This morning DEspirito Dez Carmine knew that
one of his passengers was in trouble.
Dez shifted gears of the twelve-seat bus as he came out of
Revere onto the highway north, his eyes, as ever, studying the dozen passengers
on their way to work, determining a snarl, a scowl or grimace, as a
straight-out giveaway. Oh, they were splendid facial characters, make-up
aficionados, the mostly imperturbable cast for his play-going. Each one of them
he knew almost intimately, their habits, likes and dislikes, their
temperaments; how they showed impatience or worry. The lip biters were evident
and the knee tappers, the finger squeezers and the puckered, silent whistlers.
Who slept around, who was prone to wander come of an evening after work, he
knew. Evidence of it came from eye flight or hair disarrangement, an early
exhaustion showing itself off or a head yet rolling in a kind of rhythm. The
morning body electric, he heard a voice say in the back of his head.
Dez, for that matter, had no sense of guilt for his diurnal
intrusions. None of the cast of characters would even have guessed that he long
earlier had repositioned the rear view mirror so he had a better view of all of
them, including MaryGrace Poplucca and Troy Aquanders seated directly behind
him in seat No.1 and opposite in seat No. 2 where sat Jose Negrada and Miriam
Hosto. The four had been paired off for more than two years, as if their names
were stitched on the seats. In his mind he had numbered the seats, behind him,
left to right, 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, and finally 5 and 6. The full bench-like
seat across the back end of the bus was reserved for coats, parcels, or
whatever the day brought for them, coming and going. There were days that the
rear seat looked like a flea market, strewn with toss-outs, collectibles,
souvenirs of one sort or another, the makings of a special lunch or affair at
noon hour or after work. All of them worked in the sausage plant in Peabody,
lately moved from Revere, a forty-minute ride north.
This morning one of them was marked. He couldnt see who it
was. Not yet. Worse, he had no idea, not an inkling, of what was going on, what
had transpired that caused whispers, asides, and accusations hanging in the
air. Eavesdroppers, he subsequently believed, have their own bit of rue, the
added weight of knowing half way measures, no full story. For brief seconds he
was aware of a small sense of guilt about the replacement of the mirror, what
had driven him to do it, yet with that doubt came an appreciation of his
passengers; he truly liked them. His wards they were for a piece of the day,
two pieces, the coming and the going.
Every morning and evening Dez thought he was on Broadway, front
and center with the best seat in the house. The passengers were part of the
play that Dez sat in on, every day since he had been hired. They had, some of
them, glamorous morning faces, or faces marked so heavy with character and
chance that life was here visible in his mirror, every damn angle of it. Once,
early on the job, he thought of keeping a journal, about his day and the
traffic, about his passengers, but that had gone by the boards as quickly as it
had come. Now and then hed reflect on it as laziness, but managed to also
push lack of time into the reason column. The scenes were too much for him not
to enjoy, to mark, to measure upon, the daily minute gestures in which to find
development.
At the very moment Joses hand was in Miriams lap,
Miriam in her favorite blue jeans, skin-borne and worn ass-tight, splendidly
crotched, at the stop waiting for him so marvelously prominent. Joses
hand was a motionless weight exacting certain demands on the pretty brunette,
high forehead of pale skin, almost purple lipstick, her eyes closed, her mouth
slightly ajar in a silent salute to an inner feeling, a girl who smiled
continually when not at work. Dez had seen that development from the day she
had first pushed Joses hand away from her thigh, a distinct and
noticeable act whose energy receded each day. And Dez determined it to be the
ultimate seduction by seating arrangement. Jose, it proved out, was relentless
and Dez figured he knew the night of their copulation, when, in the morning,
Miriam leaned forward, looking up the street eagerly as they approached
Joses apartment building. The sight of him brought her flashing into
Dezs mirror, the eyes dark and pleasant and reaching, the way only
certain people can broadcast, Dez thought, still liking Miriam no matter the
submission. Miriam, he also believed, would not really take a second look at
him if it werent for the mirror. At least he knew that part of the
argument.
