Big Machine Read online

  Dealing with such folks goes in recognizable stages. First you appeal to authority, but the driver had refused us. So next you try and ignore. Most of the passengers slipped into an imitation of sleep. It was our best defense. Row after row, eyes closed and arms crossed. Some even faked loud snoring.

  “Y’all think you can ignore me, but you’re proving my point! Our nation is at war, but we’re fighting in our sleep. How do you know whose side you’re on if your eyes is shut?”

  “I wish my ears was shut!” a man shouted from the front.

  The last stage, in such situations, is when folks just lose their patience.

  “Who said it?” the bum asked, stamping forward.

  “I’m at war with your big mouth!” another passenger, a boy shouted from the back.

  The bum stalked the aisle now, looking for one set of open eyes. I saw him through the cracks in mine. As he bopped down the aisle, he became more aggressive. He never hit anyone, but bumped every chair in the row, throwing his one hundred fifty pounds like a round of haymakers.

  “To be an American is to be a believer!” he shouted. “But y’all don’t even understand what you believe in.”

  Now the brakes on the bus huffed and groaned. We were on the highway, but hadn’t traveled too far. The driver brought us to a full stop on the shoulder, then got out of his seat.

  That woke us up. Even the loudmouth got quiet. The Hispanic lady next to me craned her neck so she could see over the seat, then looked back at the bum with a smirk. She’d heard everything.

  The driver pressed a button on the dashboard, which opened the bus door. Wind rushed in like water floods a sinking ship. People snatched their coats on. Snowflakes shot into the cabin, a blast of confetti that melted on the floor.

  The driver clomped down the few steps and walked outside. Maybe he wasn’t responding to the bum at all. Did we have a flat? Next came the squawk of grinding metal. The driver had opened one of the luggage bays.

  Now many of the passengers got out of their seats. Even one old woman whose snore had been louder than the bus engine. I’d thought for sure she was asleep, but she stopped in the middle of a snort and got up to take a peek.

  Even the nut leaned over an empty seat to take a gander.

  The old woman smiled at him. “I believe you’re getting kicked off.”

  “It don’t matter,” he said. He sneered to seem defiant, but already his voice had weakened. It looked cold out there.

  The bus driver disappeared inside the luggage bay. Only one foot stuck out, and it kicked around as he searched. As if the bus was devouring him. Then a brown suitcase flew out, onto the shoulder, like a bit of indigestible beef.

  At that, the passengers applauded. Me too, I must admit. The bus driver shut the bay door, another grinding squawk, then made his way back inside.

  The bum dragged himself toward the front right away. I thought he might protest the excommunication, but there was nowhere to appeal. On this bus the passengers were all archbishops and the bus driver was our pope.

  The guy spoke as he moved. “Who gets God? That’s all I’m asking. Who gets welcomed to the table?”

  “Just get off,” a raspy woman growled from the rear.

  The driver climbed the three steps into the bus and stood there, saying nothing. The snowstorm outside was so white, so bright against the windshield, that it turned the driver into a dark blue silhouette. A silent shadow pointing toward the exit.

  The bum stopped before he reached the driver. His knees dipped even though we weren’t moving, and he grabbed at the luggage racks for balance. He sighed deeply, a little theatrically, as he turned back to survey us. His eyes were as yellow as masking tape.

  “Human beings are no damn good,” he said. “We even worse than animals. We like …”

  He trailed off, cleared his throat, but his voice hardly reached a whisper.

  “We like monsters,” he said.

  Then he stepped off the bus.

  Our driver pressed the button on his console, and the door shut with a low hiss. Outside, the guy lumbered over to his suitcase and righted it, then buttoned his coat.

  “He don’t even have a hat,” the Hispanic woman next to me said.

  The bus idled there, as if the machine were making up its mind too. The bum walked anyway, back in the direction of the on-ramp. On a clear day he’d have been in Utica in twenty minutes, but it might take an hour to get there in the snow.

