That creek was the only thing separating the Davis estate from a lesser property whose  quaint Tudor home had been on the market for years, gradually depreciating with the turning  seasons. The summer sun would fade the roof and burn the finish off the porch until the beams  warped inward like the hull of a Guineaman ship. The falls were mild and didn’t do much  damage. In the winters, though, the pipes would freeze, and when they thawed come spring, the  realtor would pay a plumber to plug the leaks. Yet the sun and wind were petty compared to the wrath of water. For if the creek overflowed, the basement would take on a few swampy inches,  and in the weeks following the realtor would leave the doors open so the carpet wouldn’t mold.  From a mile away you could hear the wet vacs humming and the choppy voices of carpet  cleaners as they yodeled ay-yai-yai into the blades of oscillating fans. 

The realtor was content to let the creek serve as the property line, like the Rio Grande or  the mighty Mississippi. But Jefferson wasn’t about to leave his family’s fate to the whims of a  matriarch like Mother Earth. He drew the brittle yellow deed from a safe that gleamed inwardly  with heirlooms and, assuming his tea-time post atop the third-story veranda, compared the  notarized sketch with the current landscape; indeed, the creek had shifted with the last flash  flood. Whenever it rained for days on end, it would reroute ever-so slightly, the bed deeper, the  bank steeper. This time the momentum had eroded his side of the bend, displacing it as a jut of  earth on the other. Hence, telling by several ancient elms that served as landmarks, he now  owned a fraction of the neighboring property. Just enough to fish from.  

In case of a legal dispute, Jefferson summoned his lawyer to redraft the deed. The two  men conversed over a pair of shared binoculars as would generals before battle. Meanwhile  Keesha took five, turning up the radio and wiping sweat from her brow with blanched hands. When Jefferson caught her in the crosshairs of those binoculars, her image advanced on him like  a darkroom negative or postbellum vendettist, this black woman in whiteface. And since she  seemed closer than she actually was, he said “Afternoon” in a voice she couldn’t possibly have  heard. 

What she did hear was the host of NPR detailing the recent toppling of statues in a  number of city centers and college towns, the movement of her people coming to a head as if it  were a planned tricennial: the ’60s, the ’90s, and now the ’20s. And here she was playing the part. She took some comfort in knowing she wasn’t alone, that there were still the quiet caddies  at the country clubs, the hooting cooks at the hot chicken joints, the humpback shoeshines at  Nashville International. Then there was her father, a former barber. When gentrification  shuttered his shop in East Nashville, she’d dropped out of Julliard Drama to join this farce;  because around here, being typecast still paid better than breaking character. 

Keesha squeezed the sponge like a stress-relief toy then dropped it in the bucket and  watched the two men head indoors after a lot of insistent pointing. If only her employer would  plant some boxwoods. That way, no one would notice the stains left by the rising water. That  way, she wouldn’t have to whitewash the goddamned gazebo again. Waiting for the sponge to  bloat, she let herself be distracted by an acrobatic squirrel; a jet drawing a chalkline in the sky;  the leggy realtor across the creek, teetering in stilettos across a sodden lawn to uproot the For  Sale sign.  

Keesha was halfway around the gazebo when the sun was low enough to look at. She  reviewed the checklist in her mind. She’d changed the linens. Beaten the Persian rugs. Windexed  the windows and Cloroxed the commodes. She hadn’t mopped the floors, but that could wait  until tomorrow since she’d mopped the day before yesterday. Satisfied with the state of the set,  she left the sponge in the bucket so it wouldn’t crust then went inside to ask if there was anything  else she could do before heading home. Jefferson was in his study returning the deed to the safe.  Keesha made a point of turning away before she saw the combination. Backing out of the room  without a word, she drew the curtains in the master so Jefferson wouldn’t wake up when she  arrived early to bake a cake for the new neighbors. And…scene.  

* * *

The boxes labeled BED were in the bedroom. The boxes labeled BATH were in the  bathroom. The boxes labeled FRAGILE were in the kitchen. Jasmine was in the kitchen too,  taking stock of her new home. She stood beside an old coffeemaker, the first and only appliance  she’d unpacked. Bringing a cup to her lips, she blew at the seemingly placid surface then  proceeded to scald herself when the doorbell rang. Not the harsh buzz of a Boston brownstone  but the Westminster chimes of a grandfather clock. She could practically see the full octave  plotted on sheet music, falling for half a bar before rising in equal measure.  E-C-D-G, G-D-E-C.  

Jasmine figured Carl had lost his house key, or else it didn’t fit. If so he would fix it  without calling a locksmith. As newlyweds she’d loved having a handyman for a husband. But  she was starting to see he wasn’t as industrious as he was stubborn. He would cut out his own  tongue before asking for another man’s help. She opened the door. Where she’d expected to find  a middle-aged man holding a blunt key, she found an old man holding a crumb cake. 

“Morning,” he announced with a voice like a bugle, throwing glances over and around  her. “Thought I’d drop by and say welcome.” Jasmine stood quietly with her hand on the jamb,  that slender arm her only barricade. When no one else came to the door, he turned his full  attention to her. “Well, welcome. I’m Jefferson.” 

Jasmine made a platter of her palms, and Jefferson lowered the back of his hands onto the  front of hers as though they were about to play slaps.  

“Jasmine.” She showed him in. He cupped his ear and she said it louder. “Jasmine. Like  the flower. And you really shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t, to be honest.” Jefferson followed her down the hall, limping a little and halting  to regard an unhung diploma: Harvard, Magna Cum Laude. “My help baked it. I try always to be  forthright.”  

“Your ‘help’?”  

“Maid? Housekeeper? Domestic worker? You’ll have to forgive me if I’m behind the  times. But you wouldn’t begrudge living assistance to an old widower?” 

Jasmine put the crumb cake on the counter beside the blinking coffeemaker: twelve,  twelve, twelve o’ clock. She synched it with her wristwatch. Rounding to the nearest half hour, it  was eight-thirty. Early. Too early for a house call.  

“What did you study?” He pointed his chin at the diploma. 

“Music,” she said. 

“Which instrument?” 

“The lungs.”  

“Sing me something, if you don’t mind.” He aimed his better ear at her. 

“I’m no early bird.”  

“Doesn’t have to be fancy. A do re mi would do.”  

“You wouldn’t prefer ‘Wade in the Water’?” 

“I fear we got off on the wrong foot. That, or you got up on the wrong side of the bed.” “We haven’t bought one yet.” 

“We?”  

The conversation was interrupted by the tooting of a horn. 

“That’ll be my husband with the U-Haul. He’s been driving all night.” 

Before leading her guest into the foyer where the latticework of the Tudor facade showed  in relief, Jasmine took the pot off the hotplate and poured what was left into a travel mug. If he  was surprised to see a white man walk through the door, Jefferson didn’t show it. The white man,  on the other hand, was clearly surprised to find a stranger in his house. Handing off the  brimming mug as carefully as a torch, Jasmine introduced Carl to Jefferson, Jefferson to Carl. 

It hardly seemed worth giving their guest a grand tour of stripped carpet and bare wall, so  Carl suggested they have a slice of the crumb cake on the back porch. When he opened the  sliding door it made a horrible grating noise; he assured everyone it just needed a little WD-40.  The lawn chairs were sitting right out in the open, right in the sun, and without the cushions the  wrought iron was hot to the touch. They ate standing up.  

“What do you make of the neighborhood?” asked Jefferson.  

“So fah so good,” said Carl.  

“Jersey?” Jefferson said of the accent.  

“Boston.” Carl dunked his cake in his coffee, which meant he couldn’t be invited to  dinner parties.  

“And what do you make of the house?” Jefferson asked.  

Carl nodded at a window below their knees. “Basement’s watahlogged.”  

“Floods every April.” Jefferson shook his head regretfully. “You’re in a sinkhole, in case  the realtor didn’t tell you.” 

“Yeah, yeah. She toll us,” Carl said with a mouthful. “That’s why we could afford it.” He  lost the last bit of his crumb cake to the mug. 

“At least she’s forthright,” Jefferson thought out loud. “Had my doubts about her.”

Carl finished his coffee and slung the grounds into the yard. “I’m gonna fix this place up  on the cheap. But don’t worry, it won’t look it. Your property value’ll go up with us next door.” The Davis residence stood on the other side of the creek beyond the willows and reeds,  alone and imposing and white. Jefferson admired it from afar as any outsider might. If for  nothing more than this new perspective, he was glad he had come.  

“Funny,” Carl started. Jefferson saw that he too was admiring the Davis residence. “Me  and Jazz didn’t think no one lived in the place. No one but a ghost, maybe.”  “No ghosts.” Jefferson laughed. “Not as long as I’m alive and kicking. After that I can’t  guarantee anything.” 

“And if it wasn’t a haunted house, we guessed it was a clubhouse.” 

“Wrong again. But you come over for billiards whenever you please. My son Jeff’s  always looking for someone new to hustle. By the end of the night he can’t stand up straight, but  he can sink an eight ball corner pocket.”  

