Bruce - Bus Stop

[drewkitty]

Bruce - Bus Stop

(It is no accident that most Bruce stories turn up on holidays.)

"Old enough to be fuckable, young enough to not be able to fight back."

The battered frontage of the all-night bus depot beckons me. It's a pool of bright security lights in the shadows. Close up, it looks as filthy as it is. From a distance, it seems to offer safety. It doesn't.

A town's all night venues are hard cheese. Cities are worse.

A private returning on leave might just lose his duffel bag. A discharged prisoner completing sentence and his "hundred bucks" are soon parted, often enough for a first hit in a bathroom stall. A solid citizen might lose luggage; more likely a purse or a wallet.

I'd lost my ass in a bus stop bathroom. It hadn't been my first time, thank whoever you believe in instead of God, but it did put me in touch with my inner rage even more so than usual.

This year was a bit weird. Seventeen is a bit weird. You can technically be tried as an adult, but the DA doesn't want to take the hit. So if there's one crime you'd really like to commit, check your birthdate and the calendar.

I'd already been flunked out of high school, for all practical purposes. I kept showing up and being sent to the library, but the principal would "damned if I give that little fucker a diploma," so I wasn't going to get the units to get a 2.0 anyway.

My stepmonster had decided to take her vacation on the East Coast, and hired two different security companies to watch the house. (Last year, I'd befriended the one, and they'd seen a way to make some free money at below minimum wage while I enjoyed shelter and the ability to actually buy food for a glorious week.)

I'd been shoved into a taxicab with no warning to get anything at all, either from my room or from the places in and outside the house where I hid stuff. The 'bag' had been one of my favorite duffels, with an armful of clothes shoved into it. In between my bedroom and the final shove towards the taxi, I'd checked it by touch. All pants, except what felt like a couple of glossy magazines and a baggie of dried vegetable. Nice. So I could neither wear them, not without shirts and underwear, nor really afford to throw them out either. Unless I wanted to wear the same set of pants for another seven months until she could legally throw me out.

In the headlights going past, I'd tried to read the bus ticket. It was in the plastic-like folder the bus company used, but the key information - date, time, destination - was unreadable. What I needed to know, badly, was if it was the magical REFUNDABLE. Because that would make it easy. Walk up to the counter, get my change, fade back outside and spend a quiet Christmas on the streets. Not fun, but not a hazard either.

But if it were merely REBOOKABLE I needed to know where it was headed to. For all I knew, there were two burly guys from either a Utah military academy (bad) or a Mexican teen reorientation center (worse) waiting for a certain bus to arrive. The arrangements would be airtight and unescapable; they would want their money. No point to going to either Salt Lake City, TX or Yuma, AZ if I would merely arrive at yet another grimy bus depot. My connections, handful of friends, favors owed, were all here. No money in a strange town was not how I wanted to start my Christmas.

The taxi pulled up.

"$17.40," he said curtly.

I checked the ticket sleeve. Because I knew for sure I didn't have a fucking penny on me.

Of course not. This was really going to be a stacked deck evening.

I thought about it. I'd hoped to bum a quarter and throw the duffel in a storage locker. You can't look like a bindlestiff especially when you are.

But I needed a fight with a taxi driver over payment even less. Especially in front of - shit - the single police unit permanently assigned to watch over a hell hole like the bus depot.

And I could see from the shock of unkempt blonde hair that it was Kemper.

"Ahmed, you saw, I got shoved in here. I don't have any money at all. I'm sorry, man, do you want my bag?"

He thought about it. Reverse psychology. If I'd tried to get him to give me my duffel, he'd have driven off.

Instead he took great pride in getting out of the taxi, popping the trunk, throwing the duffel out on the sidewalk and looking as scornful as the situation deserved.

I had to go retrieve it, which started me on a bad foot. The taxi peeled away and a shadow fell over me as I picked it up.

"Hold up. What's in the bag?"

Kemper actually got out of the rig to come talk to me?

Damn, she must still be pissed about those flowers.

"My mom packed it. Probably drugs and kiddie porn, knowing her."

There wasn't an officer in the department who didn't know my home address. And my stepmother.

"Open it up."

I toed it with a foot.

"It's yours," and walked away.

"I'll write you for littering!"

I suppose you have to be hurting poor to understand. I'd worked hard to get those pants. But I could always work harder to get more pants. What I could not do was work my way out of a charge. Not a bullshit littering charge, mind you, but something serious.

So I kept walking. The guard at the door looked at me, I held up the ticket folder, he shook his head sadly and let me in.

If you look like a solid citizen, the bus station guard will always let you in. You might spend money.

If you don't, he might let you in anyway, especially if new or drunk or high or merely bored. But if you are Known In Town, or cause trouble, you need more than winning good looks to get inside one of the handful of places with a working restroom. That I never used.

