The Wayward Bus (28 page)

A vague thought came back to him. He turned in his seat. “I was interested in what you said about what your company does with ideas that come in.”

Ernest looked at him with amusement. The guy wanted something. He suspected the old boy wanted to get in on a party or two. Ernest's boss was that way. He wanted conferences at night and always ended up in a whorehouse and was always surprised at how he got there.

“We've got a very nice relationship,” Ernest said.

“This idea is nothing much that I had,” Mr. Pritchard said. “It's just something that came to me. You can have it if you want it and if it'll do you any good.”

Ernest waited without comment.

“You take cuff links,” Mr. Pritchard said. “Now, I always wear French cuffs and cuff links, and once you get the links in —well, you've got to take them out before you can take off the shirt. And if you want to push up your sleeves to wash your hands you've got to take out the cuff links. It's easy to put in cuff links before you put on the shirt, but you can't get your hands through. When you've got the shirt on it's hard to get the cuff links in. See what I mean?”

“There's that kind that clicks together,” Ernest said.

“Yes, but they aren't popular. You're always mislaying or losing part.”

The bus stopped. Juan put the car in low gear and moved quickly on. There was a jar as he hit a hole and a second jar as the rear wheels went through it, and the bus moved slowly on. The rain drummed heavily on the roof. The windshield wiper squeaked on the glass.

Mr. Pritchard leaned back farther in his seat and pulled up his sleeve so that his plain gold cuff links showed. “Now, suppose,” he said, “instead of links or a bar, there was a spring. When you put the cuff on over your hand the spring would give and you could push the cuff up your arm to wash, and then the spring would go right back into place.” He watched Ernest's face closely.

Ernest's eyes were half closed in thought. “But how would it look? It would have to be a steel spring or it wouldn't last.”

Mr. Pritchard said eagerly, “I thought that through. On the cheaper ones you could gold-plate the spring or silver-plate it. But on the expensive ones, like pure gold or platinum—the quality ones—why, instead of a bar it's a tube, and when the cuff is at your wrist, why, the little spring has disappeared right into the tube.”

Ernest nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, sir. Sounds pretty good.”

“You can have it,” said Mr. Pritchard. “It's yours to make anything you want out of it.”

Ernest said, “My company goes in for a different kind of novelties, but maybe—maybe I could talk them into it. The best-selling things in the world—for men, that is—are razors or razor gadgets, pens and pencils, and personal jewelry. The fellow that don't write five lines a year will buy a tricky fountain pen for fifteen dollars any day. And jewelry? Yes, sir, it might work out. What would you want out of it if they thought it was a good idea?”

“Nothing,” Mr. Pritchard said. “Absolutely nothing. It's yours. I like to help an up-and-coming young fellow.” He was beginning to feel good again. But suppose the thing worked out, this idea he'd cooked up. Suppose it made a million dollars. Suppose—but he had said it and his word was good. His word was his bond. If Ernest wanted to show appreciation, that was up to him. “I don't want a single thing,” he repeated.

“Well, that's mighty nice of you.” Ernest took a notebook from his pocket, made an entry, and tore out the page. “Of course, in a thing like that I'd have to get an assignment,” he said. “If you've got a moment while you're in Hollywood, maybe you could give me a call and we'll talk some business. We might be able to do business.” His left eye drooped a little as he said it, and then his eyes turned and rested a moment on Mrs. Pritchard. He passed the slip to Mr. Pritchard and said, “Aloha Arms, Hempstead 3255, apartment 12B.”

Mr. Pritchard colored a little, took out his wallet and put the paper in it, and he pushed the paper down in the back of the slot. He didn't really need to keep it. He could throw it away the first chance he got, for his memory was good. It would be years before he would forget that phone number. The system had clicked in his head, his old system. Three and two are five and repeat. And Hempstead. Hemp is rope. Yellow hemp, and you can't use anything instead of hemp. He used hundreds of memory tricks like that. Yellow hemp, blond hemp. His fingers itched to throw the paper away. Sometimes Bernice looked in his wallet for some change. He told her to. But he felt danger in his stomach—the miserable feeling of having been called a thief.

