Lennon at the Central Bus Station

1.

ON ALVIN’S TENTH BIRTHDAY, the tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair brought him a white rabbit with a black ear. The rabbit was crammed inside a plastic Tupperware box, lying on a half-eaten lettuce leaf. Her eyes were open and her front legs kept scratching the box. Alvin pressed his face against the lid and listened curiously to the screeching sound of her whistle.

“Mazel tov, sweetie. Happy?” the woman asked, patting Alvin’s head.

He didn’t reply. Her hands were coarse but her touch gentle. She took a creased fifty-shekel bill out of her purse and handed it to Alvin. “Buy her a carrot if she gets sad,” she told him.

Alvin fondled the bill with both hands and shoved it into his left pocket.

The woman petted the rabbit on the back and she froze. Alvin looked at them both inquisitively.

“Pet her, sweetheart, pet, what are you so afraid of?”

Alvin reached out, touched, and recoiled. Dropped his hand to his side. Then he tried a few more times until he gave into the soft touch of the fur. “I always wanted a rabbit,” he whispered.

“This ain’t a rabbit, sweetheart,” the woman announced with a smile. “What’s this animal called? Uhm. I forget. Cova. Cava. Cavia. Oh, for fuck’s sake. You know what I’m talking about, right?” Alvin grimaced. The tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair sighed. “You need to learn more words, honey,” she said. “If it weren’t for words, I’d still be thinking you people and the Thai are one and the same.” She reached into her shirt pocket and fished out a lighter with a picture of a naked woman on it, and a poorly rolled cigarette. She was about to light the cigarette, but then looked at Alvin’s face and put it back in her pocket. “Well, did you ask your mother why she isn’t sending you to school?”

Alvin nodded.

“And …?”

“She says she loves me,” Alvin said, still stroking his possibly-rabbit and wondering if she liked it.

“What was that?” the woman asked, leaning into Alvin. “Explain, honey, so I’ll understand.”

Alvin filled his mouth with air and tried to hold his breath but gave in after a moment. “She said other parents don’t actually love their kids,” he said and tried again, this time taking in even more air.

“What do you mean?” she asked. This time Alvin managed to hold on a bit longer, until his cheeks deflated and shriveled. The tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair patted him on the head. “Tell me, sweetie, tell me.”

“She said other parents let someone else look after their kids because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves.”

“And your mom keeps you close because she loves you? That’s what she said?”

Alvin bobbed his head up and down in a dramatic nod.

“Holy crap,” the woman mumbled. “And you’re fine with it? Spending all day in this dump of a station? Not going to school?”

“Yes,” Alvin replied, arching his thin eyebrows and curving his mouth into a crooked grin. “Yes, yes, yes,” he repeated. He wanted her to stop asking about the outside world. The thought of things that happened outside the borders of the central bus station was unnerving. Sometimes he’d peek out the large windows, gazing curiously at the buildings in front of him. He could tolerate them, had come to terms with their existence, but not with whatever was behind them, everything he couldn’t see. He had once tried to imagine that infinite black stain, and for the first time in his life felt the unsettling presence of nothingness.

“What are you doing?!” the tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair shrieked. His fingers were covered in white fur. “Why did you rip out her fur?” she grumbled, grabbing Alvin’s small hand. There was a pink, exposed patch of skin on the possibly-rabbit’s back. The woman pulled him forcefully and sat him down on the nearby bench. Alvin lowered his gaze, his eyes reddening. “It can’t go on like this, Alvin. Do you understand what I’m saying?” the woman scolded. “You understand it can’t go on like this?”

“Whatever,” Alvin grumbled. “I don’t even want her.”

The tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair sat down silently beside Alvin. Then she suggested they name the possibly-rabbit, said Peter sounded nice to her, but Alvin just shrugged. They were both quiet for a while longer, Alvin gently stroking the possibly-rabbit, but only with one finger. The tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair gave him a kiss on the head. Said he was adorable. Alvin was focused on the tiny animal who was lying on her side, thinking how she was even smaller than the RC Cola can his mother used to treat him to once a week. When he looked up, the tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair was no longer there. She had left the lighter with the naked woman on it behind. Alvin looked at the picture, put the lighter in his pocket and went out for a little stroll, holding the plastic Tupperware box in both hands.

2.

