The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories (12 page)

in which Mordy dreams he's in a prison film with a bad ending, all because he doesn't have character

T
hat night I dreamed that Uzi and Leehee and I were breaking out of prison. Getting out of the cell was pretty easy, but once we got to the yard, there were all these sirens and floodlights and stuff. The van was waiting for us on the other side, and I helped lift Uzi and Leehee to climb over. But when I wanted to climb over myself, there was nobody left to help me, and then suddenly I see Kneller, and before I can even ask him, he just floats up in the air and over to the other side. Everybody's out by then, including Desiree, who's driving the van, and they're all just waiting for me. I can hear the sirens and the dogs behind me,
and all the other stuff you always hear in prison films, and they're closing in on me. And Uzi keeps screaming at me from the other side: “Shit, Mordy, what is it with you? Just float a little.” And just to, like, piss me off, Kneller keeps floating back and forth over the van, doing all kinds of loops and backflips and stuff, and I try too, but I just can't cut it. Then they all drive off, or else Uzi's family shows up. Truth is, I don't really remember what happens after that. “You know what that dream's trying to tell you?” Uzi says. “That you're screwed up. A pushover, and screwed up too. A pushover, because all I have to do is say the word ‘slammer' once, and you go and have a dream about it. And screwed up, 'cause that's what the dream itself says.” Uzi and me are sitting by the river, holding a clothesline and trying to fish with some trick his girlfriend taught him. We've been sitting there for like two hours, and nothing. Not even a fucking shoe, which is what's really ticking him off. “Just think about it. In your dream, everyone gets out 'cause they don't take their existence seriously. But you, you're so busy obsessing that you're just stuck. That dream's open and shut. Almost educational, if you ask me.” It's getting cold, and I'm beginning to wonder when Uzi will ever get tired of this fishing shit, 'cause to tell the truth, I got fed up a long time ago, and it's pretty obvious there are no fish here. “Let me tell you something else,” Uzi went on. “It's not just your dream. It's that you remember it, and rag about it. There's lots of people with dreams, but they don't get all tight-assed. I have dreams too, y'know, but I don't go making you listen to them, and that's why I'm a happier
person.” And then, like he has to prove his point, he gives his line a pull, and there's this fish at the end of it. Small and ugly, but big enough to inflate Uzi's overinflated ego even more. “Listen to a friend, for a change. Forget your dumb dreams and those retarded miracles. Now's the knowing. Go for Leehee. Why not? She looks good. A little spacey maybe but nice, and she's hot for you, that's for sure. Take it from me, she's never going to find God and file her complaint, and you're never going to find your rich piece of dead ass. You're both stuck here on your own, so you might as well make the most of it.” The ugly fish was squirming on Uzi's line. Suddenly it changed into something else, red and a little bigger, but just as ugly. Uzi held it down and bashed its head with a stone to make it stop flopping, which is another Eskimo trick. He didn't even notice how it changed. To tell the truth, maybe he's right. Maybe it really doesn't fucking matter. But when it comes to Desiree, I just know she's here. It's like all I have to do is turn around and she'll be there behind me. And I don't give a shit how much Uzi rides me, 'cause I just know I'm going to find her. “Tell me one thing,” Uzi says on our way home. “This Kneller, what gives with him? Why is he always so fucking stoked, and hugging people and stuff? Is he gay or
what?”

in which Kneller has a birthday party and Mordy and Leehee decide to move on

M
ore and more people keep arriving, 'cause Kneller's supposed to be having this birthday blast and everyone's all psyched up—baking cakes or dreaming up far-out things to give him. Most of them are so uncoordinated you wonder how they even breathe, and Leehee says we'll be damn lucky if all this creative hullaballoo doesn't get anyone hurt. So far, two of them cut themselves and another guy is bleeding from every finger cause he was trying to sew Kneller a bag. And then there's this Dutch space cadet, Jan. Yesterday he grabbed a butterfly net and said he was going to catch Kneller a new dog in the woods. Hasn't
been heard from since. Kneller's happy as a pig in shit. In the evening, we were, like, setting the table for this blow-out meal, and I asked him how old he was, and he started to kind of stutter, cause suddenly he discovered he couldn't remember. After all the grub and the presents, they played some CDs and people actually danced, like it was a fucking prom or something. I even slow-danced with Leehee. At about four in the morning, someone remembered that Kneller used to play the fiddle, and that his old violin was just lying there in the storeroom. At first he wouldn't play, but pretty soon he gave in and played “Knockin' on Heaven's Door.” Truth is I don't know shit about music, but I never in my life heard anyone play like that. It's not that he didn't miss a couple of notes. He did. But you could tell by the sound that he was really sincere about what he was playing. It wasn't only me. Everyone just stood there and listened and didn't say a word, like when there's a moment of silence for someone who died. Even Uzi, the original killjoy, kept quiet, and his eyes were watery. He told me later it was his allergies, but you could see he was just saying that. After Kneller finished playing, nobody wanted to do much anymore. Mostly they just hit the sack, and Leehee and I helped clean up a little. In the kitchen she asked me if I still miss all the things from before I offed. I told her the truth, that it isn't like I'm not dying to go back, but I don't remember much of anything except Desiree, and now that she's here too, there's nothing I miss. “Maybe I miss myself a little,” I said. “The way I used to be before I offed. I'm probably just making this up, but I remember
myself more like . . . I don't know. I can't even remember that anymore.” Leehee said she missed everything, even the things she hated, and that she had to figure out how to take off by the following day, because the only way she was ever going to find someone who could help her was to keep looking. I told her she was right and that I should pack up too, if I really wanted to find Desiree. We finished stacking the dishes in the sink, but neither of us really wanted to call it a night yet. Kneller was sitting on the living room floor, playing with his presents like some kid. Suddenly Jan came in, all worked up, holding his dumb butterfly net, and said that the Messiah King was living on the other side of the forest and that he was holding Kneller's dog
hostage.

