Thirty-Eight

Skipping a town when everything is sealed up and cops are seeking you down is not easy except for one thing: the laziness of adults and their complete lack of imagination, so that’s two things.

I knew the bus station was closed for the night and there was an old security guard who sat the whole night in a glass box in front of the booking office and I’d said hello to him on the nights we crept out to buy a late-night burger and he was a nice old man of limited movement and interest and even less enthusiasm and he didn’t care any more than he needed to. The morning buses would take their leave from 5am and it would be dark and cold like 5am always is and I would be on one. I couldn’t rightly pick which one because their numbers and destinations hadn’t been scrolled up, but I knew the first buses to leave would be on the front row and they would be long-distance rides heading for the far south or the west or maybe for the ferry and the north or even the crowded east coast seaports, and I could to hide out with the pirates and vagabonds and drifters and grifters and I could get a name for myself there. I didn’t really care and it didn’t much matter because all routes led well out of town and that’s where I needed to go and once I was out I could change rides and hide and breathe and wait and get to know my hands again because they looked and felt foreign and strange and like they were not my hands any more, and that’s common once you kill with your hands like I did and I read it once. It would take a while for them to come back to me … Hush, hush, hush, said the voice.

I knew I could ride in the luggage hold underneath the passengers and those holds were deep and dark and up the front there was a narrow stretch that you couldn’t see into if you opened the lift-up luggage doors and just looked inside lazy, and you had to get right into the belly of the bus to see in that alcove and it would be cold, dark, frosty and five in the morning and that’s where laziness came in because no one was coming to look in that hold.

I rolled out my bivvy bag and snuggled into that hidden stretch and dusted it first to get the dirt off the rubber matting and closed off my nose to the stale smell. I loaded the short-barrelled .44 rifle and put my headphones in to listen for Lilly and I went to sleep.

I dreamed I was a child again running in the meadows and trees and the lido fields and smelling hot tarmac and splashing in the cool waters and then seasons jumped and it was Christmas morning real early and the sun wasn’t risen and the fire was lit in the grate and glowed orange and the fire was warm and promised magic was to come and I stood on the stairs and peered into that room and it was perfect. In my dream I missed my father’s arms around me and I missed my mum and her delicate softness and strength and love and her belief in the fairies and her perfect grace and how she loved and protected me, and as she reached for me I woke and the driver loaded up with a dozen suitcases and the quiet early-morning tone of sleepy people drifted my way, then the driver gunned that engine alive and we lurched out of the station and on to the great wide road to freedom.

As we left town I got teary because that brutal old butterfly of Fell House and the strangled and strange little town of Cutter had become all the home I had and those boys were like my brothers and I did feel sorry for the woman who died and I hated her too for dying like that and putting me in this mess. I swore to not be so quick to anger again and I made a note to myself that if you kill make sure you kill cold rather than hot and that’s a learning right there. Staying busy is important too so when you kill you don’t go brooding afterwards and right now I was busy getting away which is why my mind didn’t go to regret and sin and self-pity and after a while I started to consider what hobby would be a good one for a killer, but that’s not so easy as it sounds when you ain’t a hobby person. I started to make a mental list of possible handicrafts because I knew I was a natural born killer and I wasn’t planning to stop and I liked the visual effect of crocheting and its silky texture, so that was a possibility and I pondered.

The bus made a few turns and I sensed we were heading south and that was perfect and then the bus pulled over and its brakes were groaning and hissing then it jolted to a stop and I heard police radios and voices outside and that wasn’t perfect at all. My heart was racing so I had to control it with my mind again as the police searched the topside and a cop chatted to the driver like old and good buddies and I nursed that rifle and got ready. I could hear yapping and they opened up the hold and chucked in a dog, but the policeman himself didn’t even bother to look down where I was hiding or even slide a suitcase across and the dog came over in the dark and snuffled me as I rubbed inside his ears and he licked my face and went away again and I was grateful and in my mind I could see the policeman’s happy ruddy face and big belly and chubby podgy hands and I was really glad I didn’t have to unload in his face and kill him dead even though killing policemen is not a sin even if it is a crime.

I rested my rifle and made it safe and did an ohm and gong and everything was kind of working out fine and I was moving on up. I hoped wherever the bus dropped me would have icecream shops and a surf beach, because with the holidays so close hiding on a surf break would be easy, and a boxing gym, it should have a boxing gym, and I could hold out for the summer and then liberate with expediency my friend Lefty and my Lilly and then go look for Melody Grace herself and there were butterflies and bluebirds all over that picture. Maybe the summer would disguise me and maybe I would grow taller and maybe I would live under the boardwalk or pier or in beach huts and wherever I was going it would be OK and flicker flick flicker I could feel a plan taking shape. I really hoped there would be a surf break and a gym and it was all good and that’s no lie.

I had to stay positive and the shroud of lonely was on me heavy, but I pushed it away because I knew good things were coming and I was visualising and I was warm and I had food and the bus rolled easy towards the mountains and bays and the engine hummed and voices drifted down from passengers talking and laughing and I plugged my magical hold-in-your-hand radio back into my ears. A sweet kind lady sang to me about ‘Morningtown’ and sunlight speared through the gaps around the luggage door and lit up floating dust like my own miniature universe and I beheld it in wonder and awe and I was grateful.

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, and I clapped until my hands went numb.