ALVIN WANDERED AROUND the sixth floor, pausing by one of the doors to look at the passengers getting off the bus and going into the station. He eeny-meeny-miny-moed the passengers until his finger stopped on a man with a mustache. He started following him, but got tired of it after a few moments. He turned around and bounded down the stairs, arriving on the fourth floor panting, and stopped next to the McDonald’s. He pressed his face against the window, ogling an elderly couple eating corn sticks and drawing the possibly-rabbit’s box to the window thinking she wanted to see them too. A piece of corn stick dropped out of the woman’s mouth, and her husband rushed to shoo Alvin away with menacing arm-flailing. He quickly retreated, leaped up a different staircase, and found himself smack in the middle of a small forest of Christmas trees. Amid the trees were a few tables laden with colorful Christmas decorations and chubby Santa figurines. He reached out to one of the trees and touched the pointed leaves. They were both prickly and soft. He wondered whether leaves felt pain. He plucked a leaf off one of the smaller trees, used his other hand to open the plastic box, and tossed it in. The leaf landed on the possibly-rabbit’s head; she responded in utter indifference, wouldn’t so much as raise her head.

“Yo, chopstick, whatcha doing over there?” the salesperson yelled. “Either buy something or get lost.”

Alvin fled, fixing his eyes on the dirty tiles. It was only when he reached the pay phone that he felt he was finally out of danger. He leaned against the wall and held his left hand to his chest, making sure his heart was still beating. He lifted the box and peered at his possibly-rabbit, calming down only after he saw she was breathing. Then he resumed his stroll and popped into the record shop minutes before closing time.

“Do you have a Beables CD?” he asked the saleswoman, and pulled from his pocket the bill he had received from the tall-woman-with-the-chin-hair.

“There’s no such band,” the saleswoman replied, chewing a gray wad of bubblegum.

“Bearbes. Beaters. Bealbez,” Alvin said. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

“Watch your language,” the saleswoman reprimanded him. Alvin shrunk into himself. She turned around, and then tossed a burned CD of Abbey Road onto the table.

“Beatles,” she said and snatched the bill out of his hand, holding it up to the light.

The photo on the cover was faded. George Harrison’s body was cropped in the middle. Struggling to hold both the box and the CD, he decided to chuck the CD into the box. The possibly-rabbit made no objection. She hopped onto the CD, put her head on McCartney’s bare feet, and fell asleep.


The clock on the big electronic board flashed nine, and Alvin started skipping toward the jewelry stand where his mother, Prudence, worked. He paused by the entrance to the drugstore, spotting her faux-gold earrings from a distance. Her black hair was gathered into a tight bun, and a red sweater clung to her match-like frame. On the other side of the stand stood a young Eritrean couple studying the rings in the display. The dark-skinned woman was wearing a white embroidered dress, and had a faded cross-like tattoo on her forehead. She noticed Alvin staring at her and smiled. Alvin blushed, then dubbed her the woman-with-the-drawing-on-her-head. He always gave names to the people he liked, those he didn’t want to get swallowed up by the throngs at the station.

When the couple left, Prudence began to cover the stand with a stretch of blue fabric. Alvin ran toward her. He emerged on the side of the stand, stood on his tiptoes, and tried to pull the heavy cloth with one hand, but somehow got entangled in it.

“Stop!” Prudence commanded. Alvin stopped in his tracks. He closed his eyes, felt two hands coming to free him. Then he felt a brief caress. Then nothing.

“What were you trying to do?” Prudence hissed and went back to tidying up the stand.

Alvin didn’t dare look at her. He gazed at the possibly-rabbit who was still fast asleep. He jerked the box twice. Her head hit the plastic wall. She immediately woke up, trying to find something to support herself against. Alvin smiled.

“Come on, let’s go,” Prudence said. She left the stand holding two red bags and glanced at the possibly-rabbit.

“What’s that, a hamster?” she asked and didn’t wait for an answer. Alvin looked at his pet. He was confused.

“Maybe,” he said.

They went to the food court on the sixth floor, stepping out through the metal door and finding themselves in front of some big green dumpsters. The loot piled in the corner of the room was relatively meager—five umbrellas, two kettles, a few computer keyboards, and a busted TV set. Prudence inspected the items carefully, finally picking up a black kettle and taking a closer look at it.

“We’re taking it,” she announced, and put it in one of her bags. “Come on,” she said, “we’re going home.”