He said to his wife, “You feel all right, little girl?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I fought it off. I just said to myself, ‘I won't let it come. I won't let it interfere with my darling's vacation.' ”

“I'm glad,” said Mr. Pritchard.

“And, dear,” she went on, “how do you men get such ideas?”

“Oh, they just come to you,” he said. “That new shirt with the small buttonholes is the cause of this one. I got caught in it a few days ago and nearly had to call for help.”

She smiled. “I think you're very nice,” she said. And he reached over and put his hand on her knee and squeezed her leg. She slapped his hand playfully and in a moment he took it away.

Norma had her head turned so that her mouth was close to Camille's ear. She spoke as softly as she could because she knew that Pimples was trying to listen. She was conscious of his gaze, and in a way she was gratified. She had never been so confident in her life as she was now.

“I haven't really got any family, like you'd call a family,” she said. She was tumbling herself out in front of Camille. She was explaining and pouring out her life. She wanted Camille to know all about her, the way she was before this morning and the way she was now, and that would make Camille her family and would tie this beautiful and sure creature to her.

“When you're alone you do such funny things,” she said. “I used to lie to people. I'd pretend things to myself. I would—well, do things like the things I was pretending were true. You know what I'd do? I'd picture like a certain movie star was—well, was my husband.”

It had jumped out. She hadn't intended to go so far. She blushed. She shouldn't have told that. It was kind of like letting Mr. Gable down. But she inspected this and found it wasn't so. She didn't feel quite the same about Mr. Gable as she had. Her feeling had moved on to Camille. It was a shock to realize it. She wondered if she were being inconstant.

“It's when you don't have any family and no friends,” she explained. “I guess you just make them up if you haven't got them. But now, well, if we could get an apartment I wouldn't have to make up anything.”

Camille turned her face away so she couldn't see the nakedness in Norma's eyes, the complete defenselessness. “Oh, brother!” Camille thought. “What have I let myself in for now? I've got a baby. I've gone and got caught in something. How did this happen? I'm going to have to make her over and live her life and in a little while it'll probably bore the hell out of me and I'll be in too deep to get out of it. If Loraine's shucked off that advertising man and we can go back together, what am I going to do with this? How did it start? How the hell did I get into it?”

She turned to Norma. “Listen, honey,” she said crisply. “I didn't say we could do it. I said we'd have to see how it worked out. There's a lot you don't know about me. For one thing, I'm engaged to be married, and my boy friend, he thinks it might be pretty soon. So you see, if he wants to now, why I couldn't go along with you.”

Camille saw the despair come into Norma's eyes, like a cold horror, and the sagging of her cheeks and mouth and how the muscles of her shoulders and arms collapsed. Camille said to herself, “I can get a room in the next town and hide out till she gets lost. I can run out on her. I can—oh, Jesus, how did I let myself in for this? I'm too tired. I need a hot bath.”

Aloud she said, “Don't take it so hard, honey. Maybe he isn't ready. Maybe—oh, look, honey, maybe it will work out. Maybe it will. Really. We'll just see how it goes.”

Norma compressed her lips tightly and squinted her eyes. Her head jiggled with the vibration of the bus. Camille didn't want to look at her. After a time Norma got herself under control. She said quietly, “Maybe you're ashamed of me, and I wouldn't blame you. I can only be a waitress, but if you'd show me I could maybe get to be a dental nurse like you. I'd study nights and I'd work as a waitress in the daytime. But I'd do it, and then you wouldn't have to be ashamed of me. It wouldn't be so hard with you to help me.”

Camille felt a rolling wave of nausea in her stomach. “Oh, God Almighty! Now I'm really trapped. What do I say? Tell her another lie? Would it be better to tell this girl exactly what I do for a living? Or would that make it worse? That might shock her so she wouldn't want me for a friend. Maybe that'd be the best thing. No, it would be best just to lose her in a crowd, I guess.”

Norma was saying, “I'd like to have what you'd call a profession that had some dignity to it, like you.”

