The Nomad Chronicles

Jim Jones and Jam on Toast

Chapter Seven

Previously on The Nomad Chronicles: I met Charlie on a long distance bus to San Francisco, but the bus left both of us behind at a gas station. Luckily Charlie knew an old friend and his wife, who lived near by and let us stay the night. As it turned out her ‘friend’ is a rich man who used to be Charlie’s ‘financial provider.’

I wake up from the sound of a knife scraping jam onto toast. It’s not that the endeavour is particularly noisy, but it’s the first sound to break the acute silence that’s swaddled the house during the night. Something about the contrast seems to magnify the sound and the scraping sound – like a rake along concrete – has me sitting upright in seconds.

I take a few seconds to find my bearings. Silky couch sheets, mellow light drizzling into the room through the kitchen door, which is open. Smoke fresh from burning toast wafts into the living room with the dappled light.

I lie back down and pull the supplied blankets up to my chin. It’s futile to try to find sleep again, after all the severity of the light must mean its past my usual waking time. But there’s only one other person awake, and I have a terrible feeling its Jerry – I can’t imagine Matilda eating toast for breakfast – and something sits oddly with him.

While I contemplate this, a floorboard creaks and there’s the tiniest dispelling of air, the faintest gasp, and then I’m making eye contact with Uncle Jerry, still in a maroon matching sleepwear set and unkempt hair. His orange hair looks much thinner and wispier standing up straight on his head.

“I’m sorry, I forgot you were in here.” He whispered.

“I – ah, yeah, sorry.” I apologise without grace. He points to the television that hangs directly opposite me. “Oh, sure.” I permit him to turn over the TV and he sits in the arm chair besides the couch. It’s grey with brass coloured buttons pinned up the arms and spine of the chair. He pushes a needle point pillow to the side and I can only see half of it. It’s something arty with a cow and the word MOOOOVE on it.

“Did you sleep well?” He asks while staring at the screen.

“Sure, sure.” I nod. “It’s different to what I’m used to.” I try to joke.

“Yeah, sorry we didn’t have another guest bed.” He settles on an episode of Dateline.

“Oh no, I didn’t mean,” I feel flushed. “No, I just meant this is much nicer than my house. Quieter.”

“Right.” He laughed, finally looking at me. It seemed as though it was the first time he had paid me the attention. He squinted at me, supposedly scanning my head and face all the way to my feet, which were curled under the blanket. I looked away and smoothed my hair over my head. I must have looked a state. I hadn’t had a shower, and I had only brushed my teeth without toothpaste – that’s right, I forgot to pack toothpaste – I could still smell the chocolate from last night’s dinner.

Jerry stared back at the television. A blurry picture of Jim Jones was blown up on the screen.

“Hey, do you mind?” Jerry pointed at the space besides me on the couch. “The views a bit distorted from this angle.”

I stared at him, contemplating a polite approach to no. Once a friend and I had been to the cinema and had seats at the very edge of the cinema. The actors looked like aliens.

“Sure.” I say with hesitancy. Jerry slides his empty plate onto a marble countered coffee table and then slid onto the satiny sheets still lining the couch. He rested his arm over the back of the couch.

“You know the story?” He asks, pointing at the TV.

“Jonestown, yeah.” Of course, I want to add, but don’t. He squirms in his seat, inching closer to me. “Do you –” He flinched at the urgency in my words, “do you, ah, have a glass of water. Sorry, I just haven’t had anything since last night.”

“Of course.” He said, “Sorry, I’m not such a welcoming guest as Matilda.” He pushed himself off the couch and smiled back at me before he disappeared into the kitchen. I jumped up and foraged through my backpack for my shorts. I heard the water running in the kitchen.

“Here you are.” He handed the me the glass. I was back on the couch, covered by the blanket again.

“Do you mind?” He asked again, this time gently lifting the blanket as if to pull it over himself. I shivered, not from the draft. I didn’t respond but he tucked the blanket over his wide thighs. The television spoke softly about the cult.

“Sometimes I wonder if I could start a cult.” Jerry said suddenly. “Like, if I were to start talking would people believe me. Would they want to follow me?” He looked at me. “I’m pretty persuasive, you know.”

“I think Jim Jones was a little more than persuasive.” I manage.

He laughs. “I suppose. He was crazy after all, mad with power.” Jerry leans towards me. “He controlled them with sex, you know. It was like a punishment. He made people wrestle naked.”

