The Wayward Bus

by John Steinbeck

  He put the comb back in his pocket and inspected himself again in the mirror. He ran his hand over the sides of his hair. He felt behind to see that no strands were out and that the duck tail was lying down. He straightened his regulation black ready-made bow tie and he took a few grains of sen-sen out of his inner shirt pocket and threw them in his mouth. And then he seemed to shake himself down in his coat.

  Just as his right hand went to the brass knob of the washroom door, Louie’s left hand flipped fingers up and down his fly to be sure he was buttoned up. He put on his face a little crooked smile, half worldliness and half naïveté, an expression that had been successful with him. Louie had read someplace that if you looked directly into a girl’s eyes and smiled it had an effect. You must look at her as though she were not only the most beautiful thing in the world, but you must keep looking into her eyes until she looked away. There was another trick too. If it bothered you to look into people’s eyes, you should look at a point on the bridge of the nose right between the eyes. To the person looked at it appeared that you were looking into the eyes, only you weren’t. Louie had found this a very successful approach.

  Nearly all his waking hours Louie thought about girls. He liked to outrage them. He liked to have them fall in love with him and then walk away. He called them pigs. “I’ll get a pig,” he would say, “and you get a pig, and we’ll go out on the town.”

  He stepped through the door of the washroom with a kind of lordliness, and then had to back up because two men came down between the benches carrying a long crate with slats to let air in. The side of the crate said in large white letters MOTHER MAHONEY’S HOME-BAKED PIES. The two men went in front of Louie and through to the loading platform.

  The girl was sitting on a bench now, her suitcase beside her on the floor. As he moved across the room Louie took a quick look at her legs and then caught her eyes and held them as he walked. He smiled his crooked smile and moved toward her. She looked back at him, unsmiling, and then moved her eyes away.

  Louie was disappointed. She hadn’t been embarrassed as she should have been. She had simply lost interest in him. And she was a looker too—fine well-filled legs with rounded thighs and no stomach whatever and large breasts which she made the most of. She was a blonde and her hair was coarse and a little broken at the ends from a too-hot iron, but well-brushed hair that had good lights in it and a long, curling bob that Louie liked. Her eyes were made up with blue eyeshadow and some cold cream on the eyelids and plenty of mascara on the lashes. No rouge, but a splash of lipstick that was put on to make her mouth look square, like some of the picture stars. She wore a suit, a tight skirt and a jacket with a round collar. Her shoes were tan saddle-leather with white stitching. Not only a looker but a dresser. And the stuff looked good.

  Louie studied her face as he walked. He had a feeling that he had seen her someplace before. But then, she might look like someone he knew, or he might have seen her in a movie. That had happened. Her eyes were wide set, almost abnormally wide-set, and they were blue with little brown specks in them and with strongly marked dark lines from the pupil to the outer edge of the iris. Her eyebrows were plucked and penciled in a high arch so that she looked a little surprised. Louie noticed that her gloved hands were not restless. She was not impatient nor nervous, and this bothered him. He was afraid of self-possession, and he did feel that he had seen her somewhere. Her knees were well-covered with flesh, not bony, and she kept her skirt down without pulling at it.

  As he strolled by Louie punished her for looking away from his eyes by staring at her legs. This usually had the effect of making a girl pull down her skirt, even if it was not too high, but it hadn’t any effect on this girl. Her failure to react to his art made him uneasy. Probably a hustler, he said to himself. Probably a two-dollar hustler. And then he laughed at himself. Not two dollars with that stuff she’s wearing.

  Louie went on to the ticket window and smiled his sardonic smile at Edgar, the ticket clerk. Edgar admired Louie. He wished he could be like him.

  “Where’s the pig going?” Louie asked.

  “Pig?”>

  “Yeah. The broad. The blonde.”

  “Oh, yes.” Edgar exchanged a secret man-look with Louie. “South,” he said.

  “In my wagon?”

  “Yeah.”

