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S. Cullars
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 08:43 am: | 
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The Bus Ride
To murder in your heart is still murder, so the Bible says. And yet the corpses walk the street and ride the bus, so where’s the sin? Geri didn’t think envisioning breaking the neck of an itinerant preacherman would send her to hell – at least not right away.
“Ma’am, have you found Jesus?” he bent towards her, his eyes rheumy, the scent of his whisky-sodden breath enveloping her in a stomach-turning miasma. His linty winter coat (it was May for crissakes) smelled of old smoke and must.
See, right there, calling her Ma’am. She was 25 damnit! Too young for Ma’am. She rated at least a “Miss,” especially by this crusty-faced black man who was interrupting her previously quiet ride. Of all the folks on the bus, he had singled her out. Focused on her as his chosen audience even though his slurred gibberish had included the entire bus. Until now.
She shifted her body to face the window, shutting him out of her peripheral view. The woman in front of her had gotten out her battle gear and now was in the ear-splitting nirvana of whatever CD she was playing. The other passengers maintained a stony silence. Was she the only one with thoughts of doing violence?
He laid a hand on her shoulder and she jumped.
“Don’t touch me,” she said a little too shrilly. She hadn’t meant to sound so agitated, and now several passengers were looking her way, as though she had violated an unwritten code of decorum: Thou shall not show emotion on buses, especially at street preachers.
“Aaahh now, if your sin is botherin’ you, you need to take it to Jesus.”
“Just go away,” she said beneath her breath.
He straightened, seemed to lurch with the movement of the bus. It was obvious he was drunk. Why was it always the ones who needed saving themselves who felt it their duty to point out the sins of others? He was riding on the back of his demon, charging in full-speed sanctimony, telling folks they needed to take up the wings of angels and fly among the redeemed when he was as surely in need of sanctification himself.
After a few seconds of skewering her with his eyes, he left her alone, traveling up the aisle. But still his voice rang out…
“Ladies, gen’lemen, I’m tellin’ y’all that you don’t know when your last day on this earth is gonna be. You may go to sleep and wake up in hell tonight, then who’s gonna save your ass then? Not Jesus, ‘cause lemme tell you, Jesus ain’t gonna give a lick`bout your ass. You gonna belong to the devil.”
Several passengers snickered at the cussing. Geri smirked, her irritation dissolving into self-righteous amusement. Talk about needing some saving.
“All y’all think God don’t see you when you doin’ your mess. But lemme tell you, God sees and he knows. There ain’t nothin’ you do here that won’t be uncovered in Heaven.”
The bus stopped and several people got on and off. A woman who had just boarded started toward the rear, took stock of the crazy man in the aisle, quickly backed up to the front, squeezing her ample behind in a three-seater between two robust looking women. Their eyes threw daggers at her, but she ignored them. And then took up the stone face of the other passengers.
“Some of y’all…yeah, you, you and you…done committed some awful sins. And someone on this bus – and she know who she is - did dirt to her sister last night…”
Geri stiffened. He was further to the rear, but it felt as though his voice was talking into her back.
“That’s right…you hear me…you committed adultery…and a lot of you done fornicated too. You know who you are!”
She didn’t know whether he was still talking to her. But the guilt was here now anyway. She tried focusing on the passing buildings outside, the pedestrians walking alone, in pairs, their pace hurried. Downtown at rush hour was always congested. And it was a Friday, so people were leaving earlier than usual. The loading and unloading added another half-hour to what should have been a 45-minute ride.
She tried to keep her mind off the old man, and slid uncontrollably back to thoughts of last night.
Last night had been a mistake. Her’s and Will’s. No one knew. And no one would ever find out. Least of all Daria.
“LOOSE YA SATAN!” the voice boomed suddenly.
Geri jumped as did some of the passengers, who dropped their masks, startled out of their complacency. People looked edgier now. Was he going to start yelling, rampaging through the aisles? One man quickly looked at his watch, probably trying to calculate how much longer he would be held captive by a crazy man.
“You think nobody knows, don’t’cha?” He laughed, which made him wheeze a little. The laugh, like a cackle, chilled her.
”God’s usin’ me as a vessel right now, to let y’all know that your time is comin’ nigh, and the mess y’all been doin’ needs to be CLEANED UP!”
