The sun hangs high in the sky over a remote bus stop.
The road stretches for miles in both directions, dancing in the distance from
the heat. Dense forest parallels the desolate interstate. The small silhouette
of a man appears on the horizon. Slowly making his way to where another worn
soul already sits in a tattered green suit. A strained scratchy voice can be
heard in the background, drowned out by the man in the green suit’s old sad
harmonica tune;“ the tenses are irrelevant.” The figure hikes up on his brown
slacks, though they could not conceivable get any higher without an operation.
The few remaining strains of his hair flap in the breeze. Glasses engineered by
NASA hung on his blue plaid collared shirt, but he was too independent to use
them. As the man approaches the bus stop his distraught yelling is clear.
“ Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it! Those no-good,
sons a… Mass Transit Loonies. Putting the bus stops this far apart from each
other. Ew I outta, I mean Christ in this heat I coulda,… coulda whata em’ crazy
scientists call it… spontaneously comsploded.” Jacob stopped a few feet from
the other man, his arms still flailing wildly.
Jacob had a huge jaw and he chewed when he talked. The
old-timer planted on the bench slowly turned his gray speckled stark-white
bearded face and looked up at Jacob from under bushy eyebrows. Crowsfeet ran
infinitely. The man had a distinguished look. Through the shadow of his bent
Panama hat Jacob could see he had the nose of a prince.
“ Ain’t really that hot,” the old-timer said softly.
Jacob sprouted a new wrinkle. “ Ain’t really that hot,
my god man, it’s gotta be a million and 6 degrees out here.”
The old-timer interrupts Jacob’s ensuing rant with a
casual,” no it ain’t.”
Jacob’s scowl gradually lifted.
After rubbing his
shave patches Jacob replied,” yeah I guess you’re right.”
Jacob shuffled from in front of the bench, to behind it,
and then back to the front; like a dog circling his spot. Then while lowering
into sitting position, footing was lost and Jacob hit the plastic seat with a
grunt. The old-timer began laughing.
“ Oh that’s funny, is it?” Jacob said.
The old-timer just laughed harder.
“ Oh HAHA, you know I prably dislocated my hip on that
one.”
The old-timer gripped his cane across his lap and rocked
in hysterical soft laughter. Eyes completely eclipsed.
Jacob continued,” Er snapped a muscle, er…knocked
something lose, mighta dented my ass. Yeah I guess it is kinda funny.”
The old-timer polished off a few more chuckles, put his
arm on Jacob’s shoulder and said,” I’m getting rusty myself, friend.”
A smile pushed back Jacob’s segmented cheeks.
“ Friend huh, haven’t been called that in awhile.”
“ We’re all friends. What’s the matter fella, sounds
like somebody steamed you. Steamed you real good.”
“ I’ll tell ya it’s these kids nowadays. Wheely shoes.
Ya seen this? They’re puttin’ wheels in shoes, wheely shoes. The kids are
riding around on em’. Talking all the time on their cellamaphones; beeping, and
blinking, an buzzing. These kids have no respect for anyone antdoesn’t have the
newest haircut. The rest of em’ say old people are an ecanomic burden. You know
everybody has their place, but what’s ours? Once they started sending me
funeral home brochures in the mail, I knew they wanted me to die.”
The old-timer tugged on his beard and nodded.
“ Say friend what’s your name?” Jacob said.
“ Skip!” Replied the old-timer.
“ Skip, eh,” Jacob laid
back,” I always like the name Skip, not one those nicknames you can give
yourself. Miname’s Jacob, scept most people just call me ancient.”
They both laughed.
Skip offers Jacob a
cigarette, who refuses shaking his head. Skip lights it up and begins hacking
violently. Jacob digs in his pockets and pulls out an inhaler. He shoves it
into the suffering man’s hands. The coughing subsides without a squeeze of the
apparatus.
“ Thank you friend.”
“ Nat a problem, I got
breathing trouble. Though I don’t know how someone couldn’t these days, what
with air needin’ to be practly bottled.”
