Wild Horses to Drag Me Away

It began snowing as the shuttle entered the Portland area. The festive feeling of the oncoming Christmas was starting to envelope all under this white blanket that gently began to cover the black streets, gray sidewalks, and the dark olive green pines. Though I had left everything behind I had begun to love and invest in; the journey home was a reprieve from the battle and pain that raged inside of me. I looked forward to seeing my family, to seeing familiar surroundings, and to seeing my dad. Soon I would be judged on my merits and skills not on the color of my skin or as a scapegoat for every imagined fear that the underground or establishment felt to thwart my every move with. Home was always safe.

            I remember James and the energy around him; it was almost tangible in total juxtaposition to his garb a blue bandana worn loosely over long hair a black shirt and an old beaten P-coat. We would become close on the short leg of our journey together. He told me after we had exchanged a few stories that his Shaman had sent him on a journey and to meet someone, who in reference was I; he inclined. Our bus left out of Portland and headed west into the country and the snow storm. Our first bus driver was your urban driver without the consummate driving skills to brave the snow as we stopped in the Cascades after a few hills and waited on the side of the road for a plow to come clear the way. Eventually the plow arrived and our extended rest stop was over. We continued on at a moderate pace until we hit our next bus driver change over.

A small squat yet lean man with silvering hair became our next driver. His method of driving was amazing to behold. I had a bag of weed, so I was up at night when all the others on the bus had long since fallen asleep. As we hit the high Rockies the bus driver got into his grove. The snow storm had stopped and the sky was the kind of clear where you feel you can reach out and touch the stars. The jet black was interposed with the purple and white topped mountains that lay in embroider on the entire horizon. Every where ice and snow caught the star and moonlight creating a surreal landscape out of a fairy land. The asphalt of the highway had a hard frozen layer of snow which we were zooming across. I thought a while for what word would best describe the bus’s movement and zooming is really it. The driver had a system of controlled bursts of petal to the metal, and I would think he knew his route hill by hill for his method of climbing each one required that the road was straight on the other side. He sort of built momentum for the next hill and gathered together a rhythm which left us almost flying above the ice. I will explain. The hills were laid out like waves on the sea each following in a succession and as each hill was attacked by the bus the driver would smash down on the gas. The bus’s tires would spin while the bus drove forward like a great locomotive attacking a steep grade, and as the bus began to crest the hill he lay off the gas letting the tires grip the frozen icy road for the few seconds it took the bus to top the hill and begin its downward journey. Then again the driver gassed the engine and the bus surged forward down the hill gathering speed until the very frame shook and the frozen icy scenery flew by. Over each hill the bus with all its sleeping passengers sped through the night.

After a while the hills became lower and the flats longer. It was then that I saw them, the wild horses. We were on a long straight stretch and a wide plain lay to the right of the bus stretching far and ending in small hills. A great black stallion headed the herd across the snow covered plain. I could hear their hooves pounding the frozen ground like distant thunder; I felt their energy like a powerful beating drum deep inside my being. They came twenty strong or more from the plain and matched speed with the bus. Their breath shot forth from their muzzles blasts of steam from the internal mustang furnaces which propelled them thought the glassy frozen night. I cupped my hands over my face against the window to see them better. The great black’s mane flew in his wind, his great muscles rippled and flexed, and his hooves caused clouds of snow to erupt from the plain. Behind him drove forward the herd, golden brown, white, painted and palominos in full gallop shoulder to shoulder across the table of snow they flew, freedom of the night, bounding muscle, and thundering hooves tearing a path through the frozen turf, and as fast as they arrived the were gone. I continued watching out the window with a deep respect and reverence for the night, for the cold frozen landscape, and the wild horses that ruled it.

Our bus was full and it was set up for long rides so we had our own privy. We also had our own Heroin junkie who would make his way to the toilet every hour or two to get high. He would go into a heavy nod after his return. He obviously had not bathed for some time considering the strong body odor that emanated from him. He was a young white male brown hair thin and pale, heroin sheik with a sweat stained yellow button up shirt, gray slacks and a beige coat. James and I had chance to speak of his activities forming a sort of prejudgment mixed with pity. Until something change all that. A Hispanic lady was traveling at the back of the bus with her two children and after her daughter had gone to use the restroom she made her way to the front of the bus. The intercom turned on and the whole bus shushed for the up coming announcement. The driver said, “If anyone has diabetes, you dropped your needles in the restroom and a little three year old girl found them on the floor.” The bus maintained the silence of a library after the Librarian lets loose a deafening ‘SHHH”. I knew what it was. I got up and went to inspect the restroom and as I surmised what lay on the floor was the Junkies works with a loaded syringe full of black tar heroin. I picked them up and made my way back to my seat to confer with James. After a few minuets we decided that the Junkie had to go or turn over his product. It was then James starting asking, “I wonder what heroin is like?” I turned and looked at him with disbelief in my eyes. He did not fully grip the extremity of the situation and lent himself into musings of getting high. That is not where my mind went at all; I lay my concerns for the safety of those around me. Shortly after this the Junkie made his way to the seat across the isle from us. As he sat down I noticed the heavy object that lay in his jacket pocket which pulled on his coat, and his hand as it slid into the pocket to hold the item which lay within. This man was armed. He knew what we had been talking about. I looked at him and let my gaze penetrate him for a long second and said, “You fucked up dude.”

