The Expelled (3 page)

Then I was asleep and suddenly I heard a bang, not like in the movies where it sounds like an echo, it was more like a sharp blow against a piece of wood and then screams, but I remember waking up from the shot and then I heard the screams, women's screams, and then someone said that they deserved it because they smelled bad, they were the ones in the back, I knew that the joke, or what began as a joke, or what seemed to have started as a joke, or whatever it was, was going to end badly. Very badly. And then I thought to myself, this is finishing bad, but it was only the beginning.

It's very difficult to say where things began although, by the sight of it, we know where it all ended, and now I'm telling you the story. The bus left the station at about nine thirty at night, it left a bit late, which was a common thing on this line, it was the line of the two seas, it went from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, passing through four or five countries, depending on the hour at which it left. I was already prepared to sleep through the night, it was my fourth time on this line and I was going from one sea to the other, so I had 36 hours of travel left, stations, passengers who go up and down, sometimes drunk people, and also smells. The bus was full. There was even a couple who came at the last minute and asked the driver if by any chance somebody got confused and hadn't made it. Something that often occurred. No, the bus was full.

For some reason the delay sparked lively discussions among some of the passengers, I recognize them now but at that time I didn't know who they were. The one who complained the most was a guy called Severio who was behind me, behind the back door of the bus, that was behind me, there on the stairs leading down was the can, well, the bathroom, if it sounds better, but everyone called it the can on this bus, not everyone, no, there was this girl, Aurelia I think, she said restroom. When all the people in front began to say that the can was theirs, she said the restroom, I don't know why but that's how it went, all the others very quickly said the word can.

Severio then complained about the delay, and the girl who was in the middle seat at the end of the bus said they weren't here to hear his complaints, she was very rude about it, I must admit, not to put all the blame on Severio.

“If you're not happy, rent a helicopter, you wuss!”

“You're the wuss, stupid bitch.”

There are two versions here, they say that it was Severio who said stupid bitch, but he has strictly denied it.

To be honest, I couldn't quite say who it was.

“Find someone else to call a stupid bitch,” the woman said, “fucking fag.”

“So what? What does it matter to you if I'm a fag or not?”

Apparently this Severio guy was gay and didn't understand very well that the lady was not talking about his sexual preferences, but only about his insults.

“And anyway, you sadomasochistic old pussy sucking lesbian, I didn't say you were a slut, someone else did, I just want the fucking bus to leave.”

They started a whole debate about whether it was him or another passenger who said it, and there were already supporters on both sides until the driver came and asked them to be quiet to take off. Everyone stopped talking.

But two minutes after we took off, we started hearing them shouting again, but I no longer understood very well, because other people were speaking next to me, mixed with the noise of the bus and the traffic.

You don't know what will define your future, or yes, maybe you do, but you're not fully aware of it. I could have picked a back seat but I didn't, you can say it's a coincidence, but you can also say that even if it is one, I got the right seat, and for that I deserve a prize. At least that's what I think.

“Please, Mr. Dospasos, this is not a philosophical debate, we want to know what happened on the bus for thirty hours, and not what you think, try to give us some information.”

“But can I know why you're talking to me from behind this window where I can't see you, can't you or someone else sit in front of me and talk like a normal human being? I prefer a woman, yin and yang reasons, more balance, you know.”

“You, sir, decide nothing in here, we decide what you must do and how you must do it.”

“It's just very difficult to speak to someone without seeing their face. I am not a robot. And I hope you aren't either.”

“Keep telling the facts and with less philosophical thoughts.”

The first two hours of the trip went by with many people going to the bathroom, more than usual. Although you can't rely on my knowledge of what is normal and what is not, but on other trips it was very similar. Although perhaps they were fewer. Someone said that he had to go before someone else.

“What for, because you got a pretty face?”

“Well yeah, because that's how it is.”

And then someone got in the way and said the expression, for the first time, the new expression, or the old expression that now became a new one.

“Because he's a front guy.”

I think Caro said it, he was sitting in the front row and was waiting for his turn to go to the bathroom.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I just said,” Caro answered, “that we are sitting in front and that we are front people and for that reason we have the right to go to the can before y'all.”

Caro was a tall, muscular man, and nobody wanted to argue with him.

“So now you go and sit, and you let my friend from the front use the can and then I go, and you sit in your place until we finish and then you can enter.”

“I hope the two of you are not going to shit for hours and are only going to pee.” he said it in a somewhat humorous tone, but Caro took it very seriously.

“Look, motherfucker, if we want to take a dump we take a dump and if we want to piss, we piss, now sit in your place before I shit on you.”

The guy who had a weak voice didn't continue the argument. Maybe he thought that Caro was drunk and he didn't urgently need to use the bathroom and he only did it to pass the time or because he didn't stay seated. I was trying to fall asleep, but I was just above the bathroom, it wasn't an easy task. Despite how tired I was feeling.

And then, they invented another expression, the back people. Uceda said it, a teenager who was sitting next to me.

“It's just that those back people smell really bad.”

“They do smell bad,” Ofelia said, she was in the seat in front of me. “They smell very bad,” she added.

“And they are bad.”

“Very bad.”

“And the best thing would be not to let them use the can. They must have all kinds of diseases.”

After that, I fell asleep until I heard the shot.

2.

And then, well, before, before I heard the shot, I was dreaming. I dreamed that my girlfriend had a testicle, and in the dream that wasn't what I thought was weird, what seemed odd was that she didn't have two, and someone was explaining that it was strange that she had one, it was on the right groin and it was pink, the dream was in Hebrew, I spoke Hebrew with her, and she told me they wouldn't understand, but does it matter that testicle is written with an ע when it's actually with an א and I started laughing in my dream.

