Bus

Nobody goes out and does family crap on a Wednesday. The malls are empty, movie theatres are bare, and the only people out and about are old people. I guess I should be thankful for that, ‘cause there are less people to be around in public. Still, it’s weird.

We go out and catch a matinee movie. And ‘cause it’s so close to a mall, we just roam around and do some mall walking for a while before it starts. Even that place is empty, save for a couple of old people drifting around, wasting their golden years away before they die a horrendous death.

There’s kind of a silence as we stroll along. I don’t really know what to say, Ezra looks like she’s bored out of her little brains, and Carrie keeps glancing at me and then down at the floor. We pass by endless stores selling nothing but empty promises of looking pretty or handsome, uninterested by the hollow atmosphere. I never go here unless I’m doing Christmas shopping, so I’m a few months early and it feels a little weird.

Suddenly, Carrie rams her elbow into my side.

“Ow!” I grunt. “What the hell was that for?”

She smiles a little. “You’re being too quiet.”

“Well, so are you.”

“I just thought you’d have more to say to your sister, who is taking time out of her busy schedule to visit her lonely brother all the way across the country,” she grins.

“You’re not being real loud either, so…” I shrug. “And besides, it’s not like I have something big to tell you or anything. My life’s boring as hell.”

She looks away and lowers her voice when she coughs, “That’s why you need a girlfriend…”

“Carrie, shut up.”

“Boy, you two aren’t very nice to each other, are you?” Ezra butts in, looking up at us after doing a thorough fingernail check. I make eye contact with her for a second but look away immediately.

“Oh, you’d understand if you had an annoying little sister,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.

Carrie punches my shoulder.

After a seemingly endless amount of time wandering the corridors of our local commercial wasteland, we head back toward the theatre to get popcorn and crap and find a seat before people decide to take them all. Just like my soul, this place is empty and deserted, quiet and barren. I haven’t set foot in a movie theater since…well…a long time, and being able to hear my own thoughts in a place normally dominated by screaming children is definitely nice.

The movie we’re seeing is some stupid kid’s flick about a dumb junior high school loser who wants to be in a band. I don’t know. I stop paying attention about halfway through it because it’s so stupid. The main character is all sarcastic and everything and it’s just totally obvious that he wants to bang the chick guitarist in the band he ended up making. It’s dumb. I hate it. I can’t even finish my ten-dollar popcorn, it’s so horrible.

But of course, Ezra likes it and so does Carrie to an extent, which is weird since I don’t think I’ve seen Ezra smile at all since she’s been in my presence. When the movie’s over, we file out and throw our trash away, squinting as the bright light of the afternoon sky hits our eyes.

It’s a shock to breathe in fresh air after inhaling the stench of stale popcorn and rotten gummy worms for two hours, and the sun is beating down on Yuma in full force. It’s definitely September…

I yawn loudly outside the mall’s entrance with Carrie and Ezra, and when I wipe my eyes, they’re both looking at me like I’ve gone batshit.

“You tired?” Carrie asks, folding her arms. “It’s only three in the afternoon…”

I resist the urge to let her know that this is normally the time I head out to the county bus loop again, and instead I cough.

“What’re we gonna do now?” Ezra wonders out loud.

I rub my eyes. “Go home and try to forget that stupid movie ever existed.”

“Aw, I thought it was cute. Ezra liked it, didn’t you, sweetheart?” my sister disagrees.

Her daughter nods, grinning slightly.

“I think we should go do something else fun,” Carrie continues.

“There’s nothing fun to do around here,” I deny.

She sighs and throws her hands up. “There’s gotta be something. I can’t spend the rest of the day hiding out in your little man-cave.”

“I’ll bet there’s at least one mini-golf place or arcade somewhere in this area,” Ezra grumbles, staring vacantly into space.

Carrie pats my niece’s shoulder and throws a subtly evil grin over her shoulder at me. “That’s a great idea, honey. Ask your uncle. I’m sure he can pay for everything.”

My hand crashes into my face in an beautiful moment of dread.

“Can we look for something else to do?” Ezra asks, folding her hands nice and neat in front of her. Jesus, she looks like her mother. She’s even got the innocently evil little sister face down pat. “I’ll be good. I promise.”