James interjected and said with a menacing tone, “Either get off the bus or we’ll take that from you”

I saw the muscles on the man’s arm tighten and his face became more sallow mixed with a great fear. He said through clenched teeth, “I will fight for this.” This was not a threat but a harsh reality that could prove very dangerous and quickly get out of control.

I looked deep into his eyes forcing him to keep his attention on me not James. I asked one question that still echoes in my ears, “If that little girl died from what you carelessly left on the floor could you live with that child’s soul on your conscious?”

The young man looked at me with a look of surprise on his face and then the question touched something within him. A frown crossed his eyes and he replied in a subdued and morose voice that belayed his true trapped spirit.  “No” he said “No, I could not.”  “I’ll get off the bus at the next rest stop.”

 When we reached the next rest station I spoke with the driver, and told him someone would be getting of at the next stop. I got off the bus and threw the works on the ground stomping and smashing them with my black combat boots into the snow and then put them in the trash. I remember the young man beset by fear across the parking lot. The fear was jail and a forced with-drawl from the heroin that he had become so dependant on. I asked him as his bag was taken off the bus and asked, “What are you going to do?” I was really curious because the next stop was in the middle of no-where. He looked at me and said, “I’m going to find a program, and get clean” turned and walked off into the snow. I have always wondered what happened to him.

The buses next stop was a change over, and we were required to gather our luggage and wait in the terminal. James and I were pretty close by then and still wound up sitting next to each other. I saw some of our new passengers in the terminal among the hustle and bustle of the Gray hound holiday schedule. A family unit was joining our bus a mother and her adolescent daughter and young son. I noticed the way this young girl was acting was to mature for her age. We all got on the next bus and the family sat in the row in front of us. The boy and his mother on the left side of the bus and the teenage girl on the right side, and after a while a young man sits down in front of me boxing the teenage girl against the window. My red flags went up and I said to my self, “This guys either a pervert or he is just going to teach the girl what is appropriate in way of teasing and playful flirting.” I pointed at the two of them and looked at James while I shrugged my shoulders. He responded in kind with his own gesture of non-committal. It was late and we soon all fell asleep for we had been waiting in the terminal for some time. I have a sort of alarm system that wakes me when something is wrong. I know to keep quiet when this alarm goes off, quiet, still, and just to listen. Only two people were awake on the bus, the man in front of me and the teenage girl.  In this case I was awoke in time to hear this, “No, stop, please,” in barely a whisper. In one motion I reached over the seat with my left hand and grabbed the man by his hair while my other hand with knife enclosed circled around and jacked the man against his seat with the knife pressing so hard on his throat he was barely able to speak. I yelled with a deep attack voice, “How fucking old are you?”

 A strangled “nineteen” issued forth from his mouth. The bus was suddenly very awake.

I continued with my assertion of the facts, for I had asked the girl how old she was earlier and he was present. “That girl is fifteen years old, and you’re a full grown man.” The mother assumed a tardy control over her daughter and moved her across the isle. The bus driver stopped the bus and made a radio call to center dispatch who in turn called the police; they would be at Salt Lake City awaiting the buses arrival. Two men positioned them selves at the side of the young mans seat. A rider behind me began to creep by me, real slow and real low. I stopped him and got him to go back to his seat. He explained he had a daughter of his own. I knew I had just saved both of them from trouble; the young idiot from a beating and the other from going to jail for assault. He reached over the seat and held my hand with both his hands and controlled his violent urges. We entered the next bus depot and police were waiting including the Sergeant. I gave over my knife and sheath to James who passed it on to another rider. As we exited the bus the bus driver stopped and shook my hand, and then said, “I was wondering if I was going to use my new toy” and he showed us his tazer, “I was ready to taz him with 20,000 volts.” We both gave a chuckle.

The police offered the proper amount of questions, and then one asked about the knife. I said, “Knife? What knife?” Apparently the lady did not want to press charges which would have been a difficulty because she lived in St. Louis and it would require testimony from her daughter and me. The police said the guy had previous charges for touching a minor and was on parole. The dude’s mother was at the station waiting for her son, and I remember some lady verbally accosting her and saying, “What type of boy are you raising?”

