Greyhound (11 page)

“Prison,” I stated. “Not jail.”

Marcus looked at me and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you ain’t got no smarts, understand? Prison it was.”

He told me the whole story—how he had been in the room with his cousin when the white man had tried to burglarize their house. He had called the cops, but they were both arrested. His cousin received a thirty-year sentence for manslaughter. He had received ten years as an accomplice but was released after eight years for good behavior. His cousin wasn’t so lucky. They went to separate facilities, and he had a harder time adjusting to being locked up. Mostly because they thought he was mute as he never spoke. One day, in a fight during a meal, Elias killed another inmate in self-defense. That was now two people he’d killed that way, and the state didn’t look too favorably upon him at all. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He had written Marcus a few times over the years, but eventually the letters stopped coming because, as Marcus explained, prison shaped Elias into something else.

“He became bitter, angry…he wasn’t the same. He slowly became a monster in there.” Marcus was clearly bothered by what he was telling me. “But that’s how it is if you’re a brother,” he admitted. “You get caught up in the system, and they own you. Believe me when I tell you this: they don’t ever have to let you go if they don’t want to. So do whatever you have to do, but don’t
ever
get caught up and get sent.”

“How did you get out then?” I wondered aloud.

He contemplated what I said for a moment before answering. “They released me on good behavior. I never did drugs. I never got into no fights or brutalized another inmate in any way. I worked in the mess hall morning, noon, and night, and I never missed a day. I guess they thought I’d be alright back in the real world.”

“What’s the mess hall? Sounds dangerous.”

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, shocked at the depths of my naïveté. “You can make a person laugh, that’s for sure. The mess hall is the kitchen. I was a cook. After five years, I was promoted to the head chef, and I made breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the warden and the top screws.”

“I’m not going to ask,” I replied sheepishly.

“A few of the head prison guards and sheriff’s deputies.”

“You missed your father’s funeral?”

He sighed. “I did. They wouldn’t let me take an escorted furlough to go see it, which can sometimes happen if you got some juice, some pull. But it was out of state and out of the question. The toughest day of my life in prison was the day I heard he died. I always knew I’d broken his heart by going in, but he knew how it was.”

“When that man broke into your house…” I began.

“Where was my pops? You were gonna ask that, weren’t ya? It’s okay, it’s a fair question.”

I shrugged. “Mmm-hmm.”

“He was down at the bar where he usually was, with his friends playing pool. My old man loved playing pool. He was like a duck in water on the table. Couldn’t be beat. He was just late that night. It wasn’t his fault, y’know. It’s just another one of those choices that I was talking about earlier. Got me?”

“He must’ve felt bad about it.”

Marcus gave his answer very slowly. “Yeah…he felt real bad about it for a long time. He didn’t forgive himself for what happened. My guess is that it ate at him until it finally consumed him. He loved me more than anything. Me going to prison was tough on him.”

I looked away, rubbed my eyes, and crossed my arms. I guess having a messed-up life like Marcus’s or my own must’ve been a part of something bigger, or rather something smaller. Something I didn’t quite understand. I kept thinking about the word
choices
over and over, as if it was being whispered in my ear.

“You gonna see your pops back in Altoona?” Marcus asked, somewhat changing the subject, but in other ways furthering it.

“I never really met my father,” I answered. “I mean…” I struggled for what I was trying to say again. My head was in a maze of words.

“It’s cool. I understand,” he replied, trying to diffuse some of the pressure.

“No, it’s not like that,” I spoke, trying to move my brain into place. “I’ve seen him once, but I can’t say that I ever really met him, because I don’t know him at all. Does that make any sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Marcus answered.

“One time, my grandma and my aunt took me to go see him where he lived in Pittsburgh with his new wife. She had three sons, and when I got there he didn’t seem very happy to see me. He acted like I was intruding and the other boys were more his sons than I was. At least that’s what I saw.” I looked over at Marcus, who was now listening intently but with a concerned expression and a raised eyebrow.

“So what happened?” he interjected.

“Well…that night…” I coughed nervously.

“It’s cool. Just between us and the bus.”

I breathed out a sigh of frustration and lowered the volume of my voice. “That night, I peed the bed. In the morning, I didn’t know what to say about it because I definitely couldn’t hide it. He acted insulted and embarrassed about it, even though I felt really bad. I’d wet the bed before, and it was just something I was going through at the time. When the other boys teased me, he didn’t say anything or try to stop them. He had a hard time even making eye contact with me at breakfast.”

“That’s pretty damn cold, man,” Marcus uttered bluntly. “That ain’t right by a long shot.”

“My grandma and my aunt took me back to Altoona after we ate. I thought that I was going to stay, because we had brought along two suitcases with my stuff. But it didn’t work out that way, and he didn’t even say goodbye when we left. I haven’t seen or heard from him since that day.”

“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 in 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.