I just stare at Jerry. Its all I can do. What am I supposed to say to that? I want Matilda or Charlie to wake up already. Why aren’t they awake? I can smell the sugary jam on Jerry’s fingers.

He sees me looking at his hand and his gingerly places it on my calf. Smiling. His teeth are too small and there are odd gaps in between them.

“I don’t think punishment is a very good way to get things done though. Personally, I think a reward system is better.” He says. “Like, if someone does something for me, I might let them have something. Say, for example, some breakfast and access to a shower.”

A deer in headlight. That’s what I was. Drink the Kool Aid, someone from inside the television said. I watched his wide grin slowly diminish; his bucked teeth disappeared under his sagging mouth. The pressure of his hand on my calf increased.

“I don’t want to make any assumptions, but –” I was interrupted.

“I think you know what I’m insinuating.”

I tried to pull my leg away but his large fingers were tight around my slender calf. “Thank you for opening your home to me, but I think I should probably be on my way now.” I said.

“No, really, I would appreciate if you stayed.”

Silence. I couldn’t steal my leg away. Even if I did, what would I do. He was huge and powerful, and all I owned was all that could fit in a backpack. There was no way I could out run him, and even if I made it out the door I would probably get lost in the maze of identical houses.

Suddenly a door upstairs slammed and there were loud inaudible voices. The duffel bag flew down the stairs and landed, deflated, in the middle of the Persian rug.

“Get out of my house!” Matilda yelled, a guttural scream. Even Jerry looked nervous as he retracted his leathery hand from my blanketed leg. Quick and delicate footsteps echoed down the stairs and then Charlie was staring at us on the couch. He hair hung like a wet mop, she held her knit cap in her hands. Her eyes looked as big and bright as ever, as she stared from me to the door back at me.

I grabbed my backpack, already neatly packed, and let the blanket fall off me as I leapt to join her in the foyer. Matilda was coming down the stairs now, her footsteps hard and hollow in comparison to Charlie’s dainty gait.

“Thank you again, Jer, sorry we didn’t get to stay. Next time.” Charlie yelled, already half way out the door. I didn’t turn back to look at Jerry, but I did she Matilda, smiling and waving on the stairs. She mouthed Good luck.

Meeting the Extended Family

Previously on The Nomad Chronicles: I began my journey of homelessness, leaving my shared home with my Mother, her ‘boyfriend’ and his other lovers. I bought a bus ticket but during a pitstop the bus left without me. I was stranded with Charlie, a girl I had just met on the bus.

Chapter Six

“How did the bus leave with out us, we were only sitting fifty yards from the station?” Charlie scoffed. I didn’t answer, although the answer was obvious. I investigated a tear in my pants from the craggy cement flooring we had just been sitting on. Charlie paced. Her knobbly knees kept colliding into the other.

“What are we supposed to do?” She said. “Why aren’t you pissed off? I’m worried that I’ve been stranded with a psychopath.”

“I’m not a psychopath.” I said, but the remark only made Charlie raise her eyebrows. “I’m a vagabond, remember?”

She rolled her eyes. “Great, even better.”

“It’s fine, let’s just ask the station tender where we are. You can call your sister, tell her what’s happened.” I said, already slinging my backpack over my shoulder. The size of it was no longer an embarrassment, as Charlie heaved her duffel bag along. She became quiet after that, which was odd but I was too grateful to be suspicious.

The station doors slid open to the sound of an electronic bell. It took a second to become accustomed to the smells; it was as if the air freshener was warring with a garlic lamb kebab. I let Charlie charge forward to the cashier – a mid-twenties looking man with dark voluminous curls that trickled over his forehead like the leaves of a willow – while I meandered through the shelves of bright coloured packaging. The woes of capitalism, I could hear my Mothers commentary. You know, she used to say, they make the packaging so dazzlingly vulgar for the dim witted members of the population that are intrigued by such tacky displays of commercialism.

“Do you know when that bus left? Do you have any way of contacting the driver?” Charlie was interrogating the man – Jeremy as his name tag proudly announced. I swam through and stood behind Charlie like a ghost, just in case she needed to be reigned in.

“No sorry, all he bought was some soap and a bottle of water.” Jeremy replied with a flip of his tassels. Like elastic they bounced back to the same formation over his forehead.

“Well that was our bus, now we have no how to get to where we were going and no where to go now.” Charlie hissed. Jeremy glanced over his aquiline nose at me, wondering what he should do with the distraught woman blocking his register.