  That old woman, the one who’d faked a good snore, got up from her seat and walked down the aisle. She bent forward and spoke into the driver’s ear. The driver looked at her, then looked away, into his side mirror. Then he pressed the silver button and opened the door.

  The old woman hopped down each step and went outside. The bum hadn’t even walked the length of the bus yet. She reached him and slapped at his arm. When he turned, she gave him her scarf, a purple puffy snake, and took the matching knit hat right off her head.

  Then she returned to the bus.

  But I guess the guy felt underwhelmed by the gesture. Maybe he thought she’d invite him back in. I thought she might have too. I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but I would’ve understood. Instead, all he got was some accessories. So the guy looked up at the bus, squeezed the knit hat and scarf into a ball, then threw both right over the side of the highway.

  He looked at us and refused to move, even as the blizzard nearly tore the buttons off his coat. A showdown, a staring contest.

  One we lost.

  After the old woman got back to her seat, the bus driver hit his button and shut the door. He put the bus in gear and we moved. In all this drama I’d forgotten that this was my last chance to go back too, and returned to my seat. That shabby man remained, scowling from the shoulder. For all I know, he died right there.

  4

  YOU DON’T JUST BRUSH OFF an episode like that. In fact, you may feel pretty terrible about it for a good long while. When I went to use the bathroom on the bus, I walked with my eyes at the floorboards. Everyone moved through the bus that way. The only relief came when we reached a new station and some passengers disembarked. They ran off the bus so fast they nearly tripped one another. And those left behind changed seats a few times, as if our chairs caused the pain.

  Albany, Worcester, Newton, Boston, Hanover, White River Junction, Montpelier, and finally Burlington. A twelve-hour trip that took sixteen with snow delays. I didn’t recognize anyone else by the end. Even the driver was different. I can’t say I felt less guilty, but there was no one left to remind me of my shame. This wasn’t a resolution, but it was a relief.

  When we arrived at the Vermont Transit bus station in Burlington, I recognized the place. Not that I’d been there before, but places like it. This wasn’t Utica, with its marble columns and historic landmark status. More similar to the stations in Kingston, Elmira, and Troy. By which I mean sleazy, greasy, and small. Sleazy is a little harsh. The Burlington station was just a forest-green one-story not much bigger than the private homes across the street.

  The bus pulled in, only a handful of us on board. I saw two cars parked in the lot, but the snow had piled so high there might’ve been more buried. I should’ve arrived at a little past midnight, instead it was four in the morning. When I stepped off the bus, it didn’t seem as if the sun would ever rise, the sky frozen in blackness. I wondered who, if anyone, would still be there to meet me.

  On the last mile of my trip I envisioned my arrival. I imagined balloons and streamers. Or cops with guns. I only found a quiet station where a couple of white people waited to meet a couple of other white people. That’s it. And I was one black guy standing by the snack machines in a daze.

  But I didn’t want candy. I wanted a hit.

  A hit, a hit, a hit.

  Can’t be scared when you’re sedated. I leaned against the snack machine, pressed the clear plastic buttons helplessly.

  “Ricky Rice?”

  I heard a man’s voice, but when I turned aro
und, all I saw was his belt buckle. Had to lean back, really curl my spine, to see the eyes far above mine. Talk about a titan! Maybe my confusion added a few inches, but not many. This white man stood about seven feet tall. And just as wide. His mother must’ve been a polar bear.

  “Are you Ricky Rice?” he asked again.

  He was prepared for winter. Brown Carhartt jacket and matching snow pants. Logger boots and padded gloves. Even his face came covered with a graying beard that flowed down to his collarbone. I’ll bet you could sleep in a snowdrift when you’re outfitted like that. Me, I had on a peacoat and skullcap.

  “I’m Ricky,” I admitted. I kept my back against the snack machine for balance.

  Now he stooped so we could look at each other directly. I hadn’t felt this small since I was a child. Was he my escort, or was I his meal? I gripped my duffel bag tighter so I could use it as a weapon. Treat this like a shark attack and bop him in the nose if I had to.

  He said, “My name’s Lake. I have orders to drive you north.”

