Free Greyhound by Steffan Piper

couple who were oblivious to the world around them.
    “Your parents? They keeping an eye on you?” I didn’t know what to say, so I just stayed quiet. I shook my head no. Looking around, he was chewing gum slowly, but stopped when it suddenly hit him. He was overtaken in the next moment with nervous laughter. “Wait…no?” Now he shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Hearing the words coming out of his mouth made me feel for the first time that I wasn’t alone in the way I felt.
    “No, I guess not.”
    He stuck out his hand. “Marcus Franklin,” he announced. I smiled, grabbed his hand, and shook it.
    “Uh, I’m…Sebastien…Sebastien Ranes.” I felt as if I had whispered my name, as if I was wholeheartedly ashamed. He smiled a second time and went back to chewing his gum. He dug in his pocket and produced a green pack of gum and pushed it toward me.
    “Stick of gum?” he offered.
    “Thanks, Marcus.”
    “No problem, Sebastien. Pittsburgh, huh?”
    “Well, just past there actually. Altoona. I’m going to go live with my grandparents.”
    “Is that right? And your folks just put you on the bus, all by your lonesome, said ‘Happy trails…don’t forget to write,’ and away you went?”
    I felt both nervous and stupid for being put in this position by my mother. All I could do was just look away. “I guess. Something like that. Just my mom and her boyfriend. I got on back in Stockton.”
    “How old are you?” His voice now had the same sound of concern the rest of them had. He was slipping into the emotional hole that had surrounded Jenny the waitress, Mr. Hastings, and the ticket lady.
    “I’m eleven…or rather twelve tomorrow. It’s my birthday.”
    “Sebastien, forgive me,” he said, taking a deep breath and leaning forward. “Traveling the country, eleven years old for one more day, and cruising solo?” There was a certain comic appeal about him that made me chortle.
    “Yeah, I guess I never thought about it like that,” I responded. The loudspeaker came on, and the driver’s message interrupted our conversation.
    “Stuck on a bus on your birthday? Damn, that’s cold, man.”
    “1364 to Phoenix, Amarillo, and Columbus. No smoking on board, and enjoy the ride.”
    Another truncated greeting from the great Greyhound speaker in the sky. I took out my notebook from my shirt pocket, clicked my pen a few times, and made note of what was said. “Short and sweet,” I mumbled to myself.
    “And we can count ourselves lucky for that, partner. I once heard a driver talk in that mic as if it was his own late-night radio show. The guy talked for five hours straight before people started yelling at him to stop.” Marcus made a face of someone getting upset and yelling over the seats.
    “You’ve traveled by Greyhound before?” I asked.
    “Sure, many times actually. Not always by choice either, but I’ve spent a lot of time on buses. You look like a seasoned pro on the bus.” He leaned in and gave me that look as if I was in on a secret with just him.
    “Whaddya mean?”
    “It’s pretty easy to spot a pro. Someone who travels light—you ain’t surrounded by a bunch of plastic bags or anything like that. Some people bring their whole damn house on the bus. Also, you chose to sit in the back, which is the most choice spot. You can stretch all the way out if need be, and you have direct access to the trash and toilet too.”
    I laughed again, looking out the window, watching the bus slowly make its way through a labyrinth of buildings, skyscrapers, gas stations, elevated parking garages, and kamikaze people making mad dashes on the street, trying to get to where they were going without a thought to traffic.
    “Yeah, I saved all my lunch money for a year and skipped school just to be here,” I joked back. Marcus gave me a strange look.
    “I’m just kidding, Marcus. I don’t even get lunch money.”
    He laughed heartily and made note of my mood.
    “You doing