in which Freddie packs away some gyros and uses an alias

J
an stared at us, out of breath and red and everything. We sat him down in the living room and brought him a glass of water, and he told us how he got lost in the forest looking for a new dog for Kneller, and how in the end, when he came out on the other side, he saw this mansion with a swimming pool and he wanted to ask the people there to let him use the phone to call Kneller's place so he could ask us to send someone to pick him up, but there was no phone in the mansion, just lots of music and noise, and everyone there had a ponytail and a suntan and they all looked Australian except the girls in thongs. They were real nice and gave Jan tons of food to eat and told him that
the mansion belonged to the Messiah King and that all of them were in his crowd and that the Messiah King only liked trance, which was why that was the only thing they kept playing, and full blast. They said the Messiah King was also called Joshua, but everyone there called him J, cause one of the babes called him that once, and it stuck, and that J was originally from some bumblefuck little place in the Galilee, but that he's been here forever, and there was going to be a significant miracle in a week. A planned miracle. Not something that just happened by chance. And that they couldn't say what it was but that it would be something majorly big and that Jan could stay and watch. Jan was kinda getting used to the music and was sorta into it by then, partly because of the miracle, but mainly because of all the naked babes. They fixed him up a room in the mansion with this really nice surfer who, before he offed himself, was manager of the Hard Rock Café in Wellington, New Zealand. That evening they all went skinny-dipping and Jan was kinda shy so he just stood next to the pool, but suddenly he spotted Kneller's dog, Freddie, eating gyros from a plastic dish. Jan explained that Freddie belonged to a good friend of his and that he'd been lost for a few weeks, and everyone seemed pretty confused because the Messiah King had adopted the dog and said that it was real brainy and that he even taught it to talk. Jan knew the dog could say a few words even though it didn't really understand them anyway. But he also knew that apart from that, the dog was really dumb, but he didn't want to say so because he didn't want to make the Messiah King look bad. This
Messiah King, J said, was a tall, blue-eyed blond guy with long hair, and he had this girlfriend who was a little lopsided but pretty anyway, and they both listened patiently to Jan's story. Then finally J said that if the dog was lost, he'd give it back for sure, and that there was a real simple way of finding out. He asked Jan for the dog's name, and Jan said Freddie, and then J called Freddie, who'd just finished eating, and asked him what his name was, and the dumb dog wagged its tail, and said: “Saddam,” which was a really lame joke that Freddie learned when he was just a puppy from this marine who offed himself in the middle of an officer training course and spent some time at Kneller's. Jan tried to explain, but J was already positive it wasn't the same dog, and Freddie was making all kinds of signs like he didn't want to go off with Jan because Kneller would never in his life give him gyros. So Jan figured the best thing would be to get back here real fast, and tell us everything. “Messiah King—significant miracles—trance!” Kneller was totally pissed off. “The whole thing sounds like a bunch of crap to me. The only thing that doesn't surprise me at all is that Freddie didn't want to come back. I always said he was an
ingrate.”

in which Mordy and Leehee set out in search of the Messiah King and find the sea by mistake