Next to the kiosk they took the staircase down, passed by the smelly bathrooms and then by the closed office that served as a makeshift church on Saturdays. Alvin liked going to church. He liked the songs, liked the cookies they handed out at the end of the sermon, liked ogling the girl-with-the-headband who always sat in the front row. He never talked to her but always stared, averting his gaze only when their eyes met. He and his mother stopped visiting the church after Prudence knocked over her chair and screamed at the priest that even God himself knew better than to tell her how to raise her child. He liked remembering how his mother picked him up in her arms and everyone stared at them. Even the girl-with-the-headband. Alvin couldn’t hide his smile.

They reached the end of the third floor, which was empty. They stopped in front of the wide corridor leading downstairs.

“There’s only homeless people and drugs down there,” said a cleaner with a neon orange vest and black kippah who popped up behind them. He looked at Alvin’s box and announced, “That needs a bigger cage, tzaddik.”

Alvin wanted to ask the man whether she was a rabbit or a hamster, but his mother had already begun pulling him away. They started back toward the stall and waited for the cleaner to disappear before returning to the wide corridor. They rushed down the staircase, clutching the gray handrail. A pale fluorescent light illuminated the abandoned shops. The sour smell of urine became more pungent as they descended. When they passed by a poster of a bare-breasted woman, Prudence rushed to cover Alvin’s eyes, although he continued to peek through the slits between her fingers. The large silhouettes of passengers from the floors above danced on the tiles. Alvin tried to dodge them, fearing that if he stepped on one of the silhouettes, he’d make someone upstairs trip.

They slipped into a side corridor and paused in front of three big windows boarded up with torn cardboard. Prudence started rummaging through her bags for her keys. Alvin sidled up against her legs. A bearded man in a military jacket and black Crocs staggered toward them, reaching out as if to pet his hamster-rabbit. Alvin clutched the plastic box and turned his back to him. Prudence noticed the man only after opening the door. She tried to scream but no sound came out. Alvin quickly pushed her into the dark room and shut the door behind them, barely managing to lock it. The red bags dropped from Prudence’s hands. They stood perfectly still, making themselves smaller, making their breaths quieter in the pitch-black room. The hamster-rabbit started making noise. Alvin opened the lid and tried petting her, but the animal kept dodging him. After a few minutes, Prudence turned around and lifted one of the cardboard panels hanging over the window, then peeked out into the hallway. Only when she was confident the man had left did she turn on the light, painting the room in a yellow glow. Prudence leaned against the wall, put her hand on her head, and slid down to the floor. The kettle found its rightful place alongside the pile of items crowding the floor: pairs of shoes, a few wall clocks, broken chairs, and old newspapers. Hundreds of objects Prudence had gathered from across the station in the hope of someday finding a use for each one of them.

Alvin paved his way to the mattress in the corner of the room. He put down the box but wouldn’t look at the hamster-rabbit, still holding a grudge.

“Jesus Christ,” Prudence whispered, rubbing her chest in a vigorous circular motion. “Jesus Christ. They’ll find us in the end. You understand how dangerous it is?”

Alvin nodded, even though he didn’t actually understand. He didn’t know who exactly was looking for them. In the past, Prudence had mentioned cops who wanted to kick them out of the country. She explained it was the only reason they were staying in the station, because it was the one place they wouldn’t dare arrest them. But with time, the cops turned into the homeless and hookers and criminals, who turned into the baddies, who finally turned into vague, nameless, faceless figures. Alvin had already begun to doubt that anyone in the station was actually looking for them, or even knew of their existence; but he didn’t dare ask Prudence, because more than anything else, he feared confronting his mother with a question she couldn’t answer.

Prudence got up from the floor and let out a loud sigh. She crossed the room with small steps, made it to the corner where the toilet bowl stood with a green hose suspended above it. She pulled up a small chair, turned to face the wall, and started undressing, stacking her clothes in a pile on the chair.

“Don’t look,” she told Alvin, and turned on the cold water. Alvin quickly averted his gaze, lay down on the mattress, and stared at the ceiling. The lighter fell out of his pocket. Alvin stared at the naked woman for a few moments, and flicked the wheel a few times. It took him several attempts until a feeble flame appeared.

He lay on his side, drew the flame to the box. A smell of burned plastic took to the air. He snuck a quick peek at his mother, who was still showering with her back to him. Then he drew the flame to the box again. It burned a small hole into the plastic. The hamster-rabbit looked up at the spark and immediately scurried to the other side, pressing herself against the wall. Alvin gently turned the box around and drew the flame to the plastic wall again. Once more the hamster-rabbit fled to the opposite corner and froze.

