Justin Reynolds

EAT

I ride buses.

I am lost. I do not know my name. I do not have amnesia. I have been lost for some time now. But I am intent on finding purpose. I have time to burn. All I am taking on this journey are the clothes on my person, the sandals on my feet, and the staff in my hand. Around my neck I wear a black-corded necklace with a metallic “Z” attached. The “Z” stands for Zion, my mother. She folded the necklace into the palm of my hand the day that I left. I have not seen her since, but even still I feel her spirit working within me. It has guided me for years. It has served me well.

Today I am in the desert. Tomorrow it will be the lush of forest, or the grains of the beach, it is always something, I am always someplace. I’ve walked for days, years. I am curious by nature. My father told me it would be the death of me. He could not have been farther from the truth, from me. I believe curiosity to be the life of me. It may very well be the only time he’s been wrong.

I am waiting for the bus. Again. And as it pulls alongside the road where I stand in wait, I smile. The bus driver opens his doors to me, sighs upon his recognition of who I am. He knows me. All the bus drivers do.

There is something mythical about the bus. It is long-bodied serpent, rumbling and slithering through cityscape and countryside. It is a dragon reincarnated. Its interior reminds me of old ships, its passengers the ship hands. Everyone is on a journey together, the aged and the young, lovers and enemies. The bus is an instrument of balance. It levels the human plane, aligning man against man in his humblest form. A high-powered businessman on the bus is forced to share a seat with the high-school dropout. All must deal, comfort relies on compromise.

I greet the bus driver with a solemn demeanor. He asks me for my ticket. I pull out my pockets like rabbit ears. He tells me I cannot ride for free. I tell him nothing is free. I tell him that I have a score to settle with the bus. He asks me what score. I tell him to ask the bus. He laughs at me awkwardly, not sure if I am legitimately crazy or pulling his leg. I do not return his laugh. He tells me to get on and move to the back. I thank him, and tell him that the back is where I have been most comfortable. I do not wait for his response. As I walk down the aisle I am met with curious eyes. Eyes of distrust. Eyes of suspicion. I can hear the women clenching their purse-straps. I can smell the men sizing me up. I settle on the last seat next to the window. I situate my staff in the seat next to me, and look ahead. The bus is near half-full. I think about my perception of its occupancy. Half-full. I smile to myself, content at present with my optimistic spirit. Such an outlook will no doubt prove necessary.

I settle in my seat as the bus comes alive. We pull away from the station, leaving behind an onslaught of men and women, boys and girls, waving to their departed as if their safety was not promised. I breathe deep and listen.

The bus has something to say to me.

“Where are you going?” it asks.

“I am hunting,” I say back.

“Hunting for what?”

“Myself.”

“Where do you hope to find yourself?”

“I hope to find myself in peace.”

“You have come to the wrong place. There is no peace here.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you come?”

“…”

“Why?”

“I am seeking answers.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“Everything.”

“That is impossible,” said the bus.

“Who are you?”

“I am merely a means of travel.”

“Yes, but where are we going?”

“To the place we’ve been running from.”

“Where is that?”

“The beginning.”

The bus returns its attention back to the road. I close my eyes for a moment, to escape the unrelenting glare peeking into my window. It plays hide-n-seek with me, seeking refuge behind skyscrapers and corner stores. It jumps out from behind a concrete-filled horizon, screaming into the center of my forehead. I blink twice for emphasis, clarity. I clear my throat as a monk clears his mind. My vocal chords are completely free of hindrance, and with the calm of a freedman, I begin to hum the music to an old gospel hymn I picked up from a homeless man I met once. I gave him a used ten-dollar bill, shaking its wrinkles as I removed it crumpled from my coat. He told me his name was Frederick. Frederick would not let me leave without retribution. But he did not have any money. All his personal effects were confined to a grocery cart he pushed down dingy city streets, aluminum cans jangling as if loose change in a pocket. I told him I did not need anything in return. But his pride would not allow him to accept a handout. He began to sing a song, an old field holler his father used to recite to him as he tucked Frederick in at night. He told me this was his gift to me. His song. I do not remember all the words. Or maybe it is less a matter of memory and more an issue of responsibility. Perhaps I am not ready to accept their import. For now, I just hum the melody.