Now, 5 a.m. daylight falling in the windows of the bus, late
April, coffee steaming at his left hand, eyes straight out on the road, Dez
said, Hey, Jose, what do you think of them Sox last night? He said
it as much to Miriam as to Jose, and felt her stir in place, the body language
coming to him from off-stage a ways, corner of the eye, the far extent of
vision. She was in that early beauty stage so evident in young love, that lift
of eye and chin, that mouth so resolutely at memory. The morning Red Sox
interruption had brought her out of a mild reverie and Dez hoped fervently that
she was not the one in trouble. From the first morning he had liked her,
smiling widely, innocent in a warm sense, calling him Mr. DEspirito as
she climbed aboard the bus. My neighbor in the next apartment says your
Aunt Lucy is her friend and told her you got this job. My names
Miriam. Her hand, so recently from bed, from touching herself in morning
wash or arousal, was hot and comfortable in his hand. A whole lifetime of
dreams she carried in her handshake. Dez had taken to her immediately. That
face he would remember forever, the perfect beauty of it, the knowing something
and not telling all that shone in her eyes, the art of possibility.
With a slight twist of his wrist, and alert to rotary traffic,
he avoided a pothole in the road. Consciously seeking approval, he looked up
and she alone of the twelve passengers smiled back at him, an honest and warm
reply that seemed to say how well he had handled that maneuver. In a
particularly severe move her hair had been pinned back and showed off elegantly
small ears and a soft glow riding freely on the mounds of her cheeks. Her
mouth, Dez thought, was almost pursed, and made her attractive enough to catch
his breath. A small prayer crossed his mind, hoping she wasnt the one
this day to be called on the carpet, placed on the coals. Life can get so
sufferably fucked up, he whispered to himself, knowing his lips broadcast
themselves in the mirror.
The irrepressible Jose, still at conquest, left his hand at
attention in her lap. Dez wished the bus was an old regular stickshift so he
could shift gears, jam the torque of them. He felt like slamming the whole
entity into high speed. Her lips in the mirror were red and puffy.
MaryGrace Poplucca and Troy Aquanders sat directly behind Dez,
the two of them usually stiff and formal in their loving, giving little notice
of what they were at in their lives, except for the whispers each managed
through stiff lips, set chins. She was dark as evening allows itself, clean and
brittle as china, always on the edge of being discovered. Troy, in most cases,
imitated her; he had become what he loved, and Dez had seen that evolution.
Once Troy talked up a storm, about anything and everything, his words and
arguments rampant on the air, and now he voiced little about the world around
him; no politics, no sports, no restaurant reports or gripes. Nada. He
whispered his being to MaryGrace, succumbed, Dez thought, pussy-whipped. Turn
in your green card, feller, your time is done. Get rid of your license ID
cause you aint the same guy in the picture you was. Dez almost
giggled looking in the mirror.
Behind them, in #3 and #4 were the butchers, Harry Kashem and
Nate Goodbind, and Nellie McCurry and Penny Angulis, wrappers, widows, whiners.
Both Harry and Nate, early drawn together by some instinct for survival, had
served time for small crimes, penny ante stuff they would say. They gambled at
the beginning and end of day, scratched lottery tickets getting on the bus in
the morning, got off at least a full block before their across-street
apartments to buy more tickets, even in inclement weather. Neither snow nor
rain nor gloom at the end of the day kept them from their appointed rounds.
Nobody knew when they scratched a winner, and could only tell the next day when
all accounting had been accomplished. In this whole world they trusted no one,
including each other. Nellie and Penny, on the other hand, let it all hang out
about where they stood on matters, and could say it all and easy and nearly in
one breath. Work sucks. Life sucks. This bus sucks. Dja see
that asshole yesterday passing out those forms, like he thinks his crap
dont smell.
#5 and #6 were mysterious pairs to some extent. Not because they
were most distant in the mirror, and therefore exhibited to Dez less clearly
who and what they were, but they dressed in dark clothes, wore sun glasses
regardless of the weather, set hats atop their heads not in a rakish manner but
one that drew little attention. At times Dez thought them to be fading from his
view, diminishing, merging with one another. Max Galatin and Drew Montroy were
cutters and stuffers and gave to #5 a sense of inertia. Dez believed that if
the small bus caught fire theyd be the last two out; not by choice but by
a pure lethargy. Neither one, he thought, drew enough oxygen for the whole day.
