[Free book excerpt from the upcoming short story collection, by J.J. Brown]

For Tom: Not Home for the Holidays

J.J. Brown

The wait for the bus had been too long, and the night, too cold. So when Bethany got on, she was only eager to warm herself and settle into an open seat. She saw three. One about halfway back, beside an elderly fellow wearing a loose, fawn and red plaid coat and a pale green hat, and another two empty side-by-side directly behind him. She plopped down there, and released her heavy bags into the free place beside her. Holiday shopping. Always a burden to her.

    The man turned around toward her. Appraising, she imagined.

    “Wait long?” He asked.

    She raised her eyebrows and looked away. Bethany feared men, in general. And strangers, in particular. This one had bloodshot hazel eyes; wisps of light brown curls escaped his cap. A tall man. Sixties? Seventies? An accent unfamiliar to her. Something like British, but not.

    “For the bus. Long wait?” He repeated.

    She shook her head, no, though it had been. As a general rule, Bethany did not talk to strangers. But this evening she was flustered, tired and cold. Her defenses, thinned.

    The driver, a good looking, younger woman with long black braids, had shot a look back at the two of them – which Bethany could have sworn was disapproving – before she pulled the crowded bus back out into traffic. Queens, an outer borough of New York City, the day after Hanukkah began and a week before Christmas, the main boulevard was thick with commuters, shoppers, visitors and residents.

    “Where you from, then?” The man asked, unfazed by Bethany’s silence.

    “From here.”

    He nodded, but she guessed he was unconvinced.

    “Work in the City, do you?”

    She did, and frowned, tipping her head down a bit.

    “Opportunity knocks in New York,” he said with a knowing nod. “Where you from?”

    “Upstate,” she sighed, though that was decades ago, and she gestured at the window toward the north.

    “So. You talk different. Nice up there,” he said. “I imagine. I’ve been to California once. Nice in California, too. Warm.”

    She nodded. “People there are warmer than we are in New York, too,” she couldn’t help herself from remembering, or from smiling at the thought.

    “Oh yes. They are, so. Tan, is that how you say it? From the sun. Active, people in California.”

    Also true. She nodded again.

    “But, you need a car,” he sounded disappointed.

    “That’s a good thing about New York, isn’t it?” She offered the happy reflection like a gift.

    After he gave her a blank look back, Bethany went on, “The bus, the trains here.”

    “If you don’t have to wait too long, yes. Can be so. About 20 minutes to get to the City. From here. Convenient. But if you do have a car, they give you a ticket. For parking. A whole stack of them. And then you lose the car.”

    Bethany knew this to be true, as well. In fact, she’d lost her own car that way, the year before last.

    “I’m going to Ireland next week,” he added.

    “You’re Irish?”

    “Yes, I am. Oh, I’ve a house there. Myself. And a car. Doesn’t cost me a thing to live there but the groceries.”

    So that was the connection, she realized. The want of a car had sparked it. “Must be nice in Ireland.”

    “Oh yes. It is.”

    “And to have a house,” Bethany didn’t have that, either. An impossibility in the City.

    “It is, so. Would you like to visit us, while I’m here then, some evening?”

    She wouldn’t, and shook her head, no. And who was “we”, she wondered?

    “No. You wouldn’t. Where you from, again?”

    Bethany just raised her eyebrows, exasperated. Who here ever really knows, for certain?

    “Before, I mean,” he prompted.

    “My father’s family came from Norway to New York. A long time ago. Early 1900’s.”

    “Oh. Norway. That’s not so long, though.” A shadow of disapproval briefly crossed his face. “My Da knew a Norwegian, once. Vidkun Quisling, their prime minister during the war, you know.”

    “My Dad was in the war,” she said brightly.

    “Was he now? Which one?”

    “The second one.”

    “American soldier, then. Against the Nazis.”

    He had been, and she nodded, yes. 

    “Conscripted, was he?”

    He hadn’t been. She shook her head, no. He’d joined voluntarily, under age, overwhelmed by guilt after hearing the news that his brother had lost his life in Germany.