“Do you know where we are?” I asked. Charlie frowned at me. Jeremy said the name of a town that was only vaguely familiar.

“Really?” Charlie said, suddenly perked up by the news. She turned to me. “I know someone who lives here.”

I trailed behind Charlie by a few steps as she led me down a suburban street. Truthfully, I wasn’t so certain about Charlie at all, let alone this Uncle Jerry and his wife Matilda who lived on 47 Adelaide Avenue (she had called him and he had answered within seconds). I was even less certain as she perpetuated the conversation of my childhood. I only confessed what I had because I thought at most I would be spending two hours in a bus with her and then it would be as if we had never met. I wouldn’t even bother following her Instagram or Twitter (even if I had accounts).

The streets were broad and evenly paved. You could practically smell the tar they were so new. We had passed a large sign that had told us we were entering Appletree Village.

“Your uncle lives in a planned community?” I squinted at a cul-de-sac lined with identical beige painted houses.

“So what?” She sounded more hurt than I had anticipated.

“Nothing.” I said, “it just reminds me of that movie, The Stepford wives. Have you seen it?”

She clicked her tongue. “Well I think its a good idea. Its uniform, and affordable.”

I wasn’t convinced. Something felt eery about the emptiness of the streets, even though so many houses were packed into the designated area. Also it was too far on the outskirts of the city. It felt vulnerable to any psychopath who was wandering down the highway at night.

“This is it.” Charlie pointed to the street sign. Adelaide Street. Another identical cul-de-sac. We followed the pavement. Dirt from the front yards spilled over the edges onto the path. The grass was still yet to sprout.

Charlie took a sudden left turn and up the gentle sloping driveway of house number 47. She didn’t hesitate to knock on the steely blue door, although it was past an unreasonable time of night. Almost instantaneously there was whimpering and scratching on the other side of the door. Then hollow footsteps and an equally hollow ordering, down, stay back, down, and finally the door cracked open enough for one beady eye and half a pair of dry lips to look out onto the doormat.

“Hey Jer,” Charlie squealed.

“Lottie!” He squealed back and opened the door wide enough for us to squeeze through. I followed Charlie in close, luckily she got most of the attention from the ratty dog.

“Your giving that old mutt more lovin’ than me!” Uncle Jerry cried and enveloped his oar-like arms over her tiny body and she seemingly disappeared, all but her mustard scarf. The pair hardly seemed to notice the languid creature that had leisurely strolled into the foyer and perched herself against a painting of a peacock. She outshone the art.

“It’s nice to see you again, Charlotte.” Matilda remarked in a honeyed voice. “And who have you brought with you?”

“Matilda, Jer, this is my new friend I told you about. We ran into a bit of trouble and we both need a place to crash.”

Matilda stared through slit eyes at me and my flaccid backpack. Uncle Jerry stepped forward and outstretched a large paw to shake. He had orange hair, groomed short to his egg head and a forehead like a neanderthal.

“Its nice to meet you. Anyone of Lottie’s friends is a friends of ours.” He grinned, a gap as wide as quarter between his teeth.

“So I suppose the implication of crashing means you both will be sleeping on the couch.” Matilda said, much less enthusiastic about our unplanned visit.

“Nonsense, we can set up the guest room for one of you and the other can, well, unfortunately one of you will have to take the couch but it’s a very comfortable couch.”

Charlie and I exchanged glances. “I’ll take the couch.” I announced chivalrously, although it was an obvious decision. Jerry offered to help Charlie up the stairs with her bag and so I was left alone with Matilda in the foyer.

“Its a nice place you’ve got.” I remarked. It was true. The rudimentary facade did not in slightest hint at the extravagance inside. Mahogany tables displayed stone sculptures and golden curlicued lamps. Cream silk couches were backed against silver billowing curtains with fine stitching of flowers. My scuffed shoes with holes pointing through to my toes felt rude on the Persian rug.

Matilda followed my gaze down at my feet and scoffed. She peeled herself from the wall and glided into the living room. She seemed just another expensive item in his house.

“Thanks again for letting me stay the night. I hope we weren’t disrupting any plans.”

“You weren’t. In fact I’m glad she’s here. He’s always liked Charlotte.” Matilda stepped across the room in long fluid strides. She turned on entrance into a kitchen. “Do you want anything, food or drink?”