I can feel the Sun’s light warming up to me. It replaces the accusatory hot glare with a faint glow. Its rays kiss my right cheek and brush through my hair with its soft bristles. I welcome their company.

I begin to write, using my finger as a pen, the dirty window my paper. My lettering is small and crooked. I write backwards. It is a message to those on the outside to read:

i walk in pigeon patterns

dance in convoluted circles

to keep myself guessing about my direction

i fast for seventy days,

deprive-(minus “ledge”)

i hope to return to you with greater

apperception,

di-scar(ed) my previous being

being ignorant

being contemptible

being worldly

being lonely

being me

minus the hostility towards love

It is a lot to say, to write, but somehow it fits. I wonder who will read my words, but that is not important. Who will understand them? The red-haired woman sitting three rows ahead keeps looking back at me. Her curiosity is stronger than her will. She pretends to be stretching her neck. I wave to her. She acts as if she does not see my greeting. This is okay. She is not ready.

The bus comes to a stop. We seem to have been traveling for days. But not more than three hours have passed. Everyone stands, some yawning, others cat-like in their approach to awaken their sleeping body parts. Some of the passengers fumble in purses or shirt pockets, searching for a pack of cigarettes to ease their restlessness. Nicotine knows them by their first name. A man in a gray suit turns to me and asks if I have a light. I tell him no. He sneers at me and turns back around, following the rest of the crowd off the bus for a brief rest. Smokers are a strange group. They are full of paradox. They fight for equal rights, voicing their disgust with society’s general disapproval of their habit. Yet, they know their rights infringe on others. Smokers are the only people who understand smokers. The simple act of providing a flame through a match or lighter instantly unites recipient and provider. It sparks conversation of all nature. Politics. Sports. But usually all such chatter begins with an emphatic declaration of the weather. “It’s cold as hell out here” or “It is hot as hell out here” are standard protocol. At times these statements are followed by a quick summation of rights and civil liberties and how these are being violated by the very fact that they have to smoke outside in the blazing heat and freezing cold. These dissertations are always received among the other smokers with a chorus of head nods and agreeable puffs. Inevitably, a non-smoker passes by at this moment, and when brave enough, suggests that they give up on smoking. He is quickly excused with a barrage of insults and curses. This is why smokers travel in packs. Moral support. I do not smoke, but I understand the need for rebellion, for acceptance.

I remove my staff from the seat beside me and make my way down the aisle and off the bus. I thank the driver once again. He mumbles something. He asks me where I am going. I ask him where the bus is headed. He shakes his head and returns to his clipboard. I make my way through the billows of smoke, careful not to cough. I notice the red-haired woman standing off to the side, alone. I smile at her. She forces out a crooked grin, and points to my staff. I approach her.

“What’s with the stick?” she asks.

“It is supposed to guide me,” I answer.

“Guide you?” she says. Her face contorts in confusion.

“In my journey,” I answer simply.

“Where are you going where you need a stick?”

“Where are you going where you don’t need one? We all need guidance,” I respond.

I can see her frustration with our conversation. She wants more than what I have offered her.

“Are you some kind of priest?” she asks.

“No.”

“Some sort of spiritual leader?” “Hardly.”

She is becoming increasingly agitated.

“Is Victor your husband?” I ask her.

She looks surprised. Concerned. “How do you know Victor?” she demands.

I point to the tattoo peeking out from behind her collared shirt. It is barely visible, etched in cursive blue ink on the side of her neck. With my explanation I can see relief draining from her eyes to her feet.

“Why are you running from him?”

“Who says I’m running?”

“I’m sorry.”