  5

  WE CLIMBED INSIDE his enormous silver pickup. Warmth filled the cabin when Lake started the engine. Heat blew through the vents so hard it sounded like rushing water. Lake put both hands on the wheel. His Gore-Tex gloves swished against the cold plastic. We pulled out of the station. Lake puckered his lips and jutted his chin, and I watched him.

  “We’re on Pine Street now,” he said. “And we’re headed to Williston Road. From there we take the interstate about an hour. In case you were wondering.”

  I realized I was carrying my bag in my lap, like a child, a vision that made me feel vulnerable. I dropped the duffel between my knees.

  Lake inhaled deeply. His chest was so thick that the brassy buttons of his jacket brushed the horn. He exhaled and yawned, licking his lips. From this angle, the hair surrounding his face looked like a mane.

  I said, “How did you know about Cedar Rapids?”

  “Iowa?” he asked.

  “Come on, boss.”

  Lake stared into his rearview mirror as another truck rolled up behind us. It practically chomped on our bumper, but Lake didn’t accelerate. He drove steady.

  “Mr. Rice, how many bosses pick people up from bus stations at four A.M.?”

  He had me there.

  I jammed my foot into my duffel bag on the floor of the cab, digging into its side.

  “So you don’t know anything about Cedar Rapids?” I asked.

  Lake said, “I know they make a lot of cereal there.”

  I leaned back, rested my face against the cool window. I’d slept on that bus, but not well. It had been like napping inside a steamer trunk. Lake’s truck felt more like a sleeper cabin, so I slipped into a quiet stupor. And in this way I watched us get on the highway.

  Lake stayed as good as his word. One hour on the interstate. Then I figured we were there. But I was wrong. We had another half hour on Vermont’s back roads. They weren’t paved streets, just snow on top of ice and ice on top of mud, a three-layer cake.

  Must’ve been five-thirty by the time we reached those roads, but the sun hadn’t crept up an inch. The sky remained blue-black, and in places the stars hid behind cloud cover. Snow stopped falling, but the wind continued, blowing so berserk that the top of every tree shuddered.

  Despite my weariness I got scared again. Or maybe because of it. It’s one thing to get in the car with some burly mountain man when you’re still in a city. But when he gets you out into the country, well, there’s too many tales about this going badly for a guy like me, and I couldn’t help but ponder the possibilities. Dragged to my death, hung from a tree, kept prisoner in a shed for days. So the nervousness charged me up again, though Lake hardly seemed to notice. How could he? He was too busy driving.

  His pickup was the kind you see in television commercials, where they hitch a blue whale to the back and the truck hauls that Magilla up a hill. But even this truck had trouble on these roads. The ruts were so deep that Lake weaved from one side of the road to the other. We weren’t driving at this point, just surfing. I bet we would’ve flipped over if it wasn’t for the surrounding forest, which stopped the wind from smacking us directly.

  Then my anxieties spilled over. I pulled at the handle of my door instinctively. Lucky for me the damn thing stayed locked.

  “What are you doing?” Lake said, though he didn’t look away from the road.

  “I don’t know who you are!” I shouted. “You’re taking me out here for some wild shit, admit it!”

  “Calm down, Mr. Rice.”

  “Cut all this ‘Mr.’ business. I’m from New York. You don’t want to mess with me.”

  Lake tapped the gas with his foot, and the truck bucked forward, moving with all the grace of a horny bull. Outside, the trees sobbed and groaned. Some bent so far I thought they would snap, and in fact some had. I could see them deeper in the forest wherever the moonlight grasped through the cover. Trees that had crashed, from the wind or the weight of the snow, and landed at painful angles.

  “I’m a black man, you hear me? We don’t play! I will knock your ass out! Pull over, motherfucker. Pull over!”

  Lake ignored me. I wondered if I sounded tough or terrified. I felt both. I worked at my door handle again. Reached down for my duffel bag so I could break the window open. I’m not saying that was a good idea, just my only one.

  Before I could get the bag into my hands, there was an astounding scream, wailing carried on the wind, as a thirty-foot tree snapped and fell across the road.

