Glory on the Bus2nd Place in the Fiction Writing Contest
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Issue 18
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Glory sat on the bus going to Chicago. And it’s heading for a pitstop in Ohio at the Greyhound station. A young guy is sitting in the backseat with her, under the fumes of bus exhaust pluming through a crack in the window. She is a little bit cautious being next to him. Her Army dog tags dangle around her neck under her t-shirt. The fear of losing one's identity in another roadside ambush makes her keep those tags close to her body at all times.
He is a redneck, a toe tapping, long dirty fingernails boy. And he began talking to Glory, flashing his brass knuckle ring, yellowing teeth, and snarling skinny lips forming a sly grin and telling her, “Yeah, my blood brother Craig is in the Big House, and it's over on the right. My mom’s crying everyday choking on her ulcers, afraid he ain’t never gonna walk into her kitchen again, but I got a mind to bring his damn ass home. If only I hadn’t slowed him down, when making his exit outta the bank," he said laughing deviously, while turning his blonde head to stare out the back of the bus at a huge walled-in building with barbed wire, and a lookout guard posed on the roof looming in the darkness. “It’s thatta one, over in the corner, behind the ‘Welcome to Ohio’ sign.” He pointed his long, slender arm, out toward the back of the bus at this grotesque structure glittering in the night sky, like a quaalude passed around on a Saturday night, with a bunch of devil worshipping rebel teenagers. She glanced at him wondering, 'What is he trying to refer to? What did he mean, his brother is in the Big House?' And he flashed this twisted smile, that turned into a grin. Glory nodded at him thinking, You understand what this means? Does this tell me, you’re gonna be in the Big House? Yet, he appeared so much like a mentally-ill kid, who admired his big brother, and he wanted to be in the Big House one day too. That’s where he thought to be; his grin said everything, and he is readying to be in it one day. It's a thrill to him. It’s exciting, Glory thought. “My brother made it into the Big House,” he said again looking at Glory with his pale blue eyes drooling like a puppy dog, begging for her to have sorrow for him. She thought, Wow, this boy is sure to wind up in the big house. And he did not put his behind right back down into his seat. He doesn’t realize Glory sits in the same bus, clinging to the seat next to him, and her respectable self just got released from the Army. Well, what in the name of the most high is she planning do with her life? Making latrines for the military, that is all she did as an enlisted soldier. But she's got a long road to go back to school, and fit in as a civilian, the voice of her mom screams inside her brain like they just got off the telephone, but here she's next to this kid thinking, Yeah, yeah, he's planning to be in the Big House with his brother. So, what in the world does this mean? This guy with his calloused dirty hands, is he thinking of pulling a knife on me, to do something to me? I figured out who he might be sitting right here. He's one of those twisted Nazi, stinking criminals, thought Glory. Glory did not have a fear in her bones. So, she sat in secret wondering. She kept imagining, they— his crew may be coming here; and as I am talking to this guy, this bus might stop right where they are supposed to embark on. I’ll have to be ready to defend myself. And you figure what pit stop is the bus heading for? The only one where a greyhound bus is gonna go. With this urine reeking bus, the driver might hit the hell-bent bus-stop. And they are going fast in the wavering sunlight into a high tailing 18-wheeler truck. |
LISA RHODES-RYABCHICH is an adjunct screenwriting professor at Westchester Community College, the author of the short stories “Wednesday's at Salvatore’s Pizzeria,” “Yarla the Entrepreneur,” “Retribution On Cash Street," “Sunday’s at Yankee Stadium,” “Moving On,” and “The End of an Affair.” She has two poetry chapbooks “We Are Beautiful Like Snowflakes” & “Opening the Black Ovule Gate” a full-length collection of poems "Breaking Out of the Cocoon." Another full-length poetry book "Peripeteia" was published in 2020 and a third full-length collection "How You Get to There" in 2021 with a fourth full-length collection “Dear Blue Harp Strumming Sky” in 2022 and forthcoming in 2026 “The Language of Kindness.” She is writing a novel “The Yellow House of Unpardonable Ghosts.” She is a poetry book editor for Action Spectacle Magazine. She was nominated for a PushCart prize in poetry for “Igloo” by OyeDrum.
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