She walks away, joining the smokers. One of them offers her a drag from his cigarette. She accepts, taking a long measured pull. She refuses to look back at me. I go into the diner. Its outside appearance is indicative of its interior. It is rundown and from the looks of it, rarely frequented. There is a small color television in the corner behind the counter, and it is spouting off election coverage. The woman behind the counter seems to know the bus driver rather well. They are joking and winking at each other as she pours him cold coffee that he will not drink. My stare eventually pries her away from the driver and she slides in my direction at the end of the counter.

“What can I get you, sugar?”

“How about a few biscuits with honey to go.”

“Sure thing, sugar,” she says, plopping three biscuits that were resting under a glass dish into a brown paper bag. She drops in a couple packets of pure honey and closes the bag.

“Is that it, sugar?”

“Do you mind if I take a stack of napkins?” I ask.

She pushes a small mound in my hand. “Here, sweetheart, they’re yours. Anything else?”

“Do you have a pen that I could buy?”

She pulls the pen out from the bun in her hair. “How’s this, sugar? On the house.”

“Thank you,” I say, sliding two dollars into her palm. But she slides the money back in my hand.

“I said on the house, sugar.”

I thank her, and when she walks away, I leave the two dollars on the countertop. I scribble my appreciation onto one of the napkins with my borrowed pen. I walk back outside to the bus. Everyone has already started re-boarding. I take my seat in the rear. I look out my window. I see the woman kiss the bus driver on his cheek as he leaves the diner. I watch as she walks to the end of the counter, and finds my two-dollars and my note. I can make out her surprise as she reads it.

i must apologize in advance

please excuse my swearing

I swear I am in love with your person

your personality

your persona

your personification

you personally

i am still reeling

like

a firebug on a cutstring

your blessing has been cosmic

I see her leave her space from behind the counter and make her way to the diner-front window. She presses her face to its glass, fighting the soft sheen of sun. She is searching for me along the rows of bus seats. As the bus pulls off, she finds me. I feel her smile chasing me down the dusty road, sprinting until it tires and slowly returns to her.

I settle back in my seat. I notice the red-haired woman spying me. She is whispering to the gentleman sitting beside her and he is throwing not-so-secret glances my way. I enjoy their company for a bit, before retiring my eyes in meditation. I drift in consciousness, centering my thoughts on the barren land on either side of the bus. The land has never been inhabited. Never been plowed. Or settled. Man has not planted his flag it its earth. Yet it lives on, unwalked upon. Untouched. Cherry blossoms cling to cacti needles. Birds feel safe enough to land in thickets and soft clay. This land has not been enslaved. It wears innocence, a forgotten virtue. I whisper to the land to inquire of its secret. But we cannot communicate. It has never learned English. It has not needed to. Instead the desert shadows flicker like morse code, filling the sky with consonants and vowels, long and short.

I decipher the message onto one of my napkins:

The Land of the F(r)ee has nothing on us. Nowhere is everywhere.

I am jealous for the land’s confidence. I long for its understanding. But I am content with its patience.

A black woman sitting across the aisle taps me on my arm, jostling my concentration. I look at her. She is a pretty woman. Skin dark and velvet like sweaty nights. She smiles at me, says she was noticing my formula. I told her it was not mine to claim. She just smiles. But she cannot ignore my scrawl. She has to speak, the words lukewarm in the mouth, she needs to vomit them to sooth the acid in her throat.

Her: Where are you from?

Me: I am from here and there. From up there (I point skyward) and below here. Nowhere really.

Her: (puzzled) I do not understand.

Me: Nor do I.

Her: Do you believe in reparations? (She does not bother for transition. She was raised not to waste words.)

Me: Yes.

Her: How much do you feel should be paid?

Me: We cannot be repaid.

Her: (confused) So you do not believe in reparations?

Me: I do.

Her: What are you looking for?

Me: An apology.

Her: I am sorry.

