[adapted from Willa Cather’s 1918 My Ántonia]
I was bleeding when I boarded the bus. I had been trying on cologne at the local department store, getting free samples without really intending to buy anything, when I dropped a bottle of some pale cyan Italian serum. Apart from my luggage, I now carried a broken glass bottle in a black plastic bag and a tattered bandage in a crooked bloodied hand.
Most of my college classmates spent the days following graduation speeding off to Boston to board their planes. Some had skipped graduation altogether, leaving as soon as they bubbled the last line on their scantrons, hoping to start their scintillating Sicilian summers and classy Caribbean cruises as early as possible. And then there was me.
Still bearing the black slacks and gray suit I crossed the stage with, I was busy boarding three different Greyhound buses as I made my way from Harvard back to the thrilling world of Black Hawk, Nebraska. Thirty hours of a trip, where I’d have the privilege of sharing seats and sights with the most exotic ensembles of passengers that any form of public transportation had to offer East of the Mississippi.
From Harvard to Pittsburgh, I was accompanied by an angel and her six little devils, all with runny noses. After finishing the small pack of tissues I always carried for emergencies, the litter proceeded to use the poor woman’s dress as a handkerchief. I couldn’t help but be reminded of good old Mrs. Lingard in those circumstances and how her herd of children always spelled trouble for the townsfolk, at Hy-Vee’s, at the movies, and especially during the Sunday sermon. How the Lingard lot all wore the same shoddy mismatched garments collected from Church donation drives and Goodwills. How little time they gave Mrs. Lingard to keep an eye on herself, much less on little Lena. Lena Lingard, with her violet eyes that shone as soon as the first beer came out, who could spit further than any of the guys, who made out with Tina Soderball during a game of truth or dare during our junior year of high school.
The last time I had seen her was almost four Christmases ago, working at the Macy’s in Gateway Mall in Lincoln, dressing up mannequins for a store holiday display. I could only manage an awkward wave, afraid that her employed status had changed the Lena I had known, deserting the juvenile memories I feared I had held too tenderly in my heart.
From Pittsburgh to Indianapolis, I sat next to a fellow around my age who brought back memories of old Jake from my Grandfather’s farm, more so in mannerisms than any appearance. All he shared with Jake visually were the boots the young man wore, real beat-up cowboy boots like the ones Jake treasured to wear. The young man said he had just dropped out of college, looking to try his hands at some real man’s work. He said he was fed up with papers and textbooks, that it was no life for men, that perhaps for women it was alright. He also said there were too many of them at his school anyway, women I mean, as well as blacks and browns and gays and Jews, and any color was too much color really, for him.
“Ain’t that a damn shame,” he said at one point when a pair of nuns boarded the bus, speaking a rough, loud language to each other. The young man scoffed as he twiddled with the gum in his mouth, “A real shame when the angels God sends down don’t even speak the language of his disciples. Faith falling on deaf ears.”
When he asked me where I was going, and when I told him Nebraska, his eyes lit up and his thumb began to twitch rhythmically.
“Well shit, I’ll be. So you’re a cowboy then. One of us then?” he asked.
“No, not really.”
“Oh.” He looked puzzled for a moment and then stared out at the window for a second. I thought he could take the hint but then he smiled back at me, and said, “Yous an outlaw then, like uh, like Jesse James?”
I smirked as I looked at my reflection, imagining myself as the last great figure of the extinct West. Maybe that’s how my return to Black Hawk would be received. Maybe that’s how I was perceived back in Harvard. The man with deaf ears who could hear faith loud and clear. As the last great outlaw of a forgotten town, a man who defied destiny by going back East.
“Yeah, kind of,” I said, turning to the lost cowboy. “Kind of like Jesse James.”
When we got to Indianapolis, the bus to Lincoln was delayed by an hour, so I sat down on a bench outside the station as I watched the street vendors line up their carts in preparation for the arriving travelers. Stands of all shapes and sizes lined the curb, people of all different colors and ages lining up and shouting, browsing through the merchandise of fresh fruit, souvenirs, and jewelry, most crowded around the cannabis-infused candies sold by a hooded woman. Shouts in all the languages under the sun were said and screamed, but by the time the bus for Nebraska arrived, I could not hear any of it. All I could do was see, see how the lost and hateful cowboy sneaked some of the candies into his faded jean jacket as his scuffed boots stumbled in shame.