I figured I had about four seconds to read the ticket before Kemper came charging through the double doors after me.

NONREFUNDABLE. San Francisco? Left an hour ago? No, the date, you moron. Tomorrow. 23 hours from now.

This was not a good town to be in. But SF was infinitely worse, arguably a push with Oakland depending on whether you wanted to lose your ass or your kidney.

And a Bay Area bus ticket to San Francisco was just plain low.

I didn't need 23 hours in a bus station. Or 23 seconds either.

BANG! Double doors, right on cue, bouncing off a pissed off cop.

I had to stall for time.

The side emergency exit was too far away. The bus loading doors inaccessible, they were kept locked except during boarding.

So it was going to have to be the restroom.

The same restroom I'd survived my first stranger-rape in.

It had been years. But flashbacks are triggered by all the senses, not just sight. The sound and smell was the same.

I would have to hang on to my shit. So to speak.

I cleared the outer door and went to the sink, got a look at myself in the mirror. Wow, the print of my stepmonster's hand was still nice and red on my cheek. Obvious to anyone, but especially a trained cop.

No one ever said life was fair. And the soap dispenser was out of soap.

So I used my fingertips to push down around the edges, ignoring the pain, spreading the edges of the bruise.

I didn't need to piss. I would not in a million years try to shit in here again.

Knocking at the door.

"Get out here!"

Damn, Kemper is being persistent. Perhaps it's her time of the month?

I put the ticket down on the counter. It wasn't an asset to me. It was a liability. Someone would steal it in minutes, which would only be a good thing. If the paper towel dispenser hadn't been empty, I'd have put a paper towel over it too.

The door, held open.

"Get. Out. Here."

I dropped my zipper and loosened my trousers.

"Can it wait for me to take a shit?"

I'd put Kemper in an awkward position. She had PC to detain me, but if she caused too much of a scene, it would be another talking to from her sergeant.

Meanwhile, my duffel bag - unless she'd grabbed it - was sitting out on the sidewalk in front of the bus depot. With a likely lifetime of minutes if not seconds.

The door closed. Apparently so.

I inventoried the contents of the room by eyeball.

And that's when I had the flashback.

###

If I move, the blade will cut my throat. It is very important that I not move. More important than what is happening to my anus.

###

I adjusted myself, so calmly, as I had done that night five years ago. Rinsed my hands needlessly.

Walked out of the door. No Kemper.

To the left at the bottom of the short open stairwell, the doors I had come in.

To the right, a waiting area for ticketed passengers, half-full of tired travelers who kept tight hold of their effects.

Ahead, a bank of pay phones and an arcade.

Habit saved me then. As I had done for years, I checked the COIN RETURN slot of each of the pay phones, then moved on to the three video game machines and one pin to do the same.

Kemper and the guard were arguing over the "didn't see anything, officer" ... duffel bag. Neither noticed me.

This got me clear of line of sight, over to the other emergency exit. I set it off and used it. It stopped wailing immediately when I slammed it behind me.

Someone was just walking off with my duffel bag. An anonymous street person. Fair game, so to speak.

But damn it, I wanted my pants.

I wasn't going to do this like a civilian. And despite my best efforts, I was not armed.

"The dope is yours, give me the bag and the pants," I ordered.

They stopped - gender indeterminate in the shadows - and blinked at me. Reached into the bag, hand came out with the dope.

Looked at me, in my eyes. I looked back. There was a deal, and I would keep it. Or there would be blood on the sidewalk, right here, right now, and not all of it mine, despite the knife or knives.

The bag dropped to the ground out of their hand. They cradled their find and walked away.

I retrieved the bag. My hand found the glossies. I looked quickly. There was no trash can, which would have been perfect, but there was a mailbox, almost as good. Shove into slot. Which was certainly the subject matter anyway.

I shoved the glossies into it. Turned the bag upside down on the street. Reloaded it with pants, and only pants, kicking whatever else might have been into the gutter. Picked up my bag and returned to the front to face Kemper.

"Officer? Thank you for being patient with me. You wanted to check this?"

She wordlessly shook her head and returned to her unit. In this neighborhood she was lucky it still had the locked weapons in it. Then again, there were neighborhoods in our fair city where the tires would have been missing.

The guard shook his head at me. I wasn't coming back in. That was fine by me.

I shouldered the bag and trudged towards healthier territory. The stepmonster's flight was for ten days.

Hey. Wonder if I could beat her to the airport? That would be delightfully awkward for her.

I started loping, not quite jogging. It was a good three miles.

It was something to do.

It would keep me warmer.

But hate, as always, kept me warm enough.

If I could only get to her before she cleared Security ... I was still seventeen.

And if I missed her tonight, checking the flights would give me a known date-and-time to greet her properly on her return.

It was a better prospect of a happy holidays than I'd ever known.