Carl loosened his toolbelt and suggested they walk off the cake. They followed the  boundary of the back lot where honeysuckle grew in clumps along the creekbank.  “So you’re a handyman,” said Jefferson, “and she’s an Ivy Leaguer.” 

Carl was treading around flatfooted in search of mole holes. He hadn’t mown the lawn  yet. The realtor had been paying a teenager to mow it.  

“Can I ask you a question out of sheer curiosity? Promise me you won’t take offence.”  Jefferson waited until Carl nodded. “I pulled some strings, but Harvard rejected my Jeff. We had  to settle for Vanderbilt.” 

“Settle?” said Carl. “Vandy’s all but Ivy.” 

“You said it,” said Jefferson. “All but.” 

“Vandy’s why we’re here, matter fact. Jazz was hired to teach music appreciation.” “Was she accepted to Harvard outright?” 

“Outright?” said Carl, still patching divots with his foot.  

“She’s clearly made the best of it, and she’s to be commended for that.” Jefferson clasped  his arms behind his back and kept walking even after Carl had stopped.  

“Really?” said Carl. “You’re asking if that’s why Jazz got in?” 

“I’m asking if that’s why Jeff didn’t. He can’t land a decent job. Or can’t keep one at  least.” 

Carl would’ve taken offense, but he was a man of his word and had promised not to.  “Jazz is waiting for me to unload boxes.” He walked toward the house without looking back.  “You know, Carl…” Jefferson’s legs creaked like an antique chair when he squatted to  run a palm along the unmown grass there on the ledge of the creek. “My family used to be in  charge of this land. Not just this spot, but the whole kit and caboodle. Everything south of  Kentucky. Speaking of this spot, though.”  

Before he could get to the point, Jefferson was cut short by a sharp grating sound. Carl  was back inside, pantomiming with his wife behind the sliding glass door.  

* * * 

Later that morning Carl was hanging a crossbar for the curtains when he spotted a  trespasser. The man seemed innocent enough, reclined in a beach chair with a foam cooler by his  side. As he came closer Carl saw the chair had cupholders in the armrest, one of which held a  silver beer can. The trespasser himself held a fishing rod between his knees while snoring  through a sunburnt nose. Before waking him, Carl looked him over. A decent-looking man of  thirty something in a half-buttoned shirt, madras shorts, boat shoes. 

Carl cleared his throat, then said “Skews me,” then gave up and tapped the guy on the  shoulder. The trespasser came to as if he had a fish on the line, leaning forward and reeling. He  didn’t notice Carl until he had the hook in hand, vexed by the missing bait. “Dadgum it.” He  fumbled in the cooler for his worm can but came up with another beer, prying it open with a  gritty fingernail. He’d dug up the worms right here on the ledge where the soil was new and  moist, leaving the shovel stabbed in the ground the way a butcher leaves his cleaver in meat. To  either side of the shovel were a hole and commensurate mound. “One more drink never hurt  anyone, right?”  

“It’s ten-thirty,” said Carl. Or it was when last he looked at the coffeemaker.  “Already?” The trespasser slid on the Croakies he’d been wearing like a necklace and  peered up at a sun that was climbing right along with the temperature. “Then it’s now or never.  Fish don’t eat lunch, you know. Only breakfast and supper.” 

Carl was busy today, so he cut to the chase. “What’re you doing out here?”  “Not having much luck, that’s what.” 

“What’re you doing out here?” Carl tapped his foot. “Stead a somewhere else. There’s  plenty more creek down the way.” 

“My father told me this was the spot.” The trespasser peered into a pail that should’ve  been stirring with fins then looked up into the sun again with the beer pressed to his brow.  “This is my back yad,” said Carl. 

“Where are my manners?” The trespasser stood and held out a hand. “I’m Jeff Davis.”

Carl stuck out a hand of his own and Jeff squeezed it harder than anyone ever had. About  that time a cloud came between them and the sun. A few fat drops wept onto their shoulders.  Jeff, shaking a fist at the heavens, stepped under the umbrella of a willow and pulled out a flask.  When Carl followed him in, Jeff offered it up.  

“I don’t drink that stuff. Not straight anyway.” 

Jeff heard possibility in Carl’s reluctance. “Then let’s send for mint and sugar. We’ll  make juleps. We’ll make a day of it. We’ll send Keesha to Kroger. Or you can send yours.”  “Mine?” 

Jeff looked over his shoulder at Carl’s house. “The lady hanging curtains.” “That’s my wife,” Carl hissed.  

Jeff flushed. “Honest mistake. No hard feelings? Truth be told, I envy you.” “Yeah?” Carl crossed his arms. “And why’s that?” 

“Doing what you want to do. Doing who you want to do.”  

Jeff walked out from under the willow. The rain cloud had passed. He arched his back,  opened his mouth as if to scream, and made the most monstrous face Carl had ever seen. Then he  patted his lips with a lethargic tribal sound. “High time I get back to my nap.”  “First I’d like a word with your father.” 

“No can do.” Jeff slumped back down in his beach chair and propped his feet up on the  cooler. “He’s at the chiro.”  

“Tomorrow then.” 

“Tomorrow’s the ortho. Father’s on his last leg, you see. One bad spill and it’s all me.” “The family fortune?” said Carl. 

“The family name,” said Jeff. “That’s why I’m laying low while I can.” 

Jeff rebaited his hook, doubling it through a single worm to form a fleshy tumor. That  graceful rainbow of a cast landed nowhere near the reeds, the line wafting down until it hung like  gossamer in the gnatty afternoon. 

“Fine. How’s about I have a word with you, then you have a word with him?” Jeff  nodded and Carl went on. “Look, I know no one’s lived in our place for a while. But here we are.  And we’re here to stay. Now I don’t mind you dropping by from time to time, but I’d appreciate  if you didn’t make a habit of wandering over without letting us know.”  

Drawing that deed from his pocket, unfolding it according to the creases, Jeff handed it  over to Carl. Carl held it up like an x-ray, the daylight illuminating all but the black contours of  the contiguous estates. He traced the dashed line that followed the course of the creek, faithful  but for a single divergence along this side of the bank.  

“Heck Carl, I don’t mean to patronize you.” Jeff reeled in and recast. “But the  paterfamilias told me to show you that.” Jeff plunged his naked arm into the ice water and  pitched a cold one at Carl’s chest. “Now you just go on and make yourself at home.”  

* * * 

Come late afternoon a boy of about ten found the shovel just where Jeff had left it. He  pretended he was King Arthur as he pulled it from the earth, fencing with his shadow until he’d  slain the dark knight several times over. Only once did he wind up on the wrong end of the  sword, having tripped over a hole in the ground still wriggling with earthworms. He pinched one  between his fingers, pulling it apart, and waited for it to become two. This concept— regeneration—he’d learned in science class. He bored when the worm didn’t grow back right away and, taking the hole as a suggestion to dig, commenced to slinging soil over his shoulder.  Some of it landed in the creek. Some of it showered down into his hair, which was about as  sheeny and unkempt as frayed copper wire.  

Carl spotted him first, but Jasmine said she should go. Knowing kids tend to skedaddle  when approached by a stranger, she came upon him quietly but without realizing her shadow had  preceded her. The redhead spied it and, presuming the dark knight had been revived, sprang to  his feet. He charged right into Jasmine’s grasp, braces flashing as he bit into her forearm. She  staggered back and examined the imprint of his crowded teeth. Then she looked at the boy  himself. He’d recovered the shovel and retreated a few steps, lunging and gashing the space  between them so she’d keep her distance, his nose scrunched ferociously, his freckled cheeks  bunched under his eyes. Jasmine resisted the urge to call him a brat or monster or little shit.  

“Whatcha digging?” she asked with a strained smile. He glanced at the hole, now a few  feet deep, before turning one wary eye back on her. “Is it a grave?” she asked. Jasmine didn’t  mean to be morbid. Next to the hole was a pair of twigs that resembled a homemade cross. But  the bark was worn in the middle, meaning the boy must’ve abandoned them after failing to make  fire.  

“Maybe.” The kid seemed to like that idea. “Yeah. That’s what it is. A grave.” When she  asked whose grave, he shrugged. “A dead person’s.” When she asked if he knew a dead person,  he nodded eagerly. “Mimaw. But she’s already got a grave.” When Jasmine asked who the grave  was for, then, if not his grandmother, he said, “None of your beeswax,” and scratching his  cowlick, added, “Maybe it’s for me.”  

Were the boy a man, Jasmine might’ve concerned herself with that last comment. But he  was still a boy and thus immortal in his own eyes. Die! Die! Die! he would yell while shooting bullets from his finger. And if he himself died—a cop or robber, a cowboy or Indian, a Rebel or  damn Yankee—he would lie like Mimaw had in the casket until no one was around, then jump  up and run for his life.  

“But that’s silly,” said Jasmine, “because you’re not dead.”  

“You don’t gotta be dead to have a grave. Papaw has a grave right by Mimaw’s. It’s got  his name and birthday and when he croaks they’ll add his deathday.” 