  Louie tapped the counter with his fingers. He had let the little fingernail on his left hand grow very long. It was curved, like half a tube, and sanded to a shallow point. Louie didn’t know why he did this, but he was gratified to notice that some of the other bus drivers were letting their little fingernails grow too. Louie was setting a style and he felt good about it. There was that cab driver who had tied a raccoon’s tail on his radiator cap and right overnight everybody had to have a piece of fur flapping in the breeze. Furriers made artificial fox tails, and high-school kids wouldn’t be seen in a car without a tail whipping around. And that cab driver could sit back and have the satisfaction of knowing he had started the whole thing. Louie had been letting his little fingernail grow for five months and already he’d seen five or six other people doing it. It might sweep the country, and Louie would have started the whole thing.

  He tapped the counter with the long, curved nail, but gently, because when a nail gets that long it breaks easily. Edgar looked at the nail. He kept his left hand below the counter. He was growing one too, but it wasn’t very long yet, and he didn’t want Louie to see it until it was much longer. Edgar’s nails were brittle, and he had to put colorless nail polish on his to keep it from breaking right off. Even in bed it broke once. Edgar glanced toward the girl.

  “Figure to make some time with the—pig?”

  “No harm trying,” said Louie. “Probably a hustler.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with a good hustler?” Edgar’s eyes flicked up. The girl had recrossed her legs.

  “Louie,” he said apologetically, “before I forget, you’d better see to the loading of that crate of pies yourself. We had a complaint last week. Someplace along the line somebody dropped the crate and a raspberry pie got all mixed up with a lemon pie and there was raisins all over hell. We had to pay the claim.”

  “It never happened on my run,” said Louie truculently. “It goes to San Juan, don’t it? That jerk line from Rebel Corners done it.”

  “Well, we paid the claim,” said Edgar. “Just kind of check it, will you?”

  “There wasn’t no pies dropped on my run,” Louie said dangerously.

  “I know. I know you didn’t. But the front office told me to tell you to check it.”

  “Why don’t they come to me?” Louie demanded. “They got complaints, why don’t they call me up instead of sending messages?” He tended his anger as he would a fire. But he was angry at the blonde. The god-damned hustler. He looked up at the big clock on the wall. A hand two feet long jerked seconds around the dial, and in the reflection of the glass Louie could see the girl sitting with crossed legs. Although he couldn’t be sure because of the curve of the glass, he thought she was looking at the back of his head. His anger melted away.

  “I’ll check the pies,” he said. “Tell them there won’t be any raspberries in the lemon pie. I guess I’ll make a little time with the pig.” He saw the admiration in Edgar’s eyes as he turned slowly and faced the waiting room.

  He was right. She had been looking at the back of his head, and when he was turned she was looking in his face. There was no interest, no nothing, in her glance. But she had beautiful eyes, he thought. God-damn, she was a looker! Louie had read in a magazine that wide-set eyes meant sexiness, and there was no doubt that this girl put out a strong, strong feeling of sex. She was the kind of girl everybody watched walk by. Why, she walked in a place and everybody turned and looked at her. You could see their heads turn, like watching a horse race. It was something about her, and it wasn’t make-up and it wasn’t the way she walked, although that was part of it too. Whatever it was, it projected all around her. Louie had felt it when she came in fr
om the street and the light was behind her so he couldn’t really see her then. And now she was looking in Louie’s face, not smiling, not putting out anything, just looking, and he still felt it. A tightness came into his throat and a little flush rose out of his collar. He knew that in a moment his glance would slide away. Edgar was waiting, and Edgar had faith in Louie.

  There were a few lies in Louie’s reputation but actually he did have a way, he did make time with pigs. Only now he wasn’t easy. This pig was getting him down. He wanted to slap her face with his open hand. His breath was rising painfully in his chest. The moment was going to be over unless he did something. He could see the dark raylike lines in her irises and the fullness of her jowls. He put on his embracing look. His eyes widened a little and he smiled as though he had suddenly recognized her. At the same time he moved toward her.