I look up at Carrie and she looks like she’s holding back a huge chuckle of laughter. Refraining from giving her the dirty bird, I casually shrug and say, “Sure, why not…”

~~~~~

Now, three o’ clock is when that lull of peace and quiet in more populated part of Yuma starts to disintegrate. Three is right after the elementary school brats are let out from their cages, and three is a while after the high schoolers are released from the cesspool of hormones they’re trapped in all day. They crowd up the roads with their cheap hand-me-down cars that blast whatever kind of obnoxious rock music kids are into nowadays, paying more attention the text messages in their hands than the stop sign in front of them.

That’s the time of day where I start hating people the most.

And right now we’re stuck behind this one kid with a million bumper stickers on their car, ranging from cries of “Coexist” to “Drum Machines Have No Soul,” and about a trillion stupid little teenie bopper band logos sitting next to them. The light is green and apparently they don’t know it, so I grit my teeth and slap the horn, catching both Carrie and Ezra off-guard.

“Doug, chill out,” Carrie laughs.

I can’t say anything or else I’ll just end up cussing her out.

Instead, I hit the gas pedal and cruise down the plethora of intersections and desert roads that lead to the local arcade across town. I’ve never truly been here before. The only thing I know about it is that all of the kids supposedly hang out there, which only makes me dread this whole ordeal even more.

I grip the steering wheel with fierce conviction.

“You both had better thank me for this. It’s already almost four and we left the theater at three. This traffic is a piece of crap,” I grunt, doing my best to refrain from swearing in front of the damn kid.

“That’ll just make it better when we get there,” Ezra slyly counters.

I glance at her through the mirror; she’s playing with dolls in her car seat with a blank expression. She’s probably dead on the inside. Eh. It’s a family thing.

I’ve driven past this hell-hole a few times when we’ve had to take detours on the ride to or from school. It’s probably the only building in this area with even a hint of pizzazz, shining brightly with its neon sign out front. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and since all of the kids have been here at least once, just seeing it in my vision makes my stomach churn. I wonder how badly my wallet’s gonna be wounded after this…

Hell, it’s not like I have anything else to spend money on, anyway. So I guess I can think positively about that aspect.

The parking lot is near empty, but it’s like that because nobody who ever goes here actually owns a car or can drive. All of the kids either walk here or ride their bikes, which is why the bike rack is bursting with bikes with no locks. I swing around and haphazardly pull into a spot, crookedly finding a parking place.

“We’re here,” Ezra smiles. Her voice only has a twinge of excitement.

Carrie turns around and grins sweetly at her daughter.

I just groan and unbuckle my seatbelt.

The air is just as hot and dry as it ever was when we step out of the car. Yuma’s a bitch and is trying to bring me down on the only social day I’ll probably ever have in a long time, but I plaster on a fake smile just to satisfy Carrie and Ezra and jam my hands into my pockets.

Ezra runs up to her mom and grabs her hand, and Carrie ushers me to start walking with her to the entrance.

Every stupid game in the whole arcade costs one token and one token costs a quarter. Ten bucks worth of stupid tokens is forty tokens, which isn’t all that bad. There aren’t many games in this hell hole anyway. And when we first walk in, the first thing I notice is that the place isn’t swarming with screaming kids like I’d predicted it to be.

I think I hear angels cheering.

Ezra darts off when I give her the handful of tokens, not even bothering to thank me until Carrie reminds her to. She looks up at me, averting eye contact as usual, and says, “Thanks, Uncle Doug.”

“No problem,” I reply, sweeping my eyes over the room. “Have fun.”

Almost immediately, we lose her. She sinks into the vast wasteland of cheap 1980s arcade games, surfing from skeeball to Street Brawler and back again to grabber machines. It’s tough to keep track of such an unleashed ball of energy. All I can think is how quiet she was in the backseat of my car just minutes earlier, and now this? Kids are weird.

I just stand back with Carrie near the entrance of the arcade where all of the token machines are at. She’s smiling subtly and staring blankly at her only child.

“I’m sorry she doesn’t talk much to you,” Carrie finally says.

I don’t look at her, but I cock my head. “I don’t care.”

“She’s not really talkative anyways, so don’t take it personally.”

“Carrie, I don’t mind,” I urge. “Honestly I’m kinda glad she isn’t yakking my ear off.”

She stares at me for a minute before asking, “Why do you hate kids?”

“I don’t…I don’t hate them. Not really,” I snort.