After finishing my Q and A I got back on the bus. The whole bus erupted into applause. I was surprised, and I nodded my head as I walked back to my seat. Just before the bus left the Sergeant got on and introduced himself to me, and shook my hand. I said, “There something you don’t see everyday; a cop shaking a bikers hand.” The bus geared up and we on our way to St. Louis. The guy, who had my knife, brought it back to me with a glinting smile on his face, and shook my hand, James, just looked on with respect. We would part ways in St. Louis but until then we would sing songs and have a rather good time. I remember the teenage girl stepped into the world of a child again and played with abandon with her little brother.    

The bus was only half full as we entered the eastern states. The trees all began to change and the hills rolled low and long. The back of the bus filled up with brothers which is slang for Afro-American young men, some of whom were trafficking weed to the city. I made a trade for a ¼ ounce of brown weed for my last bud of cronic, and was set with weed until I got home. The whole demeanor of the back of the bus changed with the influx of the brothers. The conversations turned more to stories of adventures and the dozens were thrown at unsuspecting passers by on the highway or side of the road. I want to add a note. If you’re on a long distance bus ride with weed don’t eat every time the bus stops or you might wind up with a stinky sour stomach with no where to go. Black people have this very direct indirect way of talking about the elephant in the room by such statements as, “Somebody needs to take a shit” or “Somebody stinking up the back of the bus” and around until the only person who hasn’t said anything is the one with the funk. A simple and effective indirect direct message which is given with definite direction as such is the way of a community with a powerful willfulness.

The bus last major stop before Washington D.C. was in Pittsburg Pennsylvania. I got off the bus and snuck off to smoke a bowl around the corner by the dumpster. Filth and trash littered the ground everywhere and the air had changed to a smog filled haze that I could taste in the back of my mouth. A security guard came out and scanned the area with her coal black eyes behind her gray uniform which covered her heavy squat afro-American form. Her hair was picked into a small round bush with a security hat on top. I had not seen a woman like her for several years for in Oregon in Eugene and Springfield black people were not seen on the street other than on rare occasions and the only other time I was in the presence of a any form of afro-American culture was in Oregon State Correctional Institute a prison. I walked into the bathroom and was assaulted by a vicious, wicked funk that about made my eyes water. There in the middle of the floor was a huge brown log of human shit. I was back on the East coast.

We loaded back up on a full bus all the seats had been filled by new passengers. The last leg of the journey was a fourteen hour drive which I managed to sleep most of the way. I woke as the bus began to enter the Washington D.C. area and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes stretching the best one can while sitting in a bus seat. My thoughts turned to reminisces of home, my friends, things I had not done or thought about for over five years. The bus came into town early the sun was just beginning to come up shining its light on Christmas morning. We unloaded at the Silver Spring station on the corner of Fenton Street and Sligo Avenue and I made my way to the bathroom to relieve my sour stomach and to smoke my last bowl while waiting for my Dad. Dad has a special kind of timing which can be applied to church, a social gathering, or an appointment involving me, and this timing will have him walking through the door a few minuets into the activity that has begun without him. What this cumulated to in this instance is hearing my Dad asking at the counter where I am while I’m in the bathroom just finishing sucking in a big hit. So quick as I can while holding my breath I get my pants up, wash my hands, let out my breath and then shove a mint into my smoking maw  while quick lighting and  extinguishing a cigarette in hopes he doesn’t smell the fresh weed stench coming off of me. I open the door and quickly say, “Here I am” and leave the very obvious smoking bathroom behind me to expel its breath into the lobby of the small Greyhound station.

I walked up to my father and gave him a hug and we headed for his car. It was a big “landlord” sedan that floated down the road like my moms four door Bonneville. We talked a little about my trip in a way of making conversation. I looked out the window watching the neighborhood slide by covered in ice and snow from a previous storm a week before my arrival. Dad pointed out the new center for homeless people where a soup line ran. We were close to the new house and I would get my first look since the renovation and addition. Dad told me a story of him hanging Christmas lights in the form of a tree by accident with the help of Evan on the side of the house. We entered the house from the back where the family room was and Dad said, “Go ahead and just wait for breakfast everybody would be up in a little while. I’m going up to take a nap until then”

I sat down on the couch in the basement and turned the television I had watched for many years on and sat staring at the screen. I thought about what I had just gone through, what I was going to do, and what it meant to be home. I had been flying by the seat of my pants for some time allowing the winds of some unseen force to send me along like a sail boat tacking against some wind from a torrid storm which fully intended to test my seamanship. I had a quiet moment, just for myself, a second frozen in time. I smiled to myself daring something to change the brightness that surrounded this moment. I was home and it was Christmas.  

THOR