“The air smells different,” I comment, lightheaded.
“That’s the piñon trees!” says Sweet Caroline. “This way!” We thread our way to the front of Road Hog and some kids make room for us there. I thump next to Sweet Caroline and twine my arms around the roof rack so I won’t slide off.
Kids are boarding the bus below me, still coming up to the roof behind me. The air splits with the sound of growling engines, their exhaust meets my nose, and suddenly we are moving, swaying, and kids are screaming, scattering on the ground below or falling into one another on the roof above, and the buses are racing like lumbering monsters across the bumpy meadow grass and up the hill.
“Hold on!” screams Sweet Caroline. She is glowing with excitement. My heart — that slumbering organ in my chest — hammers so hard against my ribs it brings tears to my eyes. I lurch and slide along with the bus and open my mouth to scream along with everyone else, and that’s when I see Norman — Norman! He’s driving his bus! In the race!
“Norman!” I scream, but he can’t hear me. “Norman!”
NORMAN
The Hospital Bus veers in front of me and I have to brake. It gets way ahead of us all, but conks out going up the hill. Its riders abandon ship and scurry out of the way like mice. That leaves me, Norman, in the lead.
“This is great!” says Red. “You can do it!” I slow to pass the Hospital Bus and manage to avoid flattening any riders. Some of them clamber onto my bus and grab seats inside — “Thanks, man!” — and we keep going, up and around the flag, and start back down toward the finish line.
MOLLY
Norman is in the lead! And we’re right behind him. Road Hog wheezes to the right of the Hospital Bus, which appears to be dead.
“Watch out!” comes the screaming from the top of our bus. We’re headed too far to the right, and there’s the swami from India in a turban and a long white robe waving his arms at us while people sitting on the ground in front of a big tent start to scatter.
The bus lurches to the left to correct itself and almost bangs into the Kitchen Bus with Wavy Gravy on top screaming, “Be carefuuuuuul!”
A man jumps out of the Hospital Bus and claws his way onto Road Hog’s wide fender, where he waves both arms in front of the windshield and screams, “Press on! Press on!” Then he slips off the bus and I watch him roll like a tumbleweed away from us.
NORMAN
We’re all rumbling ahead now, almost bouncing down the hill, on the stretch back to the starting line. The engines are having a much easier time of it downhill and the race is close, although we’re spread all over the wide course. “Floor it, Florsheim!” I shout, and I pull ahead of the pack until I see a little kid standing smack on the course in front of us, just standing there, frozen at the sight of all these buses barreling for him.
“It’s a kid!” yells Red.
Wavy’s on top the Kitchen Bus screaming, “Get the kid! Get the kid!” Someone on the ground grabs the kid and rolls out of the way with him. In my panic I have veered sharply to miss the kid and my bus begins to wobble like it wants to fall over. I work desperately to keep it from toppling. Riders slide off the roof.
“TENT!” yells Red. I see it — it’s a pup tent — but I can’t maneuver to miss it. My mind is wrinkling. I can’t breathe.
I run over the tent and it flies into the air and lands on the windshield of the Queen of Sheba Bus.
“Nobody in the tent!” yells Red in the wildest voice I have ever heard.
I manage to get my bus back on the course as Road Hog begins to pass me.
“Norman!” I hear. “Gooooo, Norman!”
It’s Molly’s voice and it’s everything I need right now. I smash the clutch, jam the bus into fifth gear, stomp the accelerator, pop the clutch, and jump ahead of Road Hog just far enough to nose the win. “Yes!” I shout. Yes never felt so good.
Kids at the finish line dodge the incoming buses and cheer. Riders begin boiling off the buses and onto the vibrating ground. I cut my engine and suddenly all the engine clangor stops and it’s quiet enough to hear a baby crying nearby.
I leap from my seat onto the ground in one movement and whoop like a conquering barbarian, my arms raised and my fists pumping over my head. I am victorious! And … I am so relieved it’s over.
Kids are tousling my hair, pounding me on the back, asking, “Who are you, man?”
