. “Bus is leaving. All aboard or I’m leaving you.”
“Ah, that’s all right.” Bill smiled. “You’ve got a job to do.”
The driver turned and marched up into his bus. Bus drivers, truck drivers, anybody driving anything big on the highways had ultimate authority, as bad as prison guards.
Bill wrapped up his sandwich carefully and put it back in the satchel. He said to himself, “Ah-right, chilluns. Let’s get a move on.”
He walked back to the platform, looking at the holy verses written around the fuel hatch, listening to his bottle of Maker’s Mark sloshing in the pack. As he stepped up into the bus the atmosphere, still fetid from breaths and sweat of the sixty-or-so passengers, washed over him. Over the driver’s seat, an icon of Saint Gianni offered tiny pitch-gummed hands, the Galleon Bus Lines being a Roman Catholic Esoteric establishment.
He found his way back to his seat next to a black man wearing a dingy brown wool coat. Bill said, “Smells like the back of a Singapore restaurant.”
The man snorted a laugh and set his head back on the dirty window to nap. Past his head, the bus station priest in his red stole walked up to the fuel pumps.
The priest gestured and swung his arm, giving it a precautionary once-over blessing, singing the atonal prayer and waving the red laser beam, such things being necessary since Physics woke up. A green battered fuel truck rattled by and interrupted the view.
Bill remembered the banging inside that pump and looked back out the window. It was like the diesel had been trying to get at him. Added to the sparking around the face of that tall man, it spelled trouble.
Dingy Coat beside him snored already, face pressed against the greasy glass.
Ain’t nothing now, he thought.
Bill settled into the seat and slipped his satchel between his boots. It would be another three hours to the destination. Yet another pain would creep up from a cyst on his tailbone if he sat too long.
His nerves twisted when he had to sit for long periods—when he had no way of getting up and running. He remembered the burglary at the metal reclamation house. The geometric twister of the storm scourge shredding that building. What the kid in Texas had said, spraying blood from his dying breath:
“It was looking for you.”
Were the scourges after him? Why?
Bill’s stomach turned sour. Sweat slicked under his chin and he wiped it with his fingers. He had to get his mind off all that.
In front of him, someone had stuck a newspaper between the seatbacks. He pulled it out and unfolded the Cleveland Tribune and looked at the date. His heart went heavy again.
Damn. September already. Why do I keep forgetting the year? I keep forgetting this is 2092. Keep wanting it to be the seventies.
The front page had new houses being built, hospital expanding its maternity ward, new dam construction, the usual. Page eight told of the fiftieth anniversary of the Lake Erie Expulsion coming up next month.
He pulled out the sports section, licking his fingers and wiping the ink off on his sock. Grainy photos of high school boys lunging across the tape. Names of team mascots always made him smile: Hornets, Fighting Eagles, Tarbloods, the Fiery Warriors of Sacred Heart.
No “We’re Hiring” section. The buyer must have kept that.
In the aisle and two rows ahead, a chestnut-colored guy in an olive green military coat stood over a seat. Close-cropped red hair, but those kinks had grown over his ears so he wasn’t still in the service. The ex-serviceman stood over a skinny brown guy with wireframes and a thick build under his faded plaid wool. Plaid Wool ignored Olive Coat. Everybody tried not to seem entertained.
Olive said, “Excuse me?”
Plaid glanced up. “Was this your seat?”
“You know it was.”
“I don’t know who was sitting here.”
“You know it wasn’t you.”
The only open seat was right in the back by the door to the bus toilet. The seat beside it occupied by the tall guy in black. Under the harsh tiny lights of the bus interior, the tall guy’s skin looked even paler, and the sores shadowed on his face like a black pox.
Plaid said, “Driver didn’t say we can’t change seats.”
Olive glared. “I don’t want to sit by the toilet and sit by that junkie ass! Give me my seat back!”
Plaid’s chin raised. “You got up. You lost your seat.”
“Give ’im his seat,” some man said.
Plaid turned to the effrontery. “You mind your damn business!”
The bus driver rose. The bus seemed to settle under the weight of his gravitas.
Bill figured the next step. The tall guy in the back probably held a bump of heroin in some tinfoil to get him to the next stop. The obvious solution to the altercation was for the driver to shake down the tall guy, find the brown powder, then throw his junkie ass off the bus, or else call a cop. Slow down their trip and screw up some stranger’s life. Because these two jackasses couldn’t get along.
The tall man in the back regarded the exchange with heavy-eyed resignation. He looked up at the approaching driver and his shoulders rose in a deep breath.
Bill rolled his eyes at the lack of charity in his fellow humans. He could hear his dad saying, “Why do you always have to get in other people’s business?”
That pain of remembering his father made Bill call out. “I’ll switch seats.”
The two men stopped arguing and looked at him.
Bill lied. “I got sinus infections. Won’t smell a thing.”
Olive Coat’s face tightened in disbelief. “Yeah, but the . . .”
He jerked his head to the guy, belatedly trying to make his insult discrete.
Drawing out the gravel in his voice, Bill made it sound folksy. “One of God’s children.”
