The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories (10 page)

in which Uzi tries to teach Mordy something about life and gives up

Y
ou don't have a living chance of finding her,” Gelfand said, and helped himself to a beer. “I'll bet you anything.” “A beer.” I smiled and went on packing my bag. “A beer,” Gelfand mimicked. “D'you have any idea how many bods they got out there, you airhead? You're clueless. Me and you have been going back and forth for god knows how long on this two-by-two piece of shit, and we still don't know half the people here. So just where are you gonna look for her? In Kingdom Come? This Genevieve of yours might be living right next door.” “Desiree,” I corrected. “Desiree, Genevieve, Marie-Claire. What's the
difference?” Gelfand opened his beer on a corner of the table. “Just another rich piece of ass.” “Suit yourself,” I answered and went on packing. Last thing I wanted was to pick a fight with him. “What kind of kinky bourgeois snobs give their kid a name like that anyway? Listen, Mordy, if you do find her, you gotta introduce me to her mother.” “Promise.” I held up my hand. “Scout's honor.” “So where are you gonna start looking?” he asked. I shrugged. “Desiree always said she hated the city. She wanted to live somewhere more open. With a dog and a garden and everything, you know.” “That doesn't mean anything,” Gelfand shot back. “Babes always say that, and then they wind up renting a place in a ritzy uptown neighborhood with a nerdy roommate. I'm telling you, she could be living right around the corner.” “I dunno. I got this really strong hunch that she's not in the city.” I took a quick sip of beer. “Call it intuition. Worst could happen is we just took a ride.” “We?” Gelfand asked, suspicious. “Figure of speech, that's all,” I reassured him. “I never figured you'd come with me just to find some rich piece of ass. Besides, I know you got lots of commitments.” “Hey, listen.” Gelfand was still at it. “Don't get smart-assed.” “I'm not,” I said. “I just told you. I really wasn't expecting you to come.” “Gimme, like, one good reason, and I will. It's not like I'm out to be a jerk or anything.” “How about that I love her,” I tried. “No you don't.” Gelfand shook his head. “It's just like your stupid suicide. You're all about filling your head with words.” “No shit. And I guess your suicide was a stroke of genius?” “I'm not trying to diss you, Mordy. I'm just trying to tell you
something. I dunno, like I'm not even sure what it is.” Gelfand sat down beside me. “Lemme put it this way. Since you got here, how many times d'you get laid?” “Why?” “Just because.” “Actually laid? None, I think.” “You think?” “None,” I confessed. “But what's that got to do with it?” “Plenty. Because you're up to your eyeballs with sperm, got that? Everything you look at is gray. Your sperm count's so high and your brain's pressing against your skull so hard that you think you're having an out-of-body experience like nobody in the whole goddamn universe ever had before. Like you're so strung out it's worth dying for. Leaving everything. Going off to live in the Galilee. Ever live in the Galilee? You know, nothing but goat shit and once-a-day buses.” “Lay off, Uzi. I really don't need this, you know,” I cut in. “Just gimme the car, OK? And don't start bitching about the insurance. If I break anything, I'll pay for it.” “Don't go getting touchy on me all of a sudden,” Gelfand shot back and patted me on the shoulder. “All I said was that it's not a good enough reason. I didn't say I wouldn't come with you. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just bullshitting you. Maybe this Irma really is something special
 . . .” “
Desiree,” I corrected him again. “Right.” Gelfand smiled. “Sorry.” “Know what? Forget about rich bitches and love and all that shit.” I tried a different tack. “I've got another reason for you to come.” “Try me.” Gelfand shot the empty beer bottle in the garbage can and tried to sound interested. “You got anything better to
do?”