“He’s Florsheim!” spouts Red. He is so proud it makes me laugh.
Then Wavy appears. “It’s a miracle nobody got killed!” he crows. “A miracle!” He claps me on the back. “What’s the name of the bus, young prince?”
“It doesn’t have a name,” I tell him.
“Well, now it does,” says Wavy. “Is it male or female?”
“Neither.”
“Ahhhh,” says Wavy. “‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.’ Thank you, Walter Whitman. I christen this bus Multitudes!”
The crowd cheers. “Long live Multitudes!”
“And the Silver Bell as your prize!” says Wavy. He hands me a bell to attach at the bus door. “May Multitudes wear it with pride. And may Road Hog win it back next year!”
A girl named Saffron drapes love beads around my neck. Then Sweet Caroline is right in front of me. She nudges Saffron aside and kisses me. Kisses me. A girl kisses me. I stagger backward in surprise, find my footing, and then do the only sensible thing. I kiss her back.
MOLLY
I see that kiss. I see everything. I see the way they make over Norman, the way he laps it up, the thrill on his face when he is kissed, the applause from the crowd. And I know I won’t get him out of here today if Barry’s life depends on it. And it might. I walk over to where the gong is ringing and a couple wearing love beads and meadow flowers is getting married.
“Let these be your desires,” says a woman standing in front of them. “To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”
“The Prophet,” says a girl next to me, watching. “Do you know it?”
I shake my head. I don’t have a winged heart, and my days aren’t full of loving. I try to picture Barry in San Francisco, but I can’t. I picture him in the army, wearing a uniform, slogging through the jungle like the soldiers I saw on the news. I picture him coming home in a box. I picture us at his funeral, and I cringe. We need to get going. We are wasting time on this longest day.
NORMAN
The sound of drums is everywhere across the meadow, but for once I don’t play. I sit at the bonfire with Sweet Caroline and my new friends as the daylight finally fades on this longest day and I wonder what the veil is that Sweet Caroline said is so thin on solstice. She squeezes my hand and asks me a question. “Are you a Virgo?”
I shake my head and answer her. “No. I’m a drummer.”
She giggles. I love that giggle.
Kids walk in a circle around the bonfire and toss pebbles into it with their whispered wishes imprinted on them. Some of them cry. Wavy is there, too, and he tells us, “Being deeply loved gives you strength. Loving deeply gives you courage. Take care of one another.”
Barry floats into my mind. Come on, Norman. Come with me. I’ll take care of you. He was only sixteen, so I was fourteen, Molly’s age now. He took me with him to Myrtle Beach, ninety-four miles up the coast, north of Charleston. I was so excited! We walked the boardwalk, rode the rides, listened to the beach bands, and he promised me we’d start a band together. I’ll be right back, he said. We’ll get pizza.
He disappeared for hours while I sat on a bench in front of the Skee-Ball place, watching the road as the boardwalk emptied for the night and I had nowhere to go, until there he was with the car, smiling that megawatt grin, shouting, Hop in! and telling me all about it, what happened, and telling me what to tell our parents. Which I did. And which, suddenly I realize, meant I took care of him.
I’m not that kid anymore. I’m somebody else. I have a dog. I have a girl
. I have a bell. I’ve had a swim. The world is a strange place.
“What breaks your heart?” Wavy is saying as the sparks from the bonfire float into a mulberry sky. “That’s where you will find your purpose. Don’t follow your bliss! Follow your heartbreak. That’s where you can work to change the world. Now, take in a deep breath and let it out for peace!”
“He’s an emotion machine,” says a kid near me.
“I should look for Molly,” I say to Sweet Caroline.
“I saw her,” Sweet Caroline replies. Her voice is soothing, enchanting. “She’s safe, she’s in the bus.”
I close my eyes and sigh as Sweet Caroline rests her head on my shoulder.
MOLLY
I would spend the night on the bus, but kids have lanterns and are painting it, and no, I don’t want to help, thank you, so I drag the small tent out of the back and find a place to set it up, unroll my sleeping bag, and decide to sleep in my clothes. I need a sweatshirt and a flashlight, though, so I troop back to the bus and rummage for what I need.