“ Hey, watch this,” Skip
said.
Skip lifted the cane he
held and began maneuvering it through his thick beard. It popped out on the
other side.
“ Has anyone seen my
cane? I can’t seem to find my cane.”
They both laughed.
Jacob spoke,” that’s
nice, I should grow myself a beard. That way anytime the world seems like too
much I could just pull up my beard over my face and hide.”
“ You feel the world is
too much sometimes, huh?”
“ Well when your wife of
twenty-six years runs off and leaves you with a note explainin’ it’s over, ya
that’s too much. Twenty-six years and a goddamn note! We were incompatible she
wrote. I just wish she didn’t have to use one of them 50-cent words to describe
why she was leavin’ me.”
“ Do you still find the
beauty in life?”
“ Ain’t beauty in life
anymore, everybody’s got concrete in their living rooms.”
“ Ya each took different
roads on the path of life but the journey continues, there will always be…”
“ Ya, ya, ya that’s very
Buddha. But what is life Skip, no one even cares, but what the hell is it?”
Jacob spoke with the seriousness of a thousand heart attacks.
“ Well I guess it’s a
collection of memories and a series of friendships,” Skip answered.
“ If that’s so Skip,
then what happens when the friends die?”
“ C’mon Jacob, your
friends don’t ever really disappear as long as you keep the memories.”
“ Now don’t you
sugarcoat it. You damn well know that the memories eventually fade. And then
who are ya? Who the fuck are ya without your friends, huh Skip? You got some
more Hallmark reassuring bullshit for that too?”
“ No I don’t, but you
still remember them don’t you?”
“ Yeah I guess I do, but
my memory’s bad. After going through life as long as we have it gets hard to
remember things. And you don’t try as hard when you get older. Maybe you don’t
wanna remember, cause remembering hurts. You know I don’t even remember waking
up this morning to get here.”
Skip gave Jacob a warm
smile and then tugged on his beard to bring it down. This made Jacob smile.
“ I’ve watched so many
of my friends be buried and thought why not me? Christ even that damn terrier I
got to replace Linda with, wouldn’t snap out of playing dead the other day.”
“ So you’re ready then
are ya,” Skip asked starring into Jacobs’s soul.
“ Ready? …What to die?
Well if what you say life is, then I’ve been dead.”
“ I suppose I mean, have
you lived a good life? Have you done everything you wanted? Have you made right
with the universe?”
“ Yeah I’ve tried to
live a good life.”
“ You answered that one
without even thinking.”
“ Guess I pulled a
Clinton,” Jacob chuckled to himself.
“ Have you been able to
figure people out?”
“ Yeah at least the
one’s that aren’t grown.”
“ There’s no one in your
life that you’d like to apologize to before you die?”
“ Nope not really.”
“ No one?” Skip’s soft
voice raised a decibel.
“ I could apologize to
my wife for something of maybe everything. Maybe I called her “the kernel” one
too many times. Sorry I guess to all the commuters I’ve given the finger to.”
Jacob paused awhile and then said,” There was somebody
else along time ago.”
“ Who was that?” Skip asked.
“ This was back in my 20’s; I guess you’d have to cut me
open and count the rings to find the exact year. A friend I had, Patrick told
me he was a quier. Called him a bunch of names an’ didn’t talk to em’ after
that. Didn’t needa call him all those names.”
“ He was a good friend?” Skip spoke with a somber face.
Jacob lashed out,” Look he was a dirty fag. Sick faggot
prably’s still fascinatin’ bout’ my butthole to this day. It’s just wrong, I
mean read your bible.”
“ Do you?”
There was a long silence and in an angry passive voice
Jacob uttered,” no.” Jacob changed topic and domesticated the conversation.
“ When’s the goddamn bus gonna get here?”
“ Where you going,” asked Skip?
Jacob looked puzzled and gnawed on his knuckle.
“ You must abandon the us vs. them mentality before you
go,” Skip said under his breath.
Jacob didn’t hear him. Something barreled down the road
on the horizon. Jacob boosted himself up.
