Free Greyhound by Steffan Piper Page B

stories last December.”
    “You mean you’ve read Arthur Conan Doyle?”
    “Oh, yeah…right,” I replied, embarrassed. “What’s that book about?” I asked, trying to get the focus off of me. Marcus stared hard at me but glanced once more at the cover and then took a long look at the world outside the window.
    “Well, here, I’ll read you some. How’s that?”
    “Okay. Sure,” I rejoined.
    “Take a deep breath first,” he stated.
    I blinked twice and tilted my head. “Why?”
    “Don’t ask. Just trust me and think about what I’m reading. Now take a deep breath.” I did as he said and took the same kind of breath that I would take at the doctor’s office every time they put one of those cold stethoscopes to my bare back.
    “Do you know what the word deferred means, Sebastien?”
    “No,” I answered bluntly.
    “ Deferred means to postpone, or put on hold, like layaway, or waiting for Christmas in May. Got it?”
    “Okay. Deferred is like layaway.”
    “Now listen to me.
    What happens to a dream deferred?
     
    Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”
     
    He hammered out the words with immediacy and I could almost see them with my own two eyes. Each one was sharp and flew at me like an object, sending my thoughts reeling. His voice changed just slightly as he read, like he was becoming someone else for a few moments.
    When he was done, Marcus settled back into his seat, which he’d been leaning out of to speak to me, and watched me for a response. I could see it all: the raisin dry and crinkly on the hot, white sidewalk, and then a steak in the dirt. I had never heard anybody read poetry like that before, not even my teacher, who had forced us to read aloud from the oversize textbook.
    “I never heard anything like that before,” I stated.
    “I know,” Marcus responded. “What are you going to do about it?” he added.
    “I’m sorry?” I asked.
    “I said, What are you going to do about it?”
    “Uh…what can I do about it?” I answered. I felt confused and confronted all at once. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
    “The point of poetry is to make you feel something. When you do feel something, you should write it down on a piece of paper. I know you got a notepad.”
    I pulled out my notebook again and clicked my pen a few times. When Marcus saw me deep in thought, he disappeared back into his book. I made some notes, stared out the window, and then wrote some more. I thought about the two words that stuck out the most: Dream Deferred.
    We passed smaller cities that were still a part of Los Angeles but paid them no mind. Suburbia ended once we crossed over the Riverside County Line. It was as if everyone living outside of Los Angeles County suddenly just became unimportant. All the development halted like it had hit a brick wall. The farmland that I had left behind in Stockton once again reared its head as if reminding us that none of us would outlast it.
    Two and a half hours later, the driver announced that we were going to momentarily stop in a small town called Palm Springs, and then Indio. Marcus leaned over and asked me if I was going to get off to stretch my legs for the five minutes we were going to stop.
    “Nah, think I’ll just stay put this time.”
    “Cool. Hold our seats then. I’ll get you something from the vending machines. You got any favorites?”
    “Pretzels,” I answered, without thinking about it.
    “Pretzels it is then.”
    When we pulled off the interstate and headed down into Palm Springs, the sun had begun to finally set and was fire red. Tall mountains loomed up on the opposite side of the bus. A steep, jagged incline rose from the desert floor and disappeared into the thin stratus clouds above. I could see that the peak of the tallest mountain was still snowcapped. I watched lights going up a lonely road through the desert, toward something just above the base. Palm Springs was as rural and absent of real life as Stockton was when I had left