“Speaking of names.” She knelt so they were eye to eye. “I’m Jasmine.” 

He switched the shovel to his left hand and shook—“J.D.”—then leapt back in a  defensive stance.  

“I see,” she said. “Another Jefferson Davis.” 

“That’s Papaw’s name.” He dropped the shovel to list three generations on his fingers. “Here’s how to remember it. Our names get smaller, just like our ages: Jefferson, Jeff, J.D.” He  explained this lineage with his head held high. Initials were something a boy could be proud of,  stitched as they were into the child’s pajamas, etched as they were into the father’s flask.  “And what number are you, all in all?” 

The boy made a face. “Who’s counting?”  

“Someone, I’m sure. Some kooky historian.”  

“Then why should I?”  

J.D. narrowed a pupil at the sinking sun then reached of a sudden for the shovel. Across  the way Keesha picked up her pace. It’d been two days and she still hadn’t finished the gazebo.  Now that the boy was at ease in her presence, Jasmine snuck up on him and snatched the shovel.  

“Hey, give it back!” he demanded, but she held it higher than he could jump. “Give it!”  When he tired of jumping, he kicked her shin and retrieved it on the drop.

“You little shit!” she said before clapping a hand over her mouth. 

“I’m telling,” the boy sang.  

“Keep digging!” Jeff called from the other side of the creek. “Do your worst, J.D.! Dig to  Red China.”  

Carl made his way onto the scene. He’d been watching from behind the new curtains, and  when the kid kicked his wife, he could stand by no longer. He joined Jasmine, followed the  thread of her gaze through the creek’s parallel treelines. There was Jeff, sipping on a Julep. He’d  climbed up on the veranda to take in the last of the sun. He raised his tarnished cup to Carl and it  caught a ray of light, gleaming with a luster both silver and gold.  

“Now Jeff,” Carl pointed a toe towards the hole, “we got us a little problem here.” “Come on over,” Jeff suggested. “We’ll hash it out over a cocktail.” 

“I don’t want a cocktail, Jeff. I want this hole filled. Someone could get hurt.” “He won’t hurt himself. He’s dug holes up and down the Gulf. Heck, he’s buried himself  neck deep at high tide.”  

“I’m not talking about him, Jeff. I’m talking about us. The people who live over here.” “If you’re that worried, put a fence around it.” Jeff stood as the last of the sun lifted from  the veranda. He made a bullhorn of his hands. “Let’s call it a day, Keesha. You too, J.D. Time to  wash up.”  

“That’s not our responsibility,” said Jasmine.  

Jeff opened the French doors that led into one of many bedrooms. “Alright, lady. Have it  your way. We’ll fill the hole for you.”  

* * *

Keesha was wearing the same overalls for the third day in a row. By now they appeared stonewashed, though they’d been true blue when she’d bought them on Jefferson’s dime. She  spread her limbs like a scarecrow and stood in the sun until the smears dried to her skin, then  took off her shoes and entered through the backdoor—the routine she went through whenever  nature called. She didn’t bother washing her hands since she would just dirty them again. She  simply flushed the toilet and ran the faucet to lap at that cold popsicle of tap water. She thought  she heard the doorbell and turned the faucet off to listen. A woman screamed upstairs, followed  by two gunshots and a blare of music. With Jefferson in his study and Jeff sleeping one off, J.D.  was sneaking in an R-rated movie. How the boy craved violence.  

Keesha wiped her hands and went for the foyer. The driveway was a straight shot of  marble chips and magnolias. She hadn’t heard a car crunching its way forward, meaning the  caller had come on foot. She saw through the cut crystal doorframe that it was the new neighbor.  He looked small standing on the porch between two Grecian columns. He didn’t introduce  himself, just studied her—her clothes soiled and her hair skunk-striped with whiting. “Can I have a word with Mister Davis?” 

“Which Mister Davis? We got three of those.” 

“The oldest,” he said.  

“He indisposed.” Keesha started to shut the door but felt it stick with the wedge of a foot.  “What is it you need, mister? Sugar? Flour? You short of something other than manners?” “That’ll be all, Keesha,” said a voice from the top of the stairway. “I’m happy to chat  with Carl.” Carl noticed the duckhead cane Jefferson used to make his descent, the way he  placed both feet square on each stair. Keesha tried to come to his aid but Jefferson waved her off. 

When he reached the landing he clutched the banister and caught his breath before conquering  the last flight to stand surefooted on the marble. “Little early for billiards, isn’t it, Carl?” Carl was shuffling his feet to keep from losing momentum. Were this his own house, he  would’ve been pacing. “What’s with the flag in my yad?”  

“Your yard?”  

“My yad. Your yad. What’s the difference? It looks like I’m the one whistling Dixie.” “You asked us to fill the hole, so we filled it. And yes, we posted a flagpole so there  wouldn’t be an unsightly scar in our yard.”  

“I thought I heard you up here.” Jeff smiled groggily at Carl, having finally emerged  from hibernation. Guzzling straight from a bottle of V8, he wandered into the foyer with bedhead  and a cheek scarred from pillow stitching. “What’s up?” 

“It’ll never end, will it? Not till one of you’s castrated.” Carl pointed upstairs at J.D., who  was spying through the spindles. The boy would have gone undetected if not for those jailbird  hands. “He’ll have a son, then he’ll have a son, then he’ll have a son.” 

Jefferson poked Carl’s sternum with the heel of his cane. “What on earth are you  rambling about?”  

“This.” Carl presented Keesha. “For Christ sake, man, you even have her barefoot.” Carl  had mistaken Keesha for a pitiable throwback as opposed to the talented guerilla actress she was.  “Come work for me and my wife. We’ll find something for you to do. And we’ll treat you right.  Whatever he pays you, I’ll pay that and a half.” Carl made to spirit her away, but Keesha didn’t  budge from her blocking. “Fine.” Carl patted the seat of his cargo pants. “I’ll double it.” 

Keesha didn’t exactly break character, but she did look to Jefferson as if to say Line? After all, she had bills to pay. Her father’s and her own. 

“Last I checked this was a free country, Keesha. You work for whomever you please.”  Having given that direction, Jefferson stood back to watch the intended dénouement:  Keesha slamming the door on Carl.  

* * * 

Seeing that the neighbor had tracked in mud from his creek crossing, Keesha could no  longer put off mopping. Giving up on the gazebo, she rinsed out the bucket of whiting and  refilled it with soap suds. Then she lugged it inside to slap at the marble and wrench the gray  dreadlocks. Morning passed. Before texting the guys to come down for lunch, Kesha improvised a bit, leaving a fresh layer on the landing between flights and waiting in the trap room under the  stairway until she heard the bony avalanche. One hip would’ve done it, but by the sound of it, she’d gotten both.  

As the other Jeffersons rushed to the foot of the stairs, Keesha gathered her things and  slipped offstage. She lowered the flag to half-staff before making her commute without breaking  the speed limit, like any other day. Once home, she cut and compartmentalized her father’s pills then stood alone before her bathroom mirror picking off streaks of dried paint that pulled her  skin as tight as stitches. Only then did it occur to her that she had toppled the wrong statue. The rusty old figurehead was merely corrosive, whereas the coppertone cupid was newly armed. 

The post Jefferson Davis the Nth appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Bub 

There were never many new faces on the 8 line, and I memorized them all. There was a young lady that got on at 6th/Ferdinand with her baby and went the whole trip around to get off at the same stop. The baby was always crying when they first got in and fell asleep within the next two stops. There was an old man with prune lips and broken capillaries on his cheeks and knuckles who got on at 3rd/Highland and got off at 8th/Anderson to go home from work. I’ll see you tomorrow, Chief, he said with a nod of his hat. 

The hum of rubber on pavement filled the metal walls. The evening shift was my favorite; it was my regular time. When I first started, over fifteen years ago, I had afternoons. That’s the worst time to drive. Damp bodies and hot breath; everyone’s so angry about being alive and being on the bus, you could feel it in the air like cement. 

In the cool evening everyone was so tired from work that it was quiet. I used to play tunes from the jazz station, until one day the young momma asked me to turn it off to see if that’d let the baby fall asleep faster. It worked. The hums of wind friction and the engine stirring were the only music that filled the air after that. 

Luz ran out of the panaderia on the corner by the time I pulled up to the stop, waving at the old man as he walked away, little white bags filled with baked goods in her hands as she rushed up the steps, barely on time. I didn’t mind waiting for her. 

How you doin’ today, Bub? she asked. 

I’m doing alright, Sugar. What’d you get me? 

You know they don’t have much at this time in the day, but I snagged you an empanada. She extended her hand to offer me a bag. 

I reached out for the bag. Thank you, thank you. You know I’m always too hungry by this time of the shift. 

It’s almost over though! She grinned before walking down the aisle to take the old man’s spot. 

At 9th/Zidan, a father and his child daughter got off, holding hands as they walked away from us. 

At 10th/Corpus, our last stop on the route before we turned around and took the line the other way, a young man got on. I didn’t recognize him. 