in which the two friends go looking for Desiree, and find Arabs instead

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elfand promised his parents he'd call every day, and right from the first block he started looking for a phone. “Take it easy, man,” I told him. “You been in South America, you been in India, you blew your brains out with a dumdum slug. Stop behaving like a fucking Boy Scout at summer camp.” “Get off my case, Mordy. I'm warning you,” Gelfand snarled and kept driving. “Just look at this place. Get a load of the characters around here. Tell you the truth, I dunno why I came with you.” The people outside looked a lot like the ones in our neighborhood—their eyes kinda dim, and dragging their feet. The only
difference was that Gelfand didn't know them—which was enough to make him paranoid. “I'm not being paranoid. Don't you get it? They're all Arabs.” “So what if they're Arabs?” I asked. “So what? I dunno. Arabs—suicides—doesn't that psych you out, even a little? What if they figure out we're Israeli?” “I guess they'll kill us again. Can't you get it into your skull they don't give a flyin' fuck? They're dead. We're dead.
Finito la comedia
.” “I dunno,” Gelfand muttered. “I don't like Arabs. It isn't even politics. It's something ethnic.” “Tell me something, Uzi. Aren't you fucked up enough without being a racist too?” “I'm not a racist.” Gelfand squirmed. “I just
 . . .
Know what? Maybe I am a little racist. But just a little.” It was getting dark, and the lights in Gelfand's beat-up old Chevy had been dead for a long time, so we had to stop for the night. He locked the doors from the inside and made us rack out in the car. We moved the seats back and tried to make like we were just about to zonk out. Once in a while, Uzi even went through the whole toss-and-turn routine. It was really pathetic. After an hour, even he had had enough. He pulled the seat back up and said: “C'mon, let's go find a bar.” “What about the Arabs?” “Screw the Arabs,” he said. “If worst comes to worst, we'll let 'em have it. Like in the army.” “You were never in the army,” I reminded him. “You were section eight, which kinda figures.” “Same difference.” Uzi got out of the Chevy and slammed the door. “I saw how they do it on TV.”

in which Uzi regrets not serving in the army, and discovers how hard it is to get dead bods to lose their composure

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urned out Uzi was right. It really was an Arab neighborhood. But I was right too, because they didn't give a fuck what passports we had before we got here. Their bar was called Djin, which was supposed to be a play on
djinni
, like the one in Aladdin's lamp, and on the stuff that chicks and dorks have with tonic when they can't handle scotch. Uzi said it was a lousy pun, but the truth is that after Stiff Drinks, anything sounded good. We sat at the bar. The bartender looked like he'd offed himself with a vengeance, and must have ended up in pieces. Uzi tried English, but the guy picked up on his accent right away and
answered in tired Hebrew. “No bottles, only draft,” he droned. His face was like a puzzle that someone started but gave up in the middle, with part of a moustache to the left of his nose, and nothing on the right. “Give us some draft beer then, bro,” Uzi said and slapped him on the shoulder. “Let's drink to the good ol' Security Forces, ya Muhammed.” “Nasser,” the bartender corrected stiffly, and started filling the glasses. “What's with the Security Forces thing? Were you in the army?” he asked as he poured. “Sure,” Uzi lied. “Undercover unit . . . Three straight years of battle rations, day in and day out!” Nasser handed Uzi the beer, and when he brought me mine, he whispered: “He's not all there, your friend, is he?” “I guess you could say that.” I smiled. “Never mind,” Nasser reassured me. “That's why he's so—what's the word? Irresistible.” “The guy's unreal!” Uzi said and downed half a glass in one go. “Me—irresistible!” “He was never really in the army, and it's eating him up,” I explained. “Sure I was,” Uzi argued. “I even re-enlisted. The gun—” he said, pointing to the hole in his temple and making like he was shooting a pistol, “my service weapon. Say, Nasser, how d'you close up shop?” Uzi was obviously trying to pick a fight, 'cause if there's one thing you're never supposed to ask around here it's how they offed. But this Nasser guy looked so wasted that even Uzi couldn't rattle him. “Kaboom!” He smiled faintly and wiggled his mangled body a little. “Can't you tell?” “No shit,” Uzi said. “Kaboom! How many d'you take with you?” Nasser shook his head and poured himself a vodka. “How should I know?” “You're pulling my leg.”
Uzi was all shook up. “You never even asked? Somebody must'a gotten here after you.” “It's not the kind of thing you ask,” Nasser said, and downed the shot of vodka. “Tell me where and when it was,” Uzi nagged. “If I was after you, maybe I could tell you how many . . .” “Drop it.” Nasser stiffened for a moment. “What for?” “Hey”—I made a move to change the subject—“It's packed here tonight.” “Yeah, dynamite.” Nasser smiled. “It's like this every night. Trouble is it's almost all guys. Every once in a while you get a couple of chicks. A tourist maybe. But hardly any.” “Say,” Uzi pressed on, “is it true that when you people go out on a job they promise you seventy nymphomaniac virgins in Kingdom Come? All for you,
solico
?” “Sure, they promise,” Nasser said, “and look what it got me. Lukewarm vodka.” “So you're just a sucker in the end, eh, ya Nasser,” Uzi gloated. “Sure thing.” Nasser nodded. “And you, what did they promise
you?”