    “No conscription by us, in the second war,” the man said. “Ireland, we’d been neutral, officially. Traitor, Vidkun Quisling was, though. They shot him after the war, you know. Second one. Firing squad,” he said, without emotion.

    Bethany had never even heard of Quisling, but she understood this older fellow didn’t have warm feelings for Norwegians, in general. Just as well. The driver was now looking back in her rear view mirror at them, Bethany thought, with concern.

    “What do you like to drink?” The man asked. Smiling. Hopeful, she guessed.

    “I don’t drink,” Bethany replied too quickly.

    “Oh. I like a glass or two of wine.” He turned toward the front and then stared out his window.

    He pressed the button by the handrail to signal the driver that a stop was requested, and his hand was shaking.

    “So, would you like to take my number? We could chat once in a while?”

    Bethany shook her head, no.

    “No. You wouldn’t. Maybe I’ll see you again one day. On the bus,” he said and smiled, holding out his hand. “I’m Tom. What’s your name?”

    “Bethany,” she said before she could stop herself.

    “Oh yes. Well, good evening to you then. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

    The driver stopped the bus, but with cars double parked along the shops, couldn’t pull over to the curb. The bus remained in traffic as the front door opened. Several passengers filed out. 

    Tom struggled mightily to get to his feet, and Bethany noticed he used a cane. He slowly lurched toward the back door as the front door was closing and the bus had begun to pull forward. The driver hadn’t seen him.

    Bethany jumped up and yelled, “Coming out! Back door!” She rushed to the doors and pressed frantically on the yellow tape lines to signal them to open automatically.

    Tom looked at the floor with fear in his eyes, unsteady on his feet. Swollen, above his shoes.

    “Back door!” She called, again, in her biggest voice. Frightening herself.

    The driver looked up, caught Bethany’s gaze in the rear view mirror, and stopped the bus.

    Bethany pounded on the yellow tape, willing the doors to open as she watched Tom struggle forward. The doors began to part, and then she held them open securely as Tom made his best effort to hurry without falling. He reached out to hold one side of the door, and leaned forward, stooping down to get his footing secured on the winter-wet pavement. 

    Boots would have been better, she was certain.

    When Tom landed, still upright, he said softly with surprise, “You’re a good woman, Bethany.”

    She lost sight of him as her bus pulled away, and her thoughts balked with the realization that they were passing by a homeless shelter. Not really a residential block, at all. Not home.

    A freezing rain began to fall.

    By the time the bus made its way off the Boulevard and up Bethany’s Avenue, all the others had already departed. Nearly silent, only the traffic, and the two of them, the driver and Bethany. She moved up to the front to the handicapped seating area, where she didn’t really belong. Still, as she was the only passenger left, she felt a need to be closer to someone. 

    “He’s always doing that,” the driver said, shaking her head sadly, her braids swaying.

    “What?”

    “Hitting on the women,” she added, and she started the bus windshield wipers. “Ice.”

    They rode in silence for ten blocks in heavy traffic, passing by buildings glittering with colorful lights of various holiday decorations. Deer, stars, Santa.

    “Reminds me of that chef. On TV,” the driver said.

    “Really?”

    “Wouldn’t recognize him?”

    Bethany hadn’t, and shook her head, no.

    “Yeah. Got MS.”

    “Multiple sclerosis?”

    “Yeah. Couldn’t cook any more. No work. Healthcare sucks here. Couldn’t afford the medicine and went back to Ireland. Comes back a few months a year, I guess. This one sure is a talker though.”

    “Wow.” Bethany pushed the button to request a stop.

    The driver pulled the bus to the curb and said, “You get home safe. And happy holidays.”

    “Same to you.” 

    Bethany picked up her bags, seeming lighter now, and stepped down into the dark, feeling shamed by her initial fears. And yet somehow warmed by the driver’s generic good wishes. 

    Get home safe; they always say this in the City, not knowing if you do have a home.