Jump by Elisa Carbone

Author:Elisa Carbone
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: a cognizant original v5 release october 23 2010
Published: 2010-03-28T22:00:00+00:00

EIGHTY-SEVEN

CRITTER

The mustard-yellow fades and she’s got her signature rosy peach creeping back in, so I believe her that she’s feeling better. I wonder what she was thinking. Maybe she was worried that we’re too late and there won’t be any buses leaving until morning and we’ll get found, asleep on the bus station floor by both her father and the cops.

Just past the LIVE GIRLS flashing neon sign, the cab pulls up in front of the bus depot. We pay the driver and climb out.

We walk into the small station. A television blares. People sit on chairs, on the floor, and on their luggage. There are a few sleeping babies strewn across laps. Out back three or four buses sit, idling—an excellent sign that we’ll be able to leave tonight. The bus to Los Angeles is announced, and the people on the floor rise like zombies, file out, and start loading luggage into the side of one of the buses.

P.K. and I look at each other. I know she’s thinking there are no rocks in L.A.

“Well, it’ll get us out of here fast, anyway,” she says.

“We don’t have to stay in L.A.,” I say. “We could go up the coast from there—how about San Francisco?”

We get in line at the ticket window.

“Aren’t there like a gazillion runaways and street kids in San Francisco?” P.K. asks.

“Hippie Hill. The beat goes on,” I say.

“Huh?”

“Hippie Hill. It’s this place in Golden Gate Park near Haight-Ashbury. There’s been a drumming and drug party going on there since the 1960s.”

“Long party,” P.K. says.

“So, we could go live on Hippie Hill, blend in with the other scuzzball runaways, become expert panhandlers, try our luck at drug overdosing . . . or we could go straight to the climbing shop and see if there’s anyone heading out to Yosemite. It’s only a few hours from there.”

It’s our turn at the ticket window.

“Two tickets to San Francisco,” P.K. says.

The woman behind the counter explains that we’ll have a two-hour layover in L.A. before we catch the bus to San Francisco.

“So, what caught your interest?” I ask as we move toward the exit doors. “Was it the drugs or the panhandling?” I stop at a vending machine and buy some gum.

P.K. just smiles and hands me one of the tickets.

“Last call, Los Angeles,” comes the voice over the loudspeaker.

We run out the door to our escape vehicle.

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