Last Bus to Coffeeville

by J. Paul Henderson

  Doc nodded. ‘It’s the wiring inside her head that’s the problem. It’s shot to pieces. She knows this – or at least she used to – and that’s why she wants to go back to Mississippi.’

  ‘Hell, man, her head’s gotta be messed up if she wan’s to go back there. Las’ place I’d wanna spend my final days.’

  ‘She’s got good memories of growing up there, and it’s where her family’s buried. She wants to be buried with them.’

  ‘How long you think she got, Gene? How long b’fore she dies?’

  Doc shrugged. ‘There’s no way of telling, but I’m guessing not long.’

  ‘How you know that, man? Looks like she got a good few years yet. An’ what you gonna do – jus’ stay with her till she goes? People gonna be lookin’ fo’ you – you ever thought o’ that?’

  Doc shrugged.

  ‘You ain’t tellin’ me somethin’, Gene. There’s somethin’ you ain’t sayin’.’

  Doc looked away. ‘There’s nothing to tell, Bob. Nancy wants to die in Mississippi.’

  ‘It makes no sense, Gene. How you gonna hide yo’selves away an’ not be foun’. They’ll catch up with you, man, an’ when they do they’ll take her back to the home an’ you to jail.’

  ‘That won’t happen, Bob. Nancy doesn’t want it.’

  ‘Square with me, Gene. What the two o’ you plannin’?’

  ‘Okay, Bob. But you can’t tell Jack and you don’t talk to Nancy about it. Agreed?’

  Bob nodded.

  ‘Nancy’s been scared of Alzheimer’s her whole life – it’s been running in her family for generations. Back when we were at Duke, she asked me if I’d bring her life to an end if she ever inherited it – before the real shit kicked in. I promised her then that I would, and another time five years ago when she asked me again. I don’t have a choice in the matter.’

  Bob was taken aback. ‘Sure you got a choice, man. An’ you a doctor, Gene: you ain’t suppose’ to do things like this: you took the Oath!’

  ‘You just reminded me earlier today that I wasn’t a doctor, that I’d retired. Remember? I’m not acting as a doctor, Bob; I’m acting as her friend. Do you honestly think I’m happy about this?’

  ‘But it’s killin’, Gene, an’ killin’s wrong!’

  Doc turned to Bob, suddenly annoyed. ‘How many people have you killed in your life, Bob? People who in all probability wanted to live? Nancy doesn’t want to live, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘That ain’t fair, Gene, an’ you knows it.’

  Immediately, Doc regretted his words and apologised. ‘I’m sorry, Bob. I didn’t mean that. It’s just that this isn’t something I enjoy talking about – or thinking about for that matter.

  ‘But let me ask you this. If you were on the battlefield and a friend of yours was mortally wounded, what would you do? Would you leave him to bleed out in agony or would you put him out of his misery – especially, if he asked you to?’

  ‘That ain’t the same thing, Gene. This diff’rent.’

  ‘But it isn’t, Bob! It’s exactly the same. All that’s different is the time line. It will take Nancy something like five years to bleed out, and throughout that time she’s going to be in the worst kind of agony you can imagine!’

  ‘All I know, Gene, is that if Marsha aksed me the same thing, I’d say no. I’d stay with her, be there fo’ her, but I wouldn’ kill her. How could I? She the love o’ my life.’

  ‘You’d do it because she was the love of your life,’ Doc said quietly.

  Neither of them spoke for a while.

  ‘So, you goin’ through with it once we get to Coffeeville?’

  Gene’s shoulders slumped. The conversation was exhausting him. ‘I wish I knew, Bob – I really wish I knew. I probably won’t know for sure until we get there. It’s what Nancy wants – or at least what she wanted when she was still Nancy – but is it something I want? No, it isn’t. Is it something I can do? I really don’t know.’

  ‘I ain’t gonna say no more on the matter, Gene, but when the time comes I hope you make the right decision: right fo’ Nancy, but right fo’ you, too. Nancy should never o’ laid somethin’ like this on you. Ain’t right.’

  They fell silent, lost in their own thoughts, staring at the flickering lights far below them.

  ‘There is one thing, Bob,’ Doc said eventually. ‘Nancy wants this trip to be like a holiday. I can think of things to do in Nashville and Memphis, but I don’t know of anything to do between here and there. Can you suggest anything?’

