ONE HUNDRED:PeterAs far as Peter Ditton was concerned, a little sun was always a little sun too much, so he settled for whatever shade the STOP HERE sign granted. His fair features were burning already. Australian sunshine knew no mercy, and although clouds would come, the sky above remained a clear bowl of hot blue for now.Peter shielded his eyes from the red cloud of dust stirred by a passing truck, the first vehicle to swish past in over an hour. He’d mistaken the weekly route for the weekend’s and had expected the 243 bus to Maitland earlier than this. Oh, well.A notebook in hand. The spine cracked and a sliver of twine marking his page.The plan: skip church, visit a friend, together go to a creative writing and poetry class at the Rotary club in town, and pour out their souls to the laughter of slot machines chewing pensions in the adjoining room. The room stank of beer and old paper. Sometimes the organizers provided tea. Nice in a way.Embarrassment almost always over
NINETY-NINE:SteveSteve Brown wanted to scream.Instead, he focused on catching his breath. The skinny kid next to him at the bus stop—who looked like he’d been too busy doodling his notebook instead of some schoolgirl like other normal kids his age—hadn’t reacted. Good. His cool was in check.Poor shit, Steve thought. He’s better off.Or maybe he knows something about women that I don’t.Although he doubted that.Steve’s thoughts turned back to his wife. She had the wonderful ability of confusing him into anger, which hurt because he loved her like the world was ending. No wonder he wanted to bellow frustrations into the new day.Bev appeared okay with him quitting his job as janitor at the James Bridge Public School. He gave his reasons, citing differences with the principal and harassment in the workplace. Bev nodded along, understanding.Or so he thought.In reality, he’d been fired—caught smoking pot under the year-six dormitory where the kids stored their bicycles. “Yo
NINETY-EIGHT:Diana and JuliaNot so long ago, nothing more than a worn patch of grass by the road signaled the stop. Two people sat on the new bus bench now, quiet and unmoving, handbags clutched in their laps.Diana Savage appeared younger than her twenty-six years. Hair pulled back in a bun, face covered in a film of sunscreen lotion. She despised putting it on—it felt like chicken grease. Nevertheless, burning was worse. She would happily trade this moment, her job, her future in Australia, for one more look at Astoria, Oregon. Home. She wanted to fish the Colombia River and laugh at the tourists walking up the private driveway, cameras clicking, to where The Goonies had been filmed. She missed sitting near the E. Morning Basin at the end of Thirty-Sixth Street, smoking cigarettes and skipping class.Home wasn’t dead trees and inescapable heat. Hell, Summer was still nigh.In her world, yellow fire hydrants crouched on every corner. Pastel chalet houses. Pontiacs and GMC truck
NINETY-SEVEN:MichaelMichael Delaney used to be fat. Not puppy-padding fat—bursting-frankfurts-in-a-boiling-pot fat. He remembered gym class and swimming lessons. All the thin guys could be divided into one of two groups: those who looked but didn’t comment, and those who looked and commented with enthusiasm.Tubby Bitch.Fat Mumma.Fanny Tits.The silent ones were the worst. They just stared.Fat kids are like alcoholics, he now knew. They always have excuses.“I’m not big, just big boned,” he said. Michael could fool himself but he couldn’t fool the skinny kids. “I’m fat. Butterball fat,” he would tell the person staring back at him in the mirror, smart enough to know that no fat kid ever got thin unless they started calling themselves what they really were.“I’m Santa-Claus fat. I’m I-make-you-sick fat. I’m I-make-myself-sick fat.”He was something else also, but that was harder to say.Another memory: crying after swimming class, hating having to strip down to his Speed
“PART TWO:On the Bus“ . . . there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.”—William S. Burroughs”NINETY-SIXTrees along the highway like the skeletons of contortionists hired to distract commuters from the rising temperature outside. Bushfires devastated coastal New South Wales earlier that year, resulting in the death of four people. Over three hundred houses were lost. Many thought it nothing but blind luck that James Bridge escaped damage. Its townsfolk sat drinking beer on their front lawns, watching the skies roll brown as others less fortunate burned to death. Denial was the best distraction because bad things didn’t happen in places like this. Not in The Bridge.Airwaves still brimmed with news of Anna Wood, the Sydney girl who died in October from water intoxication after taking Ecstasy. There was a sense that something bad was seething in the cities, something which was yet to touch
NINETY-FIVE:The Gun7:40 am, November 12th, 1995A few hours before picking up her final passenger, Liz put a gun in her mouth with hands so sweaty the handle went slick. She gagged and forced vomit down. Throat aflame. Teeth clattered against the barrel of the Kel-Tec P11 9 mm pistol, a sound telling her brain, Wait a minute—I’m not dead.Yet.White noise. Liz tried to blink the noise away but every time her eyes closed, her vision worsened.***Outside, her father, Wes, tended to his garden. His trowel stabbed the earth and sliced a worm in two, matching halves arcing in silent agony amongst the weeds.Her brother in the shed plowed at the punching bag strung from the rafters on a chain. Jed’s knuckles started to bleed.Reggie, her mother, was in the living room of their house. A half-finished bundle of crochet sat at her feet. Needles imbedded in red yarn.On the other side of James Bridge, ten-year-old Suzie Marten woke to the sound of her mother coming home after a dogw
NINETY-FOUR:Reggie and JedHeavy bones wrapped in fifty-five years of worry. Reggie Frost clutched at her nightgown, startled. “Shit, Liz! Do you have to sneak around like that? You scared a decade off my life.”She smiled, making for the kitchen where her daughter stood. “You’re a bit blurry. I just put my eye drops in.” She stopped at the sink and watched the mess come into focus. “That bloody father of yours. He never washes his dishes.” A sausage finger scratched at the plates. “He knows I hate having to scrub itty-bitty pieces of cornflakes off with the steel wool.”Reggie threw a dishtowel over the edge of the sink and turned, intercepted by her daughter who crossed the room to kiss her on the cheek. A surge of warmth on Reggie’s skin, gone as quick as it came.“Bye, Mum,” Liz said, voice soft.A smile played at the corners of Reggie’s mouth as she watched her daughter stop near the open window and glance outside. The family dog, a large, black Rottweiler named Dog, yapped
NINETY-THREE:The Last PassengerTen minutes past eleven.“No charge today,” the driver told Michael. “Everyone’s riding free.” She avoided his stare, knuckles tight on the wheel.“Thank you,” he replied before continuing up the aisle. Loose change jingled in the pocket of his jeans from squirreling it away. He became very aware of how little oxygen was inside the bus. Everything struck him as thick. The metal handlebars he grabbed to keep his balance were almost too hot to touch. No air-conditioning, just a caged fan above the driver—no use to anyone, really.As Michael was about to drop into a seat in the first half of the bus, he made eye contact with two young women further up the aisle on the opposite side. The older one smiled at him.“Our lucky day, see?” she said.“Sure is,” he replied, caught off guard by her American accent.***Diana’s smile faded. Next to her, sixteen-year-old Julia shied away and watched her reflection in the window.***Sarah Carr toyed with th