On the Bus
Lethe Bashar had nowhere to go.
So he chose Las Vegas.
The driver was hauling a load of dead bodies in his antique coach. At least that’s what it smelled like. The bodies were slouched on top of each other like intimate cousins. They leaned into the windows, exuding the sour smells of familial sweat and unwashed clothing. The persistent hum of tires on the road became a dizzying rhapsody. Lethe’s notebook was perched on top of his lap. Every couple minutes the urge would overtake him and he’d scrawl something down. The desert went past in the windows.
The bus driver had a contorted grin on his face. Like he was driving the bus off course merely for his own pleasure. He showed his beady eyes in the rearview and looked drunk. Perhaps he was hiding a bottle of whiskey somewhere. Lethe forgot about where he was going. It was dark inside the bus and easy to forget.
Lethe’s tattered notebook was filled with denunciations against his father, smatterings of verse, and long-winded rants. He perused the caustic, embittered markings and a feeling of repugnance welled up inside him. On the cover, he’d drawn a map of Barclay Park, the suburb where he grew up. There were maze-like doodles, grotesques in the margins, and hieroglyphics representing the Doctor (his father), Rose (his mother), and Mazzy (his sister). The adolescent arcana seemed to add a level of depth to Lethe’s persona. The scribbles inflated him with a sense of purpose. He carried his mythology along with him, if only to refer to it from time to time with satisfying rage.
He heard the piercing note of a baby and a mother rocking it back to sleep. His thoughts returned to his father. The Doctor’s mustachioed face turned in his mind. He drew another illustration in his notebook. Underneath the picture, he jotted down a couple lines that came to him. Writing these lines triggered a fever in his chest. With a menacing look, Lethe gripped the steel latch at his side and pulled down the window. “Heeeeeelllloooooooooo out there!” He screamed into the gusts of wind coming off the highway.
His eyes watered. The surrounding sea of the desert fled past the sides of the bus in quick strips of darkness. The pearly moon seemed to jeer at him as the bus rattled on. For a split-second he recalled Morris, the drug-addled cowboy from the rehab center in Arizona. Morris used to thrum on his guitar out by the smoking tables. Lethe remembered the senseless twanging, the mad hollering in the night. Then, as now, the smirking moon was high in the sky. Lethe turned to a fresh page in his notebook and jotted these lines.
The carnival lights are beckoning you,
Poets and Artists come to Vegas.
The carnival lights are shinning for you,
Poets and Writers come to Vegas.
You’re riding on a slow boat ride,
You’re easing into a lost heart destiny,
Poets, Artists, Writers come to Vegas.
He delighted in his little streak of madness. “Lost heart,” he repeated, “Slow boat ride.” He could still see his profile in the window. He looked like Morris—with the face of a poet instead of a cowboy.
Despite Lethe’s mad hollering in the wind, despite his energetic outbursts and maniac pronouncements, nobody on the bus seemed to hear him. Maybe one or two people overheard his fervor and intensity. But they couldn’t make out his words, let alone understand him.
The majority of the planet didn’t care about Lethe Bashar. They didn’t even know he existed.
But that would also change.
riraito said,
April 15, 2008 at 1:54 pm
yo buddy~
linked u~
lethebashar said,
April 16, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Thanks, Terrance.
nomananisland said,
May 7, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I really like that last line.
nomananisland said,
May 10, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Much better — but “chose” not “choose”.
You don’t need to repay anything, I think online writers should support each other. Feel free to drop by No Man an Island and leave comments, if you like.
lethebashar said,
May 10, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I’ve been to your site a couple times already. It’s a labyrinth of stories . . . you’ll see me again. Thanks so much for the constructive criticism.
nomananisland said,
May 10, 2008 at 11:15 pm
A labryinth? if you’re coming to http://www.nomananisland.wordpress.com it’s only one story, but right now there are more than 200 chapters. I have links to other stories, but that should be the only one on that site. What’s up?
Now, the story itself is kind of a labryinth in nature, it’s funny that you mentioned it…
Gretta said,
May 22, 2008 at 3:20 am
Leathe rages on in his anger and disappointment over events in his life! Some of this rings true, especially when you dig deep for Leathe’s true feelings; I like it when you stick to ways to show his anger rather than tell how he is feeling, i.e. scribbling in his notebook, screaming etc. Probably not so necessary to explain how he is feeling. Some of this is really good, Chris. As I read on, however, it seemed to me that you began just writing facts in very short sentences about events without much emotional attachment to the characters. It almost seemed like you got in a hurry to get through the senario, like in the apartment where people are doing drugs (crack). I think that these people need a little more substance.
It is amazing how much work you have done with this but don’t let the volume of it get away from the aritistry which you have done so well in the first part of the book. I think it does not work when you get too philosophical with Leathe’s thinking and feelings about all of this. He is young and angry; a natural feeling for a kid his age without going into too much detail about all the different nuances of his thoughts around all this. Just one person’s thoughts….Gretta
lethebashar said,
May 22, 2008 at 4:49 pm
It was hard, at first, to read your criticism Gretta. But I think you’re right. There’s more editing I have to do here. If I understand you correctly, you’re saying take out the whole backstory of the divorce and stuff. You say, “stick to ways to show his anger rather than tell how he is feeling” . This is not exactly clear to me, but what I think you are say is not to explain why he’s feeling so mad, just show the anger. So I’m going to do some cutting in hope of tightening things up. And you’re right about the scene in the crack house. I need to fill in those characters more. it wasn’t so much that I was in a rush. I kind of entered into a fantasy about those characters and their not fully rounded, and you called me on it because your my bestfriend/editor and you know my work. So thanks. I’d like to move forward with the story though, instead of keep working on the beginning but you bring up some good points. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks.
lethebashar said,
May 24, 2008 at 2:06 am
I’ve revised it.