  Bob thought for a while. ‘Walton’s Mountain ain’t far from here, an’…’

  ‘There is such a place?’

  ‘Sure there is: over in Schuyler. An’ there’s Crawford, o’ course. I got a packet fo’ an’ ol’ friend o’ mine still livin’ there, so we got to go through there anyways. It’s a nice place an’ Nance’ll like it. We could stay a couple days or so, if you like.’

  ‘Who’s the friend?’

  ‘A guy called Merritt Crow. I stayed with him fo’ a time when I got back from Cuba. You’ll like him.’

  Doc looked at him. ‘Is there something about the packet you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No more ’n what you ain’t tellin’ me,’ Bob smiled. ‘I’ll level with you though, Gene: it’s marijuana. I guess we all got reasons not to be caught!’

  Doc smiled. ‘Okay, Walton’s Mountain first and then we’ll run some drugs into Crawford. Sounds like a plan.’

  Eric was already in his bunk reading the Bible when they returned to the bus. He’d now completed the Books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and I Samuel, and the body count had risen by a further 356,825.

  ‘Where’s Eric got to?’ Doc asked. ‘And who’s this dark handsome stranger sleeping in his bunk?’

  ‘It’s me, Doctor Gene!’ Eric said excitedly. ‘Jack dyed my hair. It looks good, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does, Eric. Maybe tomorrow we can persuade Jack to dye your eyebrows too. You might want to take those gloves off, by the way. It’ll give your hands a chance to breathe overnight.’

  ‘Will do, Doctor Gene,’ Eric answered.

  Nancy and Jack sat facing each other in the lounge area, neither one speaking. ‘Gene, thank goodness you’ve come back!’ Nancy said, agitated. ‘That man’s been trying to kill me. He said he was going to put me in the washing machine!’

  ‘I was only joking,’ Jack said. ‘Besides, there isn’t a washing machine.’

  ‘Jesus, Jack!’ Doc said.

  He went to a top cupboard in the kitchen and took two pills from a container. He filled a glass with water and gave it to Nancy. ‘These will make you sleep well tonight, Nancy.’

  She swallowed them one at a time, eyeing Doc suspiciously. ‘You’re not trying to kill me, are you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied evenly.

  He handed her a towel and the wash bag he’d packed, and brought her a nightgown to change into. He waited while she used the bathroom, and then led her to her bunk.

  Eric was the last one to turn out his light. It was at night, in the quiet of his own bed, that he always felt most alone; remembered his parents and sometimes cried. He still found it hard to believe he’d never see them again, that they were gone from his life forever. For weeks after the funeral he’d fantasised that his parents were still alive and victims of a giant misunderstanding. Maybe Mr Annandale had identified the wrong bodies and mistaken two hideously deformed strangers for his mother and father. Maybe his parents were still in Egypt, lost in the desert and sheltering in the tent of a friendly Bedouin who lived by himself in the middle of a sand dune and didn’t have a telephone. Maybe they’d lost their memories and joined a travelling circus and were training as trapeze artists. Maybe they’d been kidnapped by abductors who couldn’t read or write and didn’t know how to send a ransom note. Maybe, even, that they’d converted to Islam and were now too embarrassed to return home and face disappointing Mr Annandale and The Reverend Pete.

 
But for all the maybes that passed through his head, the day eventually came when a single sad and definite truth lodged there: his parents were dead, now and for all time. Once he accepted this reality, he realised that he had to start looking to himself but, to be on the safe side, also decided to place his small frame in the hands of a loving God. If God was alert to the plights of tiny sparrows and lost sheep, then Eric was certain He’d bust a gut to help an orphan boy find his only cousin. Secure in this knowledge and insulated by his own naivety, he’d journeyed safely and without fear through a world inhabited by murderers, child molesters, muggers and kidnappers, and found only kindness and good turns. (If God wasn’t looking out for Eric, then he was certainly having his fair share of good luck!)

  He lay there thinking, counted his blessings, and wondered if Doc was like a modern-day Moses leading them to a Promised Land, and if he should amend his personal prayer list.