My sister chuckles and crosses her arms, elbowing me in the gut. “You hated me when I was a kid.”

“I hate everyone.”

“Eloquent, Doug. Such a loving and pleasant big brother I have…” she jokes, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, just be glad you’re not the only Tater still alive in this generation. I gotta pass on the torch too,” I remind her.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she trails off. “I wish you lived closer, though. I really do. You need to move to the east coast.”

“And find another town to hate? I don’t think so.” My hands in my pockets are balling themselves into fists. I hate talking with her about this. I hate talking to her about personal shit. She always knows where to find a weak spot.

Carrie goes quiet for a moment as usual, but when I glance down at her she’s got a big grin spreading over her face.

“What?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing…I’ve told it to you before, so…”

“Told me what?”

She sharply snaps her head at me. “You need a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. I won't judge.”

“You’re a broken record.” My face goes red. “And you’re not the only one who’s told me that.”

She laughs. Loudly. “Who the hell else makes fun of you for it?!”

My brain shatters when I realize that holy shit, I am thinking about that rotten yellow cluster of slime and poo that I have to drive every day, twice a day. The one thing I told myself to not think about this entire day. I shudder and try to think about a nice way to say, “The monsters I hate and wish would die.”

“The kids I have to drive to school,” I choke out.

“Awww!” Carrie smiles, evidently trying not to laugh but failing hard. She puts her hand on my shoulder. “That sucks! How do they know anything about you?”

“You’d be surprised,” I grunt, giving the evil eye to nothing in particular.

“Man, I’m the only one who’s allowed to make fun of you about that stuff,” she pouts. “Nobody else.”

I don’t feel like describing to her in excruciating detail all of the pain and internal murder I have to go through, so I just bite my lip and wait for Ezra to use up all of her stupid tokens. I focus all of my energy on thinking about stuff that has nothing to do with the bus. Anything. Kittens. Lady Gaga. Lasagna. Anything.

And I’m zoned out for a good five minutes, too, just thinking about nothing at all and becoming content with life at the moment. Things are going well. I’m not wallowing around in misery thinking about everything that’s probably going wrong right now.

But then…

“Mr. Doug!”

I snap my head toward the voice. And instantly, I regret it, because what do you know? Standing in front of me are two girls who ride the bus. One’s Hispanic and is always listening to her SkyPod (even though I tell her not to half the time); the other’s black and always has to pee when we’re going home. They always stick together. And I don’t know their names yet, of course.

I just furrow my eyebrows at them.

“Yeah…?” I trail off.

“What’re you doing here?” the Hispanic one asks. “I didn’t think you’d ever wanna be surrounded by kids.”

Carrie laughs again.

“Is that your daughter we saw you give all those tokens to?” the black one adds. She’s got a shoulder bag filled with quarters slung over her arm. “I didn’t know you had one. She don’t look a thing like you.”

“I don’t have a daughter. She’s my niece,” I state bluntly. All of a sudden I have the strong urge to run out of the building and go back to my apartment, leaving Carrie and Ezra stranded. “I, uh…I have family in town.”

She goes, “Ohhh!” and nods. “That’s why you were gone today.”

“Or maybe he just wants to get away from us for a day, Keke,” the other girl smiles softly, elbowing her friend.

“Or both,” I grumble under my breath.

“I didn’t know you had any family,” Keke (that’s the shoulder-bag-girl’s name) inquires. “You always said your family was all dead…”

Carrie punches my arm. I ignore her.

“They’re mostly dead. Except for me and my sister and her daughter and our barely-existent uncle.” I force out the explanation as quick as I can and I change the subject to something that’s been bothering me since ten minutes ago. “Were you guys good for the sub?”

The girls look at each other and their jaws drop. Both of them turn red, and both of them then stare at the ground.

“Um, yeah, we were good,” Keke whimpers. “Weren’t we, Sara?”

Sara bites her lip to keep from smiling. “Yeah. Really good.”

I die on the inside a little bit. There was always that nagging feeling in my head this entire day that something like this would happen. And like always, when I freak out about it, it does happen.

“Of course,” I mutter, chewing on my cheek. “I’m not gonna pull into the bus loop tomorrow only to find the principal waiting to fire me, am I?”

“Nah, it wasn’t your fault,” Keke slips, prompting Sara to jab her in the stomach.

Awkward silence. Always happens when I’m around.

“Boy oh boy, I can’t wait until tomorrow,” I tell them.

Sara and Keke exchange a flustered smile.