Too overcome even to cuss, I was only dimly aware of the thickset man, who’d been dropping bundles of newspapers off at the stand while I still was deep in the magazines, now wheeling an empty hand truck out to his van, whistling carelessly as he came. “’Scuse, please, comin’ through,” he made to get past me on the walkway, but halted when he had a look at my face. “Whasamatter? You sick? Gonna throw up, better get over to the gutter.”
“I missed my bus,” I babbled, “it left without me and my suitcase is on it and my jacket and autograph book and moccasins and—”
“Them puppy bus dickheads,” he said with disgust. “At’s about like them. Which way you goin’?”
“W-W-Wisconsin.”
He waved me toward the green van with TWIN CITIES NEWS AGENCY on its side as he trundled the hand truck over and heaved it in with a clatter. “Hop in, kiddo.”
“Are you gonna take me there? To Wisconsin?”
“Naw, can’t quite do that.” He gestured so urgently I jumped in the open-sided van. “C’mon, we’ll catch ’em in Saint Paul.”
“Is it very far?”
He gave me a look as if I was mentally lacking. “They don’t call these the Twin Cities for nothin’.” Crouched over the steering wheel and shifting gears fast and furious, he goosed the van out into the street traffic, blaring the horn at anything in our way. I hung on to one of the newspaper bin dividers behind him as we went clipping past the big buildings and fancy stores at daredevil speed.
“Don’t that beat all,” my Samaritan kept up a one-sided conversation as he willy-nilly changed lanes and ran stoplights on the blink between green and red. “Pullin’ out without even lookin’ around for you any. What kind of bus drivin’ is that?” He shook his head at the state of Greyhound affairs. “Dickheads,” he repeated.
I held my breath as we swerved around a yellow taxicab and zoomed through an intersection with a few warning honks of the horn. When I could speak, I felt compelled to stick up for the earlier bus driver who had saved my skin at Lake Itasca. “They aren’t all like that, honest.”
“Hah. You don’t know the half of it.”
Before I could ask about the half I was missing, I was distracted by the high bridge we were atop without warning, over a river that seemed to go on and on. Which is basically what the Mississippi does. As the van rumbled across the seemingly endless bridge and the chasm below, I kept my death grip on the divider and leaned down to speak into my escort’s ear. “So how come you think they’re all”—I tried out the new word—“dickheads?”
“They ain’t union.” He pointed to an encased certificate up by the visor. By squinting, I at least could read the large type, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS.
At last, something I knew about! “Horses!” I burst out as a hayfield teamster, if only anyone would let me. “You drive those, too?”
He cast me a grin over his shoulder. “In the old days, every Teamster did, you bet your pucker string they did.”
“Me, too! I mean, I know how to harness up and drive a team and everything. See, I wouldn’t be here at all if Sparrowhead back at the ranch in Montana had let me drive the stacker team like I know I can and—”
“Life’s tough, ain’t it?” He held up a hand as if letting the air rush through his fingers. “Feel better? We’re in Saint Paul.”
“Really?” It looked the same as Minneapolis to me, the Identical Twin Cities evidently. The van kept up its rapid clip, the rush of wind through the open side making my eyes water. I had to hope my fellow teamster could see all right, as we were cutting in and out of lanes of traffic by the barest of space between us and other vehicles. “Smooth move!” I let out like one race driver complimenting another when he skimmed us around a double-parked delivery truck by inches and blazed on through a changing traffic light. “Nothin’ to it,” he claimed, flooring the gas pedal in a race to beat the next light. “You just gotta keep on the go.
“Lemme think now,” I heard him calculate as we wove our way through downtown traffic, the street checkered with shadows thrown by the high buildings. “When we reach the station, you be ready to jump off and tell that doggy driver you belong on the bus, ’kay?”
“S-s-sure,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t have time to worry about how I would do at that, because ahead in blinking neon was a towering sign that read from top to bottom, GREYHOUND.
“Goddamn-it-to-hell-anyway,” the teamster addressed the unwavering red light that held us up at the cross street. On the other side, so near and yet so far, the St. Paul terminal, which was fancied up with plaster-like decorations of fruit and flowers, appeared to be older and smaller than the Minneapolis one and must not have dealt in as many passengers, because fewer buses with the racing dog on the side were backed into the loading area in the open-arched driveway. I had eyes only for one, with MILWAUKEE in the roller sign above the windshield, and I spotted it immediately, its door cruelly folding closed as if shutting me out.
“There it is! It’s leaving again!”