Hi. He flashed a smile before moving on. A brown leather satchel hung from his left shoulder and he carried a gray suit jacket in his left hand. 

I continued down the street before turning the corner on the next three corners. Then I took a left to get us back on the original route heading in the opposite direction. After I finished there’d be a shift change and a younger man would take over the route until 3 am. It was 9:18. 

The young momma got off at 6th/Ferdinand with her sleeping child, along with an older lady with box-blonde hair and a young boy who carried a backpack and a duffle bag and didn’t talk much. I think he ran track. The new young man got off at 2nd/Landon, so did a woman who would walk on the bus in a pantsuit and walk off the bus in a blouse that could barely cover both her breasts. I always imagined she went dancing some place. I imagined her long arms looming over her head, a soft bend in her elbows and shoulder blades popping. 

Luz was the only one who got off at 1st/Maine. 

Enjoy the empanadas, Bub! she called before stepping off the bus. 

Have a good night! 

I waited a few minutes to watch her cross the street and walk into the building on the next block, just to make sure she got in safely. 

Several weeks passed. The old man with the prune lips sat at the front of the bus, behind me. My wife tried to take our dog to the vet last night because she thought he was sick, he told me. 

Is your dog alright? 

Well, we don’t have a dog, he said a sadness laced in his words. I’m thinking about moving us into a home, at least we’d be together. It’ll be such a hassle to memorize a new bus route. 

It only took you thirty years to memorize this one, I teased and waited for the sadness to blow out the window like air. He chuckled and patted my shoulder. I tried to imagine what it’d be like to stop at 3rd/Highland without being greeted by the nod of his flat cap. 

Maybe I’ll consider retiring this year to spend more time with her, he said. I think he should’ve retired a long time ago. He’s been on the 8 line since way before I started driving it. His was the first face I memorized. 

It was raining. Windshield wipers sped back and forth across the glass. We stopped at 6th/Ferdinand, and the young momma got on, closing her blue umbrella without taking the time to shake it. I didn’t mind. 

You shouldn’t have brought your baby out in the storm, the old man said with a sort of sweetness in his voice. He was just as concerned about the mother as he was about the baby. She won’t sleep without this bus ride, she said. The bags under her eyes seemed to get worse every day. She doesn’t accept rain checks, the momma said, earning a laugh from both the old man and me. 

At 8th/Anderson, Luz ran out of the panaderia right away, without the usual little white bags in her hands. She didn’t have an umbrella, her clothes and hair dripping wet. The old man tipped his hat at me and walked off the bus. I saw him caress Luz’s shoulder when she greeted him and offered her his umbrella but she refused it. 

Sorry, Bub. They didn’t have anything for us today, she said as she climbed on the bus. I passed her my cardigan. It’s okay, dry off Kiddo. 

She smiled and took a seat in the middle of the bus. 

The new young man got on at 10th/Corpus. He had a black umbrella. He shook it off before climbing on the bus, but the rain was so bad he was soaked in just those few seconds. He dragged water onto my bus. 

We looped around. This time, the new young man didn’t get off at 2nd/Landon. I turned back to him, but he didn’t move. I kept driving. 

Have a good night, Luz, I told her once we were at 1st/Maine. She only responded with a smile as she hung my cardigan on the back of my seat. Luz climbed off and the new young man followed after her. 

I watched him run up behind her, I leaned forward in my seat, getting ready to unbuckle my seatbelt. But then he held his umbrella over her head. I settled. 

. . . 

Arlo 

I had studied the stops of the 8 line and taken notes about where I had to go. It made things easier to remember. The stop where I got on the bus was in front of an Indian restaurant. It was three blocks away from my apartment building. I’ve never had Indian food before. I made a mental note to go there with friends at a later date. Or maybe during my lunch hour sometime. I knew that we passed a shopping mall two stops before the one I got off, and I knew that we passed an elementary school one stop before it. It looked so dark and sad as we drove by at night, very different from what it was like during the day, on my way to work. I was supposed to get off at 2nd and Landon, just in front of some random business plaza. 

I’d never taken the bus before. I grew up in the suburbs and had a car in college. But now that my place of work was virtually across town from my apartment, I had to utilize public transportation. Something about it felt grimy and dirty. I packed disinfectant wipes in my satchel, but I was too embarrassed to use them. Instead I sat with the germs and bacteria, imagining them making friends with one another before infecting me with whatever viruses they carried. 

There was a girl. She was already on the bus by the time I got on everyday. But she was the first person I noticed when I got on. She had dark hair that framed her face, and deep-set eyes. A second chin would form slightly below her face as she looked down at her phone. She couldn’t have been older than 23, maybe 24. 

I noticed her talking to the bus driver and other passengers. Once she sat behind the woman with a baby. Her hand gently reached over the seat to stroke the baby’s hair. “She’s so sweet,” the girl said, a curl of hair twisting around her finger before her hand glides along the baby’s cheek. 

“You should see her before we come on the bus. She’s a demon, a whole different baby,” the woman said. The girl laughed and I chuckled under my breath. They both turned to look at me and I felt embarrassed. I began to imagine all the things they might be thinking about me: he’s so rude, insensitive, obnoxious. The woman turned to look at her baby. 

But then the girl smiled. The corners of her mouth turned up like curly q’s. My stomach bottomed up as she turned away. 

Later that week, I sat in the seat across from the girl. She talked to a younger kid, who sat in front of her. 

“How was your meet?” she asked him. 

“We won. But I didn’t do well.” 

“What happened?” 

“I was too slow. And I kept dropping the baton.” 

“That’s okay, you’ll do better next time. Summer’s coming, are you excited?” 

“Yeah, we won’t have any practice.” 

“The high school team won’t practice?” 

“I don’t think I’ll try out.” 

“How come?” 

“I just don’t want to do it anymore.” 

“You shouldn’t give up on it so easily,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself. I started mentally cursing myself for being such a fool. What would she think of me for eavesdropping? The girl turned to look at me, then she smiled. “Do you have any advice?” I sighed, releasing a breath I didn’t realize I was holding onto so tightly. 

“Yeah,” I said, “I used to play basketball in high school. My team wasn’t very good, or maybe it was just me. But everytime that I felt like quitting, I remembered all my friends on the team, all the time and energy my coach put into trying to make us good, all the gas money I spent to drive to practice,” the girl laughed. “It motivated me to stay, and keep getting better.” “Did you get better?” the kid asked. 

“Well, no,” I said, and she laughed again. I hoped she’d think I was funny. “But still, the basketball team gave me a place where I felt like I belonged.” I swore I saw something change in the girl’s eyes, something softened. 

“What about you?” she asked the boy now, turning to face him. “Do you have a lot of friends on the track team? Does it feel like home?” 

“Well yeah, I guess so,” he said. 

“Maybe you just need to give it another chance,” I told him. He nodded. The girl smiled at me again before turning to look out the window. 

On the first Monday of my second month at work, and on the bus, it rained. When I got on the bus, I saw that the girl’s hair was soaking wet. She didn’t have an umbrella. I took a seat a few rows behind her. We passed the shopping mall, and the elementary school. I knew there was only one stop on the line after mine before it turned back around and went to all the same ones again. When we got to the plaza, I didn’t get up. The bus driver turned back to look at me for a second, but kept driving when I didn’t move. 

When the bus stopped at 1st and Maine, I followed the girl off the bus, staying a few feet behind her at first. I didn’t want her to think I was crazy. But as I watched the rain continue to pour down on her, I ran up behind her. 

“Hey, wait up,” I called. I held my umbrella over her head. 

She didn’t flinch when she turned to look at me. I was surprised by that. “Thank you,” she said. I nodded. 

We didn’t say anything for a second, just stood near each other under the sound of the rain. I could feel drops of rain hitting the back of my neck, but I could tell that none were hitting her. 

“I’m Arlo,” I finally said. 

“I’m Luz.” 

I moved my hand closer to her, motioning for her to take the umbrella. “You should use this.” 

“What will you do?” 

“I don’t mind the rain much.” 

“When will I return it to you?” 

“Tomorrow, on the bus. We’ll both be there anyway,” I said, and she laughed. She looked up at me through long eyelashes, her brown eyes were so big. “Okay.” Her fingers brushed over mine slightly as she took the handle; a warmth spread over me. “Thank you,” she said again. I nodded, and watched her walk away. The rain seemed to make a path just for her. 

I walked home. I felt like I was walking on water, rather than getting poured down on by it. It was a long walk, and I was soaking wet by the time I walked into my apartment, but I didn’t care about the water I dragged in. I knew future me would be worried, and I made a mental note to grab the mop in the morning. 

I fell asleep thinking about the smile in Luz’s eyes. 

It rained all week, too. The next morning, I bought an umbrella on my way to work. I couldn’t stand the feeling of the cold wet against my skin. 

I worked in the HR department of a toilet paper company. I had only started the job a few weeks ago, and already I’d slipped into a monotonous cycle of ugly ties and gray walls. I didn’t want to make any judgments about my coworkers too soon, but they all seemed to be boring and middle-aged, sitting in their cubicles in gray suits. I was afraid to grow up and become exactly like them. 