The flashlight isn’t in my navigator’s box or the box next to the driver’s seat, so I feel around in the dark until I find a small metal box under the driver’s seat. I pull it out, switch on the map lamp, and open the box.
There is the envelope with what’s left of the money from Uncle Bruce. It doesn’t look like much. There is Norman’s tape from Muscle Shoals. And there is something else. Letters. A year’s worth of letters, stacked on their sides like little soldiers, one after the other, and held together with a loop of string. Letters to Norman. From Barry.
Come here, Polka Dot. Let me count those freckles.
THE AGE OF AQUARIUS
From the musical Hair
Written by James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermot
Performed by the Fifth Dimension
Recorded at Wally Heider Studios, Hollywood, California, 1969
Drummer: Hal Blaine
The morning sun washed over the bees in the meadow flowers as Norman found Molly in line for breakfast.
“You’re not going to believe the bus!” he said, laughing. “It’s wild!”
Sweet Caroline, her long yellow hair a coagulated mess, hung on to Norman like laundry on a clothesline. “It’s groovy!” she chirped, which made Norman laugh again.
Molly reached for her breakfast in a paper cup.
“Wow, what is that?” asked Norman. “Gravel?”
“It’s granola,” said a young woman in the makeshift kitchen. She wore a bandana and a slip. She handed Molly an apple for her other hand.
“Thank you.” Molly was starving. “I’m ready to go,” she told Norman without looking at him. She had her hair in a neat ponytail once again. She had scrubbed her face and filled their coffee thermos with water from the creek.
“Where did you sleep last night?” Norman asked.
“Over there,” she said simply, without gesturing. The granola was dry oats with raisins and sunflower seeds. She would need water to wash it down. “I’ll meet you at the bus.”
If Molly hadn’t seen its transformation happening with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed the bus was theirs. M U L T I T U D E S was painted in purples, blues, reds, and greens under her crude flower garden. Eyelids and lashes and brows were painted around the headlights so the bus was looking at her. She half expected it to blink. Swirls and splotches and stick figures and peace signs skipped across the white surface and flowers bloomed everywhere Molly looked. She walked all the way around and stopped at the open door. A bell hung outside. She rang it and entered.
“Breakfast!” she called in an irritated voice. She handed the granola to the first person who sat up, and kept the apple for later. “This bus is leaving in ten minutes!”
By the time she returned with her tent and sleeping bag, Norman had the bus idling and was checking the oil. “We’ll stop for gas in Santa Fe,” he said. “It’s close.”
Sweet Caroline cooed in the affirmative as if she was along for the ride. Molly didn’t protest — what would be the point? They pulled out of the Aspen Meadow with Sweet Caroline aboard.
Molly kept quiet. She didn’t even wrestle Sweet Caroline for the navigator’s seat. Prying her out of it was going to be a battle. Sweet Caroline had claimed it before Molly got on the bus and now she kept her hand on Norman’s shoulder, rubbing it just so, and said she knew how to get to the Plaza Café, where they could get the best breakfast in Santa Fe.
Norman’s jeans looked the worse for wear after a day and night outside, which was a good thing. He’d completely given up his white oxford shirts and was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt with Disneyland scrawled under Mickey’s smiling face. It was too small for him. Molly could not help the look she gave him when she saw him sitting in the driver’s seat in a shirt that must have belonged to Sweet Caroline, his alabaster skin peeking out around the bottom and the flesh on his upper arms seeing daylight for the first time this year, if you didn’t count the moment outside the tipi with Sadie. Or the moment at the hot springs.
Sweet Caroline saw Molly’s look and said, “It’s too big for me.”
Sweet Caroline was wearing Norman’s T-shirt, which barely managed to look like a dress on her. She had very long legs. Her hair was now neatly brushed and shining. She wore a wreath of meadow greenery and flowers. She giggled.