Bill raised his palms. He knew how he came across. Small, light-skinned man creased by sun and wind, long mule-like head in bad need of a haircut and shave, brown canvas coat covering a frame built for work. Nasal accent from not-quite-from-around-here. The look of a hard-luck case who’d done prison for something stupid and was staying well away from trouble.
Olive Coat’s decorum got the better of him, finally, and he picked up his duffle.
Plaid already settled back in his seat like he won something like hard-earned justice.
When Olive and Bill stepped into the aisle, the driver saw that he had peace, so he turned back to the front seat.
The tall man looked up at Bill with a mournful gratitude.
His voice was like a cello in an abandoned mine. “Take the window seat. Please.”
Bill said, “Sure. Thanks.”
He found himself extending his hand. The man gripped firm and solemn like an old, sickly priest.
Bill slid in and planted himself against the bus wall, behind the last window.
The driver took a long, snuffling breath. In a tired slur, he toned the benediction for the trip. Everyone spoke it along with him.
An old man spoke up. “Why don’t they keep the priests on the busses?”
His young companion shushed him. “Nothing’s happened on the roads for years.”
The old man grumbled.
Up front, the e
lectric starter squealed. The dead in the petroleum, distilled and mixed and befuddled into diesel fuel, ignited in the carburetor, exploded in cylinders to push the engines pistons and drive shaft. The bus eased backward out of the bay and everyone settled into the threadbare cloth and aluminum seats.
The electric heaters gasped on the backs of Bill’s pant legs. It would be 10:45 p.m. when they pulled into Titusville, provided everything went right.
Bill sighed. Got no place to stay yet. I’ll sleep in the bus terminal until morning, then get set up at the Refugee Y or someplace.
On the sunlit street, turning onto an onramp, drops of crude oil spattered against the glass. A pinhead drop sprouted tiny insect legs. Pushed away from the glass and swam back into the wind. Another oil skeeter? Guess they’re swimming in them here in oil country.
He remembered the sparks around the man and looked over. The tall man smelled like hot and sweaty wool. The smell seemed to settle like grease on Bill’s skin. Bill’s right sinus burned from inhaling the smell.
I’m tired of fights, Bill thought. A few hours smelling body cheese is worth it just to get on with our lives.
The man whispered. “Thank you.”
“Just getting along,” Bill said. “Just getting through the day.”
“Amen.”
Bill thought, Amen. Maybe he’s religious or maybe that’s an act.
Bill’s politeness won out and he stuck out his hand again. “My name’s Bill Arraz.”
The man shook it again. “Ed. Ed Pomeroy.”
“You a church-going man?”
Ed gave a guarded smile. “I was a missionary overseas.”
“Oh yeah? What were you doing?”
“Teaching the faithful how to protect themselves. I discovered I didn’t know the least of it.”
Bill rubbed his neck. Nowhere to start a conversation with that as the opener.
So he took a step back in the discussion and talked about his time as a laborer around Illinois, downriver as a carny and a roustabout, all the way to Texas; anything needing two hands and a high tolerance for poverty.
His soul started hurting him again so he changed the subject. “Imagine a lot of other people here are looking for work too.”
Heads around them turned at Bill’s remark, some nodding.
“I’m to go to Titusville,” Ed said.
“To go to,” like he was on some mission.
“Got a job waiting?”
“I’ll find one.” Ed’s dark eyes made that a declaration.
The bus wound past Erie Avenue and took the ramp south onto State Highway 89. On the other side of the concrete partition trotted the usual city traffic: horse traps, wagons heaped with wooden crates heading downtown hauling meat and vegetables and fish, people walking and looking up at the big bus. Beyond on the buildings, LED billboards played their little solar-powered movies hawking soda pop, liquor, the state lottery, movies, broken by the usual protective warding hexes.
“Downstairs neighbors are getting restless,” said one.
The other replied, “You’re sitting over the fuel tank.”
“I know. They’re scratching out loud.”
Nervous laughter died down.
Bill realized the diesel didn’t fight around here either. He thought about saying what he he’d seen in the garage and on the window. No sense disturbing people. I’ll tell someone when we get in at Titusville.
Then he remembered the sparking around the head of the man now sitting just next to him. He resisted the urge to lean away and look Ed over.
Bill noted the exit window two rows ahead.
Ed seemed normal enough, though, considering.
As the road rose into the mountains, it narrowed to four lanes carved into the hillside. Traffic and buildings became scarce. The view from Bill’s rear half of the window alternated between slopes of crumbling shale and shadowed valleys gilded and threadbare from an early autumn.
The sun gave one long, red scowl, then left men to the dark.
“Makes you wonder how they did it,” said a fellow sitting in front of them.
“What’s that?” said another.
“The colonials. Hell, the Indians for that matter.”
“They didn’t have everything trying to kill them.”
Ed replied, “Faith. You have to have faith in the purifying fire.”
The others looked from the corners of their eyes, wondering what a smelly and sick-looking junkie ass would know about keeping faith. The comment seemed a bit out of context for the pale man, but Bill thought it a shame that people were being so judgmental.