“Idiot,” Alvin said, drawing the flame to his pet. She tried to escape but he wouldn’t let her. She started squealing in that annoying whistle of hers. Her tiny hairs got torched one by one, exposing her pink skin again. When the flame started singing her skin, she stopped fighting. She curled up into a ball in the corner of the box. Silently.

“What’s that smell?” Prudence yelled and turned off the faucet. “Why does it stink in here?”

The lighter fell from Alvin’s hand, hitting the CD cover. He didn’t say a word. Prudence turned on the faucet again. He looked at the hamster-rabbit and felt regret. He started petting her, surprised by how quickly she gave into his touch again. She drew her tiny nostrils to his fingers. Alvin tore her a small piece of the lettuce she was standing on, and she nibbled it eagerly.

3.

PRUDENCE TURNED OFF the water, wrapped a towel around her body, and sat down next to Alvin. Tiny droplets slid off her black hair onto the mattress. She gazed at the three gilded Jesus paintings that hung on the wall, then asked Alvin if he thought she was pretty. He said yes, and she stroked his back and instructed him to open the fridge and eat the sambusak leftover from yesterday. He suggested they share it, but she didn’t answer. She watched him slowly work through the cold pastry and collected the sesame seeds that scattered across the bed.

“I bought you a gift,” he said between bites.

“What are we celebrating?” she asked, and he quickly pulled the CD out of the hamster-rabbit’s box, his hands slightly shaking.

Prudence ran her hand over the cover, and for a moment Alvin thought he spotted a smile. A rare occurrence that usually presented itself when they went up to the seventh floor, stood by the big glass windows, and basked in the warm sun.

“Nice,” she said.

“It’s the Bealers,” he replied. “Your name, it’s because of them.”

She didn’t say a word, only blinked heavily. Alvin leaped out of bed, plucked from the junk pile a broken boombox they had collected a few months back. He placed it on top of the small fridge and plugged it into the socket.

Prudence reached out a long arm and grabbed Alvin’s shoulder.

“No noise,” she said. Alvin insisted they listen only for a few moments. Prudence said no. Eventually a compromise was reached.

“You can play it,” she said, “but with no sound.”

Alvin snatched it out of her hand, carefully opened the case, and inserted the CD into the stereo, making sure no sound came out, fearing his mother would change her mind. He went back to sit by his mother. They sat shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the blue digits changing on the display. The CD kept skipping. Alvin sat up straight while Prudence brushed her hand through his hair. Finally he got tired and lay down on the bed. He stared at the hamster-rabbit who lay next to him, until he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When Alvin woke up she was no longer there. He tried falling back asleep. Unsuccessful, he opened his eyes again and noticed the hamster-rabbit’s box perched on the boombox. He jumped out of bed and leaped toward the box. It was washed clean. Empty. The air halted at the tip of his nose, refusing to enter his body. He searched behind the fridge but there was nothing but broken glass and a piece of chocolate that had melted and congealed. Then he started canvassing the room, rummaging through the junk, tossing aside clothes and pans, exposing the dirty tiles. He stomped his feet on the floor, kicked a kettle. Then he turned around, and only then spotted his mother. She was sitting on a plastic chair by the door, pressing her face into the small slit between two cardboard squares, looking out. He walked up to her. “Where?” he asked.

Prudence didn’t answer.

“Where?” he asked again, tugging on her pants, hard. “Why did you take her away?” he cried. She didn’t even notice him.

Alvin walked out the door and stood in front of her. He saw her eyes staring at him, filling with fear, then her hand reaching out and pulling the cardboard squares together until they concealed her completely. He waited there for a few minutes and gave up.

4.

HE LOOKED EVERYWHERE; behind the pay phone on the first floor, under the bench by the number 5 bus stop, between the display racks of the phone shop on the fourth floor. He asked every person he knew, from the man-with-the-bags to the old-lady-with-the-orange-scarf. He felt the words dissolving on his tongue. No one understood what he was talking about. A hamster-rabbit? What’s that? And he, the whole time, throughout the entire desperate search, didn’t know if he wanted to find his hamster-rabbit because he was worried about her or because he wanted to punish her.

