Greyhound by Piper Steffan

Author:Piper, Steffan [Piper, Steffan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2010-04-13T07:00:00+00:00

6.

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

After we pulled out of Gallup, I started taking notes about what had happened with Leigh Allen in Flagstaff and Luanne’s death. So much had actually occurred on the bus that I started feeling drowsy and experiencing a sense of complete overload. Most days I stayed glued inside my bedroom, protected from the world and avoiding as much as possible. But out here, alone, I was opened up to everything and didn’t have the ability to hide if I needed to. I began thinking about all the conversations I’d had with Marcus, and it slowly began to dawn on me that for whatever reason, he had in twenty-four hours been able to give me more advice and guidance than either of my parents had in twelve years. I knew that feeling this isolated for so long wasn’t something that only I was going through, but so far, Marcus was the only person who seemed to understand it. And he at least gave me the benefit of the doubt of being somebody worthy of his time and consideration, which again was more than I could say for Charlotte, Dick, and her endless string of useless men.

Flat earth whipped underneath us in various shades of tan, red, and rust. Road signs welcomed us to The Petrified Forest National Park. Several other signs also pointed out that we were crossing the Navajo Desert. When the bus stopped momentarily in Grants, New Mexico, two Native American men boarded the bus. The old man was wearing a wide-brimmed black cowboy hat with lots of light blue jewelry. His son, who was taller and hulked up, looked serious, with a stern gaze. They had taken the seats that would’ve been occupied by Luanne had she continued. Marcus said hello to the old man as he came up the aisle toward the back and was within earshot.

“Aho!” he replied. When the old man saw me in the back corner, he didn’t smile or say hello but just sat down in the window seat in front of me. From what I could see between the crack in the seat, he was holding some type of bushy green plant in his hand and waving it in the air, singing something quietly, almost under his breath. No one else was talking, the driver didn’t have the radio on, and no one protested or seemed bothered by it. Listening to the old man singing started to lull me and made my eyelids feel as heavy as lead. I listened to the sound of his voice as long as possible before I slipped off into unconsciousness.

The experience of sleeping on a Greyhound bus is unlike any other. Something about rattling around in the back of a large, badly vibrating metal coffin and crossing endless miles of uninhabited earth has a way of heightening not just a few of your senses, but all of them. Typically, a person would benefit from such unfiltered and pure input, but being surrounded by nameless,

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