Free Greyhound by Steffan Piper Page A

any better now?”
    “Yeah…I guess. Thanks.”
    “You guess about a lot of things, huh? Well, don’t worry too much about it.” He grew quiet and watched the path of the bus out the window for a few blocks, as if he was seeing Los Angeles for either the first or last time.
    “Are you from Los Angeles?” I asked, wondering if this was his home by the expression that had overtaken him. He pulled a paperback book from his jacket pocket and clapped it a few times against the palm of his hand, trying to decide how to answer. I looked at the title, trying to see what he was reading. Something called The Panther and The Lash . I’d never heard of it. He caught me looking at the cover of the book trying to read the title.
    “Well, I guess there’s no harm. Yes, I’m from L.A.” He was leaning in close now. “A place most people call the ghetto.” His voice had dropped to almost a whisper.
    “Really?” I replied, wide-eyed. “I once lived in a place with my mom and one of her boyfriends called The Grotto.”
    “Say what?” Marcus responded, a little shocked and quite possibly annoyed.
    “It was the name of our trailer park on Watt Avenue. ‘The Grott’…” Before I could finish, Marcus had burst out laughing. This time it was loud, and a few people even turned in their seats to look back at us.
    “Ahhh! The Grotto!”
    “Di-di-did I say something wrong?” I stuttered.
    He was beside himself with laughter. A tear formed in his eye and rolled down his cheek, and he was now doubled over, gasping for breath.
    “Wow…I’ve really heard it all now. I thought I’d seen and done it all too,” he answered, calming himself. His long arm reached out and grasped me by the shoulder, patting me thoughtfully.
    “Nice to meet you, Sebastien Ranes from ‘The Grotto.’”
    “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Franklin from The Ghetto,” I answered, a bit dumbstruck in my naïveté.
    “Just call me Marcus,” he responded, wiping the tear from his eye.
    The bus drove slowly through the thick traffic, taking up its own space on the freeway, which made all the other passing cars steer clear. Los Angeles sprawled onward, as if it was the city with no end. Endless communities of houses with red tile roofs collected at the sides of the interstate like a fungus. They were all connected together with miles of thickly layered electrical wires, light poles, and off-ramps that all had Spanish sounding names: Arcadia, Duarte, Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Temecula. Outside my window, mountains rose up in the distance, which were ever moving in and out of the obscurity of thick, acrid smog that covered the sky like a blanket.
    I looked over at Marcus a few times while he was reading, wishing again that I had brought along a book. I couldn’t read the brochures jammed in the seat pocket again, although I felt tempted to pull them out every few hours to look them over to make sure all the information was still the same.
    “What are you reading?” I asked, feeling bad for finally cutting in on him.
    “Poetry,” he answered. It wasn’t the answer I had expected. He looked at me from the top edge of his book. “Ever read any poetry?”
    “Once in a while, in school,” I replied. I had a vague recollection of having to read something aloud from a bulky textbook in front of the class, only to have embarrassed myself when I opened my mouth and spoke.
    “ Only once in school,” he repeated. “Well, that’s a damn shame. What do they teach kids in school anymore?” Marcus asked, being forward. I shrugged.
    “You’ve never read anything by Langston Hughes, have you?” he asked.
    “I’ve never even heard of Langston Hughes.”
    “Good God…you’ve never even heard of Langston Hughes!”
    “I’ve read The Hobbit ,” I remarked, trying to redeem myself somehow.
    “You’ve read The Hobbit , huh? What else?”
    “Uh…um…” I had to think about it. “I’ve read a lot of Sherlock Holmes. I finished reading all the