A
t seven the next morning, when most of the guests were still sacked out on the carpet, Kneller picked up his backpack and stood there in the middle of the living room and said he couldn't wait anymore. He wanted to see Freddie right away. Leehee and me offered to tag along. Leehee didn't exactly buy into the whole Messiah King thing, but she figured she had nothing to lose by asking him about the people in charge and how she could find them. And I thought if there really were as many people there as Jan said, then maybe it could be a good place to look for Desiree. Besides, Kneller and Jan were both so
fucking uncoordinated that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have someone keep an eye on them. Kneller wanted us to use a bus that belonged to one of his friends, but Jan said he only knew how to get to this place on foot. Which is why we had to string along behind him through the forest for more than ten hours, till it started turning dark. That's when he had to admit he was lost. Kneller said it was a good sign, because Jan got lost last time too, and to celebrate, he took out this bong, and him and Jan each took four hits, till they were totally wasted. Leehee and me decided to get some twigs to light a fire. All we had was the lighter we took from Kneller, who was sleeping like a baby. Soon as we moved away from him and Jan, who was snoring next to him, we started hearing a different sound, in the distance, like something that was breaking but was soothing too, and Leehee said it sounded to her like the sea. We headed toward it, and sure enough—a few hundred yards later we reached the beach. It was really bizarre, that nobody at the camp, not even Kneller himself, ever mentioned we were near the beach. Could be they didn't know it themselves. Could be we were the only ones who knew. We took our shoes off and walked awhile along the beach. Before I offed, I used to go to the beach a lot, almost every day. And when I thought about it, I got a better idea about what Leehee was saying last night—about missing things and having to go back. I told Leehee about Uzi's dad, who calls this place Deadsville, and about how the people here all seem like they don't want anything, and that most of the time when you're next to them it feels like everything is
OK, when actually you're half-dead already. And Leehee laughed and said that most of the people she knew, even before she offed, were either half-dead or completely dead, so I was in pretty good shape. And when she said it she touched me, like it was just by accident, but it wasn't really.

I'd always hoped that if I ever cheated on Desiree, it would be with someone really pretty, so that later, when I regretted it, I could tell myself she was so beautiful that nobody would've been able to resist her. Truth is that's just how Leehee was. And that night, when she touched me, I knew she was right and that I was in pretty good shape
actually.

in which Kneller tells Freddie the whole truth to his face

L
eehee and me woke up at sunrise. Actually, we woke up 'cause Kneller was screaming. Soon as we opened our eyes, we saw the beach around us wasn't private anymore. Not that there were any people around, but now, in daylight, we discovered the whole place was covered with used condoms. Floating in the shallow water like jellyfish, or stuck in the sand like oysters. And suddenly everything began to smell of used rubber. Somehow, it all got swallowed up by the smell of the sea the night before. I had to stop myself from puking, because of Leehee. I held her very close to me, and we just lay there like that, without moving, for I don't know how long, like a coupla tourists
stranded in a minefield waiting to be rescued. “There you are.” Suddenly Kneller just popped out from between the trees. “I was getting real worried. Why don't you answer when people call you?” He led us back to where he and Jan spent the night, and explained on the way that this beach used to be a hangout for hookers and druggies, except it became so grody that even hookers and druggies couldn't take it. “Don't tell me you actually spent the night here,” he said, and made a face like he couldn't believe it. Meanwhile Leehee and I wiped off the sand and everything that was sticking to our clothes. “What the hell for?” “That's how it is when you love the beach,” Leehee said, giving him her half-smile. “That's how it is when you love diseases,” Kneller corrected her without skipping a beat. “Just let's hope Jan doesn't get lost on us now.” Sure enough, Jan was gone, but before we could start worrying about him, he came running toward us, looking totally stoked, and said he'd finally found the Messiah King's house, and that it was real close. The Messiah King's place was humongous, like all those cool houses that Desiree used to show me when we'd go visit her rich relatives in Caesarea. The kind of place where besides the swimming pool, they have a squash court and a Jacuzzi, and a fallout shelter in the basement just in case. There were more than a hundred people standing around when we got there, in a kind of half-cocktail, half-buffet thing that must've been going on since the day before, with a lot of New Agey types, plenty of surfers, and all kinds of other characters, and everybody seemed really keyed up. Freddie kept making the rounds, pulling pitiful
faces, forcing everyone to feed him, and as soon as Kneller saw him he just freaked out. He stood there facing Freddie and started yelling about how could he treat him that way, and on his birthday no less, and that he was an ingrate. He started bringing up all sorts of embarrassing things that had happened when Freddie was still a pup. And all that time Freddie just looked at him calmly and went on feeding his face on this piece of sushi like some old geezer with chewing tobacco. Everyone tried to get Kneller to cool it and to tell him that J would arrive in a minute and fix everything. And when they saw it wasn't doing any good, they tried to get him interested in the miracle that J was about to perform, which only got him more hysterical. Meanwhile Leehee and I were helping ourselves to the finger food, 'cause we hadn't eaten all day. There was a lot we wanted to say and we pretended we weren't saying it because of the racket, but we knew that wasn't the real reason. Then Jan arrived and said that J and his girlfriend wanted Kneller and Freddie to come see them in the living room to find out what this was all about, and that we'd better come too because Kneller swore he was going to raise hell. Even before we got there, we could hear Kneller screaming and there was this low doggish voice mumbling every now and then: “Cool it, man, cool it.” I could pick out Desiree's voice
too.