  Carefully he made his smile a little respectful. Her eyes held onto his, and a little of the coldness went out of them. He stepped near to her. “Man says you’re going south on my bus, ma’am,” he said. He almost laughed at that “ma’am,” but it usually worked. It worked with this girl. She smiled a little.

  “I’ll take care of your bag,” Louie went on. “We leave in about three minutes.”

  “Thanks,” said the girl. Her voice was throaty and sexy, Louie thought.

  “Let me take your suitcase. I’ll put it on now and then you’ll have a seat.”

  “It’s heavy,” said the girl.

  “I ain’t exactly a midget,” said Louie. He picked up her suitcase and walked quickly out to the loading platform. He climbed into the bus and put the suitcase down in front of the seat that was right behind his seat. He could watch the girl in his mirror and he could talk to her some when they got rolling. He came out of the bus and saw the punk and another swamper putting the crate of pies on top of the bus.

  “Careful of that stuff,” Louie said loudly. “You bastards dropped one last week and I got the beef.”

  “I never dropped nothing,” said the punk.

  “The hell you didn’t,” said Louie. “You watch your step.” He went through the swinging doors to the waiting room.

  “What’s eating him?” the other swamper asked.

  “Oh, I sort of jammed him up,” said the punk. “The nigger found a wallet and I seen it, so they figured they got to turn it in. It was a big roll of jack too. They’re both sore at me ’cause I seen it. Louie and that nigger was gonna split them up a coupla half centuries and I guess I jammed it for ’em. Course they had to turn it in when they seen I saw ’em.”

  “I could use some of that,” said the swamper.

  “Who couldn’t,” said the punk.

  “I can take me a century and I can go out and I can get very nice stuff for that there.” They went on for a time with ritual talk.

  In the waiting room there was a little burst of activity. The crowd for the southbound bus was beginning to collect. Edgar was busy behind the counter, but not too busy to keep his eye on the girl. “A pig,” he said under his breath. It was a new word to him. From now on he would use it. He glanced at the little fingernail on his left hand. It would be long before he would have as good a one as Louie’s. But why kid himself? He couldn’t make time like Louie anyway. He always ended up by going down the line.

  There was a last-minute flurry of customers at the candy counter, at the peanut vending machines, at the gum dispensers. A Chinaman bought copies of Time and Newsweek3 and rolled them carefully together and put them in his black broadcloth overcoat pocket. An old lady restlessly turned over magazines on the newsstand without any intention of buying one. Two Hindus with gleaming white turbans and shining black curly beards stood side by side at the ticket window. They glanced fiercely about as they tried to make themselves understood.

  Louie stood by the entrance to the loading platform and glanced continually at the girl. He noticed that every man in the room was doing the same thing. All of them were watching her secretly, and they didn’t want to get caught at it. He turned and looked through the swinging glass doors and saw that the punk and the swamper had got the crate of pies safely on top of the bus and the tarpaulin pulled down over it. The light in the waiting room dimmed to dusk. A cloud must have covered the sun. And then the light rose again as though controlled by a rheostat. The big bell over the glass doors clamored. Louie looked at his watch and went through the door to his big bus. And the passengers in the waiting room got up and shuffled toward the door.

  Edgar was still trying to make out where the Hindus wanted to go. “The god-damned rag heads,” he said to himself. “Why’nt they learn English before they start running around?”

  Louie climbed into the high seat enclosed by a stainless steel bar and glanced at the tickets as the passengers got on. The Chinaman in the dark coat went directly to the back seat, took off his coat, and laid the Time and Newsweek in his lap. The old lady clambered breathlessly up the step and sat down in the seat directly behind Louie.

  He said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, that seat’s taken.”

  “What do you mean, taken?” she said belligerently. “There aren’t any reserved seats.”

