Ben looked up from his book, a thick black Penguin with age tinted pages. The silver bus, a dusty behemoth with black tinted windows and a guttural engine, pulled into the small station drive.
"There she is," said a man to his wife. Ben turned to look at the couple, the only other people waiting for the bus. The silver-haired man looked at his watch and then pulled their tickets from his jacket pocket. The wife, a small, tight-lipped woman, held a big orange bag with a hug in her lap. "C'mon, Beth," said the man, rising. The woman stood slowly, trembling slightly.
Ben closed his book and pushed it into his jean pocket. Diesel fumes belched into the stale summer air as the driver shut off the engine. Ben coughed and stood up, stretching his long limbs high toward the pale blue sky. The sun blazed over the gas station building across the street, starting the early morning with a bright stroke of heat. The driver, a sturdy serious looking man in a blue cotton shirt, opened the door of the bus with a pneumatic rush and stepped out. The couple stood waiting at the bottom.
"Make yourselves comfortable," the driver said. "We'll be leaving in about ten minutes." Clipboard in hand, he walked into the station. Ben watched the driver pour a cup of coffee before he leaned over the counter to speak with the big red-headed woman. Ben walked down toward the street, away from the thick blue-grey cloud of hovering smoke.
"I'm going to be in that trap long enough," he said, squinting as the sunshine bit his eyes. "No reason to rush in." The grey-haired man helped Beth mount the steps into the bus. Ben looked down the long empty road. "Damn," he said. "I'll be glad to get out of here."
"All right," the driver said loudly. Ben turned to see him wave. Walking back up the drive, he pulled the old book from his back pocket and clutched it familiarly. The tall silver bus roared to life. Ben lifted a foot up on the black rubber mat as the machine shuddered. "Ready to roll?" asked the driver with a smile.
"Let's lose this place," said Ben, climbing into the dark, cool cabin. "Next stop, Paradise." The driver chuckled and closed the door behind him.
The couple sat in the third row back on the right, behind the driver, close enough to see the road and far enough to have some privacy. Ben nodded to the man as he passed and kept moving down the aisle until he reached the very back. Plopping down on the bluish-grey seat, Ben leaned back and ceremoniously opened his book. At least, he thought, there would be plenty of time to read.
Ben quickly lost himself in the tale of old Russia as the dusty American plains rolled past the tinted windows. The heat of the day slowly infected the faintly cooled cabin of the bus until Ben could feel his t-shirt begin to cling to his chest. He sat up and looked out the window. Flat fields stretched out for miles, broken only by the rhythmic cycle of three oil pumps and a thin line of oaks near the white farm house. The dusty plume of an unseen pickup, hidden by the silver shimmers of wheat, traced a intersecting course toward the highway. Ben shifted to the left and opened his Turgenev.
Twenty pages more had gone by when the bus stopped. Ben looked out the window to see the small station, very like the one they had just left. A sign above the door read, "Rotenburg". Ben smiled, imagining the abuse such a name would incur. A dozen passengers began to embark. Ben opened his book and stared intently at the yellowed pages. More than anything, he feared the companionship of some talkative yokel during the next three hundred miles. Ben exuded anti-social vibes.
Ben didn't dare look up, but he could sense the presence of someone nearby, and felt them sit down across the aisle. Sneaking a peek up the bus, Ben relaxed slightly. Everyone had taken a seat. The bus bounced over a curb as the angry engine growled and Ben stared again into the old tale of the disrespectful son.
Miles drifted by and the chatters of quiet conversation began to drone in Ben's ears. The words seemed to stop and linger as his thoughts faded into a lethargic descent toward sleep. Ben closed his eyes and let the cool pause comfort him. The bus jumped as it changed lanes to pass, and Ben could feel the stiffness growing in his back. Ben shook his head vigorously and stretched.
She sat across the aisle, scribbling in a notebook perched upon her thigh. Ben stopped and stared for a brief moment at the pretty girl. Thick, fine hair of a pale brown that flirted with being blonde hung down past her shoulders. A bony knee pushed out of a tattered hole in her faded jeans. Her dark painted lips seemed to recite something as she wrote. She hunched over her work, shrouding her chest between her thin bare tanned arms, cast in a dull pink t-shirt with a faded tiny bow at the end of her short sleeve.
Ben looked back into his book, holding it so that the title would be visible to the girl across the aisle. He didn't want to talk to her as much as he wanted her to admire his literary choice. She popped a bubble. Ben looked up. She looked the other way, stretching. Full breasts, firm and round as ripe citrus, pressed forward, clad tightly in dull pink. Ben's eye's widened and focussed. The circular impression of underlying nipples in the cotton of her shirt sparked a burst of fire in Ben's blood. She turned back and Ben buried himself in his book.
Ben couldn't read a single word of _Fathers and Sons_. It might as well have been written in Russian. He peeked back across the aisle, unable to contain himself. The nipple of her right breast seemed like a shadow under the faded t-shirt. Ben looked back at the book. His heartbeat pounded in his ear. He looked back over, to see the profile of her breast as it jiggled in the steady gentle bounce of the bus ride.
"Magnificent," he thought, his gaze enchanted by the vision.
"Good book?" she asked, smiling. Ben jumped slightly.
"All right," he said.
"I can't read in a bus," she said.
"Yeah," Ben said, turning over the book to look at the cover. "Usually I can, but I can't seem to concentrate today. Probably should have brought something lighter."
"I just can't," she said. "It gives me a headache."
"I've heard people say that," Ben said. "I don't have any trouble."
"You're lucky," she said. "Reading would be a good way to kill this ride."
"Yeah. But you can write?"
"Well, the bouncing ruins my handwriting."
"I'll bet," said Ben, smiling.
"Besides," she said. "I just jot down words. It's not really writing."
"Sounds like writing."
"Yeah," she said. "I guess so."
"My name's Ben," he said, reaching across the aisle.
"Kathy," she replied, grabbing her purse and scooting over. "Do you mind?" she asked.
"Come on over," he said, pushing over toward the window.
"Going anywhere?" Kathy asked.
"Yeah," said Ben. "I have a friend in Des Moines."
"Hey, me too," she said. "I guess this is a good time for visiting."