Me: What are you sorry for?

Her: That you will never be paid in full.

Me: My sister. Pay me in your prayers.

Her: My brother. You will be a rich man.

I smile at this. I believe it to be my first uninhibited smile. It feels natural. I turn to my staff. Its head now has baby sprouts poking out from its core. I wonder what flowers are planted in its heart. I wonder what is planted in mine.

Several rows ahead of me a baby is crying. I watch as her mother brings the baby to her bosom instinctively. How does she know it is her mother’s hands that hold her? How does the mother understand the baby’s needs? Why does she care? Where does her affection come from? And I think to Mother Earth, how she loves her children. We abuse her. Treat her viciously. Still she allows us to stay. Kisses us with day and night. And we give her…Hell. The day that we kill her will be the day that we will cease to be. Who will be left to cry?

The red-haired woman rises from her seat and walks toward me. She is frowning. She asks to sit next to me. I move my staff and she slides into the seat. She is holding a newspaper, it is folded vertically, and it opens on her lap.

“Who you voting for,” she asks. She points to the headline that consumes the page in bold type.

MANN vs. LIGHT for PRESIDENT.

“The lesser of two…evils,” I tell her, laughing at the irony that is apparent to no one but me.

“And which one is that?” Her finger, the index, is smoothing out the skin beneath her eyes, as if to suggest that the dark wrinkles that have begun to take hold there take their leave, come back later. She is old before her time.

“I’ve only voted once,” I tell her. “A long time ago.”

“And?” she asks, sensing there is much more to the story than I am prepared to give.

“And,” I say. “And it didn’t go over well. Not at first.”

“But then?”

I wink at her, which is weird because I know winking is but an illusion of comfort and confidence. Winking is an awkward pause. “Jury’s still out.” I bite my lip.

“Story of my life,” she says.

But I am floating in and out of the conversation, and I realize I may have missed something. “What?”

“Jury’s still out,” she says, a wisp of a smile appears on her face, but is quickly swallowed by a frown. She does not know to smile without sadness. “That’s the story of my life.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“I like Light. I think he just needs another four years to really get things turned around.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“You think Mann’s the lesser of two evils?” She is no longer looking at me, but staring straight ahead, at the seat in front of her someone has left a message of semi-permanence, Jay & Ro - - 4 Eva. Except the Ro is fading, there was more to Ro before, maybe Rosalyn or Roland or Rotting. She tries to think of other names, things, words that begin with Ro.

“I think Mann deserves a chance. The way you and I deserve a chance.”

She traces her fingers across the heart that Jay & Ro pierce through. “Who says we deserve a chance?” She laughs, not sure what she believes, not sure she believes anything, anymore, at all.

“If I had to pick,” I say.

“You have to pick,” she says. “We all pick.”

“Light is good, but he…keeps his distance. He’s like a…like a…”

“…Ghost…” she says, nodding, her fingers pulling her hair away from her forehead.

I nod. “Yes. He keeps his distance from the people. Just goes about his business. But Mann…Mann’s in the trenches, rolling up sleeves and pants legs, getting dirty, kissing babies and wheeling around the elderly.”

“Mann keeps it real,” she says, choking out a laugh that she knows is forced.

“What?”

“That’s what Victor always says. ‘Keep it real, girl.’ ‘Keep it real, son.’”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to keep it real.”

“I’m sick of Ghosts,” she says.

“So pick differently.”

“Let me see your pen,” she says. And I hand it to her. She turns toward the window, a blackbird, maybe a crow, is flying alongside the bus, alongside the window, it looks in at them, and then catches the wind, and soars upward. “I am running,” she says.

“I know.”

“I’m scared of him. Victor.”

“I know.”

“What should I do?”

“Escape.” “Where will I go?”

“Faraway.”