It had been hours, and the missing hamster-rabbit refused to be found. Alvin was slowly coming to terms with the loss of his first and only pet, promising himself that by evening he’d forget about her. Passing the supermarket for the third time, he spotted her. She was going up the escalator to the fourth floor, sniffing the rail. Alvin broke into a run. He cut past three people on the escalator even though his mother said he should always wait patiently. He turned left and saw the hamster-rabbit slinking underneath the tables of the pizza parlor, nipping between the legs of the security-man-whose-son-died-in-the-war and slipping through the door and out of the station.

It was the smell that made him realize he was outside, the acrid scent of petrol and diesel coming from the buses and taxis. Alvin coughed and looked around. The words he knew could describe and define only some of the things he saw. The people zipping past him. The honking of the vehicles and the tall buildings. The problem was the things that were similar to what he knew, but not exactly the same. The buses that seemed particularly small, each with a slightly different color and shape. The signs brightening up the street in red, yellow, and green. The trees, which were significantly bigger than any tree he had ever seen inside the station, sprouting and spiraling into the sky, which was also different. Something about its clarity. As if it was a cleaner blue than the one he saw through the windows of the station. But before he had time to contemplate all this, he felt fear lunging at him. He was staring into the unknown.

Amid the jumble of background noise he heard the hamster-rabbit’s whistle and then saw her, not far from him, trying to flee the stampede of feet surrounding her. A fat soldier with a big duffel bag accidentally kicked her, knocking her to the curb. He bent down, tried to see that she was okay, but the hamster-rabbit had already crossed the road, and Alvin hurried after her.

“Stupid kid,” a driver who almost ran him over yelled. Alvin kept running, pulling away from the bustle of the main street and arriving at a big, oddly shaped parking lot. He couldn’t see the hamster-rabbit but her whistles still filled his ears. He lay down on the cold asphalt, scanned the objects around him. It took him a few moments before he spotted her again. She was standing in front of him, next to a pair of brown sandals sporting dry, cracked feet. Then a chubby hand reached out and scooped up the hamster-rabbit, carrying her out of Alvin’s view. He got up from the floor, sidled up against a minibus, and peeked through the front windshield. Not far from him stood a short, dumpy woman in an oversized black shirt. She had dark curly hair, a double chin, and small round glasses perched on the tip of her nose. He came around the minibus and stood in front of her. He watched her gazing at the hamster-rabbit with a serious expression, holding her in her wide hands, petting her with big, circular motions. The woman whispered something to the animal. She was about his mother’s height, but clearly older.

When she saw Alvin standing close to her she jolted and almost dropped the hamster-rabbit. Her face flushed. She started shouting and it took Alvin some time to understand what she was saying. “Is this yours? … I mean … I’m sorry … I just saw her and … sorry, really.”

She handed him the hamster-rabbit but he didn’t take her, just kept listening to the small animal’s whistles. They were light and calm, nothing like the noises she made when he held her.

“She’s not mine,” he said. Then he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Shabtai. I mean, Anita,” she replied. “Sorry, my head isn’t screwed on straight today,” she said and withdrew into her silence.

“Maybe you know what animal that is?”

The woman pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and stared at the animal, studying it up close. “It’s a guinea pig, I think,” she told Alvin with a loud, clear voice.

He thought it was a funny name. Guinea pig. “You take her home?” he asked.

Shabtai-I-mean-Anita hesitated and started to giggle. “I think so. I mean, why not? I have room for it. A little company could be nice,” she mumbled and immediately backtracked. “Unless you want her, of course.”

Alvin lifted his hand to pet the hamster-rabbit, but changed his mind. “No,” he replied, then turned around and ran back toward the station. He thought he heard Shabtai-I-mean-Anita yelling something, but he wasn’t sure.

Having crossed the road, he slowed down his pace and stopped by the big dumpster at the entrance. He wondered whether the trees inside the station would eventually grow as tall as the trees outside it. Then he looked at the people in the station. He decided he wouldn’t move from his spot until he counted ten wearing a green shirt. He stood there for nearly an hour. After spotting the eighth person in a green shirt, he noticed his mother passing by. She was holding her bags, moving swiftly, and bumped into the cleaner with the orange vest who was pushing a big metal cart. A collection of computer keyboards and umbrellas scattered across the floor. Prudence bent down, tried to gather the loot while swarms of people surrounded her from every direction. Alvin entered the station and ran toward her.