plastic toys, nylon hose, clothes pins,
perfume. The soda fountain is intact, closed. No public-address voice
will ever exhort shoppers to pay attention to anything in here. No
yellow light will be wheeled around to sale zones. As a consequence,
everyone pays attention to everything, regards everything as a sale
item. I have narrowly avoided purchasing a menagerie of small rubber
monsters, after feeling them for minutes, watching for the bus
driver, who I think has started nipping. He is clever. He disappears
for a few minutes at these endless country stops, where there is
rarely a formal bus station. I believe he would leave me if he could.
Our cold war is strong.
I have begun distributing gifts to children on the
bus, for which he doubtless thinks me a pederast. I get back on and
whisper to the driver, "I'm an existentialist, pure and simple."
He says nothing.
In Fairhope I follow him, catch him in the men's room
pulling on a half pint of Seagram's. "You're an existentialist,
too," I say, washing up.
" I'm a drunk, kid." He says this with no
emphasis, no confession, no self-pity. I offer to shake hands. We
have a good, firm, countryman's shake.
" When the hell is this ride over?"
" Mobile."
" Not New Orleans?"
" Not me."
" It's been a good one."
He is taking another
tight-lipped shot, which he sucks in with a teeth-baring grimace. He
cants the bottle to me. I roll a long slug in, open-throated, careful
not to lip his bottle. We exit together, I get the door and he
touches my shoulder in return.
* * *
It has been a good bus ride. Now the driver and I are
on even terms: I am above the common passenger, he is lower than
ship's captain. In Mobile, end of the line, we run into each other at
the same run-down hotel where he stays regularly. "Lot of Greek
in this town," he says in the lobby. He is out of uniform. In a
flowered shirt, he suddenly looks seedy, dangerous.
" Are you Greek?" I ask.
" Hell no." He
laughs. "I eat Greek. Plenty Greek to eat here."
We wind up in the Athens Bar & Grill, where a
woman in green chiffon is trying to smother seated gentlemen with her
breasts while undulating her fatty navel at them. After a couple of
bottles of retsina, we eat something. The dancing gets wilder.
Fatima--Helen retires and middle-aged Greek men take over. They make
mime breasts, sculpt them out of air, and tease one another with
them. They hunch one another. One falls on his knees, miming sucking
his partner.
" Shall we have more turpentine?" I ask.
" I've had enough."
" You must not be Greek."
" I'm normal. I drive that bus twelve years. My
wife has cancer. My son works for the highway department. My wife
will die."
" I'm sorry."
" They're burning her now. They're in that stage.
This is not a joke. She stays hot ."
" I'm sorry."
" Don't mention it."
We watch the show, the men dancing, their own wives
watching them perform these suggestions. I suddenly know I am going
back to Knoxville.
" These Greeks are sports, aren't they?" I
say.
He--the driver, we have not exchanged names--shakes
his head, agreeably, sadly, gets up to go. In the hotel corridor the
next morning I pass two black women eating bagels. They are in
custodial blues, sitting heavily in a supply room, watching a
fire-alarm light blinking on the wall.
" Is the building afire?" I ask.
One of the women says, "The buzzer ain't gone
off."
We look at the light, blinking regularly, fast. "I
thought it smelled like fire in here last
night ," I say. "It stank."
" Yes, it did," the second woman says. She
is farther into the janitor's closet, not eating. She has a bagel
with a neatly applied quarter inch of butter troweled onto it. It is
as if she will not begin eating until the message carried by the
blinking light is understood.
" Well," I say, "I'm checking out."
They laugh, nodding.
" I love you," I say to them.
The second one, with the ready bagel, says, "You
say that."
" I say that."
The first woman looks at me, looks away. It seems to
me
perfume. The soda fountain is intact, closed. No public-address voice
will ever exhort shoppers to pay attention to anything in here. No
yellow light will be wheeled around to sale zones. As a consequence,
everyone pays attention to everything, regards everything as a sale
item. I have narrowly avoided purchasing a menagerie of small rubber
monsters, after feeling them for minutes, watching for the bus
driver, who I think has started nipping. He is clever. He disappears
for a few minutes at these endless country stops, where there is
rarely a formal bus station. I believe he would leave me if he could.
Our cold war is strong.
I have begun distributing gifts to children on the
bus, for which he doubtless thinks me a pederast. I get back on and
whisper to the driver, "I'm an existentialist, pure and simple."
He says nothing.
In Fairhope I follow him, catch him in the men's room
pulling on a half pint of Seagram's. "You're an existentialist,
too," I say, washing up.
" I'm a drunk, kid." He says this with no
emphasis, no confession, no self-pity. I offer to shake hands. We
have a good, firm, countryman's shake.
" When the hell is this ride over?"
" Mobile."
" Not New Orleans?"
" Not me."
" It's been a good one."
He is taking another
tight-lipped shot, which he sucks in with a teeth-baring grimace. He
cants the bottle to me. I roll a long slug in, open-throated, careful
not to lip his bottle. We exit together, I get the door and he
touches my shoulder in return.
* * *
It has been a good bus ride. Now the driver and I are
on even terms: I am above the common passenger, he is lower than
ship's captain. In Mobile, end of the line, we run into each other at
the same run-down hotel where he stays regularly. "Lot of Greek
in this town," he says in the lobby. He is out of uniform. In a
flowered shirt, he suddenly looks seedy, dangerous.
" Are you Greek?" I ask.
" Hell no." He
laughs. "I eat Greek. Plenty Greek to eat here."
We wind up in the Athens Bar & Grill, where a
woman in green chiffon is trying to smother seated gentlemen with her
breasts while undulating her fatty navel at them. After a couple of
bottles of retsina, we eat something. The dancing gets wilder.
Fatima--Helen retires and middle-aged Greek men take over. They make
mime breasts, sculpt them out of air, and tease one another with
them. They hunch one another. One falls on his knees, miming sucking
his partner.
" Shall we have more turpentine?" I ask.
" I've had enough."
" You must not be Greek."
" I'm normal. I drive that bus twelve years. My
wife has cancer. My son works for the highway department. My wife
will die."
" I'm sorry."
" They're burning her now. They're in that stage.
This is not a joke. She stays hot ."
" I'm sorry."
" Don't mention it."
We watch the show, the men dancing, their own wives
watching them perform these suggestions. I suddenly know I am going
back to Knoxville.
" These Greeks are sports, aren't they?" I
say.
He--the driver, we have not exchanged names--shakes
his head, agreeably, sadly, gets up to go. In the hotel corridor the
next morning I pass two black women eating bagels. They are in
custodial blues, sitting heavily in a supply room, watching a
fire-alarm light blinking on the wall.
" Is the building afire?" I ask.
One of the women says, "The buzzer ain't gone
off."
We look at the light, blinking regularly, fast. "I
thought it smelled like fire in here last
night ," I say. "It stank."
" Yes, it did," the second woman says. She
is farther into the janitor's closet, not eating. She has a bagel
with a neatly applied quarter inch of butter troweled onto it. It is
as if she will not begin eating until the message carried by the
blinking light is understood.
" Well," I say, "I'm checking out."
They laugh, nodding.
" I love you," I say to them.
The second one, with the ready bagel, says, "You
say that."
" I say that."
The first woman looks at me, looks away. It seems to
me
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