She takes my hand into hers. Her skin is cold, but forgiving. Her hair is wild like saffron. Her lips are full and purposeful. She clings to my hand. And I feel myself drawn to her spirit. Our connection is inexplicable. Kismet. Divine. As our hands create passion, I feel myself falling in love with her. Repeatedly. Over and over again. My heart swings pendulum-style. I began to recite random proverbs that are not-so-random. I sing and talk and cry and she does the same. And I feel Victor slipping away, and I know that he is dead now. We escape into uncharted cosmos, flying into the eyes of blackholes, walking in hurricanes. We know no pain. We speak in muted gibberish, scatting our lust like jazz-driven break beats.

We talk in sophisticated baby language. A language not dependent on word tense, or predicates, or sense stress.

We borrow the language of the ancients. Body speaking in ways vocal chords dream of.

And she takes me back, forces the recollection. There is a story about a boy named me that my father used to tell me. A story I wanted to leave on his bouncing knee, but he tied it upon my finger, it is a stowaway. I cannot forget.

Before buses, I walked. I had been walking for hours before I saw her, laying in her skin amid a field of pomegranates. I hovered over her, beauty chiseled indelibly into her figure. I looked to the sky, past the clouds, and smiled.

Hallelujah.

Sunshine, sunshine. Wake up.

Her eyes cracked open, large and curious, walnuts offering their meat. I swallowed her eyes, greedily. She exceeds all of my attempts to define purity. Celestial. Her bosom, golden orbs. The way the sun skimmed across her thighs, catching strange angles of light, a rainbow reflected onto the sea.

She seemed surprised at my presence, but not afraid. Her nature was inviting. She would not dismiss me. And we spoke both at once, but with mouths closed. Our eyes talked. Hers, violent green. Mine, baobab grey.

Green: What are you?

Baobab: What do you mean?

Green: What are you? From where do you come? (She had not yet learned to say Who)

Baobab: Here and there.

Green: What are you? There is only two.

Baobab: Then who am I?

Green: …

Baobab: Who do you think I am?

Green:…Who?

Baobab: Yes, who. Who am I?

Green: You cannot be.

Baobab: Then explain our words.

Our eyes grew silent. Our lips parted, manifesting voice to our thoughts that cycloned in the air between us.

“You do not know me and yet you have no fear?” I ask.

“Fear?”

“Yes, fear. You wouldn’t know fear, would you? You shouldn’t.”

“Who are you?” she repeats.

“…”

“What is on you?”

“What do you mean?” I looked down at my self. “These are garments. You’re naked.”

“Why do you hide who you are?”

“That is why I am here, now. I refuse to hide myself…I just want to rest a while. Before I go.”

“But where are you going?”

“Deep into the undiscovered. I want to walk and run where the land has never been touched. The things I’ll see.”

“Where are you from? Will you return there?”

“I was exiled, banished.”

“I do not know what this is.”

“You will.”

I motioned at the tree she had slept beneath, planted amid the field of pomegranates. She followed my eyes, read my plans.

“You’re hungry.”

“Yes.”

“But you cannot eat.”

“?”

“We’re not supposed to…”

“Eat?”

“…forbidden…”

“Why?”

“Not here. It is not our right. Not ours to take.”

“If I am hungry, I eat.”

“Not here.”

“I will eat and you will also.”

“I am not hungry.”

“But you are,” I said. “Haven’t you imagined its taste all these years? Woken up in the mid of night reaching for its nectar?”

“…” she said.

“Eat.”

I reached for the tree, but she snatched at my arm, rebuked me. “You’ll die.”

I turned to her, stared into her violent eyes. “No. I’ll live.”

And I bit down slowly, and reentered the world. She joined me there.

The world beckoned me, tugging at my pants’ leg. “Father, I can’t see. Father! Father, pick me up!” And I obliged. We would die? No, we would live and thrive.

I do not remember the taste, except that it was heaven. In that one swallow the tree opened me, opened it leaves, its trunk and transported me. In that swallow I was alive. Then dead. Then borne again. I am still digesting.