Camille said in despair, “Look, honey, I'm awful tired. I'm too tired to think. I've been traveling for days. I'm too worn out to think about anything. Let's just let it lay for a while. We'll just see how it goes then.”

“I'm sorry,” Norma said. “I got excited and I forgot. I won't talk about it any more. We'll just see how it goes, huh?”

“Yes, we'll see how it goes,” said Camille.

The bus jerked to a stop. They were coming near to the foothills now and the green billows of land were dimly visible through the rain. Juan half stood up to look down at the roadbed. There was a hole in the road, a hole full of water, no telling how deep. It might drop the bus clear out of sight. He glanced quickly at the Virgin. “Shall I take a chance?” he said under his breath. His front wheels were on the edge of the pool. He grinned, put the bus in reverse, and backed up twenty feet.

Van Brunt said, “You going to try a run for it? You'll get stuck.”

Juan's lips moved silently. “My dear little friend, if you only knew,” he whispered. “If all of the rest of you only knew.” He put the bus in first gear and ran at the hole. The water splashed away with a rushing hiss. The rear wheels went into the hole. The bus slipped and floundered. The rear wheels spun and the motor roared and the spinning wheels edged the bumbling body slowly across and slithered it out on the other side. Juan slipped the gears to second and crawled on.

“Must have been a little gravel mixed in with that,” he said over his shoulder to Van Brunt.

“Well, you wait till you start up the hill,” Van Brunt said ominously.

“You know, for a man that wants to get through you put more things in the way,” Juan said.

The road began to climb and the water did not stand any more. The ditches along the side were running full. The driving wheels of the bus slipped and churned in the ruts. Juan suddenly knew what he was going to do if the bus piled up. He hadn't known. He had thought he might go to Los Angeles and get a job driving a truck, but he wouldn't do that. He had fifty dollars in his pocket. He always carried that much for repair emergencies, and that would be enough too. He would walk away, but not far. He'd get under cover and wait until the rain stopped. He might even sleep some place. For food he would grab one of those pies. Then, when he was rested, he would walk over to the highway, bum a ride, just wait at a service station until someone picked him up. He would thumb his way to San Diego and then he'd go across the border to Tijuana.
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It would be nice there, and he might just lie on the beach for two or three days. The border wouldn't bother him. On this side he'd say he was American. On the other side he'd be Mexican. Then, when he was ready, he'd go out of town, maybe catch a ride or maybe just walk over the hills and by the little streams, perhaps as far as Santo Tomás, and there he'd wait for the mail carrier. He would buy a lot of wine in Santo Tomás, and he'd pay the mail carrier, and then down the peninsula he would go, through San Quintin, past Ballenas Bay. It might take two weeks through the rocks and the prickly desert and then across to La Paz. He would see that he had some money left. At La Paz he would catch a boat across the gulf to Guaymas or Mazatlán, maybe even to Acapulco,
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and in any of those places he would find tourists. More at Acapulco than at Guaymas or Mazatlán. And where there were tourists floundering around with the Spanish language in a strange country Juan would be all right. Gradually he'd work his way up to Mexico City and there were really tourists. He could conduct tours, and there were plenty of ways of getting money. He wouldn't need much.

He chuckled to himself. Why in God's name had he stuck to this as long as he had? He was free. He could do whatever he wanted to. Let them look for him. He might even see a note about it in the L.A. papers. They'd think he was dead and they'd look for his body. Alice would raise hell for a while. It would give her a great sense of importance. Plenty of people could cook beans in Mexico. He might lay up with one of those American women in Mexico City who lived down there to beat the taxes. With a few good suits of clothes Juan knew he was presentable enough. Why in hell hadn't he gone back before?

He could smell Mexico in his nose. He couldn't think why he hadn't done it before. And the passengers? Let them take care of themselves. They weren't very far out. They'd got so used to throwing their troubles on other people they had forgotten how to take care of themselves. It would be good for them. Juan could take care of himself and he was going to start doing it too. He'd been living a silly kind of life, worrying about getting pies from one town to the next. Well, that was over.