Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [33]
I heard him then, bumping about inside. He opened the door, saw me, and then hollered back inside to his wife, Debbie, “He’s here.”
From inside, Debbie, who was due any day with their second child, said something I couldn’t understand.
Dewayne had slept in and was running late, but we eventually got into his old beater pickup and roared east on the highway to Route 63, through Bloomfield, then north, toward Ottumwa. Dewayne mumbled and swore about how he would be late for work. “Of all mornings to have to drop someone at the bus station.”
When we finally arrived in Ottumwa, he pulled up to the bus depot and braked. “Take it easy, Bud,” he said, extending his hand. “And good luck.” I grasped it, thanked him, and stepped out with my duffel bag. He roared away to his job at the John Deere factory.
Hope he doesn’t get written up for being late, I thought.
I walked into the station and, half timid, half scared, approached the counter. “How much for a ticket to Sioux City, Iowa?” I asked. After handing the man behind the counter just shy of thirty bucks, I realized that the bus would be leaving in about an hour. So, with my ticket clutched firmly in my hand, I sat on a bench in the station and waited.
And waited.
I was totally focused on what lay ahead. Not once did the thought cross my mind that I should just give it up and go back home. Not once. My only fear was that Dad would hire a driver, rush up to Ottumwa, and intercept me. I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to face him down. He might compel me to return. So I waited, fearfully scanning the street now and then for any sign of him.
The hour passed, and then, finally, the bus pulled up outside and hissed to a halt. I walked up, stepped through the sliding door, and gave the driver my ticket. A few minutes later, the bus shuddered and slid out of the parking lot, onto the street, through town, and then to the highway.
I was out. Free. I wondered—fleetingly—what was going on back home. But not much. I was too excited. I looked out the window at the rolling landscape as the bus rumbled along through town after town, stopping at stations here and there. Noon came and went, and by midafternoon, we approached Sioux City and pulled into the station. I got off and inquired about the next bus to Valentine, Nebraska. It would leave the next day, about midmorning. I bought a ticket and then walked around town to find a motel room.
I had left home with one hundred and fifty dollars, money from a horse I had recently sold. Well, it was a small horse, a half pony, really. And it was worth much more than that, but I needed the money to get away, so I took what I could get.
I found a ramshackle motel and booked a room, my first stay at any motel. It was a hovel, really—cheap, smelly, and damp. But to me, it seemed like a great, grand thing, a huge adventure—a motel room in a big city.
My lodging for the night secured, it was time to venture out and buy some clothes. My shirts were fine, I figured. But I really wanted to get rid of those barn-door pants. I walked around downtown, gawking through store windows until I spotted a clothing store. When I walked in, the worn hardwood floor creaked under my feet.
The clerk was a middle-aged man with a tiny gray mustache. He was stooped over a bit from years of service on the floor.
“I need a pair of jeans,” I told him.
“Certainly,” he replied, smiling. He showed me shelves loaded with stack after stack of blue jeans. But I had a problem. I had no idea what size I wore. Timidly, I mentioned that fact to him.
I’m sure it must have seemed strange to him that I didn’t even know my own size, but he didn’t blink an eye. Instead, he just smiled kindly, pawed through the piles of jeans, pulled out a few different sizes, and held them up to my waist.
“I’d suggest you try