Again, she jumped, and the pace of her heart quickened. She was sorely tempted to get off the bus and wait for another #3. But the idea of waiting another 20 minutes or more kept her bound to her seat.
“I says clean y’all selves UP! You stink of sin. Adultery, fornication…”
He wasn’t’ getting off those two sins anytime soon.
“Cheatin’ with a married man…that’s what you done…”
No, there’s no way…
“…your own sister’s husband…”
No way he could know…
It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t been herself last night. It was the bottle of Chianti. Because she wouldn’t have done what she did stone sober. Couldn’t have. She didn’t even like Will. He was so dry, uninteresting. You ask him about the weather, he’d give the whole history of meteorology. For every topic, he panned out a 15-minute discourse on the whys and wherefores…
But a little alcohol in his system, and he became someone else. Someone who knew how to use his hands, touch you in places…
“Uh, huh, thought nobody knew, didn’t ya? Thought nobody saw… I SAW!”
Her eyes darted to the side, to see if anybody was looking at her. No one was. A few people were staring at the preacher, looking more uncomfortable than before. There were shifts in seats, some eyes downcast. A young blonde woman in jeans and a t-shirt that said “Look, Don’t Touch” started tapping her foot, looking around nervously.
Geri wished the bus driver would do something, at least say something. But he obviously adhered to the bus driver’s creed of stoicism: “They only pay me to drive, nothing more.” She could see his expression in the rearview mirror, his eyes set on the route ahead. The passengers were on their own.
“You better repent right now…that’s all I got to say…” And then a sustained silence.
An almost audible collective sigh went through the ridership as they assumed the man had finished with his brimstone rhetoric, hoping probably that he would finally disembark and leave them some peace. Geri felt the tension leave her body, and she began to relax again.
“Nope, nope, nope, I ain’t through with y’all yet... The voice came from further back. Geri whimpered. The woman with the CD player turned the volume up louder, and now the tinned rhythm overflowed to nearby ears.
The bus stopped. They were only on Randolph. Miles to go before she could escape. Oh, God, let him get off soon, she implored the same deity the crazy loon was prescribing. The one who knew her sins. Who knew what she had done last night.
“Confess your sins now…just say them out loud…and all will be forgiven…”
A stupid impulse came over her, just for a moment. It was similar to the irrational need to jump an acrophobe felt at high places. The need to just get it over with. Maybe if she just said it out loud…maybe then he would stop tormenting her. Maybe even leave. But the impulse left just as quickly as her scan over the busful of strangers, strangers she might encounter again on a ride home, who would remember her as a some slutty…
“CONFESS…” he boomed.
The bus stopped again, and the blond t-shirted woman jumped up. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!” And just as quickly, she scampered off the bus, pushing through a throng of onloading passengers.
People looked at one another, some wondering aloud at the woman chased off the bus. Geri heard one woman whisper to a man… “Maybe he has some sort of…what is that…ESP?” The man merely shrugged.
The old man laughed. He was walking back to the front again. “Now, I weren’t talkin’ ‘bout her, though one sin knows many, ain’ that right?” Geri didn’t look around, but she felt him nearing, felt needles in her back. He was going to tell. Somehow he knew, and he was going to reveal all her sins to this entire bus, tell them how she had betrayed her sister… It was a mistake. Even though Daria had started it from way back. She had slept with Geri’s first boyfriend in high school. Not that Geri had done tit for tat; it’d just happened.
“All you adulterers…my, my, my…so many of y’all...”
Geri heard the smirk in his voice, and wondered whether she could be labelled an adulterer seeing as she wasn’t the one married.
She closed her eyes, waiting…
“Don’t want me to tell, want me to shut up. ‘s gonna cost ya. A man’s gotta eat, have a warm bed. To keep him from tellin’ what he knows about the dirt you did….”
Geri almost smiled. A con man just guessing…
“What was it? Cognac? Beer? Whisky…naw, naw, I’m thinkin’ Chi-an-ti…” he stretched the word out, playing with it on his tongue, the last syllable ending several octaves higher than the rest. The word drilled into her head. Oh God…
Geri opened her purse, found her wallet. He was right there as she handed him her last twenty. She didn’t even blink as he reached over, took it from his hand.