  Every night, for as long as he could remember, Eric had recited the Lord’s Prayer, and followed it with a short prayer his mother had taught him:

  God bless Mummy, Daddy,

  Grandmas and Grandpas,

  Uncles, Aunts,

  Cousins and Everybody.

  Please make Eric a good boy,

  Amen

  This night he made up his mind to refine the prayer. He’d never met his grandparents but decided to leave them on the list anyway. He had but one uncle, one cousin and, since Jeff’s divorce, no aunts; he therefore decided to start blessing Jeff and Susan by name. He also decided to include the names of the people who’d helped him since the deaths of his parents: Red Dunbar, Lily Gomez, Larry Hicks and Big Guy; Otis Sistrunk, Doctor Gene, Mrs Skidmore and Jack. (Arthur and Alice Annandale, The Reverend Pete and Walter Strey, he felt, were covered by the general description everybody.) It pleased him that his new world was becoming populated.

  He tried out his new prayer and liked it:

  God bless Mummy, Daddy,

  Grandmas and Grandpas,

  Uncle Jeff and Cousin Susan,

  Red Dunbar and Lily Gomez,

  Larry Hicks and Big Guy,

  Otis Sistrunk and Doctor Gene,

  Mrs Skidmore, Jack,

  and Everybody.

  Please make Eric a good boy,

  Amen

  Leaving Three Top Mountain

  A cold front had moved into the area overnight, lowering the temperature and shrouding the mountain in mist. It was now raining heavily, and pools of water had formed on the uneven surface of the road. Nancy had slept peacefully, but the change in weather appeared to depress her. Doc helped her dress and took her to the bathroom.

  Bob was already in the kitchen, toasting bread and making coffee. He’d set a carton of orange juice on the counter and placed cups, bowls and packets of cereal on the table. ‘How she doin’, Gene?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. She slept well enough, but now she seems preoccupied, a bit otherworldly. I’m hoping she’ll come to once she’s properly woken up.’

  They were joined by Jack and then Eric.

  ‘Everyone sleep okay?’ Doc asked. It seemed everyone had – apart from himself, that is. Nancy’s voice came from the bathroom; Doc braced himself as the door opened and she came storming out.

  ‘Did you buy this toilet paper, Arnold?’ she challenged Doc. ‘You’re a cheapskate! Do you know that? My finger went straight through it. Why on earth did I ever marry you?’

  Doc made a move towards her. ‘Don’t touch me! Take your goddamn hands away from me!’ He stopped in his tracks. Eric hid behind Jack, but Bob pretended nothing untoward was happening: ‘You wan’ cereal or toast, Nance?’

  ‘Toast please, Bob,’ Nancy answered, and then sat in the lounge as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. ‘Where’s Gene?’ she asked. ‘Shouldn’t he be getting up?’ Doc volunteered to go find him, waited in the sleeping area for a couple of minutes and then wandered nonchalantly back into the kitchen. ‘Morning, Nancy,’ he said. ‘Morning, everyone.’

  ‘About time too, Gene,’ Nancy said. ‘We’re about to eat breakfast!’

  After the breakfast plates had been cleared, they prepared to leave the mountain.

  ‘How are you going to turn the bus around?’ Doc asked Bob.

  ‘I ain’t. I’m gonna follow the road down the other side o’ the hill.’

  ‘Have you been down there before?’

  ‘No, but I’m guessin’ it ain’t no diff’rent from the road we jus’ drove up.’

  Bob started the engine, and carefully edged the bus down the single track dirt road that cut its way through the mountain. It was steeper than yesterday’s road and took longer to navigate. Bob managed to get the bus around the first two curves, but came to an abrupt halt at the next turn – a hairpin.

  ‘Hmmm. This ain’t lookin’ good, Gene. I could maybe get us roun’ this one, but I’m wonderin’ how many more o’ these bends there is. Las’ thing we need is to get the bus stuck. I think we need to send out a scoutin’ party.’

  ‘Hey Jack, can you walk down the road a distance and see what it’s like down there?’ Doc asked.

  ‘Can I go with Jack, Doctor Gene?’ Eric asked. ‘I’ve got an umbrella.’

  ‘Okay with me,’ Jack said. ‘Open the door, Bob.’

  Bob opened the door and Jack walked straight into the hillside – a mere two inches from the opening – and bounced back into the bus. ‘I guess I won’t be leaving through this exit,’ he said. ‘Open the back door, will you?’