At the end of the day, when I got on the bus, Luz was already sitting in the same place she had the day before. I gave her a smile and sat behind her. She turned around, extending her hand to give me the umbrella. 

“No, you can keep it,” I told her. I held up my right hand, umbrella in my palm. “I got my own.” 

“Thank you,” she smiled. “What can I do to make it up to you?” 

“Maybe dinner?” I said, a lot more casually than I anticipated. Still, there was a bubbling feeling in my stomach. 

“Sure.” She turned away from me to look out the window. 

I think I knew I would love her because of the way she watched the rain fall on the other side of the glass. I watched the way her head moved as her eyes tracked the droplets. Her pupils danced with the rain. 

We got dinner the following evening. She got off at 10th and Corpus to meet me. I took her to the Indian restaurant. 

“I got you this,” she said as she extended a tiny white bag to me. 

“What is it?” 

“It’s a marranito,” she responded. When she noticed the same confused look on my face she continued, “It’s sort of like a gingerbread cookie, but in the shape of a pig. You can save it for later.” 

“Thank you,” I said. 

The side of her arm sometimes brushed against mine as we walked down the block toward the restaurant. 

“I’ve never been here before,” I told her. 

“Indian food is my favorite,” she responded. She wore a skin tight green dress. That one became my favorite outfit of hers. 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having then.” 

There was a red tapestry hanging on the wall. I think Luz noticed me staring, she said, “It’s beautiful isn’t it.” 

“Yeah I suppose it is.” 

“I love the way the gold weaves through the red, it’s so subtle but everytime you see it it’s striking.” 

“I guess I was just trying to figure out a logic in the pattern.” 

Without looking up at me she said, “Maybe there is none.” 

Afterwards, we took the 8 line back to my apartment. There was a different bus driver now. I didn’t even realize our bus driver’s shift would’ve ended. When we got off at 2nd and Landon, she held my hand. Mine were clammy, but I hoped she wouldn’t notice. She didn’t seem to. Or she at least didn’t seem to mind. Her eyes seemed to watch the way the leaves moved or the shape of the stars in the sky. 

When we got up to the apartment, she stood in front of the window, looking out at nothing. 

“What a beautiful view,” she said. 

“It’s just a bunch of lights and concrete buildings.” 

“Each of those lights was turned on by fairies. They’re switched on by the same hands that braid hair, that touch skin, that pick flowers.” 

When she looked at me, something bubbled in my stomach and I had the urge to reach out and touch her cheek, but I didn’t. 

Everything seemed to move so fast the following weeks. We sat beside each other on the bus. We found a nice grocery store near the stop on 4th and Lopez. We took turns going to each other’s place each night. She had slept over at my place a few times, but she never let me stay at hers. 

When I got on the bus, she was sitting behind the bus driver, they were laughing about something. I took the seat right next to her. 

“Hey, how’s your day going?” I asked her. I pulled the bottle of hand sanitizer out of my satchel and gave myself a generous amount before offering her the bottle. “Really good, the panaderia had my favorite, conchas, today. I brought you one.” She placed a little white bag on my thigh. 

“Thank you,” I said, looking inside the bag to see a small piece of bread with what seemed to be blocks of power sitting on top in a random pattern of squares. I tried not to think about how many hands might have touched the bread. “I’ve never asked you where you get these snacks.” 

“There’s a bakery down the street from the gallery, and it’s right by the bus stop.” “I see.” 

We said goodbye to the busdriver, but all he said was, “Goodbye, Luz,” as we climbed off. I noticed the tiny white bag sitting on the dashboard. 

Luz was an artist. She was an assistant to a curator at the gallery near 8th and Anderson. She was finally going to show me some of her work when we got up to her apartment. “It’s not very good,” she warned as she sat on the couch. 

“I think you’re lying.” I kissed the tip of her nose from the other side of the coffee table. “I’ll show you my sketches,” she said and I nodded, moving around the table to sit next to her. Our thighs touched. 

She started passing me pages of gray lead, most of them people. 

“This is my mom,” she said. A woman sat on the page. I looked at her profile. Fine lines on the side of her eyes, and it looked like there might be tiny stars in her irises. Strands of hair were falling out of her bun. I felt like she might move off the paper. I wondered when I’d meet her mom, when she’d meet mine. 

“This is Bub, the busdriver,” she said. I could almost see the texture in Bub’s hair in the pencil strokes. The moles on his face looked like flowers in a garden. 

“Luz, these are amazing,” I said. “Have you tried submitting these anywhere?” She shook her head. “Not these, at least.” She took the pages out of my hand and started putting them back into the folder they came from. When she opened the folder I saw an old man I didn’t recognize, then the woman with the baby from the bus. 

“Do you draw everyone who comes on the bus?” 

“Well, everyone I’ve gotten to know.” 

“Will you draw me someday? You know, when you know me like that?” “Maybe,” she said, getting off the couch. 

“Maybe?” I joshed as I stood up to follow behind her. 

As we walked into the hallway I noticed the drawings in frames on the walls. Drawings of a lonely hand reaching for a flower, or a pair of awkward knees in a skirt, or a lanky man sitting on a bus bench. 

“Are these all yours?” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them before. 

She nodded, “Yeah, those have been up there for a while.” 

“These are really beautiful. You’re so talented.” 

“Thank you.” 

“It feels like you see the world differently.” I took one of the frames off the wall. When I looked closer, I noticed the flowers in the garden were actually lightbulbs, or arrangements of them, each bulb a petal. I’m not sure I understood what it meant, but I turned to look at her. “It feels like you have so much to say about the world.” 

She looked at me and didn’t say anything. The look in her eyes was so intense it made my skin feel like it was falling off my body, in a good way. 

She exhaled and turned away from me, walking to look out the window at the other end of the hallway. Something shimmered gold in her brown eyes as she looked at the city. It reminded me of the gold thread in the tapestry from the Indian restaurant. 

She turned to me again, “How many fairies do you think are awake? Why do you think all the lights are on?” 

I loved the way she looked at me. I loved the way she saw the world. 

. . . 

Luz 

Arlo and I were at the grocery store near 4th and Lopez, we planned to make dinner together that night, he said he wanted to practice for when he would cook for my parents. My mom loved cooking, I told him she would have really high standards, they hadn’t met yet. He just laughed. 

We made our way through the aisles. He held my hand in his right and carried the basket in his left. He asked me what her favorite meal is, I told him it was caldo de res. We needed two pounds of beef, an onion, a can of diced tomatoes, beef broth, two carrots, two ears of corn, and a head of cabbage. We would also need cilantro and limes, but I had that at home. Technically, we were also supposed to use a potato, but I didn’t tell Arlo that because I didn’t like potatoes much. 

Arlo paid when we checked out. I watched the woman’s hands as she scanned each item, her hands looked like alligators, white between the cracks. We carried the groceries in a reusable bag, the grocery store charges a dollar for each paper bag, and the city put out an ordinance two years ago banning plastic bags. Arlo asked if I’ve ever thought about how crazy it is that no matter how many ‘green alternatives’ come about, we never stop creating waste. I told him I had, I talked about how no matter how many metal straw small businesses pop up we still make (and probably use) the same amount of plastic straws as we did before. He asked me if I thought it would end, I told him no. 

On the way to my place, he pointed out the houses with windows with lights on. We played a game where we came up with stories about what was happening inside each window, I called them fairies. He pointed to a window at the top floor of the building, it was the only light on that floor. He said the person in there was getting ready for work, they were a bartender, he said they were playing some bad sitcom in the background while they brushed their hair. I pointed at a window on the first floor of another building. I said a mother was tucking her twin boys into bed, they don’t like each other, but they share the same favorite bedtime story. 

Then he changed the game, he pointed to a window with the light off, he said that would be ours. He said we’d have a dog and eventually maybe a kid too. He said he’d make a place for me to draw, and that he’d add another chair so he could sit beside me. He said he loves to watch me draw. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t like that part of the game, I couldn’t tell if he noticed or not. He told me it was my turn. 

In my kitchen, he did most of the work. He danced around me in the small space, moving back and forth from the fridge to the oven. He didn’t cry while he chopped the onions. He talked about his mom who lived in Arizona, and how he missed her a lot even though it had only been a few months since he left. He told me about how he sold his car to one of her old friends’ teen kid to make the down payment on his apartment here. I realized he did most of the talking, but not because I wanted him to. He said he didn’t like taking the bus but he was glad that I was there. Then we talked about how his dad died when he was young, it was cancer, Arlo was only ten. We moved to the couch and he cried, he fell asleep with his head on my lap before the soup was done, he didn’t wake up when I moved him and walked away to stir. 

