Three Fifths by John Vercher

Author:John Vercher [Vercher, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Polis Books
Published: 2019-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Bobby didn’t turn around again. He knew if he did, he’d see Aaron watching him still. Where the fuck was that bus? Bobby bounced up and down. He’d surprised himself when he snapped at Aaron. The gun terrified him and he hadn’t known what else to do. He had to keep Aaron from hurting someone else. Doing nothing got Bobby here. He would never do nothing again. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Aaron had wanted him to stop him. So what, then? Why the show? If he thought he needed to scare Bobby, he hadn’t been paying attention. He was already scared out of his mind.

The bus’s brakes squealed as it pulled up. The doors opened with a hiss and Bobby flashed the salt-and-pepper-haired black driver his pass. The driver’s uniform gave a false semblance of authority and it made Bobby feel better to be near him. Not that he could do anything to help. If Aaron’s thick fingers pushed through the folding doors in some gamma radiation-fueled rage, ripped the driver from his seat and threw him into the windshield in some Neo-Nazi frenzy until it spider-webbed and broke loose, there’d be nothing the poor fool would be able to do to stop him. Nor, really, could Bobby. Thankfully, the driver did the only thing he needed to do to avoid all that. He drove off and left Aaron to fade away under the parking lot lights. Tiny rivers of melted snow traveled up and down the channels of the black rubber floor as the bus lurched into gear. The inside lights flickered and dimmed. Bobby sat back and sighed.

The bus was empty except for a man Bobby had been seeing since the beginning of the coldest days of fall. He lay across a section of seats in a dingy gray coat, his face obscured by an overgrown beard, browned the way nicotine stained the filter at the end of Bobby’s cigarettes. His pants were stained with who-knew-what, his knit cap full of holes and the heel of one of his work boots peeled away and flopped with each pothole bump. Bobby had never seen him move.

“That guy alive?” Bobby asked the driver

“You want to check for me?” He looked at Bobby in his rearview. Bobby shook his head. The driver chuckled.

“You know his name?” Bobby asked.

“Why you asking?”

Bobby shrugged, though he knew why he asked. Talking to the driver gave his mind something else to do.

“Don’t know,” the driver said. “He got himself a pass. Catches the first bus in the morning and rides until the last one of the night. Gets off during our breaks, I’m guessing to piss or shit. Cheaper than paying rent and he gets to be warm for a spell.”

“He’s homeless?”

“Guess so,” he said. “I hate to think about somebody with no place to go in this weather. That’s why I don’t bother him. The other drivers, neither. Could be that he ain’t got no home. Could be that he can’t go home.

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