And then I am brought back to the bus. And the red-haired woman is speaking still, though I do not hear her. I am listening to a scene developing outside the bus, a million miles away. I am always in more than once place, in more than one space. It is what it means to rove this earth, to slither across the land upon one’s belly, ear to the ground. I must hear everything it says. What I hear now is familiar. The curse of this place.

"Don't shoot. Please don't shoot..." She dug her toenails into the asphalt. "It's okay, baby. It won't hurt." But she couldn't hear him over the beating heart. Hers. Her back pushed in between the spaces of the wired fence, her flesh cold, scared. The moon teased her hair, scattering frothy beams, natural highlights. "...Green..." "What you talkin' 'bout, baby?" "...Green...That's my real eye color..." She still didn't look up. But she could see his shadow shrug its shoulders, its reflection licking the warehouse wall. "I don't understand whatchu talkin' bout, beautiful." "...I just remembered...green..." "..." "...please don't shoot..." But the click came. Then light. Then... "I thought you wanted to be a star." He tossed her a robe. But it was too late to cover. The camera gave birth to exposures.

I do not know her, this green-eyed woman, but I will go to her. It is inevitable. We will be passengers on the same bus, headed to the same place. She will buy her ticket tonight and board. She will punch her ticket in her runaway.

I turn to the her of here and now, her red-hair on fire, a burning bush, and I wonder what she sees in me. She is a voyeur peering through Venetian blinds hung across my mentality. Is she love? For what is love except our better suit. What is hate, except our better suit a shade darker. I clothe myself with better versions of other men and hem, taking-in or letting out their seams and cuffs. Sometimes I simply alter myself. I return to the scene outside the bus, behind some warehouse, down some dark alley.

"Baby, don't shoot." "..." Her pupils widened, attempting to adjust to this new light. Green growing all the moment. The roles have been reversed. "Baby, beautiful...I thought you wanted to be a star." She holds her eyes in her hands. Takes aim. Green surrounds, intrudes. A moss colored trigger itches her index. She looks up. The moon is making love, hidden behind the city's bleachers. "Stars...stars don't happen...overnight. Stars are. They just are." "But baby, listen to me. I'm telling you got the potential to be-" She holds her eyes to her lips. Says to be quiet. Hush. The robe falls to the ground, gripping the asphalt around her ankles. She allows it. His eyes fall emerald. Click. Click. Light.

Tonight she will board, and she will leave for good.

I turn back to the red-haired woman, my words as lumber pitched into her flames. “I came for you.”

“What?” she says.

"Don't shoot us..." we say. but we cannot look away. she is beautiful. disrobed, cold, flesh scared. "Baby, beautiful..." we stammer. but we've lost sight of her. ourselves. for all this green.

“I came for you,” I repeat. “On this bus, I came for you.”

“I know,” she says.

“Taste and see.”

“Amen,” she says, no religion implied. She lays her head upon my shoulder, and I brush the hair away from her eyes so that she can see. The desert is going to sleep now, the sun has said so long.

Green ivy grows, tangles inside me. Hides in and under my eyelids. But I’m used to the lush. As she slips into slumber, the newspaper falls from her lap to the floor, and I look, and I notice for the first time that someone, maybe her, has drawn in horns and a long mustache over Mann’s photograph, in black ink. Except now there are big, approving circles around his face, the way you might circle a job or apartment in the classifieds, the more circles the higher your interest. And someone, maybe her, has attempted to change the horns and mustache into something flattering, the horns are a makeshift hat, the mustache a business-trimmed goatee, the edits are elementary, like a novice tattoo artist trying to make amends for an errant stroke. Light, he has not faired as well, a large X looms ominously across his brow, a X so impassioned that it has ripped the newspaper, Light is torn. And I cannot help but grin.

A green hush hangs over the world, a kitchen towel draped across the sink, a strange fruit growing wild in the brush. I will free them. One bus, one passenger at a time. They will. Eat.