THE BUS STOP CONFESSIONAL

THE BUS STOP CONFESSIONAL

Dustin glanced up from his paperback when the woman settled beside him on the bench. Normally he wouldn’t have given her a second glance-he preferred to ignore the riffraff who frequented the bus stop-but her left eye was black and swollen shut.

From her purse she pulled a three ring binder and a silver pen. She bit into her lower lip and began to write furiously. Since she was preoccupied, Dustin appraised her further. She was too thin, the tall model type with bony knees and protruding ribs. She had bleached blond hair, an overly glossed pout, and wore torturous looking high heels that would have made a stripper proud.

He must have been staring at her shoes for a while, lost in his own thoughts, because she said, “Foot fetish?” She swished her foot in the air and curled her painted toes.

“Huh?” he blurted, and looked away.

“I said, do… you… have… a… foot… fetish?” She uttered each word slowly, as if speaking to an imbecile. She stuck her pen between her lips and gnawed on the end.

“Do you have an oral fixation?” he said, then returned his attention to the book. The dysfunctional world of Charles Bukowski awaited, and he had wasted enough time with the woman.

“As a matter of fact, I kinda do.” She thrust her right hand into his face. Her nails were acrylic and sharpened into talons. “Do you see my nails? If I didn’t get the fake ones, the tips of my fingers would be bloody nubs.”

“Uh-huh,” he murmured. He scooted over to the end of the bench, wishing the bus stop offered more room. The woman was turning out to be too chatty for his taste. 

“I’m Farrah,” she persisted. “What’s your name?”

He sighed. “I’m trying to read.” He gestured with the paperback and shot her his best irked expression.

For a time she remained quiet, though he could feel her peering at him, and he dreaded she meant to say more. Finally she said, “I’ll call you Broody.”

“Excuse me?”

She smiled. “I never call anyone by their real name. So I’m calling you Broody.” She winked with her good eye, then scribbled something in her binder.

He didn’t want to feed the monster, so he offered no retort. She clearly needed a constant supply of attention, and judging by her revealing attire she craved male attention in particular. He checked his watch and scowled when he discovered the bus wouldn’t arrive for another fourteen minutes. If she didn’t shut up the wait would last for an eternity. He grabbed a lint brush from his bag and with precise, abrupt motions began to swipe his black sweater. He couldn’t stand to have a grain of dust or foreign fiber on his clothing, especially when he wore black.

“You’re one of those compulsive types. An anal retentive. Am I right?” Farrah said. She slathered more gloss on her mouth in a rather distracted fashion, and fluffed her hair between her talon fingers.

He was in a cranky mood as it was, having to go to his brother’s house for Thanksgiving. The last thing he needed was yet another person criticizing him. “What ever happened to natural beauty?” he asked, but it sounded more like a condemnation than a question. “Your hair is fried, your skin is too tan, your nails are plastic …I think the prettiest thing on you is that black eye of yours.”

She laughed. “Now you’re starting to sound like my mother. Or how she used to sound, anyway.”

He was annoyed that she didn't seem the least bit offended by his diatribe. He meant to jab the knife in deeper, but she intervened. She said, “My mom auditioned for Charlie’s Angels, but didn’t get the part. That's why my name's Farrah. Even though they didn't pick her for the show she still loved it. She did a Colgate commercial, and another one for Preparation H. After that she just kinda stopped trying to make it as an actress. But she was always really focused on looks, even after she stopped auditioning. As a kid I used to gain weight just to make her angry.”

He checked his watch again. Eleven minutes to go. He thought about walking across the street to the 7-11, but he feared that as soon as he went into the store the bus would come early and he’d have to wait another hour until the next one came.

“What’re ya reading?” she asked, but before he could answer, she yanked the paperback from the bench and examined the cover. “Bukowski. Huh. Never heard of him. He’s a poet?”

He wrenched the book from her grasp. “Yes, he’s a poet.”

“My sister writes poetry. She took one of those IQ tests, and scored 130. Or so she claims. I never saw the test results myself.” She touched her swollen eye and grimaced. “She’s the one who gave me the shiner. She’s not all there, ya know? She lives in one of those state run facilities. She thinks I’m involved in a plot to kill her.”