“And there’s someone else here what needs to repent…been diddlin’ with your neighbor’s wife…you know who you are…C’mon with it…”
All of a sudden, a couple of men began reaching into their back pockets, pulling out wallets. Bills slid out, and the preacherman was there to collect.
“Why, this is just like offerin’ at chutch...” He said the word without the “r” so that it rhymed with hutch… There was almost a giggle in his voice now.
“Oh…someone here’s been passin’ off her child to a man ain’t his daddy…”
Surprisingly, several women responded to that one, opening their purses…
The extortion continued for several minutes as he labelled sin after sin, as his confined parishioners coughed up tithings and offerings…in exchange for peace, silence if not actual redemption.
By the time the bus got to the outer skirt of the downtown district, the man finally took his leave, bowing his head to the bus as he stood on the steps.
“Now, don’t y’all feel better? After all, confession is good for the soul…” And he finally exited, ending their torment at last.
Everyone looked around sheepishly. Everyone’s sin had been revealed, if not stated. And everyone was ashamed.
Geri slumped in her seat. Her sin still unatoned in her soul.
*******
Larry, also known as Rev. Larry Wilkins, Lawrence Williams, Lance Walker as well as several other aliases, including The Great Lawrence, Seer of All” chuckled as he stood in the alley, counting up his take. He was decidely less drunk than he had appeared on the bus. Nearly $157… not bad for one bus. He had several bus rides to go before the evening was over. Then he’d drive on home to his house in Hinsdale. Just purchased. Three bedrooms, two baths. Yes, the Lord had really blessed.
Not that he had any real gifts. He’d been in the business long enough to know what to put out, what would give him the greatest return…
Because in the end, everybody was a sinner of one kind or another. His preacherman father had taught him that. As had his cellmate Randy, one of the best con men he had had the privilege to encounter.
He whistled jauntily as he strode with a young man’s gait to his car parked on a side street. Lexus. 2003. Just off the lot.
S. L. Cullars, 2003 |
Soul Sister
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 09:10 am: |
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This is DOPE. I truly enjoyed it -- the pace, storyline and of course the method - a bus -- I am a rider and believe me I have encountered many of those "itinerant preacherman" -- amazing -- GREAT read - what do you have next? I am waiting with baited breath -- and that is the breath of a sin-free sistah - at least those sins of the flesh - peace |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:07 am: |
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Interesting story...i like the irony...con man coning people...and the reality of sin/everywhere.....and the exchange of money for guilt... i am less convinced, however, that folk would give so much money...at least, not in nyc...lmao!
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S. Cullars
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:23 am: |
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Hey thanks for the feedback. I have a website of my personal stuff at www.sharoncullars.net/slcpage.html. I've been writing for awhile so I've accumulated some poetry and short stories. Feel free to drop in; I would love it! |
Red
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:47 am: |
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Great story. I will be checking out your website. |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:57 am: |
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A clever premise, but it didn't take long for me to figure out that the old man was a fraud. This, however, didn't detract from the skillfull execution of the story. |
Fool on the Hill
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 03:14 pm: |
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I agree that there's some good work here, most of all in the pacing of the piece, but a big problem for me was that the whole story seems there simply to set up the ending. As opposed to a story where every part is important as every other. Even if you had the same ending and surprise of it, you might spend a little time developing a sense of place, sound, time. You might describe the reactions of the people on the bus with more depth. Right now he just says something and they flip out, run off, give money, but it turns those people into just chess pieces as opposed to people who, for a moment, have truly been confronted by their own guilt. I'm not saying it should be thirty pages long, but there's room for more charactertization. Geri's was very well done, but I found myself wanting something like it for one or two of the other men and women.
If you expanded on more of the people in the bus it might feel like you were telling a whole story as opposed to now where that very last line, about the Lexus, feels more like a punchline than an ending.
I hate to compare writing to film, but I thought the Sixth Sense did this same thing well. Not the same story, but that the plot took its time, really showing you the life of the boy, his mother, Bruce Willis's character and even his widow so that by the end you're surprised to find out the truth of Bruce Willis's condition, but you also know the truth of these four people whose lives have all been so affected by tragedy. That's my two cents. Thanks for sharing it and I'll be visiting your site.
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