24.
MAGIC B US Kai Schweizer
I was about eight when I found the bus.
‘S’not that big,’ I agreed. ‘Oh yeah? Well if you’re so strong, why don’ you push it back home then?’ George snorted. I was stupid to even try, but I did. It was my sword in the stone.
I had been out exploring with my two best friends, chasing each other, barefoot and filthy, through the Pennsylvanian fields. It seemed so out of place; a fallen object on a foreign planet. I didn’t belong there. It was old and sad; lost. I felt sad for it. The pastel paintjob of orange and green had faded and peeled. Any visible metal was crusted with a thick layer of rust.
It wouldn’t budge. Of course it wouldn’t budge. I was a lanky eight year old hillbilly, not a King. ‘Y’all ain’t so tough as ya thought ya were,’ John mocked. He turned to George and they burst into laughter. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. It came over us in euphoric waves.
I was the only one brave enough to go inside. To my friends, the bus was a bad omen. To me, it was magic. It was fate. I had been the one to find it; I had been chosen. The interior was water-stained, springs leaping from seats, seatbelts chewed through by tenacious moths.
We were left glowing, the simple joy of friendship and elm tree shade radiating through our being. When we were out there, all thoughts of classroom boredom and dads and shotguns ebbed away. ‘One day, I’m going to move that bus,’ I declared after we had lain in a silent heap for a few minutes. And, one day, I did. But neither of my best friends were there to bear witness to it.
‘Is it empty?’ John, the youngest, asked in his thick southern accent. ‘Sure is,’ I called back. My voice echoed through the bus. I crawled my way back out. George was wearing his favourite Steelers cap. He had a weed dangling from his mouth.
George went off to WVU on a football scholarship. He was drafted to the Steelers right after he graduated. He had everything he wanted: the money, the girls, the booze, and the game. He had worked his ass off for years and he was living the dream as a reward. A few years into his career, cancer took his balls. A few years after that, it took the rest of him. Turned out he’d been juicing the whole time.
‘S’not very big,’ he noted. ‘Is too,’ John shot back. I stared at that bus for a while, pondering how it got there. There were no roads for three miles in every direction. It was a mystery. It was pretty small for a bus. More like a van.
#6
Grok #6_2016.indd 24
11-Oct-16 10:20:07 AM