And when I unwrapped it, the so-called sheath seemed all too thin. Huh. I thought by reputation these things were made of rubber. Instead, the material was sort of like fishskin, and while stretchy, didn’t strike me as terribly strong. When I dug the arrowhead out of the suitcase and compared lengths, though, the condom thinger looked just about right.
For all I knew, maybe more than one at a time was needed in this matter of protection, like putting on extra socks in zero weather. I had a last couple of quarters left and inserted them one after the other into the Tuffy dispenser, drawing quite a look from a guy at the nearest urinal. Then over in a corner at the sink counter, working carefully, carefully, with a little toilet paper padding to help out, I managed to tug the triple layer of condoms over the arrowhead. Definitely sheathed, it fit in my pocket as not much bigger than an ordinary charm like a rabbit’s foot, and finally felt like a lucky piece should, ready and waiting.
? ? ?
BACK OUT in the boarding area, the driver showed up at the still-empty bus at the same time I did. Burly and black-mustached and still settling his company crush hat on his head, he looked me over enough that I was afraid he’d heard about me, the entire Greyhound fleet alerted about the stray whom trouble followed like a black cat’s shadow. But he only remarked, “Early bird, aren’t you,” and stuck the antiquated suitcase safely in the baggage compartment. I went up the steps right at his heels, and for quite some time we were the only ones on the bus, me securing a window seat partway down the aisle but away from the bumpy ride over the back tires, and him behind the steering wheel dealing with paperwork.
At last a few others dribbled aboard, but to my puzzlement, not as many as at any point of the trip since passengers dwindled away into the void of North Dakota. Was Manitowoc such a ghost town no one wanted to go there? Soon enough I’d know, wouldn’t I. If the Greyhound ever got itself in gear, which I was starting to doubt.
I was about to ask the driver if he was ever going to start us rolling, when I heard him say to himself, “Hoo boy, here they are,” and he climbed off in a hurry to punch tickets and handle baggage. I turned to the window to see what was happening, and gasped.
A disorderly line of kids, snaking from side to side like one of those Chinese dragons in a parade, was pouring out of the depot, each with a suitcase in hand. There was an absolute mob of them, and worse than that, entirely boys, and even worse yet, the worst I could imagine, they all were about my age and there were more than enough redheads among them to confuse anyone. I knew it! Redheaded thinking it surely was, but this clearly was a disaster in the making. Just like I had tried to tell Gram, there was no conceivable way Aunt Kitty and Uncle Dutch could pick me out, confronted with red mopheads everywhere they looked.
The whole pack of them stormed onto the bus laughing and shoving and talking at the top of their voices as I sat dismally watching the pandemonium. A couple of fretful adults were in charge, or trying to be, but they were no match for the stampede. The kids swarmed as they pleased through the aisles, claiming seats and instantly trading. The bus filled up, and the next thing I knew, three boys descended on where I was sitting, one of them flopping down next to me and the others straight across the aisle.
As sharp-featured as if he’d been whittled, my new seatmate had a natural nose for poking into other people’s business, eyeing me with none too friendly curiosity. “What’ja do, get on the bus early?”
“Sort of. Yesterday.”
“Yeah? Where ya from, then?”
I told him, his snoopy pair of chums listening in. If the new bus riders were impressed by my distant point of departure, they had a funny way of showing it. “Monta-a-a-na,” they bleated like sheep. “Know any cowboys? Like Hopalong Assidy?” They snickered roundly at the idea.
What to do? Lay it on them about the past two years of hanging around the bunkhouse with the Double W riders every chance I got, sometimes even being permitted when I caught Gram and Sparrowhead both in the right mood to saddle up and help move cows and calves to a new pasture, riding right next to cowboys not of the phony movie ten-gallon-hat-on-a-half-pint-head Hopalong Cassidy variety but as genuine as they come, as shown by their imaginative cussing?
These kids, not a freckle from the outdoors on their milk-white faces, did not seem like a promising audience for any of that. For once, I figured I’d better tone matters down.
“Well, sure, I couldn’t help but know plenty of them, could I,” I said offhandedly. “My grandmother’s the cook on the biggest ranch in Montana, see, and the whole crew, cowboys and all, eats together at a table as long as this bus.” That did stretch the matter a little, but not unreasonably so, I thought.
“Huh. Sounds like basement supper at church,” my seatmate mouthed off. “Jeez, you must have wore a hole in your butt, on here that long,” one of the others came up with.