When the soup was ready I woke him up and told him he had to go home, he tried to get me to let him stay the night. I told him we weren’t there yet, I wasn’t there yet. I gave Arlo a white bag from the panaderia when he got on the bus later that week. I was excited, they had conchas. He didn’t say thank you, most days he didn’t, he didn’t look in the bag right away. I tried to explain to him that usually by this time the panaderia is out of almost everything, conchas are a rarity, he asked me why I couldn’t just call it a bakery. I told him the people who own it don’t call it a bakery, neither do my parents, neither will I. He didn’t say anything, that was a first, I was glad. 

When we got off the bus he told me about his day at work, he called his boss an asshole, he said he was up for some big project but his boss was elusive about who would get it. I asked what a big project meant at a toilet paper company, he rolled his eyes at me, he never answered the question. 

At his apartment he told me that he told some of his coworkers about my work, I asked him what prompted him to do that, he said that one of them has a daughter who just got into art school. He said he sent some of them my public portfolio to look at, he hoped that was okay, I said sure, it was. Then he asked me what was wrong, that I’d seemed off all of a sudden, a sense of relief washed over me, at least he noticed part of it. I told him I felt like he’d been rude to me all day. He apologized immediately, he said he was just stressed from work, that he guessed he was taking it out on me without realizing it. I don’t know if I believed him, but I said it was okay anyway. 

Arlo and I went on a picnic in the botanical garden. We had to take the 4 line, neither of us had ever taken it before. We accidentally got off a stop too soon and had to walk the rest of the way. I was annoyed, only slightly, but I don’t think that Arlo noticed, I wondered if he ever actually noticed those things. He held my hand while we walked, his was sweatier than usual, he gave my hand a squeeze every few minutes. 

I drew him in the garden. My favorite part about sketching was the sound the pencil made as it glided against the paper. Arlo wouldn’t sit still, he kept reaching out to move the hair out of my face, I told him he was ruining my vision, he said I was his vision. I could tell he liked me a lot more than I liked him, there was something about the way his eyes bored into mine that made me feel funny inside, I knew I always looked away before he wanted me to. He asked me why I had to do that, I asked him what he meant and he said that I was never vulnerable with him. I told him I didn’t understand, I told him I had been plenty vulnerable, he said that he felt like he could never get close enough to me, I told him I felt like we were closer than I was ready for. He stood up and started to pace, I thought about how lucky we were that no one was around, I hated the thought of people hearing us argue. Then he stopped, he apologized and said he was being dramatic, he asked how he should sit for my drawing. He leaned so his elbows sat on top of his thighs and his green eyes looked up at me through his dark curls, he asked if this pose was good, I nodded. I tried to make the right shade of gray for his olive skin on the page, then I added shadows, then I gave him flowers for freckles. 

He reached out to touch my knee, his hand rested there. I settled, I didn’t realize there was tension in my body. Maybe he noticed it, I didn’t think so though. Maybe he did it to make himself feel better. 

Days passed, we got off the bus together, he asked if he could spend the night in my apartment, I told him I guessed that was fine. He dropped my hand, ran it through his hair, he paced. He said I was doing it again, I told him I didn’t know what he meant, he said I knew exactly what he meant. He said he wanted to be closer to me, he asked why I couldn’t allow myself to have strong feelings for him, and I, without really meaning to, told him that I didn’t know what I felt for him anymore. He paused. Then he said that maybe he was overreacting, that we should both just cool off and we’d talk later to decide when we should have dinner with my parents. I told him I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea anymore. He asked what I meant, I told him I didn’t want to see him for a while, I said I was confused, overwhelmed. He said I was being crazy, I told him I hated every time he said that word, I told him I hated feeling crazy.

I walked away from him and told him not to follow me, but he did. He was asking how things could have changed so quickly. I told him maybe they’d been like this the whole time and he just never noticed. I told him maybe things were always this way, and neither of us noticed. 

I kept walking to my apartment, he followed right behind me in silence. He asked me to let him in and I said no. 

Two drops of water raced each other down the window. I didn’t sit with Arlo today, or rather he didn’t sit with me. When he got on at 10th/Corpus he sat at the front of the bus, as he climbed up the steps his eyes didn’t even make their way up to look for me like they usually do. My mom used to tell me when I was a kid that I would know someone was my soulmate if I could feel them in a room without seeing them. I wondered if he felt me there, or if he would assume I was here because I always am. 

When we got to 2nd/Landon, he didn’t get off, he didn’t even look like he considered getting off, his eyes stayed focused on whatever was on the other side of the front windshield: streets, headlights, stop signs. 

We got to 1st/Maine, he stood up with intent and walked off the bus, I watched him as I gathered my things. I said goodbye to Bub, Arlo was waiting for me outside the door, I dreaded walking out equally as much as I wanted to be next to him. He didn’t say anything while we walked to my apartment, he didn’t reach for my hand on the sidewalk, or at the door, or on our way up the stairs. He asked me for a glass of water when we got inside and I brought it to my bedroom for him. He apologized for calling me crazy, then for the things he didn’t notice. He wrapped his arms around me when I crawled into bed. He said it’s over, isn’t it. I told him it had to be. 

When I woke up he was gone. I went to work on the 8, like normal, but when I got out of work I decided to take a different line, just in case Arlo might get on. The stop I had to get off on was much farther from my door than the 8 was, but I decided it wasn’t so bad. As I approached my building I could see the 8 line pulling up to the stop at 1st/Maine. I thought about turning back to wave at Bub, but I didn’t, maybe I would the following day, or the day after that. 

. . . 

Bub 

It stopped raining at the beginning of June. Instead the days were hot, and so were the nights. The setting sun created a glare in the windshield. 

The old man stopped coming on the 8 line. The last time he was here he mentioned that his kids were helping him and his wife move into a nursing home. I felt I’d already forgotten the pattern of his broken capillaries, or the rhythm of his nod when he tipped his hat goodbye. The young boy, who I think ran track, didn’t get on the 8 line anymore either. School was probably out for the summer. The woman with the baby was still coming. Her baby’s hair was growing so long. The father and his daughter still came, but some days the father got on the bus alone. 

Sometimes Luz came, and sometimes she didn’t. The first time she didn’t come, I’d waited outside 8th/Anderson for an extra minute, then two, then three. I did the same thing the following day and the day after. 

On the fourth day, Luz came out of the bakery, white bags in hand. 

How you doin’, Bub? she asked. 

I’m doing alright, Sugar. I keep thinking about the way things change. 

Things have a way of doing that, don’t they? She set a bag on the dashboard for me. There were still two white bags in her hand. 

The new young man, whose face didn’t seem so new at all, got on at 10th/Corpus. I brought you something, she said to him. I looked in the rearview mirror to watch as she passed him a little white bag. I waited to hear him say ‘thank you’ but it never came. Have you talked to your mom about next weekend? he asked. 

Yeah, but her and my dad are busy. 

Oh, alright, maybe a different weekend then. 

Maybe. There was something uneasy in her voice. 

Maybe you and I can do something, still. I guess he didn’t hear the change in her words. Before I knew it the route hand ended, and it seemed the 8 line as I knew it had ended too. 

On a night when Luz wasn’t around , I talked to the woman who, I imagined, went dancing. As long as she had been on the bus, I hadn’t talked to her. She always went to sit further back on the bus. That day she sat behind me. 

The bus seems a little empty tonight doesn’t it? she asked. 

It feels that way a lot of the time lately. 

Does it get lonely for you? Seeing all these people and then knowing one day, without warning, they won’t come back? 

Well when you put it that way I might be. We both laughed. Her upper lip pulled back in her grin, I could see her deep pink gums. 

Don’t worry, Bub. Some of us will be around long enough that you’ll wish we’d leave. She rubbed my shoulder. 

Before she got off at 2nd/Landon I asked her, Where do you go? 

What do you mean? 

Where do you go when you leave the bus? 

She smiled. I go where I’m going now. 

Eventually, neither of them took the 8 line anymore. Not Luz nor the new young man. But some nights, after I’d made my last stop at 1st/Maine, I saw her crossing the street. I saw the same creases of her coat and flyaways in her hair. I watched her rush into the building on the next block, just to make sure she got in safe.

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Since I don’t want to be a physical girl I’d settle for being an intangible idea. A symbol of a girl. The thought that my physical form simply represents a girl, a girl that signifies some greater principle or dogma, is attractive and cathartic. A girl so singular yet all-encompassing, free from the burden of constructing a complex identity. To be treated as a religious or political symbol, rooted in the Earth and its history, would mean to be treated with the dignity and respect of a perfect representation. Whenever I pass by a mirror I think of my dog, and I don’t look myself in the eyes. I pretend I’m a universal girl, on the cover of a newspaper or a missing person’s poster. I pretend I’m a vessel for communicating the decay of society, or a new mascara brand. Only looked at for what I symbolize. 

I was reading The Name of the Rose, and found a passage that stuck out to me concerning singularity and universal ideas. Eco writes: “I found myself halfway between the perception of the concept ‘horse’ and the knowledge of an individual horse. And in any case, what I knew of the universal horse had been given to me by those traces, which were singular. I could say I was caught at that moment between the singularity of the traces and my ignorance, which assumed the quite diaphanous form of a universal idea.” I stopped to picture myself as a horse, as Adso of Melk, as a girl. My skin clasped around my bones tightly. I was caught up in the dissonance between universal symbols and individual meanings. 