“Oh, no, I’m fine thank you.” I said involuntarily. I already felt I was intruding enough. A few minutes later though Matilda reappeared with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. She handed me one and poured a large glass.

“Thank you.” I said, even though I hardly liked the taste of wine. Perhaps I could become accustomed to it, but growing up the house had been strictly spirits.

“They’ll be busy at least an hour.” She said, sliding into the couch I was sure would be my bed. I stared up at the ceiling at an expensive conglomeration of hanging bulbs. Matilda also looked up, as if we were expecting to see Jerry and Charlie. I squinted back at Matilda.

“So, you are Charlie’s aunt then?” I asked hesitantly.

Matilda laughed into her glass. The red liquid splashed around and for a second I was worried for the white couch.

“So Charlotte didn’t tell you too much about us. I was wondering why you decided to come.” She took a gulp of her poison. “Uncle Jerry is his, ah, alter ego, I guess you could say. But really, he isn’t an uncle. He’s actually an only child.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand –”

“I see you’ve begun without us.” Jerry pointed to the wine. He stepped quickly but not suspiciously towards Matilda and gulped the rest of her glass. Charlie idled in the doorway. She had lost some of her accessories. It was strange to see her suddenly in proper lighting. Her neck seemed too long and skinny, like a skeleton.

“Tilly, could you find some sparkling water.” He asked. Matilda glanced at me, trying to communicate something. She unravelled her spindly legs and drifted away to the kitchen.

I wasn’t expecting my journey into homelessness to be so indulgent as spending my first night on a silk couch. Neither did I anticipate that my societal manners would have to be employed so much. Well, I thought, that didn’t have to be the way. After all I was boycotting the system.

“I feel strange asking this, but how do you two know each other?” I broke the silence.

Jerry looked to Charlie, mumbling to stall. She just stared at an intricate oil painting, something abstract.

“Lottie didn’t say?” He finally diverted. I shook my head.

“We had a working relationship, okay?” Charlie said.

“You told me he was your uncle.” I muttered to her.

“He is like family to me. He’s been very supportive.”

“Financially, she means.” Matilda was back with a glass of bubbly water. She strode towards Charlie and handed her the glass. Her fingerprints were left in the condensation.

Charlie squinted at Matilda, “I did mention Matilda though, his wife.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. It was like trying to paint a picture with with a hair brush; nothing about the interaction I was watching was making an logical sense. Jerry, who was still leaning against a slick wooden buffet, grabbed the neck of the wine bottle and drank it straight.

I picked up my backpack and hugged it to my chest. I was suddenly wary that I had followed a stranger to a house full of more strangers. I don’t know if my Mother would be proud or disgusted.

“I think I might go.” I said. Everyone stared at me.

“You need a place to stay.” Charlie was brash. “So I told a few white lies. I didn’t expect that we would be bunking together. Look, you can leave in the morning and we’ll have nothing else to do with each other.”

Matilda walked past me then. She smelled like shampoo; the type you bought from the hair salons, the type without silicon. “I don’t care. The couch is available to all and any.” She said before disappearing up the flight of marble steps.

So I stayed the night. My first night as a nomad, a supposed homeless person, and I was tucked into the silky innards of a strangers couch. A wealthy stranger, as far as I could tell. Later I would find out (for certain) that he was a technology whiz, that’s how he had earned his fortune. He had met his wife, Matilda, in the same manner he had met Charlie, that is through a website for rich men. Matilda would explain later how Charlie seemed set up for success, Jerry was infatuated with the pixyish girl. But then she had been diagnosed and “Sh!t hit the fan”.

Of course I didn’t know any of this as I lay awake, staring at the floating glass lights. Then I only knew how strange it all was.

Check out my previous posts! It will read better if you start at the beginning!

And so it Gets Worse…

Chapter Five

The Backstory

It’s never been an effortless conversation. I’ve been to therapists before and they always seem to expect a tirade of frenzied and passionate rambles; as if I had dammed all my unspoken feelings and at any moment the rigid chair and the garish painting and the condescendingly titled books Why Am I So Sad? would combine as some sort of key to unlock the barriers I have built. Wide eyed a rotund woman would search me, and even that would feel so patronising, and so I would stare at the misshapen clay cup and saucer on her desk, addressed in red paint to Grandma. Maybe then I was supposed to think of my own Grandma, and then imminently my Mother, my childhood, my scars.

