Norwood by Charles Portis

wearing a bright yellow dress with a white daisy on one side of the skirt part.
    Norwood stood up in a kind of crouch and tried to indicate that he was friendly and that he had a good place to sit back there. She came down the aisle and stopped and he stowed her gear in the overhead rack and she thanked him and took the seat in front of him, next to a woman with blue hair.
    They hit it off fine, the girl Rita Lee and the woman, and began at once to exchange confidences. The woman was a dental assistant from Richmond with a twenty-year pin who had been to Washington to see how laws are made. It was her first visit to Congress. “People who live right around something don’t care anything about it,” she said. “I bet if I lived at the Grand Canyon I wouldn’t go out and look at it much. And other people would be driving thousands of miles to see it.” Her husband had disappeared two years before and was subsequently found working as an able seaman on a sulfur boat, through a rude postcard he had foolishly sent her from Algiers, Louisiana. He was now back home, but living in the garage and drinking.
    The girl Rita Lee had been visiting her grandmother and certain cousins in Virginia. She was from near Swainsboro, Georgia. She was now on her way to Jacksonville, North Carolina, for a showdown with someone named Wayne at Camp Lejeune. Although she did not have a ring—she had not pressed him on that—they had had an understanding for more than a year now and she wanted to know what was up. There had been no letter for almost two months.
    â€œWhat is he, a officer?” said the woman.
    â€œBoy, that’s a good one,” said Rita Lee. “Lord no, he’s a Pfc down there in the Second Marines.”
    Norwood stuck his head up in the notch between the two seats. “Do you mean the Second Marines or Second Marine Division? ” he said.
    They looked up at him.
    â€œWhen you say Marines that means regiment. If you mean division you have to say division . Now he could be in the Second Marines, Second Marine Division, I’m not saying that. But he might be in the Sixth or Eighth Marines too and still be in the Second Division, that’s all I’m saying.”
    â€œI don’t know what it is right offhand,” said Rita Lee. “I’d have to look on a envelope. All I know is he drives a tank down there in the Second Marine something.”
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with tanks,” said Norwood. “Gunny Crankshaw used to be in tanks. That dude had a Silver Star. He shot down the gates of Seoul University. He had all his khakis cut down real tight and he would just strut around like a little banty rooster. Ever once in a while he would stop and take his handkerchief out and knock the dust off his shoes.”
    There was a heavy silence. The bus swerved to avoid a big tire fragment in the road but bumped across it anyway.
    â€œThat’s where somebody throwed a recap,” said Norwood. “They get hot enough and they’ll just peel right off. You can’t tell about a recap. But if I’m driving on gravel a lot I’d rather have one. They’ll hold up better. It’s harder rubber.”
    â€œI think we’ve had about enough out of you,” said the dental assistant. “You’re butting into a private conversation.”
    â€œI was just trying to be friendly.”
    â€œWell, you’ll have to get back in your own seat. We can’t talk with your head up there like that.”
    At the bus station in Richmond Rita Lee had a Pepsi-Cola and a sack of peanuts. Norwood moved in on the stool beside her and ordered coffee.
    â€œWhuddaya say.”
    â€œOh, you, hi. Say, I like your hat.” She poured the peanuts into the bottle and shook it and fizzed a little into her mouth from an inch or two away. The goobers boiled up in carbonated turmoil. “My hair is just a mess.”
    â€œIt don’t look