  The problem of leaving the bus through the rear door was the polar opposite of trying to leave through the front door. Although there was nothing to prevent Jack from exiting the vehicle, neither was there any ground for him to rest his feet on: while the bus’s wheels remained on the road, its body overhung a void. ‘I’m going to need some help back here, Bob,’ Jack shouted.

  Bob joined him, and stood at the door scratching his head. ‘I’ll have to lower you,’ he said. ‘Take my hand.’ Jack took it, and while Bob slowly lowered him, his feet searched for the hillside. ‘Okay, Bob, I’m there. You can let go now.’ Bob let go and Jack slithered down the slope to the road below.

  Jack walked for a half mile before turning back. He disturbed a couple of white-tailed deer and a red-tailed hawk, but what he saw of the road told him it wouldn’t be possible for the bus to descend any further. He climbed back to the rear entrance where Bob was waiting. ‘Too many switchbacks, Bob. You’ll never get the bus round them.’

  There was no alternative but to reverse the bus up the road and back to where they’d started out. It wouldn’t be easy.

  ‘I need a point man front o’ bus an’ one at back,’ Bob said. ‘I’ll lower you firs’, Jack, an’ then you, Gene.’

  Jack found his footing and then waited for Doc to be lowered.

  ‘Man, Gene, you mus’ weigh the same as a damn elephan’,’ Bob gasped. ‘Get ready to catch him, Jack, I cain’t hol’ him much longer.’ He suddenly lost his grip and the weight of Doc sent both him and Jack sprawling down the hillside. ‘You okay?’ Bob shouted after them.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Jack said, ‘but we’re alive – and Doc’s going on a diet once we get back on the bus!’

  ‘Jesus, I’m too old for these shenanigans,’ Doc complained. ‘Look at my pants!’

  ‘You take the front and I’ll take the back, Doc. You want a hand getting there?’

  ‘No, I can manage. Why the hell did Bob have to drive down a road like this? We’ll look well if the bus gets stuck.’

  After they were both in position, Bob put the bus into reverse and slowly applied the accelerator. The front wheels skidded, eventually gripped, and the bus moved steadily backwards until Jack shouted out. ‘You’re going into the side of the hill, Bob!’

  Bob let the bus slide forward, and then mistakenly applied the accelerator and sent Doc scurrying.

  ‘Dammit, Bob, you almost killed me!’ Doc shouted.

  Bob broke into a smile, a
djusted the turn of the wheel and reversed again.

  Ever more mindful of the clay wall Bob had almost driven into, Jack completely forgot about the drop at the other side of the track, and before he’d noticed what was happening the nearside rear wheels slipped over the edge and the bus lurched.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Bob yelled, and immediately pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor. The bus juddered for a few seconds and then shot forward, hitting the hillside hard and sending Doc again running for cover.

  Jack moved to the front of the bus to talk strategy with Doc and Bob. ‘Do you think we should get help?’ he suggested.

  ‘We’re not in a position to get help!’ Doc retorted. ‘We’ve got a kidnap and a runaway on board. And the bus is stolen!’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Jack said.

  ‘Neither did I till yesterday!’

  ‘Don’t go blamin’ me – it was all I could get hol’ of at such short notice! Anyway, it ain’t as if the vehicle’s hot. Bus was stole five years ago.’ Bob said. ‘No one’ll be lookin’ fo’ it now.’

  ‘Is there anything else either one of you thinks I should know?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I got drugs fo’ a friend o’ mine, but that’s ’bout it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Jack exclaimed. ‘If we ever get off this damn mountain, I’m going to dye my hair!’

  Eventually they managed to get the bus back up the track, but it took them more than two hours of edging backwards, then forwards and then backwards again; sometimes moving a few feet and sometimes only inches. Surprisingly, the bus suffered only minor scratches and two small dents.

  Back at the fire tower, Doc and Jack remained outside the bus while Bob executed a one-hundred-and-two-point manoeuvre – Eric counted each turn of the wheel. Eventually the bus was turned around, but another hour had now passed.

  Nancy, who had slept through the excitement, woke up as Doc re-entered the lounge, his clothes wet and his pants covered in mud. ‘What time is it, Gene?’ she asked.