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. ***
The whole back seat got blown off after the truck mowed through the bus. They both jumped out the back, Glory, and the boy, and that sorry trucker he's inside the cab engulfed in flames.
Someone yelled at the boy, “Come on, come on boy, help me save the goddamn truck driver.” And then they all went down to the truck. The boy still didn’t understand to pull his head out of his ass. Glory said, “Go, go boy, go.” But he hesitated, looking scared with those saucer shaped eyes like Rocky Balboa, dumb, but wanting to be somebody other than a bum in that moment. So, Glory said, “You're deciding what? I’ll rescue the truck driver.” He instead went down and through the dented cab door, clear chilled them all out, and pulled that goddamn living being free. And he’s still on fire. They turned his body over like a log and the boy stamped the flames out with his coat like a posse. “Father in heaven, the boy’s got the fires out,” Glory yelled. And once they’re out, he turned to Glory, and she said to the boy, “Yeah man, you did it, you did it! You got the god-forsaken guy and put out the devil’s wrath,” then she said, “You imagined his pearly soul on fire; well, he's pure energy now. He's on frigging soulful fire!” “Yeah, yeah, I did,” the boy said. “I have to apologize to you, I didn't think you were gonna be anybody talking about the Big House. But you saved the truckers life. You damn sure saved his life. God bless you boy. God bless you.” He grinned at Glory and made her a heart shape with his black, smoky colored thumbs and index fingers. "I never thought I could help somebody escape death by running to save them from burning, but it's kinda swell doing rescue work. I gotta do this more often. Might be I can teach my brother to do some non-evil things in the Big House. He might have a better shot to make it the hell out in one piece," the boy said sucking on a small burn on his middle finger. "Powerful idea," said Glory. "But if I want to hold in my hands some good ole boy money, I need to find a solid plan," said the boy. Glory nodded and did not think what else to say. She witnessed the bus still filled with people, some who lay gone; others trapped in the front of the bus between flames, piled up against each other, and told now to run the dickens out of the bus, and the animals whimpering, a cat hissed and clawed a lady on the back screeching, “The police is coming.” The boy and Glory swallowed the screams of the people still on fire, and the police already on the scene with all of them shouting and cussing. “Come on goddamn it, move the hell out of the way from the fire," a police officer said. A moment later the firefighters came and tried putting the fire out with a bunch of those long hoses, and yelled, “If you want to stand down and wait; we’re coming in the back!" Glory stayed and held the clawed lady's hand, while she cried, and listened to a loud clap of a thundercloud before the lady moaned, “St. Jude, mama never told me, I would be found in a place like this.” Glory takes off her dog tags and places them around the woman's neck. "Here, keep these for me. Okay. I want somebody to remember I stood here, a survivor with them, and not a shadow. The woman touches the dog tags. "Glory Townsend," the woman reads aloud. "Yes, thats me. Please remember me in your prayers. And ill remember you in mine." |
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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