So Bill added, “Thanks to it, we’re getting out from under!”
People around went “m’hmm!” and “amen!”
Bill read newspapers. Talked to people. Nothing about scourges anywhere. He knew everything was on the rise, on the move, on the way up. How come scourges almost killed him five fucking times?
A lady spoke in amazement. “Hurricanes used to come off the ocean spirit-made and calling for men by their names! The wind demanding sacrifices!”
Now that was ignorant. Storm scourges had the voices long dead in them, but they didn’t call out anybody. Not the goddamn two Bill had to deal with, anyway.
Others chimed in.
“Sea Wraiths!”
“My grandpa said he once saw Storm Children!”
The woman said, “Faith brought the wind and earth to heel like dogs.”
More nods and “fifty years blessed!” and “No more of that!” and “Getting better every day.”
Sounds like everyone had to blow off steam, Bill reflected. The Great Lakes Expulsions worked. The Expulsions everywhere worked. Settled the winds and water and earthquakes. But, no amount of prayer or science seemed to cure petroleum, though mixing different wells together befuddled the oil, and refining weakened it.
Still, everyone had settled back all cheery.
Then Ed intoned, “All things mortal are fuel for the flame.”
All fell silent except the rumble of the engine. Bill shot a grimace at Ed. People back in a good mood and Ed up and reminds them about Hell? This man had no sense.
The lady’s hair was mousy and lank. Beside her, a skinny Asian boy looked at her, concerned.
Her round potato face got serious. “We look to God’s light for guidance.”
Ed seemed to consider what the lady said and gave the lightest, sad sniff. The others went on with the church talk or went back to dozing in weak bus light. The windows reflected glowing images of people reading, dozing, murmuring bored asides.
The engine churned, mindless.
Ed heaved long, slow breaths. He sniffed and blew his nose into a ruined paper towel. Sweat beaded his forehead. Heroin withdrawal. Bill had seen it many times on his many jobs and in lock-up. Bill’s hand brushed against Ed’s forearm. The black overcoat was hot. Like it had been drying next to a campfire. Rubbing his fingertips, Bill didn’t know what to make of that. Except that Ed was hurting and maybe didn’t have a bump of H with him after all.
Bill whispered. “Would a drink help you? I’ve got some.”
Ed’s eyes focused and he smiled. “It would help much. I’ve been worse though. Don’t risk getting kicked off on my account. Thank you.”
“Do you have a place to stay?” Bill asked.
“I’ll ask around when we get there.”
Another smaller, rueful smile.
The bus jumped. Everyone bucked in the air and landed in their seat. Bill turned just in time and caught the landing on his right buttock and not his sore tailbone.
Dingy awoke from his window and said a comical, “Whoa! Whoa!”
The bus shook like an earthquake. The shakes deepened. Bill held on to the arms of the seat.
“Oh! Oh!” the Potato Lady cried.
Curses hissed all over the bus.
The driver pulled the big steering wheel to the right. He straightened the wheel as the bus slowed. It lurched to a stop.
&nb
sp; A wave of groans and heaves of relief swept the passengers.
The driver called back. “Anybody hurt?”
Shaking heads and “No, sirs.”
The driver pulled the lever to open the door. It hissed open like a caution for silence.
“Everybody stay in their seats!”
The driver disappeared down the well into the dark. A few people up front stood up to watch him. Presently, the driver clambered back up the stairs. “We blew both front tires.”
Some exclaimed in surprise and a few said thanks to the driver for getting them to the shoulder.
“Did you hit a deer?” a kid asked.
People laughed. The driver’s mouth crooked up in something resembling a smile. He picked up the mic to his radio. “One-Fourteen to Base. One-Fourteen.”
Up front, an old lady crooned, “I’ll tell ’em I’m hurt if they’ll get here faster.”
People laughed.
The driver actually smiled in earnest. “Nah. You’ll just get an ambulance out here with horses and we’ll still be here. We’re looking at a couple of hours.”
Everyone groaned, but not too bad. They muttered stories to each other about other bus trips with problems and delays. Something that always happened on a bus trip.
Radios were rare and regulated because all radio bands hadn’t been cleared by the Bureau of Esoteric Administration, so the people in charge said. Bill suddenly remembered he was in a closed aluminum container, all the way in the back. Ed snuffled and seemed harmless, but the walls still closed in.
Bill found his fingers bunching and relaxing. His heart pounded.
Being bottled up was getting to him. Air was too hot. The damned whisky was in the satchel where he couldn’t get to it.
He called to the driver, “Excuse me, sir? Can I grab some air?”
A couple of others raised their hands asking for a smoke break. When the driver was distracted, Bill grabbed his bag.
The driver nodded. “Small groups! Stay away from the road!”
He pointed at Bill, the old lady, Olive Coat, and a couple of other hands.
“Where’re you going?”
Everyone turned.
Ed had stood up too. “I have to get some air. Please.” His thin shoulders rose and fell. Hands wrung and clenched. He was hurting bad.
Enter the Rebirth (Enter the... Book 3) Page 17