I’m sure there are people who would let us crash at their houses, because the town of Childress is full of good-hearted dudes and dudettes. Word. But charity is for cripples and old people and Mom is sure to come through one of these days. I still have Bobby Big Boy, and Mom still has her job driving Hello Yellow, all of our clothes and stuff fit in the two storage bins between the wheels, below the bus windows, so it’s all good in the hood.
Except that sitting here with my legs up and BBB on my chest, I can’t think of anything else to write about—especially since my original essay was so killer.
The quiet of an empty Hello Yellow can drive you a little nuts.
Bobby Big Boy and I just cuddle until the streetlight blinks out and everything goes black.
I can rest my eyes, but I can’t really sleep until Mom gets back from fishing, because I worry about her.
She’s still pretty.
Bad things happen to pretty women who have daughters like me and can’t afford to do jack crap for ’em, which makes said pretty women desperate for a Prince Charming—only Prince Charmings marry hot young chicks my age, or maybe a little older. Mom’s almost forty, so she’s pretty screwed when it comes to men. Sometimes I like to think about her marrying an old rich dude, who would act all grandfatherly and leave Mom tons of money when he croaked. That would be cool, but it ain’t gonna happen. Truth.
Another thing: Mom’s taste in men is akin to a crackhead’s taste in crack cocaine. Any old hit will do. And it sucks for all nearby loved ones (me) when mi madre is hitting the man-pipe again, because she sorta loses her frickin’ mind—to put it bluntly.
All alone on Hello Yellow, I think about Mom for a long time.
She sucks at being a mom. Emphatically.
She’s so ridiculously irresponsible and socially dumber than Ricky—who is diagnosed with autism—but I still love her. I’m a sucker for love and having a mom in my life. Call me old-fashioned, maudlin, or mawkish.
When I hear Hello Yellow’s front door being keyed into, I freeze and hold my breath.
Should be Mom.
Must be Mom.
What if it’s not Mom?
I’m in a creepy parking lot outside of town; it’s full of eerily similar school buses parked in perfect lines. Too much symmetry can be daunting. There are train tracks on one side of the parking lot and creepy woods on the other. Bad stuff happens by train tracks and in woods, because some men are inherently evil, and left unchecked, these dudes will do bad hooey—at least according to such cool cats as Herman Melville, who illustrated this exact point through that evil Claggart character from Billy Budd, which we just read in my Accelerated American Lit class. The Handsome Sailor. Budd Boy spilling his soup on Claggart in the mess hall—when Billy does that, it’s a metaphor for accidental homosexual ejaculation according to Mr. Doolin, who has coitus on the brain 24/7, and sees a sexual metaphor in just about any old sentence. “Handsome is as handsome did it too.” Herman Melville. Funny stuff. Truly. But being in a bus alone at night near train tracks and woods ain’t so ha-ha, believe me.
Plus there have been a few rape-murders on the outskirts of town lately and the cops haven’t caught the bad guy yet, which has lots of people freaked out and for good reason.
Madman nearby—beware!
Finally, I cannot take it and completely blow any chance I have of surviving an encounter with the local psychopath, mostly because I am only seventeen, and a chick, even if I am a junior now. “Mom?” I say.
“Amber? Did I wake you up?”
Whew. It’s Mom. “No. Some crazy lumberjack train conductor was just about to abduct me and make me his slave, but you scared him off. Thanks.”
“That’s not even remotely funny.”
“How was fishin’ fo’ men, any bites?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
“A good man is hard to find.”
“Damn skippy,” my mother says, like a used-up chippie who will never find her Prince Charming, but you can tell—by the tone of her voice—that Mom is faking something, trying to sound hopeful enough to make her daughter feel as though she will not be sleeping on a school bus forever, so I give her a little credit. She’s had a harrowing life.
“Always tomorrow,” I say through the darkness, as my mom pats my forehead like I am Bobby Big Boy. I like dogs, so I do not take offense.
“Does your puppy need to go out before I hit the hay?”
“Bob probably could squirt a few drops.”
“Please don’t call him Bob.”
“That’s his name.”
“Your father was—best to forget him, and—”
“Well, Bob here has to take a squirt, and I have school tomorrow, so can we skip the broken-record talk and get doggie duty over with, please? I can’t sleep without my pup.”
“Come on, little dog,” Mom says, clapping her hands. And Bob bursts forth from my pre-woman chest, widening the neck holes of—like—four shirts, and scratching the hell out of my neck. He loves to piss. It’s his favorite.
“Use his leash!” I yell, because I don’t want 3B to get lost in the dark.
“Okay,” Mom says, but I know she doesn’t use the leash, because I’m on it—it’s under my butt.