The last pair, in #6, two packers, energetic, continually moving
as if their jobs moved away from the line with them at the end of the day, were
a married couple, Dorothy and Henry Pelican. They worked to send their children
to school, and with two doctors to their credit and one lawyer, all high on the
pay scale and distant from home, they were on their last child who had sworn to
be an astronaut. Daily they dreamed him into space, into the company of
the creatures who surely wait out there for us, not wanting to come here where
everything is so foul, so messed up, so unjust where life calls out its every
demand, forces all issues to completion.
Dez looked them all over in a scanning and optional study and
heard again the words he heard on the other side of the garage wall, just the
day before. I dont know how it was done, but one of them on the bus
did it. Thats how they got it out of here. And weve got to find it
before it falls into hands not favoring us.
Jose, intent on his ministrations, did not respond immediately
to the Red Sox opener from Dez. Sort of absentmindedly he was roused from where
he found himself to say, If they hit into any more double plays to kill a
good inning, Dez, they oughtta let us in for nothing, not that Id go then
anyway for what they get for parking. Thats eight or nine games in a row,
and all at home, they drop with a tying or winning run in scoring position in
late innings. They need a lefty, they need some speed. A voice popped in
from the back of the bus: They need a life! Face it, them guys dont
care if they win or lose they got so much cash coming in. Theys frigging
playboys, ever one of them. Dont waste no time going there or watching
them cause they squeeze your balls ever time. Ever time.
Harry Kashem was holding up another losing scratch ticket,
waving it over his head. Theys no better than this. Losers. Someone
getting fat on the little guys like us. Where you think the money goes from the
lottery? Its cut up and divied right under the golden dome, bet on
it.
Why do you keep playing, Harry? You won something last
year. Was that crooked? Dorothy Pelicans long angular face was sour
this morning, Dez noted, her eyes depressed, her mouth slack. Dez looked
immediately to make sure the first aid kit was still strapped to the corner of
the dashboard. Jeez, he thought, she sure doesnt look like shell
get another kid all the way through school. Lightening the weight of his foot
on the gas pedal, he wondered how hed handle things when that moment
came, for any of them. She was the one who missed the most work, but was also
one of the original workers in the plant, a long-time employee. She had the
inalienable rights, whatever they were. Yet, when she didnt go to work,
no one would sit with her husband, as if the space would be violated or a
disease would be loitering in place. To a person they were deathly frightened
of germs or bacteria of any sort, and of salmonella in particular. The true
scourge.
Well, he argued with himself, theyre not the ones gonna
get their asses whipped for something besides the education of their kids. Not
the Pelicans. They put every last affordable penny in their last sons
lap. Damn, it wouldnt be them, he hoped. Again he looked and thought, by
bent itd be Harry or Nate Goodbind. It goes with the territory, he heard
himself say as a northbound Greyhound bus roared beside them, the draft almost
sucking in the little transportation brother. What goes in the joint comes out
of the joint. Dezs hands on the wheel, bouncing a bit in the wake of the
big bus, felt relaxed as Miriam smiled in the mirror at him. Dez felt warm all
over his body, and he pictured her that very morning stepping from the shower
wet and warm and eager. Her eyes looked like Oreo cookies, big goddamn Oreo
cookies looking right down to his toes. He swore he could taste her. The
Greyhound bus was nearly out of sight. Miriam, he swore again softly to
himself, could probably read him right through the damn mirror. Why the hell
did he ever move it?
Dont you hate them smart-ass bastards, Dez, that
sneak up on you like they want to kiss you and then dump crap on you?
Dont you hate them bastards! Harry was pointing to the big
Greyhound bus moving rapidly off in the distance, square back end getting
smaller, the whoosh of its passing still hanging an echo about them, as if the
air had not yet returned to its place. Dez jammed his foot down on the
minibus accelerator, felt a shift of weight and balance, looked at Miriam
looking back at him, reading him again. Im supposed to do the reading, he
uttered behind his lips, and let a dim smile hang in place. The
fast-disappearing Greyhound had him thinking that perhaps just behind him, on
the road north, bound for work, someone was looking at the ass-end of his
little bus passing through, receding, wondering where the day would bring it,
and those it carried.