Part V: Snakes – Then: November 22, 1963: #5 (Chapter 86)
The C.A.P. bus was quiet as I boarded.
Laura Spinelli and Davey
Lonestar sat in the front seat, crying and holding hands. Laura was 15, but
still in eighth grade, having flunked once and gone away for another year,
probably to have a baby ‒ anyway, that was the rumor around school.
Davey was at least 21 and
probably the father of Laura’s rumored baby.
“I don’t know what that
goon’s doing, hanging around all those kids,” Nana often said, shaking her
head. “He should go and join the Army or get a job. Like a real man.”
I wondered too, but I
would’ve died before admitting that to Nana.
Later, we would find out
he was fooling around with 12- and 13-year-old C.A.P. girls, for which he would
go to prison.
I said nothing to Laura
and Davey as I slipped into the seat behind them, next to P.J. Bert.
P.J. turned toward the
window, crying and sniffling – the brainiest kid in my class, always coming up
with the right answers.
No one could stand him.
P.J. wiped his hand
across his nose, his snot gurgling as he sucked in his breath.
Disgusting!
He sniffed and turned
toward me. “Thought you weren’t coming.”
I folded my arms across
my chest and turned toward the aisle. I didn’t want him to see me blush. “My
grandmother made me.”
“My parents thought it
was a good idea, too,” he said. “But as I was leaving, they parked themselves
in front of the TV.”
“Figures.”
The bus picked up a few more people and then turned onto U.S. 75 and sped toward Sergeant Bluff, carrying a bus load of sullen corn pickers.
