Greyhound Playboy 5.23.24

During my Greyhound Bus trip from Georgia to Minneapolis, there was a boy who wouldn’t stop talking. We picked him up in Iowa—he sat across from me. He seemed 17, with spiked, box-dyed black hair, and so many bumps and spots on his face that I felt sorry for him. He had one black duffel bag.

“It smells like shit in here,” he told me. His eyes were an uncomfortable, watery blue.

“That’s probably because we’re in a toilet on wheels,” I said, and turned to the window, hoping that the conversation would be over. I was in no mood for discussion.

I was on my way to visit Charlene, who lived on S 1st St in Riverview Tower—an aptly titled complex, being both tall and providing an exceptional view of the Mississippi.

Charlene had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Her second husband had died six months prior. After receiving a tearful phone call, her first husband had jumped on a greyhound and was now two days into a trip traveling up from Georgia.

After he’d finally weedled the information out of me, the boy had wanted to know why I was going. I told him he’d understand when he was older.

He was going to see a girl, too. I did my best to hide my surprise that any girl should’ve found something salvageable in the boy in front of me, whose faded DOOM tshirt, military boots, and large black coat immediately categorized him as someone that I would’ve, under normal, non-greyhound social circumstances, avoided.

The girl’s name was Holly. She was at the University of Minnesota, studying poetry, he told me. When I asked him what he wanted to study, he told me didn’t. He wanted to be a playboy– not like the model, he said, like the word.

“I’m not sure we still have those,” I told him.

“Sure we do. We have one, and he’s me.”

It was a seven hour bus trip, but the Playboy never ran out of thoughts to share with me. I learned his favorite band was Suicidal Tendencies. That slung garbage for pittance. That he’d dropped out of high school because he hated phonies. That he went hunting on the weekends, and was the best shot in his hometown of Ames. He’d shoot anything but was best with a Glock 19 (though he favored his step father’s semi automatic rifle, which could fire 45 rounds per minute).

He told me about when his mother had taken him to the Zoo, and he’d seen two baboons tear each other apart over a female. The funny part, he said, was that the winner had been so riled up that he tried to tear the female apart, too, before he was subdued. Humor, it seemed, was subjective.

I even learned about Holly. That she was three years older than him, that they’d met in high school. That she could twirl a baton, and spoke conversational Spanish.

I learned everything there was to know about him. I never got his name.

As wereached the last leg of our journey, he asked me why Charlene and I had split, and for some reason—perhaps it was the three days worth of gas station meals jostling dangerously in my stomach, or the suffocating shit fumes— I told him. She had moved on while we were still together with a man from her work.

“No shit!” The playboy chirped, his voice still pitching with adolescence. “And you just let her get away with that?”

I told him that sometimes the best thing to do was to let people go.

“But aren’t you angry?” He insisted.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Don’t you want to kill her?”

“Not really. It’s been a long time.”

“Not that long,” he said, with such assuredness that for a moment, I couldn’t help but believe him. “I would. It’s about respect.”

The bus shuddered to a stop. Miraculously, we’d arrived in Minneapolis, and our time together was over.

“Good luck,” I told him.

“I’m sorry to hear about your old lady,” he said, and somehow, I knew he meant it. “Holly’s like that, too. A College guy.”

“I’m sorry to hear.” I meant it.

“No loss.”

The Playboy stood up, grabbing his duffel, which clinked and clanked with a metallic echo. I could see the strain in his white knuckles from the weight. We parted ways.

But I saw him again, as I sat on Charlene’s couch watching the 8:00 news. I recognized his spots.

“Monster,” Charlene said, nestled to my side.