Hick - Andrea Portes [75]
FORTY–TWO
Somewhere between old Denver and new Denver, I get up from my seat and hurl myself forward past the fat calves and the Frito-Lay wrappers and the chocolate pudding kids. Somewhere outside of Denver I plant myself square next to the driver until he looks up, can’t help it.
“I gotta go back.”
“Look, kiddo, why don’t you—”
“I gotta go back. I left my medicine in the station and if I don’t take it within fifteen minutes I’ll die.”
“Look, kid, you don’t—”
“I am not kidding. I am an epileptic and if I don’t take my medicine I am gonna have a seizure and oh my God, I think I’m having one now . . .”
Before they know it I am on the ground, flopping around like a dead fish, just like Glenda taught me. Think of a lemon. Think of a lemon. Flop. Flop. Flop.
They are swarming round me now, screaming, hollering, praying to the good Lord oh Jesus Christ almighty. I even got a preacher leaning over me, saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over, add in some Hail Mary’s. Pandemonium. Anarchy. Cats are marrying dogs right there in the aisle.
We get to Denver in ten minutes flat and the preacher walks me out to the station. He’s not saying much but I’m still shaking it off. Pretend recover. Pretend recover.
“Okay, Father. I think the worst has passed.”
“That so?”
“Father. The Lord is with me. I thank you for your assistance but . . . God is my copilot. You go back to your . . . flock. And I’ll be safe. I’ll be safe here in the hands of Jesus.”
“Yeah, I imagine you will.” He nods, turns towards the bus. And I’ll be damned cause he starts to chuckle and shake his head. He chuckles himself all the way back to the bus, none too churchy.
Well, don’t that just beat all.
There’s a pitch-black bus that says Los Angeles in bright pink letters, like the letters themselves are having the time of their life and you can come to the party too, just get on. The air’s blowing out the bus, ice cold. I step on board and don’t even have a ticket. Hell, Glenda’d probably just ride the bumper.
“You got a ticket, Miss?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you need to have a ticket.”
“How much is the ticket?”
“Seventy-five dollars. But it’s too late.”
“How bout eighty dollars?”
“Too late.”
“How bout eighty-five and a six-pack of Coors?”
“Deal.”
“Thanks.”
I grab a seat right up front and take out the name Beau gave me. it’s a funny name, too. Bryn Kluck. 2312 Rhonda Vista. 363-821-1539. He even drew a little map, added cab fare from the station and a note of introduction. He put smiley-faces and arrows all over the map and drew a giant picture of the sun with sunglasses. He drew orange groves and a Hollywood sign and a few stars. He even drew that little school with the hobbit huts and a little girl in a beret.
See, here’s how it is:
There’s the look-back way where you could think about that old house in Palmyra and want to pull the planks out the floorboards or rip your hair out in clumps, fist by fist. You could stare backwards and want to tear your eyes out their sockets and the skin off your bones, inch by inch. You could shake your knuckles at the sky. You could get mad and say, I don’t got nothing. You could get stuck. Watch yourself. Watch yourself. Be careful. Just watch.
You could get mad and say why me why me, you could play that song over and over till you’re blue in the face. You could scream at the sun to give you your dad back. You could plant yourself square in the mud and drop your head down and never ever ever come back again. Or you could do like Glenda. You could do like Glenda and put a quarter in the jukebox and say, I’m gonna get myself a new song. I’m not looking back playing that same old song no more. I ain’t gonna spend my life staring at my socks, slouching to a chorus of mighta coulda shoulda woulda. No sir. I’m gonna get myself a new song called I’m gonna make something. it’s gonna be a hit. I’m gonna grab the dirt and make something and you just wait, you just wait. I’m gonna grab the dirt and make something and make it go boom.
Boom.
Acknowledgments
I must thank my brother, Charles de Portes,