  “That seat’s taken, ma’am,” Louie repeated. “Don’t you see the suitcase beside it?” He hated old women. They frightened him. There was a smell about them that gave him the willies. They were fierce and they had no pride. They never gave a damn about making a scene. They got what they wanted. Louie’s grandmother had been a tyrant. She had got whatever she wanted by being fierce. From the corners of his eyes he saw the girl on the lower step of the bus, waiting behind the Hindus to get in. He was pushed into a spot. Suddenly he was angry.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I’m the boss on my bus. There’s plenty of good seats. Now will you move back?”

  The old woman set her chin and scowled at him. She switched her behind a little, settling into the seat. “You’ve got that girl in this seat, that’s what you’ve got,” she said. “I’ve got a mind to report you to the management.”

  Louie blew up. “All right, ma’am. You just get out and report me. The company’s got lots of passengers, but it hasn’t got many good drivers.” He saw that the girl was listening, and he felt pretty good about it.

  The old woman saw that he was angry. “I’m going to report you,” she said.

  “Well, report me then. You can get off the bus,” Louie said loudly, “but you’re not going to sit in that seat. The passenger in that seat got a doctor’s order.”

  It was an out, and the old woman took it. “Why didn’t you say so?” she said. “I’m not unreasonable. But I’m still going to report you for discourtesy.”

  “All right, ma’am,” Louie said wearily. “That I’m used to.”

  The old woman moved back one seat.

  “Going to hang out her big ear and catch me off base,” Louie thought. “Well, let her. We got more passengers than drivers.” The girl was beside him now, holding out her ticket. Involuntarily Louie said, “You only going as far as the Corners?”

  “I know, I’ve got to change,” said the girl. She smiled at his tone of disappointment.

  “That’s your seat right there,” he said. He watched the mirror while she sat down and crossed her legs and pulled down her skirt and put her purse beside her. She straightened her shoulders and fixed the collar of her suit.

  She knew Louie was watching every move. It had always been that way with her. She knew she was different from other girls, but she didn’t quite know how. In some ways it was nice always to get the best seat, to have your lunches bought for you, to have a hand on your arm crossing the street. Men couldn’t keep their hands off her. But there was always the trouble. She had to argue or cajole or insult or fight her way out. All men wanted the same thing from her, and that was just the way it was. She took it for granted and it was true.

  When she’d been young she’d suffered from it. There had been a sense of guilt and of nastiness. But now she was older she just accepted it and developed her
techniques. Sometimes she gave in and sometimes she got money or clothes. She knew most of the approaches. She could probably have foretold everything Louie would do or say in the next half hour. By anticipating, she could sometimes stave off unpleasantness. Older men wanted to help her, put her in school or on the stage. Some young men wanted to marry her or protect her. And a few, a very few, openly and honestly simply wanted to go to bed with her and told her so.

  These were the easiest because she could say yes or no and get it over with. What she hated most about her gift, or her failing, was the fighting that went on. Men fought each other viciously when she was about. They fought like terriers, and she sometimes wished that women could like her, but they didn’t. And she was intelligent. She knew why, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. What she really wanted was a nice house in a nice town, two children, and a stairway to stand on. She would be nicely dressed and people would be coming to dinner. She’d have a husband, of course, but she couldn’t see him in her picture because the advertising in the women’s magazines from which her dream came never included a man. Just a lovely woman in nice clothes coming down the stairs and guests in the dining room and candles and a dark wood dining table and clean children to kiss good night. That’s what she really wanted. And she knew as well as anything that that was not what she would ever get.

  There was a great deal of sadness in her. She wondered about other women. Were they different in bed than she was? She knew from watching that men didn’t react to most women the way they did to her. Her sexual impulses were not terribly strong nor very constant, but she didn’t know about other women. They never discussed this kind of thing with her. They didn’t like her. Once the young doctor to whom she had gone to try to have the pain of her periods relaxed had made a pass at her, and when she had talked him out of that he had told her, “You just put it out in the air. I don’t know how, but you do it. Some women are like that,” he said. “Thank God there aren’t many of them or a man would go nuts.”