Dustin shifted uncomfortably. He never knew how to react when people revealed their personal problems. Anything he could say would be cliché and therefore useless. That’s why he despised funerals, and did his best to stay away from them. How could a hollow, “I’m so sorry for your loss” help anyone in grief? He knew from personal experience that words did nothing to lessen suffering.

“But I come from a long line of relatives who aren’t all there,” Farrah continued, apparently undeterred by his lack of a response. “My dad was one of those OCD cases. He washed his hands like fifty times a day. He had these open sores on the tops of his hands, they’d bleed like crazy, but he refused to stop washing. And my other sister-not the one in the loony bin- but my older sister, she’s an anorexic. The only thing she’ll eat is those nasty instant mashed potatoes. And her hair.”

“Her hair?” he blurted.

She nodded. “It’s a condition called Trichophagia. She had to have surgery to have a hair ball removed from her gastrointestinal tract.” She looked down at her hands, then as if with a burst of inspiration, she scrawled in her binder once more.

Dustin didn’t want to encourage her, but his curiosity had peaked. “What are you writing?”

She glanced up from the binder. “My memoirs. I started them this morning. Since today’s the anniversary.”

“The anniversary of what?”

She frowned. “My parents died Thanksgiving 2003. That’s why I’m going to the Oak Hill Cemetery down on Foster Lane. Have you ever been there?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a nice place. But they’re building a shopping plaza right across the street. It made me kinda mad when I saw all the construction going on. Who wants to spend eternity across the street from The Gap?” She gave a sad sort of smile and then shrugged.

He wanted to ask how her parents died, because despite his best efforts she had begun to intrigue him. But he didn’t ask. He figured she would probably tell him anyway, given her loquaciousness.

She said, “You’re all right, Broody. At first I thought you were a hard ass, but now I see you’re just a hard shelled marshmallow. Are you spending time with family for the holiday?”

“My brother and his wife invited me for dinner,” he said. He could imagine the scene. He’d sit across from them and nibble dry turkey and tell his sister-in-law it tasted fine when she asked. Then afterwards they’d drink coffee and his brother would try to convince him to go to another AA meeting.

“You don’t get along with your brother,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “So why are you going?”

“Out of guilt, I suppose. They helped me out a while back.”

She showed her palms to him. “Sorry if I’m being too intrusive. I’m trying to work on that. I guess I just expect people to be as open with themselves as I am.” She pulled a pack of Doublemint from her mammoth purse and offered Dustin a piece. He declined. She pressed the gum into her mouth and noisily chomped upon it.

Silence burgeoned between them, save the incessant smacking of her gum. She blew a bubble, popped it with one long nail. She continually fidgeted, moving her butt around on the bench until she found a comfortable position. Finally she said, “I’m sure you’re wondering how my parents died.”

“Not really,” he said, but he leaned forward a bit.

“It was murder-suicide. My mom sliced my dad’s throat while he was asleep, then slit her own wrists. My sister, the one in the loony bin, well, she’s the one that found them the next day. It caused her to have a so called psychotic break.” She pulled the gum out of her mouth and rolled it into a ball. She tossed it into the street, and it bounced along the macadam for a few feet and then stopped. She said, “I don’t chew gum once it’s lost its flavor.”

A bus approached, but Dustin’s eyes were bad and he couldn’t tell which one it was. Farrah squinted and said, “It’s the number 27.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and traipsed over to the edge of the sidewalk. She turned to him. “Are you taking this one?”

He shook his head. “I need the 34. It’s not due for another four minutes.”

“Oh,” she said. She sounded disappointed.

The bus slowed to a stop, and the brakes hissed mechanically. The doors slid open with a squeak. She said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Broody.” She boarded, ascending the metal stairs gracefully despite her four inch heels. The doors closed behind her. As the bus pulled away from the curb she pressed herself against a window and waved.

He didn’t wave back. He cracked open his book and found his place.


Word count: 1672