After you are married it’s s.
When you are dead it’s s.
May your long suits be hearts and diamonds.
Alvin “Turk” Turco, Pfc.
TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW,
WHY I’VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD.
FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA,
NOW THAT SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD.
Gordon Jones
General Nuisance, U.S. Army
Mickey O’Fallon is my name
America is my nation
Butte, Montana, is my home
Korea is my destination.
Like the Turk one had said, Out the far end! Three fresh pages of inscriptions, just like that. Now, though, I faced a dilemma. Stretch my luck and go back for Kwik-Klik tidbits from other passengers, or quit while I was ahead? The bus was belting along through nondescript country with nothing much to show for itself except a brushy creek and flat buttes, so Havre or any place else was not in the picture for a while yet, and I had time if I wanted to brave the gauntlet of strangers again. But if I wasn’t mistaken, the nun had looked about ready to pounce as I hustled past to stop me from keeping company with the swearing soldiers. Was it worth it to risk falling into her clutches, or for that matter, end up with some talky tourist bunch like the ladies’ club on the Chevy bus?
While I was hung up trying to decide, blue puffs rose steadily as ever from the passenger in front of me as if she were putting up smoke signals.
Making up my mind, I leaned way forward to the crack between the seats. I could just see the side of the woman’s face as she smoked away, eyes down on her movie magazine.
“Uh, can I bother you?” I spoke into the narrow gap. “Talk to you about something, I mean? It’ll only take a jiffy. Honest.”
Somewhere between curious and skeptical, she took a peek at me through the crack. “A jiff, huh? In that case, I guess come on up and let’s hear it.”
Scooping her coat off the seat and stuffing it down beside her purse as I slid in next to her, she gave me a swift looking-over. Up close, she was eye-catching in spite of the raccoon glasses, I was somewhat surprised to see, with big dark eyes that went with her glossy black hair, and quite a mouth, full-lipped with cherry-red lipstick generously applied. From the sassy tilt of her head as she sized me up, I could imagine her giving as good as she got if someone smarted off to her, which was not going to be me if I could help it.
Before I could utter a word, she dove right in. “What’s on your mind, buttercup? You’re quite a jumping bean, you know. First time on a bus?”
Uncomfortably I owned up to “Almost.”
“Takes some getting used to, especially in the sit bones,” she said with a breezy laugh. Just then a flashy Cadillac of the kind called a greenback special—Wendell Williamson had one like it, of course—passed us like the wind. “What has big ears and chases cars?” she playfully sent my way, not really asking. “A Greyhound full of elephants.”
I giggled so hard I hiccuped. So much for being businesslike with the autograph book. My partner in bus endurance, as she seemed to be, didn’t bat an eye at my embarrassing laughing fit. Still treating me as if I were an old customer, she tapped me on the knee with the movie magazine. “Don’t wear yourself out worrying, hon, this crate will get you there. Always has me anyway. Betsa bootsies, there’s always a bus to somewhere.”
With all that said, she plucked up her cigarette from amid the lipstick-stained butts in the armrest ashtray and took a drag that swelled her chest. Trying not to look too long at that part of her, my eyes nonetheless had to linger to figure out the spelling of the name stitched there in pink thread. Leticia, which stood out to me in more ways than one. Determinedly lifting my gaze to meet her quizzical expression, I rattled out my pursuit of autographs to remember my trip by, producing the creamy album in evidence.
“So that’s what’s got you hopping,” she laughed, but nicely. Taking that as encouragement, I fanned open the pages to her. “See, people write all kinds of stuff. Here’s my favorite, just about. It’s from Miss Ciardi, best teacher I ever had.” Together we took in the deathless composition:
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were caught, what could they do?
“Let us flee,” said the fly.
“Let us fly,” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
“Tough competition,” she laughed again. The cigarette met its fate with the other mashed-out ones as she surprised me with a drawn-out sigh. “Sure, I’ll dab something in for you, why not. Your tough luck it’s me instead of her, huh?” She flourished the movie magazine, open to a picture of Elizabeth Taylor with a cloud of hair half over one sultry eye and nothing on above her breastbone.