in which Mordy dreams about him and Desiree buying a couch, and has a rude awakening

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hat night, in the car, I dreamed that Desiree and me are buying a couch, and the salesman is the Arab from the bar, the one Uzi kept hassling. He shows us all kinds of couches, and we can't decide on one we both like. The one Desiree wants is really gross, with red upholstery and everything, and I want something else—I can't remember what exactly. And we get into an argument right there in the store. We're not just discussing it. We're yelling. And it gets uglier and uglier, and we start saying things that really hurt, and then, in the dream, suddenly I get hold of myself, and I stop short. “Let's not fight,” I say. “It doesn't
matter. Just a stupid couch, that's all. The only thing that matters is that we're together.” And when I say it, she smiles, and then, instead of smiling back, I wake up in the car. Uzi's on the seat next to me, and he's tossing and turning in his sleep, cursing all sorts of people who were bugging him in his dream. “Stuff it,” he was telling someone who must have really gone too far. “One more word and you'll have a mud pie on your head.” I guess the guy just kept going, cause Uzi tried to get up, and caught the steering wheel in the ribs. With him awake too, we opened the windows and had a smoke. “Tomorrow we're getting a wigwam or an igloo, or whatever you call that piece of plastic shit they sell at camping supplies stores,” Uzi announced. “A tent,” I said. “Yeah, a tent. That's the last time we sleep in the car.” Uzi took one more puff, and threw the butt out the window. “He was an OK guy actually, that Arab in the bar. The beer was shit, but that Nasser was pretty sharp. You know what I was dreaming about?” “Yeah,” I said and took a drag of what was left of the cigarette, “that you're crapping on his head.”

in which the guys give a babe a ride, and try to make conversation

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he next morning, me and Uzi picked up this hitchhiker, which was kind of weird, if you stop and think about it, because nobody hitches rides around here. Uzi spotted her from a distance. “Holy shit! What a piece of ass,” he muttered under his breath. “A Juliet?” I asked with my eyes half shut. “A jewel of a Juliet!” he said, all hyped up. “I swear to you, Mordy, a chick like that, if we weren't seeing her here, I'd never guess she offed herself.” Uzi always gets spazzed out when he's horny, but this time he was really on the money. There was something full of life in her eyes that you don't see much around here. After
we passed her, I went on looking in the rearview mirror—long black hair and a backpack like hikers use—and suddenly I saw her stick out her thumb. Uzi saw it too, and hit the brakes. The car behind us almost bashed our brains in, but managed to swerve past us at the last second. Uzi backed up till we were right next to her. “Hop on in, sis,” he said, trying to sound totally cool, but it didn't really work. “Where you heading?” she asked suspiciously. “East,” I said. “East where?” she asked again, tossing her backpack on the backseat and climbing in. I shrugged. “You got a clue where you're going?” “You haven't been here long, I guess,” Uzi laughed. “Why's that?” she asked, kinda pissed. “'Cause otherwise you'd've figured out by now that nobody here has a clue. Maybe if we did, we wouldn't be here in the first place.” Her name was Leehee, and she told us that she really did just get here, and that she's been thumbing rides the whole time, because she's gotta find the people in charge. “The people in charge?!” Uzi laughed. “What do you think this is, a goddamn country club, where you go to the main office? This place is just like before you offed, only a little bit worse. By the way, when you were still alive, d'you ever go looking for God?” “No,” Leehee said, and offered me some gum. “But I didn't really have any reason to.” “And what reason do you have now?” Uzi laughed and took some gum too. “You're sorry you did it? 'Cause you know, if that's it, and you're all ready with your backpack and everything and you're just waiting for someone to hand you the visa back home . . .” “Tell me,” I butted in before he started getting really mean.
“Why'd you wait till we passed you before you stuck out your thumb?” “I don't know.” Leehee shrugged. “I guess I wasn't sure I wanted to hitch a ride with you. When I saw you from far away I thought you looked a little . . .” “Mean?” Uzi suggested. “No.” Leehee smiled awkwardly.
“Obnoxious.”