Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett

air currents. For a moment, he is startled to know he can’t remember the name of the man he knows he’s going to see. But then he tells himself not to worry because he will remember and besides he has written it down somewhere on a piece of paper, and so then, calmed, he watches the snow.
    When the bus stops, he walks up to the driver and the driver says, “This is only Loveland, sir, and I think you’re bound for Greeley,” and so Ben turns around and finds his seat again. He feels that it is still warm from him sitting there before, and he appreciates the simple fact of blue cloth. He doesn’t need to go to the bathroom and he isn’t hungry, and he’s happy to be left alone by his body and its needs. He can simply watch the snow. The bus is stopped for a long time, it seems to him. People are getting on and off, and cold air seeping in, and the wind is picking up and the snow is starting to fall heavy, and the driver is talking on the radio. But he can ignore all this, corral it into only a small corner of his mind, and instead just watch the storm.
    When he faces forward, though, he finds that another man is sitting next to him and the man is saying, “Hope you don’t mind, I like to sit near the front, otherwise I get sick,” and Ben does mind, he glances around but it’s true the bus has filled up. There’s a woman-girl behind him that looks so much like his dead daughter that it startles him. He wonders, for a second, if she isn’t really dead. That he has been mistaken.
    â€œLuce,” the man says, putting his hand out, and so Ben shakes it. “Where you heading?”
    â€œOh, that place,” he says, and then to stall for time, he adds, “I didn’t know so many people took a bus. You know that town? Out there on the . . . plains. Greeley.”
    â€œGreeley always smells.”
    â€œYes, that’s true.”
    â€œIt’s the slaughterhouse.”
    â€œYes. But it’s gone now.” Ben thinks of the town on the plains, the town where he was born and where that bad man now lives, with its acres of land and old train depot. He has never heard of a man named Luce and wonders if that’s his brain or simply a strange name. His granddaughter’s name starts with the same letter, L . And his other granddaughter’s name is a J . They are good kids. They will be fine. He tightens his knees around the suitcase and feels for his wallet, which he has put into the front pocket of his gray pants, and yes, it is there.
    â€œSo you got one of those bracelets, huh?” The man says this and it takes Ben some time to realize he is talking about Ben’s safe return bracelet, so that he can be tracked like a cow, branded, returned to the right owner. Since Ben can’t form any words he just shrugs. He hates being embarrassed.
    â€œMy dad had one of those.” The man has pockmarks on his face, ugly ones, and teeth missing, and Ben feels sorry for a young man with a face like that.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œMe and my dad never did talk much, so I never knew it until one Christmas my sister called and said that I better get home and say my good-bye while he could still remember me.”
    â€œOh,” says Ben. “Yes, I guess that’s important. Good-byes are important.”
    â€œSo I did. Though he was mean as ever, and I wish now I hadn’t given him the pleasure of seeing me again.” Luce glances up at the driver and pops a wad of chew into his mouth and offers the tin to Ben, who shakes his head, no. Ben wonders if he should sleep or instead listen, but he feels lonely, he feels alert, he misses talking just for the sake of getting to know a person. He wonders if strangers always talk this much, telling personal stories.
    â€œMy dad was and is an asshole. You know what? He’s going to spend all the money he ever had. Jerk. Because money does help. Let’s face it. He could buy some forgiveness