  It landed just ahead of us. So close that its limbs raked the hood. Bark sprayed the windshield hard enough to cause a crack. The front of the truck bucked, the wheels lifting from the road. That tree probably weighed more than Lake’s pickup.

  We could only gasp and stare.

  As we idled, the strong lamps of the truck illuminated the midsection of the tree, and from this close it looked unrecognizable, monstrous. The needles on its limbs became poisoned quills, and its bark an invulnerable hide. What lived out there, hidden in the dark?

  I recovered and looked at Lake triumphantly, as if I had orchestrated this.

  “I told you not to fuck with me. It’s bad luck.”

  Lake looked across the seat. His eyes were so red! It was the first moment I considered he must’ve sat in this truck for hours because of all my snow delays. But I didn’t sympathize, not just then. I scrunched my mouth into a satisfied smile and said, “What you gonna do?”

  Step outside, apparently. Lake left the truck, slammed his door, then went to the back. Heard him fussing around, but I didn’t pay too much attention because the man had left the keys in the ignition like a fool.

  I slid toward the driver’s side slowly.

  Then this big bastard stalked right past the window, didn’t even look in at me. I was halfway across the bench when he did this, but stopped moving. He carried a hatchet, two wood blocks, and had a length of heavy chain wrapped around his right shoulder.

  He walked to the tree. It was the first thing that made him look small. Nature asserting its own scale. And this wasn’t even that big a tree. Not a redwood, just a black spruce.

  Lake slapped the bark the way you affectionately slap a dog on its side. Then he got down on a knee and placed one wood block against the tree. Got up, lifted the hatchet, and used the blunt end to knock the wood block under the tree like a shim. He did this again, about a yard lower. Then he slid the length of chain under the tree and ran it all the way round.

  This was my last chance. He’d attach the chain to the truck, then reverse until he’d nudged it far enough for the truck to get past. Then we’d be back on our journey to my demise.

  So I slid the rest of the way until I sat behind the steering wheel. All set to put the truck in reverse, but my feet couldn’t touch the pedals. This guy had his seat back far. So I was looking for the button or the bar, whatever that damn truck used, when I saw Lake climb over the tree and drop down onto the far side.

  Now I
could only see the upper third of him. You could’ve mistaken the man for bigfoot at this angle. A beast of the wild. He didn’t attach the chain to the truck. He wrapped it around himself. Then he stepped back a few feet. From the motion I could tell he was kicking at the ground, digging in.

  Then he pulled.

  This white man is insane. That’s what I thought.

  Boy was he straining. Enough to make my shoulders hurt. Lake’s mouth snapped open, and he made this sound, like a long, low rumble. If I hadn’t been looking at him, I would’ve checked for storm clouds.

  He kept pulling. Leaning backward. Screaming with effort.

  Until, yes, that tree shook.

  Just slightly. Hardly anything. A quiver. It resisted, but Lake would not relent.

  The spruce scraped toward Lake now, an inch or two this time. The tree limbs on his side snapped in sharp protest. The big man kept shouting, and, rather than drive off, I rolled the window down, I stuck my head out. I kept blinking, wiping the snow off my eyelids. In the heat of astonishment, I didn’t even feel the cold.

  That’s some old mountain man trick, I thought. Maybe the road was at more of a slant than I knew. Plus, he’d used those wood blocks. I tried to come up with an explanation, anything to feel less awestruck. But I was really only thinking one thing: this bastard moved a tree.

  Lake stepped farther back and finished.

  When the tree had been moved enough, just enough, for us to get by, Lake stopped pulling and leaned against it, severely winded. He heaved so hard his face touched the bark. He looked like he was mourning.

  After gathering his things and dropping them in the truck bed, he got back inside the cabin. I’d pushed his seat all the way back again and taken my place by the passenger window. I didn’t look at him, only at the body by the side of the road. But Lake didn’t start driving, so I finally turned.

  To find him staring at me. A challenge in the tight set of his lips.

  I said, “Well, if we’re going to get there, let’s just get there.”