On the bus from Indianapolis to Black Hawk, I was seated with someone who seemed, as my Grandpa would put it, a fine gentleman from a forgotten time. The passenger introduced himself as Muhammad. He was once an Imam for a Mosque in Brooklyn but had since begun traveling the world in the hope of finding the hidden Truth. He was a very well-spoken man, and his heavy accent mixed with Brooklyn fluctuations made it very pleasurable to hear him speak for the twelve hours between Indy and my stop. He spoke of his travels to the Mediterranean, to the Holy Lands, but the story that moved me most was when he was lost out at the Adriatic Sea, with nothing but a rug to cover him, as he edged ever closer to the ever-fleeing Truth. It’s all in the stars, my friend, he’d tell me. The Truth is in the stars. I asked then, if he was so close to the Truth out in Slavic waters, what he was doing on a bus to sealess Nebraska.
“I have run out of funds my friend. And those who can’t do, teach.”
“So that’s it? You’re going to teach the Truth to the people of Nebraska?”
“Not the Truth. Classics. At the University of Lincoln, Nebraska. I have been studying Latin and Greek for many years now. Who knows? Maybe you can stop by sometime.”
I replied that I was very thankful for the opportunity, but that I had just received my degree from Harvard Business School. Classics was a field of interest to me, but, in all likelihood, I would be applying to law school in the fall.
“Harvard!” Muhammad nodded his head repeatedly as if with each motion of his head, the Truth became clearer to him. “So why are you heading to Nebraska?”
I looked out the window, staring at the red grass and diminutive trees that lined the Nebraskan landscape for as long as my grandparents could remember. I blinked for a second and saw the golden treetops of my childhood and the fireflies of Squaw Creek in the short but glorious springtime. I could even, for a moment, feel how the dimples across her face stretched amidst the ripples of the silver ponds. And then it all disappeared just as soon as it had come to me.
“Family.” I looked down at the umbrella that peeked out from my duffel bag, “I have family here.”
At that point a woman, an older woman, sitting across the aisle, cleared her throat and shook her head.
“No,” she sighed, “That boy is coming to see something about a girl.”
“How do you mean?” asked Muhammad.
“Look at how he stares out the window. That too often nostalgic look of regret within hope. Tell me, boy. How are her eyes? Are they stars up in that darn somber sky?”
“They’re even prettier. They’re like two puddles of dark honey, simmering under the summer sun.”
“Oh!” said Muhammad. “Tell us more, please, tell us more.”
But despite Muhammad’s and the old woman’s efforts, all they could get out of me was that the girl’s name was Antonia Sierraviejo, a girl who had immigrated from Chiapas the summer I turned ten. That summer, my grandparents sent me to her house with some pie for her family as part of the street’s welcoming party. Muhammad pressured for more, but for the final hour of the trip, we all rode in silence. When the bus arrived in Black Hawk, I was alone in getting off the bus. The older woman cleared her throat.
“Best of luck, boy. She sounded lovely.”
Muhammad however, tugged on my bandaged hand, despite my wincing.
“Listen, I believe there is nothing for you here my friend. This girl of yours, you’ve known her for what, ten years? If it’s been ten years and nothing has happened, it probably won’t happen in the next ten weeks. You know where I’ll be if you change your mind.”
And as I got off the bus, Muhammad yelled from the window,
“Sometimes, my friend, the Truth isn’t hidden. Sometimes we close our eyes!”
On the car ride home, I was treated to a tornado of gossip and questions from Grandma and Mrs. Harling, giving me the latest news on Maria La Loca, Mr. Harling’s new steakhouse, and all the mischief the Lingard children had been causing at school. In truth though, the closer we got to Black Hawk, the more my mind was clouded with those childhood memories shared with Antonia, of all the lessons we shared during the late summer afternoons. I taught Antonia English, and she taught me how to ride a bike the way kids in Mexico would ride them.
She would giggle when I’d grab my Grandpa’s battered helmet.
“No brake! No helmet!”
When we arrived at the Harling’s house, the eldest Harling, Frances, stayed behind with me in the garage as we unloaded the little luggage I had carried. I loved all the Harlings as if they were family, which by now we were, but Frances had always seemed to me the most approachable one, perhaps being the most adult without yet really being an adult. We sat on the bed of Mr. Harling’s Silverado, sharing a beer as we looked out into the still summer sky.
Even in the sunset of the Midwest, there was a sort of blue permanence lingering about, reminding me of the oceanic colors that had dwelled on the heavens when I first met Antonia.
As Frances took another swig of the bottle, I finally repeated that fated name I had grown awkwardly unfamiliar with.
“Ya mean how she’s doing?” Frances said as she handed me the bottle. “Toni’s just fine Jimmy. A little overworked, but she finally stopped working for that Cutter creep.”
“Well, where does she work now?” I asked, certainly too excitedly.
“I’m not sure. All I know is it’s downtown.” Frances grinned. “You wanna see her?”
“I’m just curious that’s all.”
