Rivers Edgar Banks stood in front of the bus, his old navy seabag slung over his left shoulder. His Panama hat felt snug on the back of his head. He was wearing a chamois skin shirt and wrangler jeans in a dusty color with boot cut legs that dropped down onto the black snoot boots. Hardly looking up he climbed aboard and took the first empty seat on the right side of the bus just in front of Gloria but he didn't notice her. He pulled open the top of the seabag and got out a copy of Guns and Ammo that he used to cover up the paperback book The Lyrical and Crtical Essays of Albert Camus. Rivers settled in for the long ride to the other side. The sun was setting fast and the light was getting as low as the brim of his hat. It was going to be a long ride because he had no idea where the other side would take him but he was there just the same and he didn't really care. He was lost and not wanting to be found. It was an easy life, a rogues life, it was that or no life at all. It was Rivers life and he intended to live it.
Mary stepped on to the bus, determined to get away from the family that had adopted her when she was three years old.
Observing the people already seated she thought the passengers looked interesting, not like the usual Greyhound riders. There were old musicians, a weathered cowboy with his panama (strange, no Stetson?) pulled way down over his eyes reading a book that was covered by some kind of gun magazine, a couple of scared little kids, a strange woman with a black eye who still managed to look classy and expensive and teenagers in the back.
There was a current running through the bus, humming with humor and expectation with a touch of bittersweet regret somehow mixed in. It's humor for me, she thought, no more do this, do that, Mary and get it done NOW! Her adoptive parents had self-righteously taken her in, an orphaned Cherokee girl, to ge raised in a 'good Christian' home. They had treated her like a slave for the past fifteen years. At eighteen, she knew that there was far more for her, that she was pretty, hard working and fun, when she had the time.
She picked a seat near the cowboy with the panama and settled in. After hitch-hiking up from Las Cruces, she was beat. Before drifting off to sleep, she looked at some bags that had been left on an empty seat across the aisle. Who and where was that person? Someone was softly playing a harmonica as she finally drifted, dreaming, dreaming...
Good evening and thanks for coming back. If you were to go to page 1 of this thread you would note that this bus started loading passengers in July, 2003. 2003. Johnboy had only been on A2K for about 6 months and, damn, he was really proud of Griffin and Curtis.
The bus and its passengers languished there for a while (ok a long while)
but now we have a cast. I don't know doodly about geography in that part of the country but the bus is headed east and will stop wherever yall feel it is appropriate.
Frank looks at his watch. 7:45 am. Time to hit the road.
Franklin T Johnson, Greyhound bus driver for 27 years, guides the bus out of the station and on to the streets of urban Albuquerque, and then to the highway and eventually to the interstate where he can relax a bit.
He looks into his mirror to check on the passengers. The children seem to have dozed off. Lisa and the members of "The Chariots" are asleep.
Frank knows that some people towards the back will sneak into the bathroom to smoke or toke, but as long as no one complains or they don't cause any trouble, that's fine with Franklin T Johnson.
So he is cruising along, five mph over the speed limit towards our next stop, when here come these state cop cars passing him. One. Then two, three and four almost bumper to bumper. And then five, six and seven.
What is going on, thinks Frank.
Cop cars, many many cop cars, with a limo in between.
"Must be Hillary or Obama or McCain." Franklin T Johnson mutters. He glances into the mirror. Everyone seems to be asleep. Two more hours until Amarillo.
Franklin T Johnson will turn over the bus and the passengers to another driver and he will get an allowance for a hotel room. But he has a cousin there. He stays with them. Tommorow he will head west, with other passerngers, heading west.
Dusting this off:
Franklin T Johnson maneuvers the Greyhound bus through the narrow driveway of the station. "Amarillo," he announces, "Amarillo, Texas."
Curtis and the "Golden Chariots" members get off the bus. They will play a show tonight, another on Saturday at another church, and then two on Sunday. Curtis is happy. 60 years of singing and praising the Lord. Many years on Greyhound buses, for many years having to ride in the back.
Griffin is now sitting in the back of the bus. It strikes me as odd that at one time some people had to ride in the back of the bus, but now some people want to ride in the back of the bus. Griffin does. He has been pleasantly stoned since Alb.
I note that Helen (who is running away from something) and Ramon (who has the smell of Marlboro's) may be hanging out with Griffin.