“ Finally, the sheer random luck, the bus is here and
it’s about goddamn time.”
“ It hasn’t been that long,” said Skip.
“ Yeah I guess it hasn’t,” Jacob said quietly.
“ Are you sure you wanna take the bus in this direction?
Sure you don’t wanna take the bus in the other direction. Back to where your
from. Try it again?”
“ Yep, I’m supposed to go in this direction.”
“ Okay friend,” Skip said.
“ Need any change for the bus, Skip?”
“ Don’t need money on this bus.”
“ No money, what! Have the communists taken over the
buses too. Communists, heh. One time some kid asked if I thought the Russians
would start WWIII and nuke everybody? I told him no cause I’m not an optimist.”
Skip gave a thin smile. The bus was very close now.
“ Well Skip, it was, it was interesting. We should meet
up later. Conversation’s good. Only way the kids can talk to each other is on
frequencies in the sky.”
The bus screeched to a halt in front of the bus stop.
There were a few hydraulic releases and the doors swung open. Jacob stepped
onto the loading dock. He stood on the first step, his hand on the pole. There
was a hole in the stratosphere. A burn mark in the film. Jacob slowly turned to
Skip.
“ I’m dead, aren’t I Skip?”
Skip nodded.
Jacob’s eyes darted and his jaw quivered. The only thing
that came out of his mouth was,” oh.”
He raised his leg to take the next step but hesitated.
Gazing at Skip he blurted,” Aren’t you coming?”
Skip stared back,” no I’m goinga take the bus in the
other direction, but I’ll see you later, I promise.”
Jacob muttered another,” oh.”
Then as Jacob transcended the last step the realization
set in. Harmonica he whispered. He spun around and raced down the stairs to
catch Skip’s glance. A panic undercut his voice. Patrick!
“ Oh God Pat, Patrick…I’m…sorry.”
The old-timer formerly known as Skip gave a soon to be
new smile.
“ That’s alright Jacob. This is your bus, you’re going
in the right direction.”
Patrick performed one last beard trick and the bus was
moving. Still sentimentally waving, the bus doors were slam shut on Jacob.
Staring at the ground in disbelief he collapsed on the nearest seat. The
Afterlife Transit raged on into oblivion. Jacob’s sags pressed against the
Plexiglas. His bewildered eyes drifted towards the light. Rows of tract housing
ran for decades. Jacob’s eyes widened, A GREEN ROOF!
He mumbled,” Our house was…the only house on the whole
block with a green roof… and mother said it was probably the only house in the
suburb with that lovely shade.”
Jacob’s little brother was traveling by on the outside
newsreel. The seven year old was splashing around in a kiddie pool. Hose flooding
the lawn. The old man’s whimpers grew.
“ Timmy…Tim, Timmy, that’s Timmy.”
His fingers rapped against the screen.
“ Timmy it’s me,” Jacob rattled as he passed.
The memories and terrain converged. The mini-mart where
Jacob got his first job appeared on a hill.
“ Hey that’s, the first ass-head boss I ever had was
there.”
He had made a fist and was pounding it against the
barrier to his past. The bus picked up speed.
“ My first house! Actually the rats pitched in on rent
sometimes, ha ha!”
Darkness descended on the world. A familiar gray that
Jacob had become so accustomed to he almost forgot the light. His wife was
standing at the next bus stop. As she zipped by it looked like she was mouthing
the words,‘ I’m sorry.’
“ Linda! Stop the bus, stop the goddamn bus!!!”
Jacob swung to the front of the bus.
“ Stop the…”
No one was driving.
Jacob staggered back to his seat. A white light began to
fill the bus.
“ She was saying sorry,” he mumbled.
Breathing deeply he laid his head
back against the glass to a rapidly blurring backdrop. The light was intense
now. A smile was building. Jacob let out a throaty old person’s laugh. His
laugh got higher and higher until it became an infant’s giggle. Pure white
light consumed Jacob’s universe, there was to be no more thunder in it again.
The point of abstraction.