“Mhm. Man, I remember how you two would sneak into all the quinceaneras and the sweet sixteens, even when you weren’t invited.”
“Toni wanted to,”
“Yes yes, it was Toni’s idea, Jimmy. But you were there, without fail. By her side.”
“I was just being a gentleman. A chaperone, we’d tell my grandma.”
“Mm. So you say, but there’d always be guys at my father’s restaurant looking for her after those parties. That’s what cost her that job, y’know.”
“You think it would’ve ever worked? Me and Toni?”
Frances let out a small chuckle. “What? You and Toni? Nooooo. Y’all are like brother and sister. No. She respected you too much at times but then messed around with you a lot too.”
“And? So did Lena Lingard.”
“Come on Jimmy. You know that’s not the same. Besides…” she said as she threw the bottle into a rusted bucket, “...she needed someone like you as a friend. I mean, you left, and look at what she did with Larry. She was always alone, but then she had you. Lonely together, the two of you. What odd pairs the heavens give us sometimes.”
I smiled for a moment, only to think back to what Frances had mentioned.
“Wait, what happened with Larry?”
Frances’ eyes quickly shifted back to the bucket. “Oh. Shit. Guess you were bound to know anyway.”
“Know what?”
“Well, she only went ahead and got herself knocked up with Larry Donovan.”
“Well, she ain’t keeping it, right?”
Frances finally looked back at me, her eyes perfectly still as she said,
“Nah. She’s keeping it. It’s gonna be a girl.”
I had finished another three beers by the time Charles Harling came home to rescue me. He said if I were to drink, to at least have the courtesy to drink with some company, and took me on his Ford downtown. He tried uplifting me with stories from his days in the Marines, but all I could think about were those pools of honey, how fatigued and dried they’d be with the labors of motherhood. I was too sorrowful to notice we were in the Hooters’ parking lot. I told Charles that I just needed a moment, that I had gotten a little carsick and to go in without me. But when he left, I stepped behind Charles’ Ford and began to cry.
I hadn’t cried in years, probably not since the time I found that dead dog behind the theatre after taking Lena out to see a movie back in middle school. It felt good, as the tears fell and I began to punch the cab with my bloodied bandaged hand. So many sunsets had been lost, so many golden mornings resigned to colorful dreams and hopes that now lay before me, dried and lifeless. I was mid-sob now when I suddenly heard that voice, the type that resonates deep in your throat and pinches your heart.
“Jim?”
I turned to see Antonia Sierraviejo, looking as radiant as ever despite her Hooter’s uniform clearly struggling with the round tummy creeping over her apron.
“Toni! Hey, uh,” I struggled to say anything as I frantically tried to wipe away the tears that had begun to fall over my face, “I-”
But before I can say anything, Toni has her arms wrapped around me as if I were another ripped dandelion, ready to fly away at the slightest gust of wind.
“It’s really you,” she finally breathed out. “Well, I’ll be. A sore sight for old eyes.”
Antonia was full of broken sayings, but I was much too happy to correct her English.
The sky finally began to edge out the remnants of blue that remained, as the bold pink streaks became firmly entrenched in the ceilings of Earth.
We spoke for what must have been an hour, but I really only remembered the signs we made to each other, my excited pointing of her stomach, her playful poking of my mustache, and her concerned petting of my bandaged hand. It’s funny, how with some people a day without contact can make a world of difference, but for others, you can go years without a word and pick up on the same syllable you left off with. We walked through the town park, past the dogwood bushes and elms and grapevines. Toni excitedly told me of all the motherhood classes she’s been taking and of all the cute clothes she has picked out for the baby. When we got back to the parking lot, she finally dropped the smile and rested her head on my shoulder.
“Why didn't you call Jim? I’ve been awfully alone, especially before the baby. I needed a friend. I needed you.”
As she crossed her arms and stared defiantly at me, I could only look down and sigh. “Pride, I guess. Fear, anger. Whenever I couldn't sleep I’d think of you. Then I wouldn’t eat. I wanted to come back, to be honest.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Oh.”
“Not like that, silly. It’s just that in a town of nobodies, you’ve always been somebody.” She readjusted her apron, put her hair back in a hair tie, and then smiled at me.
“I hope you didn’t come out here to rescue me or something, Jim. I’m fine where I am, really. Yesterdays are nice, but I’ve learned to appreciate the todays as well. I hope you have too.”
I nodded real slowly, and although the tears came out, this time I didn’t care about hiding them. It wouldn’t be the last time our paths would cross, but I knew it’d be the last time I’d see her with eyes wide shut.
As I gave her a final goodbye hug, Toni said to me,
“Jim, I know you’d give me the world if you could. But isn't it enough for you to see that I think the world of you?”
And finally, after all that time, for once, it was enough.