“Mr. Dospasos, we are not going to repeat it a thousand times, your dreams don't interest me, they don't interest us, we want information.”

“Ok, ok I get it, but I remember, the dream is over now, it is part of the information, of what I lived.”

“No philosophy nor dreams, we're not talking about this kind of information and I believe that you understand me.”

“Yes, It's over.”

And so I started laughing in the dream, well at least that's what I hope happened, although sometimes I really laugh in my sleep, that's what my girlfriends have said, and then I heard the shot and I woke up.

It was nighttime and I must have slept two or three hours, and in those three hours I don't know what happened but what is certain is that everyone spoke about back and front people, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It had become part of the vocabulary of the population of the bus. I don't know if you understand, what seemed a joke at first was now a reality. And after the shot I think everyone on the bus woke up, or most of the fifty-something passengers, they were very loud. Well, they got very loud after a twenty-second moment of utter silence. As if it was lightning followed by thunder. The shot was the lightning and then came the thunder and the noise from everyone.

The thing is, Tuval had the gun in his hand but he was looking in the direction of the driver, he was standing near the can, next to where he was sitting before, but his body was headed toward the driver and the corpse was behind him. He said that he hadn't used the weapon and that it landed into his hands when he left the restroom, it landed, but nobody gave it to him. The dead guy was at the end of the bus, it was a young fifteen-year-old boy, his last name was Cash, he was previously sitting in the penultimate row, on the right side of the bus. He was next to Urgen, a girl who said she didn't know him. According to her, she woke up after the shot. Some said that the person responsible was the owner of the gun, Domingo, who now held it in his hands, and he said that it wasn't him, that he was also sleeping, and since he had the gun in his hands nobody dared to argue with him. And somebody said that it was one of the back people, that they were closer to the dead guy. And besides we already know that the back people are bad.

What I don't get, or maybe I do, is how they decided that the back people were bad and criminals, and when, if they were all asleep. Since there was a majority of front people, none of them stood up against accusing the back people in general, someone said that they were all terrorists and that what they wanted was to rob the bus and kill us all, they were even killing amongst themselves, so life didn't matter to them, you could also hear that. I was the only one, or I believe that I was the only one, who said that we had to go to the nearest police station in the first inhabited town.

But everyone or at least many people were against that idea. They said that it wouldn't help and that the best thing would be to leave the corpse on the highway someplace it would be seen, and that way someone would call the police.

“Anyway, it's not like he's going to resurrect,” Camilla said, a back girl from the left side.

“She's right,” Tuval said, a front guy, “it is better this way, and we won't have to waste time, we each want to get to our town.”

“Yes, but hold on a second,” Trinidad said, standing from her seat next to the driver, “we have to avoid this situation from happening again, and the best thing would be to forbid the back people from coming to the front or going to the can, we have to create a line that they mustn't overstep, it's less messy this way.”

“And besides they smell bad.” Three passengers must have said that simultaneously.

“And we will put a guard to make sure it doesn't happen again.”

The bus stopped and we left Cash's body on the highway. At that hour, there were no cars driving by.

It was decided that we should pray for the deceased and for his soul, and we did it on the bus. We, the front people, prayed facing the driver's direction, the back people prayed in the opposite direction. I don't know if it came as an order from someone, but it seemed logical to me, they were back people and they were different and so they prayed in the opposite direction.

I wonder if what I did was OK, it's a good question, if you don't ask it, then I am going to ask myself. Well, not very good to be honest, but it was better to be part of the front people who were a majority. I have always been a minority everywhere I went, they would have read my career and my life, and for the first time I was part of the majority and it seemed logical at the time that the majority decided what to do with the restroom. After praying, we talked a little about the deceased, he was no longer on the bus and since nobody knew him or at least nobody admitted to knowing him, he stopped existing. I felt good, I was part of a group. I felt better than ever before.

Someone said that you couldn't forbid the back people from going to the can, and we democratically discussed the problem, each person gave his opinion. Some said that we could do nothing about it and that the back ones were dangerous, therefore it would be a lack of responsibility to let them go to the can, they could take advantage of the situation to attack us. Others said that there was no reason not to let them go to the can and that they already had enough problems just for being back people and not being able to be understood. That's what David said, he was the number 10, now they all had a number which was the number of the seat where they were sitting. I say we let them go whenever they want, he said, but they should ask the guard for permission first. I didn't suggest anything.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, that maybe I killed Cash and that I invented all this story about the handgun, and even perhaps another survivor told you that, although I doubt there is another, but well, if I am here, that means that there cannot be another one. And I say no, but I'm not even sure anymore, I was sitting in a place where I could see Cash and shoot him, and maybe I wasn't asleep, or maybe I did it while I was sleeping or dreaming, who knows, but that would have been complicated, because to do so I would have to kneel in my seat to be able to see Cash and shoot him and I don't remember Severio giving me his gun, but maybe I had it in my hands a few seconds and after the shot I gave it to someone, and that someone gave it to someone else, at least that seems to be what the others did, from the one who pulled the trigger to the one who found the gun.

I don't know why he talked about that, I believe it's not very important anymore, what does it matter anymore, not only did he die, they all did, well, not everyone, I am still alive, only if that's not just a dream and I am really alive. Am I or am I not...? Well, thank you for saying yes, it's easy for you to say yes.

We discussed the situation for about thirty minutes and seven front people spoke. By chance or maybe not, the front people all spoke the same language, either their first language or a language they had learned, but the back people, who were less than us, spoke different languages and didn't understand each other, or they didn't understand us. In the end we voted in favor of Oleg's proposal, number 18, and it was decided that the back people could go to the john when the front people were taking a nap, between 3 and 4 p.m. and between 3 and 4 a.m. It seemed like a very humane and democratic solution to me.