I remember my trip to Istanbul, when I stepped into a mosque that was not a mosque at all, but a coalescence of holy worship. Half mosque, half church, remnants of conquest were vivid and visceral on the walls of the Hagia Sophia. Its religious purpose had always been dictated by whoever ruled over Constantinople, and to the current Turkish government it was undoubtedly a mosque. Christian and Islamic paintings blurred into each other, ending abruptly in destroyed ruins. They were erased and painted over by hand; the symbol transformed at the whim of men. On metro walls in Vienna, I saw how swastikas became grids for tic-tac-toe, passerby filling in the X’s and O’s as the symbol slowly deteriorated in form and meaning. Originally, the swastika was a cultural and religious symbol implying fortune and well-being. I somehow felt its development was buried deep within the metro walls, until it finally succumbed under a graffiti artist’s hand. 

In the dawn of Yugoslavia, my great-grandfather embraced the atheist label. An aspiring academic, he had studied theology in Sarajevo as a young man. To him, religious scripture was merely a text to be critically studied. His wife, on the other-hand, adorned the hijab; a label of staunch resistance to his intellectualism. Obviously, he could not be an intellectual with a covered wife, as these two universal ideas had no point of intersection. When friends visited their home or they attended public events, they reached a compromise: my great-grandmother would wear a wig, so that he could maintain his reputation and she could maintain her faith. Their identities meant virtually nothing in relation to each other only a few years prior. The symbols seemed stronger than the very individuals that created them. Engulfing them in false universality, strict and unforgiving. 

I believed symbols are so entrenched in history and connotation that I forgot they are so malleable. I watched them break, bend, and stretch, yet still had faith in their durability. “A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays in town for 3 days, then leaves on Friday. How did he do it?,” my grandfather asked me when I was a child. He still loves to ask me riddles, and always the most ridiculous kind. The horse’s name was Friday. I know that now. Back then, I wouldn’t have fathomed that response. It’s instinctive to always assume the name ‘Friday’ denotes the fifth day of a week, a symbol of time passed. The riddle shows how hesitant we are to accept the fallible nature of symbols, that Friday is the fifth day of a week but it can also be the name of a horse. There is nothing essential about the name ‘Friday’ to the passing of time; ‘Friday’ can be changed by governments and drawn over with spray paint. Much like Eco’s horse, the horse in my grandfather’s riddle is far from a representation of a universal idea. It’s only our ignorance that gives it such a form. 

Perhaps becoming a symbol would not be very different to what I am already. Perhaps the vulnerable flesh of a living, breathing girl is not very different to the vulnerability of an obsolete symbol. Both require theatrical fabrication, and elaborate myths about their supposed power. I look in the mirror once more, smiling. I am not a universal girl. The horse’s name was Friday.

The post The Horse’s Name Was Friday appeared first on The New Absurdist.

Here are a few: 

“Con chúc ông bà… (I wish my grandparents…) 

– Sức khỏe dồi dào” (an abundance of good health) 

– Tiền vào như nước” (may money flow in like water) 

– An khang thịnh vượng” (security, health, and prosperity) 

– Phát tài phát lộc” (riches and fortune) 

– Vạn sự như ý” (everything you wish will be) 

Every year, I try to up the ante, coming up with more impressive things to say. 

– “Tiền ra nhỏ giọt như cà phê phin” (may money drip like a coffee filter)

– “Nhiều bát canh cà chua” (many bowls of my grandma’s world-famous tomato soup) 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

The more outlandish, the more memorable. 

It makes sense in my head. 

Luck is a funny thing. On most days, I treat it as this unpredictable ideal that comes and goes as it pleases. On holidays such as Lunar New Year, however, luck can be controlled. Cleaning the house from top to bottom will entice it to come in, for example. 

For my maternal grandpa, or Ông ngoại, luck is accompanied by hard work and tenacity. If you work hard enough, luck might take notice and decide you would make good company. 

◆◆◆ 

Over the years, Ông has recounted his experiences growing up in communist Vietnam. 

Born on May 1, 1942 in Indochina, a French colony comprising the modern-day territories of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, he has lived through a lot. May 1st marked International Labor Day and the annual street parade of workers. As a result, there were barely any nurses and doctors left in the hospital as my great grandmother was giving birth. Luckily, my great grandfather was a doctor and friends with a nurse, and so, my grandpa, Quan Khang Tưởng, (born Kouan Hoong Cheong, which changed to Kuan K’ang Shiang on the Chinese Visa until it was finally translated into Vietnamese) was brought into the world. 

A world that would actively work to erase his identity and squash his every chance for success.

When Ông was five or six years old, his older siblings went off to school, waking at 5 a.m. to walk 10 miles. My grandpa, too young to follow them, had to stay home. 

There was an all-girl Catholic school that was closer. On his first day, dressed in girls’ clothes, Ông showed up. A nun took one look at him and asked, “Are you a boy?” In an instant, Ông said yes. With that, he was sent straight home to his mother who fought the urge to cry out of frustration. 

Ông was finally able to go to public school at eight years old. It was far but not as far as the one his siblings attended. He started in third grade with other kids his age, all of whom already learned how to read, write, and count. Without knowing numbers or the Vietnamese alphabet, Ông was punished every day by his teacher, slapped on his hands with a ruler or forced to kneel facing the blackboard for a time out. 

This became such a frequent occurrence that every morning Ông silently made his way to the blackboard before his teacher inevitably told him to do so. He didn’t dare tell his parents in fear he would have to stay home again and further fall behind on his studies. 

After almost two years, Ông left for another school. A French school in Hà Nội called Lycée Albert-Sarraut. According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this school was the only one of its kind: an educational institution operated by a Western power in a Communist state. 

Without knowing a word of French, Ông was severely punished again. But by his second year, things were looking up. Ông could read, write, and understand French. Everything around him, however, was about to take a turn for the worse. 

1954. The communists occupy North Vietnam. Ông’s family has to leave Hà Nội and make their way to the South, to Sài Gòn. 

There was another French school in Sài Gòn that Ông applied to, but all Lycée Albert-Sarraut kids were transferred to a French school about 200 miles away, a school his family could not afford. Returning to Vietnamese school was the only option. 

5th grade. Lớp nhất. In history class, Ông’s teacher recounted China’s domination and Vietnam’s fight for independence, smiling at Ông as she spoke. His last name—Quan—did not escape her. Ông was Chinese; his family left China for Vietnam to escape communism. Not that that made any difference. In this classroom, he was the enemy. 

After school, five to six boys were waiting outside. They jumped on top of Ông, tearing at and throwing dirt on his clothes. 

Every week, Ông returned home, coming in through the back door, to change. He didn’t want to tell his parents; they were already going through such financial hardship. This would have been the least of their problems, Ông thought, or worse, created more. Instead, he directed his focus on school, seeing it as his only way to fight back. 

In 6th grade, Ông rose to the top of his class, skipping 7th grade and going right to 8th. Throughout high school, Ông maintained the same work ethic, knowing that if he did not pass his exams and receive a high school diploma, he’d be enlisted in the military. A military in desperate need of soldiers. 

Around this time, the communist Vietnamese government forced Chinese and other non-native locals to become citizens of Vietnam or face deportation. Ông’s family considered moving. Taiwan refused to receive them. Returning to mainland China wouldn’t have made any sense. They had to become Vietnamese citizens, a process which included changing their last name. 

Ông’s family fought to keep the Quan name. With such insistence, the government gave up and accepted it. 

Around 10 to 15 percent of students graduated high school in Vietnam. More than 80 percent failed.  Ông passed. But his fight would be far from over. 

There were 200 spots for freshman university students. About half were reserved for the extremely wealthy. 

Ông failed the doctor, pharmacist, engineer, and teacher entrance exams. His older brother received a high school diploma from a Chinese school. His younger brother failed to receive one. Both of them were off to the military. 

With each passing day, it was becoming more likely that Ông would be following his brothers. Until one day. A day my grandpa coins—to this day—to be his “Lucky destiny day.” 

One morning, a high school classmate passed by Ông’s house. 

“The aviation school is open,” his classmate said. “You could apply to be an air traffic controller.” 

By the time Ông’s classmate passed by his house, it was past 11:30 a.m. The admissions office closed at 12. 

With his high school diploma and no time to grab his birth certificate, Ông joined his classmate. His classmate was refused up front. The school was only accepting candidates born between 1941 to 1943 and his classmate was born in 1944. Ông, born in 1942, qualified.

If only he had brought his birth certificate. 

The Director of Civil Aviation (DCA) said it was too late to accept Ông’s documents. Ông begged and begged for them to reconsider. 

The school eventually gave in. They held onto Ông’s high school diploma and gave him until the following Monday to submit the rest of his papers. 

Luck was still on his side. 

