28
The engine lights start flashing, but with no sign that there is trouble with the engine. He has no idea what has become of the driver, or why, of all people, an old man who has never driven a bus, and much less through Mexico, would be the one at the wheel. He tries, for the fourth time, to eject the video from the VCR, and again, like so many other things in his remaining days, it refuses to cooperate with him. He has listened to enough of this strange music in some tongue he has never heard but feels compelled to hum along to. What he needs to do is find a safe place to pull over somewhere on this mountain road and add water to the overheated engine. Because of the dense clouds he has trouble seeing beyond the solid white line at the shoulder, but he imagines the drop is severe and not something any of them would survive if he were to miscalculate one of these curves when the front end of the bus swept over the edge. He eases up on the accelerator as he approaches a group of men walking single file in the opposite direction. But when he gets closer he sees that he is one of these men, only younger, just as he was the only other time he traveled so far into Mexico. The old man desperately wants to slide open the little window and speak to this younger version of himself, tell him how it all turns out, that he makes it back home alive — hungry, but alive — and that from then on he’ll take work only when they travel up north, where it will be less likely for these men to accuse him of not belonging where he is and forcing him to go somewhere else, and that later he will find a good job, but one that over many, many years will require him to walk farther than he is walking now, no matter how difficult that might be to imagine. When the road opens up he decides to pull over, only he notices that he has no brakes. There is a gas pedal and then a wide-open space to the left. He sees the highway flashing just beneath him. Of all the buses to be put in charge of, they gave him one without so much as a brake pedal. And the accelerator he thought he was controlling turns out to not change in the slightest when he takes his foot off it completely or stomps on it all the way to the floor. The bus simply continues at the same pace, regardless of what he does or doesn’t do, whether going downhill or up an incline. He lifts his hands from the steering wheel and it turns smoothly with each curve. Then he stands, watching the bus continue the same as when he was driving, or thought he was. What he wants more than anything is to get back to his own seat and fall back to sleep, as he was doing before he was put in charge of driving a bus that needs no driver. He holds on to the backrests to guide himself past the other passengers, who don’t so much as thank him for his efforts. But what else should he expect from someone like The Turtle With The Fedora or The Turtle With The Orange Gloves or The One Who Cries Like A Dying Calf or The Gringo With The Ugly Finger? “I pretty much stopped taking buses when I joined up with Pan Am. Then it was nothing but blue, blue skies for yours truly. My little accident wasn’t going to keep me grounded, no sir.” They’re all here, in the seats where the other passengers were earlier. The One With The Hole In His Back balances his withered body across several rows so his wound can get some air from the open window. He has left his darkened parts exposed only so that he can keep hold of his cowboy hat in the bustling wind. “I CAN FEEL IT GETTING SMALLER NOW. ALREADY I HAD TOLD THEM TO LEAVE IT, THAT IT JUST NEEDED SOME FRESH AIR AND IT WOULD HEAL BY ITSELF. BUT DID THEY LISTEN?” The lack of empty spaces sends him shuffling back to the driver’s seat. At least they’re past the mountains and hills and are on a level highway. Everything is so much flatter now. The narrow road has two ample lanes going in the same direction and, across a narrow median, another two lanes going in the opposite direction. Something about this feels familiar. He tries to remember the stretch of road from the other time he was here, but he realizes how pointless this is for him, trying to remember something he experienced a lifetime ago. The needle has fallen off the compass. Who knows where they may be headed? “?Teléfono!” The bus has slowed down and is traveling through a busy street. No more mountains, no more checkpoints, no more buzzer going off. Still there is something he wants to recall about being here. They’re driving straight into the sun, and then up ahead he sees what looks like a long line of cars, all heading toward a bridge.