Chapter 7: Better dead than in Philadelphia
Through the tinted glass of the bus window, Philadelphia
looked cold and uninviting, less the city of Brotherly Love than a collection
of gray stone buildings stuck on the edge of the Delaware River,
suffering the cross
winds that smelled of oil slick and rotting oysters – the bus crossing into his
dirty and dismal streets, rich with history and poverty.
It was easy to imagine the white slave markets that had once
decorated its shore where Germans and other white Eastern Europeans were put on
sale, chains rattling as their masters showed them off like prized stations to
feed the ever needy northern slave trade, ghastly now in a different more
depressing way, haunted by the ghosts of Ben Franklin and other of the nation’s
founding fathers, who like me could not believe what this city had become.
Maybe it was just the part of town the bus rode through,
giving me a dark glimpse that did represent everything or my mood, fearing the
worst of what would happen when the bus pulled into the station, and I found
the police waiting for me.
Which did not happen. The bus pulled into the terminal. The
passengers got out, leaving only the sleeping drunk in the back seat, unnoticed
and undisturbed by the driver who stood outside the door as we came out,
wishing us good luck at getting to our destination.
I looked and felt like a bum in my now wrinkled suit with
pockets that looked to be bulging more from trash than from cash. Even the
driver had looked at me oddly when I finally emerged from the bus, and the
clerk behind the ticket cage where I went to inquire about the next bus leaving
for the west -- telling me to come back when the day shift stepped in. So did
the man at the newspaper counter, eyeing me as if I still had my long hair, his
cigar only a small, brown nub at the corner of his mouth, leaving a drip of
brown down his chin. He seemed to think I wanted to look at his porno
collection.
While the station was
nowhere nearly as big as the Port Authority in New York, it had a greater sense
of space, one large room around which the services were stashed, with rows of
wooden bench-like seats in which many people slept, businesspeople heading
north to New York, teenage college students heading home from school, bums and
bag ladies with no particular destination at all, except warmth.
The police stirred up the bums, forcing them to move on, but
like so many drifting leaves caught in a momentary gust of wind, they settled
quickly once the source of their disturbance ceased.
I kept thinking the
police might spot me next and recognized me from some report issued out of my
hometown, so out I went into the cold air, looking and feeling inappropriately
dressed, sensing that the sky would burst at any moment and bring with it snow
or rain.
The stores along the street outside the station presented a
remarkable contrast, fancy windows dressed in fancy fair, stuff a buyer might
find along New York's Fifth Avenue, only without the sharp, glitter-like sales
pitch that New York constantly cast. But
the side streets told a different story, bar after bar advertising topless
dancers, pawn shops and cheap electronic stores.
After wandering for a
spell, I began to feel the cold working its way inside of me. I had coat to
pulled closed. I understood why I had received so many odd looks. It was
winter, and I was traveling without coat or suitcase, asking for passage that
would take days to make. Nothing looked more suspicious than a person traveling
across country without a bag. I needed a change of clothing and something more
appropriate for the climate. Meanwhile I bought a cup of coffee and made my way
back to the bus station, where the change of shift had occurred.
I soon learned that the ticket I’d bought in New York didn’t
take me all the way to Denver but took me to Pittsburgh where I had to change
buses for one to Chicago, where I would have to purchase another ticket for
another bus to Denver.
“Isn’t there any other way?” I asked.
Chicago scared me. My uncle worked as security for an
airline company. He would know that most routes west – train, plane or bus –
would have to go through there.
All northern routes going west went through Chicago, just as
all Southern routes went through St. Louis – and for some reason, the southern
route didn’t include buses to Denver.
I moved on, found a seat on the wooden bench. I had my
ticket. I would stick to the route chosen for me. The bus, the clerk confirmed,
left at eleven. All I had to do was wait.
Only I couldn’t sit still. The longer I waited, the more
paranoid I became, every cop who came or went I assumed was looking for me.
Although underdressed, I went outside again, wandering down
the side streets. A small strip mall had opened its doors a half block from the
station, and I eased through the door just as an old man pulled open the street
grate. The window was filled with other people's precious things, pawned here
for reasons I did not know, and the old man eyed me suspiciously as I weaved
through the narrow aisles examining the wares.
Everything was trapped in glass as if a collection of rare
bugs. Then, I saw the pearl-handled, snub-nosed derringer, I immediately knew I
had to purchase.
The old man grinned around the stump of his cigar, then
yanked open the door on the other side of the counter, his hand crawling
crab-like across the display until they fell on the weapon, bringing it out,
dumping it on the counter.
He wanted $50 for it; but he was willing to throw in a box
of 22 caliber bullets.
I counted out the cash he recounted it, then he shoved the
gun and the bullets into bag and shoved both through the opening in the glass
at me.
I headed out onto the street again. It was nine o'clock. The other stores started
to open.
I stopped into one store that displayed baggage in the front
window, the smell of leather and dust striking me the moment I eased into the
door. I grabbed the first suitcase I saw, threw cash at the sleepy woman, and
hurried out again, dragging the bag behind me as if an uncooperative child. In
my other hand, a brown leather briefcase, as if I was James Bond.
I stopped into a
clothing store next, where I had to spend more time finding something
appropriate, drawing a half dozen shirts off the rack before I found some I
liked. I tried on the pants, and finally purchased two sets of both.
I hurried back to the bus station. It was ten o'clock.
I changed my clothes in the coin toilet stall in the bus
station. When I came out, I tossed my old shirt and pants into the trash bin
near the news stand.
A bus had pulled in with its destination slot marked: Los
Angeles stirring up old desires I had as a kid of going there. I didn’t realize
at the moment I would be taking that bus, at least as far as Pittsburgh.
And just about at
that moment, the bus door opened, and the line formed for passengers to load,
and only a wave from the clerk behind the counter told me I should be boarding
it, too.
I got into the bus, took a seat two up from the back wheels
put my bag up on the rack above the seat, then settled near the window for the
long ride.
The bus jumped as the driver put it into gear and rolled out
of the terminal.
We were heading west at last.
Comments
Post a Comment