There were 20 seats in the aviation school among thousands of candidates—close to 9,000. The entrance exam consisted of three parts: written, oral, and physical. The written section included mathematics, French, Vietnamese, and English. The oral section was in English and French. The physical exam tested his vision and hearing to ensure it was on par with the requirements for a pilot. 

The written section took four days. During this time, there was also a policeman exam going on. Around 2,000 candidates withdraw their aviation school application to take the policeman exam. Nine thousand drops to seven thousand. 

Ông excelled in French, English, and math. The same could not be said for Vietnamese. On the last day of the written section, Ông was presented with a philosophical Vietnamese essay question. With no understanding of what the question was asking, Ông wrote a few words and gave up. 

Miraculously, Ông moved onto the two-day oral section. The first of which was in French. Ông walked into a room to find his French essay on the table. The school had deemed it excellent. His Vietnamese essay…not so much. 

Ông still had a chance to win the school over. His French pronunciation was impressive. 

The next was in English. A representative from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was there to interview him. Ông spoke fluently in English. 

He had passed the oral section. 

After the written and oral section, 50 people were left. Those that were remaining were sent to an air force base for the physical portion. 

“Who here wears glasses?” 

Twenty people wore glasses. They were immediately dismissed.

Then came the examinations: vision, hearing, and heart. Ông passed them all. Five were dismissed. 

The pool of candidates had been cut in half. It was down to 25 people for 20 spots. Twenty people were accepted; five were waitlisted. 

Ông was lucky #25. 

Over the course of three months, all 25 candidates attend aviation class and take a flying exam. Three students fail. Twenty-two remain. 

After six months, another exam. 

Three students fail. Nineteen remain. 

These lucky 19 can now officially call themselves aviation school students. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a mere 30 minutes for lunch, Ông studied for the final exam. Three students fail. Sixteen students graduate. 

Ông graduated #2 in his class with the #1 graduate scoring just half a point higher. 

Working as an air traffic controller in an airport in Sài Gòn, Ông was exempt from enlisting in the war. This, however, did not guarantee his safety. 

1968. The war is at its peak. The Việt Cộng and the North Vietnamese military launches an attack on South Vietnam and the U.S. military. It is known as the Tết Offensive for taking place during the Lunar New Year. 

So many civilians die. Ông’s older sister’s house in Sài Gòn is hit by a communist rocket, instantly killing her. 

At 28, after one year of working at the airport, Ông’s mother arranged for Ông to be married, choosing my grandma, Trần Ngà Thi. 

They have three daughters together. One of whom being my mom. 

1975. North Vietnam fully takes over the country. My mom’s younger sister is born the year after. 

At this point, Ông was an airline security manager. Everyone who worked in aviation for the old regime, about 400 to 500 people total, gathered in the DCA building. Once inside, Ông walked into the personnel office where he saw a letter with his name on the table.

Ông was being promoted to army lieutenant. He grabbed the letter and destroyed it. Hard work and luck were simply not enough. This time, Ông had to be cunning. 

Under communist rule, each person was required to disclose everything about their life, family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. The communists had no records of anyone before 1975. 

You had to physically write about every aspect of your life and circle over and over again. If there was any discrepancy found in your retelling or in someone else’s, you were called in for questioning. 

Ông had 30 employees under him as manager. If his position as an airline security manager for South Vietnam was found out, Ông would be sent straight to jail or a re-education camp. 

Security was an especially dangerous word as it was often conflated with intelligence and espionage. To the communist government, Ông could be considered a South Vietnamese spy. 

He thought about what he should say to his team carefully. For Ông, this was a matter of life or death. It was crucial for all his employees to be on the same page. 

All DCA employees were divided into 20 groups to clean up the airport. Ông’s group was assigned to the terminal where his office was conveniently located. 

Ông headed straight to his office and destroyed everything. Uniforms. Paystubs. Photos. Documents. Anything he could find that could be used against him. 

Later that day, Ông faced his team. He told them to not write down anything regarding their involvement in airline security. 

“We are smarter than the communists,” he said. “They don’t know anything about us unless we tell them. Why should we tell them anything bad? Be careful what you say because the communists will ask for proof of employment. Proof that as of today no longer exists.” 

Not one of Ông’s 30 employees declared their job in aviation. The first phase in Operation Outsmart the Communists was a success. To avoid getting caught, Ông had to lay low. 

Bà, my grandma, attended weekly mandatory communist meetings to report on her family’s activities. 

Ông was presented with two options for re-education: be sent away for 10 days or study in place for 21. 

Ông had a feeling there was a catch hidden somewhere. He chose 21 days. After his re-education period, he was hired to teach air traffic control for the communist government.

Those that chose 10 days ended up away from their families for 10 years. Ông went on to work for the communists for two. During this time, he explored every possible option to get his family out of the country. 

The first was to go to Cambodia or Thailand by foot. Along with three young children, Ông Bà would have to make their way through the treacherous jungle and carry weapons to protect one another. 

Others paid to leave Vietnam by boat. Two to three hundred people would be crammed in a small boat and go off to sea. Along the way, they’d face pirates, storms, starvation, and disease. 

Foreigners (non-Vietnamese people) were allowed to return to their home countries. People gathered outside to retrieve an exit visa. This gave Ông an idea. Perhaps he could figure out a way to leave the country legally. 

But first, he had to quit his job. No country would grant him an entry visa if they found out he worked for the communists. 

Between 1975 to 1980, millions of Northerners moved to Central and South Vietnam. To manage this migration, the communist government implemented the New Economic Zones program, which forcibly evicted Southerners from their homes and relocated them in the countryside. 

In an aviation meeting with over 2,000 people in attendance, Ông raised his hand, expressing his desire to quit. The head captain and communist major were outraged. Ông was escorted to a small narrow room where he was kept until the meeting was finished. 

The captain and major came in. They took turns berating Ông, accusing him of disobedience. “No! You misunderstand,” Ông said calmly, “Uncle Ho [Chi Minh] wants us to move to the New Economic Zone. I’m just following orders and willing to leave the city.” 

The captain and major were quiet and left the room. Ông waited for four hours. At 5 p.m., the captain returned. “OK Fine! Go home!” 

Ông didn’t wait to be told twice. As he made his way out, he ran into the head captain’s assistant. The assistant was riding a bicycle, rushing to get home in time for dinner. When the assistant saw Ông, he let out a sigh of relief. “Here, take this!” he said, handing Ông an envelope. “Bring this to your local security office. Thank you!” The assistant took off. 

The envelope read CONFIDENTIAL across the front. Ông quickly pocketed it and continued on home. 

He told no one about quitting. Not even his family.

The letter the assistant had given him confirmed that he was no longer an employee of the communists. Addressed to his local security office, the letter stressed to the local officers to control and suppress him. That night, Ông burned the paper as he cooked. 

The next day, Ông left his house at the usual time as if he was going to work. His employers, in their shock, had forgotten to reclaim his employee ID card. Carrying this ID held a distinct weight of power. Every morning and night, he’d flash the card to the local officers. The officers, upon seeing the Cờ đỏ sao vàng, the red and yellow star flag of communist Vietnam, saluted in response. 

There was a complete lack of communication between the communists. Ông used this to his full advantage. 

Ông would observe the chaos at the district office to prepare his exit visa application submission. Everyone who cited reunification with family as a reason to leave Vietnam was turned away immediately. “Tell your family to come to Vietnam,” they’d say. Instead, Ông stated he was leaving due to his physical and mental health. He slipped his application right behind a family with a significant amount of gold, seconds before the office closed for the day. 

Ông wrote hundreds of letters to different countries, asking for an entry visa. 

Three responded with good news: Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Tahiti, and the Central African Republic. 

Because Tahiti is an island in French Polynesia, Ông managed to evacuate Bà, my aunts, and mom to France by plane. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or UN Refugee Agency provided them money for the plane tickets. With the help of a good samaritan, Ông also secured an apartment in the heart of Paris (about 2-3 days before being at risk for deportation) where they lived for two years. 

When the war was over, the U.S. government publicly promised whoever had helped the Americans leave Vietnam with entry to the United States. Ông reminded them of that promise and of his role as an air traffic controller. Finally, in 1981, my family arrived in New York. 

◆◆◆ 

Every Tết, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year, I kneel before my grandparents and wish them great fortune for the year ahead, usually in the form of catchy four-word phrases. 

The more words I say, the more luck I will bring to my grandparents. 

It makes sense in my head.

Without this custom and literal expression of giving back to your elders, I often wonder how I could ever reciprocate the sheer will and fortuitous circumstances that led my grandparents to the U.S. 

That resulted in my existence as their first grandchild. 

It’s a staggering thing to wrap your head around as someone whose only exposure to war has been through stories, images, documentaries, and the news. 

Sometimes, for that reason, the new year wishes can feel superficial. I always mean them sincerely. But they pale in comparison. 

My wishes come from a life of privilege. Luck has been handed down to me like an ancient family relic. 

No words or actions will ever be enough. The only real way to “pay them back” is to lead a life worthy of sacrifice. To study to get ahead. To be as bold as to resist as a means of self-preservation. 

Do so long enough and luck, just might, catch up.

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