Joseph and Amanda got their shoes on and we left.
We had to drive back to the bar and get Amanda's car.
We pulled into the parking lot. The Big Smooth's SUV was still there.
I ran over to the SUV and looked in the window. The Big Smooth was sleeping under a thin blanket in the backseat. It was only 30 degrees outside. I thought about knocking on the window and waking him up so he could get to somewhere warm. But he was The Big Smooth and if anyone could sleep in freezing cold weather under a thin blanket it was him.
I ran to Amanda's car and we went home.
Nine
Amanda drove me to the downtown Youngstown bus station. The bus station was located at the end of 193, a long road that started at the edge of Lake Erie and ended in downtown Youngstown. I grew up on 193 in Vienna. I've had five jobs on 193. My black baby that was strangled by his umbilical cord lied buried on 193. And I was even born on 193. And then I was going to take my trip to NYC from the end of 193. Someday they would take me back to that hospital I was born on 193 and I would die. Then they would bury me on 193 and my epigraph would say:
Born on 193
Lived on 193
Died on 193
Here he rests on 193
There will be no procession on 193. There will be no statues celebrating my presence on 193. There won't be any streets named after me. A lot of men and women were born, lived, worked and died on 193.
The bus station was full of poor black people. Old black men sitting alone in silence; old black men in groups talking about the economy. Black women wearing cheap thrift store clothes holding babies talking on their cell phones. An upper class looking white guy was standing beside his bags. He had luggage. No one had luggage. Everyone had a bag, some had garbage bags. The white man with the nice haircut was talking on an iPhone standing next to his expensive luggage.
Got my ticket and Amanda and I went to the coffee shop. There were a lot of older white, Italian, and black men in there. They were sitting around talking chewing on donuts and sipping coffee. The coffee shop had a lottery machine. The older people would get the lottery tickets, scratch them and talk about their past big wins. It was nice to sit there seeing the old white, Italian, and black men sit together and reminisce about the steel mills.
I went to the bathroom at the back of the bus station. The bathroom was full of graffiti. The toilet didn't have a door. There were gang symbols everywhere. There were random quotes about Tupac and Biggie. There were three guys standing around talking about exchanging drugs at eight in the morning.
Walked out of the bathroom. Four young black guys and a young white guy dressed in baggy clothes and tilted baseball caps were rap battling. One would take turns insulting the other one. Everybody would laugh when something funny was said. A huge black security guard came in and starting yelling at them, “What the fuck do you think you're doing? Is this a concert hall? Does this look like a concert hall? I repeat does this look like a concert hall? Are there any tickets being sold? I don't see a stage. Do you see a stage?”
They answered, “What's your problem man?”
“I don't have a problem. I have hoodlums serenading each other in my bus station. What is your problem? This is a family institution. Nobody wants to hear you swear at each other. What is this? Tell me, is this a concert hall?”
“No,” one replied in an angry voice.
“Don't you have a place to go, somewhere else you can serenade each other?”
They stood there looking angry.
“Do you understand what I'm saying; I'm saying this isn't a concert hall.”
He kept repeating it, he kept yelling. He was very fervent.
The guys dispersed.
The security guard walked back up front swearing to himself about hoodlums.
There are a lot of hoodlums in Youngstown. Young black and white men who didn't graduate high school or barely did anything but stumble around Youngstown doing drugs, going to jail, prison, and impregnating women. White collar America did not enjoy those people, the hoodlums. They disgraced The American Dream of hard work and being ambitious. I didn't care. I had met many hoodlums over the years. They had shitty lives. They grew up in projects with crack head mothers most likely with no father figure except for the random men their mothers would fuck. They went to crowded schools and grew up without land to play on, without the comforts of the suburbs. They eventually grew out of it. They eventually stopped singing in bus stations and pulled their pants up and got jobs like everybody else. Hoodlums didn't cause the Afghan and Iraq Wars; they didn't cause the DOW to drop four thousand points.
Amanda and I went outside so I could smoke. Amanda didn't smoke. Both of her parents smoked but she didn't out of protest. I enjoyed smoking. It relieved stress. It made me feel better. It gave my hands something to do. I wasn't concerned with living to 100. I wasn't concerned with my death at all. Death seemed like the least of my problems. I had a lot of problems, had a shitty car, had bills to pay, had a shitty job, never felt like I belonged anywhere. I don't know if feeling like one belongs anywhere constitutes itself as a problem but it was a problem for me. Smoking helped with that. I felt like I was a smoker. I was part of a great legion of those who smoked cigarettes and lived unhealthy lives.
The sky was overcast. It was a dreary day. Young and old black men stood around smoking laughing about girls with nice asses. Nobody was taking anything seriously. It was too early in the day for that.
Amanda said to me, “Are you coming back?”
“Coming back where?”
“Here.”
“Of course I'm coming back.”
“I'm worried you won't.”
“I don't know what I would do there.”
“You might not come back.”
“I don't have enough money to leave.”
“You have friends though; they might get you a job.”
“No, I'll return. I have to finish school.”
“I'll miss you.”
“You'll have Joseph,” I said.
“But I can't talk to him like I do you.”
“I'll come back. This is where I live.”
“Do you think you can live here forever?”
“I don't know. Do you think you can live here forever?”
“I don't know. I've been here forever.”
“I'll return; you'll be picking me up soon enough.”
“I don't like to sleep in the house alone.”
We went back in and waited for the bus. I waited in a line. Amanda stood with me. The security guard called everyone going to Pittsburgh. It was time to board the bus. We moved slowly in a nice line. I didn't have a suitcase. Just a book bag. I didn't even bring a change of clothes. I knew I would get off the bus at Times Square and didn't want to carry luggage for miles.
It was raining.
I hugged Amanda.
She looked sad.
I didn't know how to look, so I went with what she was doing and looked sad myself.
We let go of each other. I walked toward the bus and looked back at her, smiled. Trying to reassure her that I would return.
She smiled back.
I got on the bus.
I walked to the back of the bus and sat in the closest unoccupied seat to the bathroom.
Ten
I closed my eyes. They were hungover and tired. I fell asleep and woke up in Pittsburgh.
I entered the Pittsburgh bus station. Every time I had been to the Pittsburgh bus station it was a different one. It was new and shiny. Americans love new and shiny. When something gets old and spray-painted, the bathrooms have too many cocks drawn on the walls. The sinks look a little aged. They don't paint over it. They don't remodel it a little; they send in bulldozers to demolish it. When it came to public works, it occurred to someone one day that demolishing and rebuilding something from scratch created more jobs than remolding. So America decided if a public building was even a little run down, instead of fixing it up, build a new one. It was logical.