Molly kept her mouth shut and took her place in the front passenger seat behind the half-high silver wall by the stepwell. The seat where Birdie and Margaret had sat, where Emily and her baby had sat, where Ray sat after Emily left the bus. Where Kyle sat before the bus – Multitudes, if you please – had conked out on the road to Little Rock. The seat where Carol had nursed her baby. It was a famous seat. And now Molly was in it.
Once they reached the Square in Santa Fe, Molly searched through her suitcase for a pair of shorts for Sweet Caroline and found tucked into a side suitcase pocket the skirt and scarf that Lucy had bought her in Atlanta. “Oh!”
Molly unrolled the skirt and shook it out. Its beautiful, bright colors reminded her of the walk down the Strip, the music at the Twelfth Gate, the feelings that she had almost allowed into her life again. She hadn’t realized until this moment how she had loved that night.
“So pretty!” exclaimed Sweet Caroline.
Molly handed it to her. “A loan,” she said. She couldn’t bear to part with it again. Sweet Caroline wrapped it around herself expertly, tied it handily, and twirled in the bus aisle.
“Now you’re dressed to go out in public,” said Molly.
They found the Plaza Café and had the best meal of the trip. Norman and his new space-alien persona could not ruin Molly’s meal. Neither could Sweet Caroline, who talked and giggled incessantly. Molly cut herself off from listening or participating in the conversation and Norman didn’t even notice. Molly worried about Flam running off, but he waited patiently on the sidewalk for them in the shade of the awnings. Passersby gave him a pat and he thumped his tail.
Molly had never heard of huevos rancheros but loved it. Norman got the green chili cheeseburger and moaned appreciatively at every hot bite. Then he ordered a second one. Sweet Caroline ate every syrupy bit of her blue corn pancakes except the bites she fed Norman from her own fork. Molly gritted her teeth and pretended she didn’t notice.
Norman took his second burger and fries with him in a paper sack as they left the restaurant. He bought silver and turquoise bracelets for Janice and Pam from the local artists on the Square. Sweet Caroline pined for a silver hair clip and Norman bought it for her. When Sweet Caroline spied a silver ring and giggled, Norman bought that as well. In return, Sweet Caroline kissed him on the cheek.
Molly had had enough of the lovebirds. “I’ll meet you at the bus,” she said. She let them get ahead of her and watched them waltz past a young man wearing a dirty army jacket, baggy brown pants, and work boots with no laces, the tongues flapping out. He sat on a low adobe wall and stared into space. Molly made note of his tangled black hair a
nd vacant expression.
As she came close to him, he spoke. “This used to be a fort. There were wars here. Many skirmishes.”
She considered not stopping. Norman and Sweet Caroline were well ahead of her with Flam, Sweet Caroline weaving her jeweled hand into the bright morning sun like it was a cobra.
The young man still stared ahead at nothing. “It was a stockade before that. Full of cattle. On their way to be slaughtered. Like we were.”
Molly’s scalp prickled. She slowed her step but kept walking.
As she passed him, he said, “Always keep your enemy in sight.”
She turned around then and faced the man.
He finally looked at her. “I am not he.”
She licked her lips, took a breath, and asked, “Who are you?”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Molly bounded up the stepwell and onto the bus.
Sweet Caroline was sitting in Norman’s lap in the driver’s seat, pretending to drive. “Where were you! We almost had to leave without you, didn’t we, Norman?”
Norman tried a laugh but Molly cut him off.
“This is Victor Martinez. He’s coming with us.”
Sweet Caroline got up. She swung into the seat behind Norman, put her hand on his shoulder, and giggled.
“Stop giggling,” Molly ordered. “Norman, start driving.”
Victor Martinez came quietly up the steps. He looked at no one. There were only four rows of seats left in the bus and Victor sat in the last row. He smelled like too many days in the same clothes without a shower. He smelled like the dumpsters behind the Plaza Café. He carried a large paper sack with him, well creased and rolled over at the top where he gripped it.
Molly stuck out her hand to Norman, palm up. “Give me your extra burger.” She walked the sack to Victor and handed it to him. “We just ate,” she said. “We’re full.” Victor took the sack wordlessly and turned to look out the window.
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