The sun was barely piercing the early morning darkness when Peyton said goodbye to his parents and made his way to the Atlanta Greyhound terminal. Now he was looking out the window at the Georgia countryside as the bus rolled through fields of red clay and small towns with little more than a water tower to claim their place on the map. He hadn’t realized how much he needed some time away from fluorescent lights and waiting rooms and the colorless monotony of a hospital. His parents were sending him to visit a great-aunt he couldn’t remember. Peyton hadn’t seen Aunt Gert since he was a toddler and could only hope she wasn’t a holy terror.
“Next stop, Milledgeville!” the driver called.
His heart beat faster at the name of this place. The sprawling grounds of the Milledgeville asylum were rumored to hold many graves—final resting places of all the unfortunate souls who were sent there never to return. Milledgeville was made all the more horrifying by its mystery. Most people had no idea what actually happened within its walls, and what they imagined was a collage of every bad dream they’d ever had and every horror movie they’d ever seen.
The driver turned off the main highway and headed into town. “Baldwin County Courthouse!” he called out. A giggling young couple, both dressed in their Sunday best, got off the bus. She was wearing a corsage. Likely a courthouse wedding. Peyton wondered—was that how his parents had looked on their way to the courthouse all those years ago?
“Georgia Military College!” the driver announced. Three boys in uniform, who all looked just a little older than Peyton, stepped off.
As the driver took the bus down a long street and then turned onto Broad, he called out, “Central State Hospital!”
Peyton’s blood ran cold at the sight of it—an imposing brick building with white columns out front. There wasn’t a living soul in sight. Were they all confined behind those high walls, with bars on their windows and locks on their doors? Or was it just like an ordinary hospital? You’d have to go in there to find out, and nobody wanted to do that.
He watched as a man about his father’s age stepped aboard, taking a seat across the aisle. The man was tall, pale, and gaunt. For a fleeting moment, Peyton wondered whether he might be a Milledgeville escapee, but then, he doubted anyone fleeing this place would calmly step onto a public bus.
As the driver slowly pulled away, the man across the aisle sat perfectly still and straight, his hands folded on his lap. Peyton relaxed into his seat, leaned his head against the window, and fell asleep to the hum of the bus.
He slept through stops in little towns like Lumber City, Satilla, and Hazelhurst as the bus rambled through Georgia on its way to the coast. Somewhere along the way, he dreamed. Peyton saw himself kneeling on the grass at his grandparents’ house, petting a beautiful Irish setter. The dog licked his cheek and then took a spirited run around the lawn. When it returned to Peyton, it playfully jumped on him with its front paws. Peyton was laughing, scratching the dog behind its ears, when suddenly it turned into a stallion and reared up, pawing at him. It knocked him flat on his back. He covered his face with his arms but couldn’t get up—couldn’t run or scream. Finally, he heard the stallion gallop away. With great relief, he slowly lowered his trembling arms, only to see that he was strapped to a hospital gurney encircled by nurses who had no faces.
When he woke up, the man from Milledgeville was standing over him, shaking his shoulders.
“Y-you . . . o-k-kay?” The man looked concerned.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry I bothered you. Just—had a crazy dream.” Immediately, he regretted his choice of words—saying “crazy” to a man who had just gotten out of the asylum. “I didn’t mean—”
“No b-bother,” the man said. “I j-just . . . didn’t . . . want to leave you . . . in there.” He returned to his seat, stretching out his legs and looking out the window.
Peyton took a look himself and could see that they were still in Georgia. No palm trees in sight. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Could you tell me where we are?”
“J-just north of . . . of . . . Waycross. You get off . . . in . . . Waycross?”
“No, sir, St. Augustine.”
“I g-get . . . off in . . . J-Jacksonville.”
“Thank you for your help,” Peyton said with a smile.
The man tried to smile back but looked as if he hadn’t done it in so long that he had forgotten how. “I have . . . a . . . b-boy your . . . age,” he volunteered.
“I’ll bet he’s excited to see you.”
The man looked confused, as if he couldn’t fathom anyone being excited to see him, then turned to stare out the window again. Maybe he was just tired of talking.
Peyton opened the lunch sack his mother had packed for him and pulled out a piece of fried chicken from the hospital cafeteria. She was doing her best, he knew, to make things at least a little bit normal for him. “Sir, would you care for a piece o’ chicken?” he offered. The man shook his head and turned back toward the window.
Peyton hadn’t been down to Florida since he was little. His mother spent occasional long weekends with her Aunt Gert in St. Augustine, mostly in the fall and winter. She would give Peyton the option of coming with her or staying with his father, and he always took option two. During football season, his dad would take off work on Friday and they would drive to Athens, check into the best hotel in town, and go to the Georgia game on Saturday. Then they’d sleep late on Sunday and leisurely make their way home—sometimes stopping in Augusta to play a round of golf. Right now that seemed like somebody else’s life.
After putting his lunch away, Peyton leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and thought of Lisa. Soon he was dozing again, dreaming of her. She was dressed in the emerald-green ball gown she had worn to the spring formal. It was sleeveless with a V-neck, which showed off a double strand of pearls close to her neck—nothing flashy. He had given her a single pink rose. In his dream, they were back at the dance, and he proudly escorted her onto the ballroom floor. But then a crowd of dancers swirled between them. He kept getting glimpses of Lisa in a sea of satin and silk, but he could never touch her. Every time he got close, the crowd of dancers pushed her away.
The bus driver jolted him out of his misery. “Next stop, Jacksonville station!”
As the Milledgeville man stepped into the aisle, Peyton stood up and offered his hand. “Nice traveling with you, sir,” he said. Looking more apprehensive than excited to be home, the man shook hands with Peyton before making his way up the aisle and out the door.
Just before the bus pulled away, Peyton saw him step onto the platform, where a woman threw her arms around his neck. The man just stood there with his hands at his sides. The couple got smaller and smaller as the bus moved on, leaving Jacksonville and everybody in it behind. Peyton could only wonder about the boy his age waiting at home for his father to return from Milledgeville, oblivious to what was happening on the bus platform as his parents, now strangers, struggled for reunion.