As he looked around the station, he saw more and more of these children who wore the mark of the beast. Plaid dresses and white shirts multiplied like bacteria beneath the lens of his recognizance. The old ladies who leaned on their luggage carts, gossipping, shaking their heads so that their steering-wheel-sized earrings shook; these souls too seemed to be a part of the school, because he saw them wearily enumerating children with their forefingers. "A man in a pork-pie hat whom he'd been sure had nothing to do with it suddenly smiled in a sinister way; a boy in a white shirt had run up between the man's knees. The man turned away. Could he himself be the only one who did not belong? A white girl and a Latina girl sat on the floor, kicking like horses, playing finger games among their plaids. Suddenly they stared at him over their shoulders. They began to whisper. A black boy in a white shirt ran to them, darted his head anxiously, then tore away in brand-new sneakers to a sweating lady who sat dragging a handkerchief across her broad brown cheeks. The lady frowned. She cupped her hand, waiting for him to expectorate his tidings like chewing gum. He muttered into her palm. The lady gazed sharply at the girls. Then she blew on a whistle. At once, everyone in the waiting room got up and streamed through the exit without looking back.
He sat alone.
A blonde girl in a black plaid dress came out of the ladies' room. — You're not with them, Mister? she said.
No.
Really?
How could I be? Am I wearing a white shirt?
Who do you belong to?
Nobody. How about you?
Nobody.
Mister, you wanna be with me? 'Cause I'm not with anybody.
He thought of the woman who was waiting for him. She wanted to have his baby but was unable to get pregnant. Maybe she'd want to have this girl.
He looked into her face. — Do you want to be my child or to have my child?
I don't care, the girl whined. I just gotta be with somebody.
Then you have to take off your uniform. Otherwise how can I trust you?
You wanna be with me or don't you? You don't want to be with me.
Wailing, the little blonde girl dug her fingers into her eyes. Then she ran to the farthest corner of the waiting room and pressed her face against the wall.
They called his train. He got up and left her there. When he passed down into the cool tunnel that led to the train tracks, there was no one. The ceiling vibrated from the buses and trains overhead. He walked on, passing ramps which terminated in triangles of scorching sunlight.
He got on the train and it was full. He walked backward through car after car, past the dining car where they were serving the last shot of gin they had, and finally reached a car of middle-aged people who somehow looked alike. One seat was empty, but when he asked if he could take it the sighing lady said: That's for our darling. Have you seen her?
No.
She's a little blonde girl in a black plaid dress. I don't know what's happened to her. We can't think without her. We can't laugh without her. Look at us! Every hour without her makes us a year older. I can't compose myself, young man. You see, she was at the center of things.
The leering twitching grayhaired mumbler ahead of him kept seizing his sleeve and whispering: Is this the good bus? Yes, he said finally. It's the good bus because I'm going to ride it to the woman I love.
But is it the
I'm going to the South Pole, he replied. It won't be easy to get there on a bus; you have to drive onto a big iceberg.
Then I'll save up all the ice in my cocktails! the old man cried with a wink. .
Inside the dark and waiting Greyhound it was cold and stank of disinfectant. He looked down on the lunch hour world, experiencing the sense of progress that one gets when watching car after car roll down a one-way street. The driver came on, closed the door, locked his seatbelt, worked the wide wheel with one hairy arm, stopped at the red light, sucking his cheeks, then went forward. Office workers impelled themselves blindly into the mall.
The old mumbler, who sat behind him, craned and said: Is this the good bus?
If she takes me in her arms it'll be the good bus, he replied.
The bridge ahead with its tower above the row of roofless arches invited him across the graygreen river. A flock of birds flung themselves somewhere meaningless like a handful of wood chips.
We're in Alaska now, said the old man.
How do you know?
Because I smell her perfume.
She doesn't wear perfume.