But as much as you might not have expect from my zealous outburst demonstrated above, in those sterile offices, in front of the hollow eyes of doctors such as Professor Russle (Prof. as she liked it to be abridged), all the words that were locked inside me never caught a break. All the same I would leave those grey offices, find my own way back to the house, jump the gate, boycott the front door and find the side window which was always slightly ajar and had a ladder propped up against it to support the climb. Perhaps then I might have to apologise to Martin or Laura or whoever I might’ve stepped on climbing into the house, and finally, exhausted from it all I could disappear into my closet and try to forget it all. Maybe Mom would find me eventually and inquire how it went, but for what reason. Good, I would lie and she would smile and later when the doctor contacted her she would realise how good really meant bad and she would pout and then we would find a new doctor. Maybe if I hadn’t been so headstrong then, maybe if I had just found a way to articulate it to someone, anyone, maybe it would’ve been different. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be sitting in the gutter in the middle of the night with a stranger in a mustard scarf.

The stranger (I soon learnt her name was Charlotte but she preferred Charlie) was actually 24, despite her appearance which had her pegged as much younger. She was a trained midwife, although she was travelling to San Francisco to visit her sister, who was ironically pregnant. She had bought a diet coke from the filling station, and was making a habit of tapping her long nails on the glass bottle. I asked her if her nails were real. They were, she smiled proudly, she had strong nails and thick hair, she brandished, although her hair seemed ratty to me. I saw, as she took of her hat, that she had it trimmed in a tight bob.

I was having a hershey bar for dinner. It had been on sale and suddenly I was aware that I should probably be practising austerity. I broke off a square and opted for sucking rather than chewing.

“So,” Charlie said, “tell me again about your Mom’s boyfriend, I don’t get it, were they polyamorous?”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t her boyfriend, he was only her, well, you know…”

“Her lover.” Charlie nodded. I winced at the word. I winced at the connotation. My Mother and Micheal; lovers. There was no love there, or perhaps only from one side of the equation. But no, it was only infatuation. I could never understand what she saw in him, what dream she was fulfilling by being with him.

I could see him then, languishing on the couch in the shared living room, with so many others crawling and fawning over him like parasites. A smirk on his paper thin lips, his long dark hair tied back in a pony tail. His beard bristles scratching the young, ceramic like face of one of his other female lovers. Not my Mother’s.

“So explain it again, did he own the house?” Charlie was staring at me with wild eyes. I peeled mine away from them. Something about her was hard to look at for too long. Her face was wan, her cheeks sunken, her eyes seemed to bulge even when she wasn’t trying to ascertain the details of my tumultuous past.

“It was his grandmother’s, but when she been diagnosed with dementia, well, she didn’t like strangers in her house so she had him hired to look after everything.” I nodded down at my empty chocolate wrapper. I could sense Charlie’s impatient glare waiting for more. “Well he didn’t seem to care much about the poor woman, whenever I head him talk about her he always called her the Batty Witch. He started letting people board rent free even when she was still alive, cooped up in her room. Mom met him before I was born, moved in pretty soon after. For some reason the fact that he lives with so many other people didn’t seem to bother her.”

“So he’s your Dad?”

“No.” I said firmly. I sighed. “Okay, maybe she cared a little that he had so many other, you know. One night she tried to make him jealous, found one of his male friends probably lounging in the kitchen and well, biology can explain the rest.”

“So you lived with both your Dad and you Mom’s–”

“–yep.” I said. She just stared at the ground, her mouth hanging open slightly. Like me she hadn’t had braces either. I was more fortunate though in that my teether were naturally straight, whereas her front teeth collided into each other, one jutting forward over the other. At least my Dad had good teeth.

I wondered about her, just as I was sure she wondered about me still. Obviously there was a lot I still hadn’t said. I couldn’t squeeze my entire eighteen years into half an hour, nor did I really want to expel my entire story onto a stranger on the side of the freeway. A stranger, by the way, felt very fitting to Charlie, who was completely and utterly strange. Besides her ill fitting and ostentatious outfit (I realised her denim short and boots were decorated with sequins, and her stockings had dark lace flowers sewn into them), I thought there was something odd in her physical proportions. Her body was tiny, but long, as if she had been stretched. Her head, hands and feet seemed too big, clownish even on her protracted limbs. Not only her physical appearance but her other attributes also seemed alarming. She was incessantly laughing, a shrill snickering, and she sipped her drink in a staccato manner.

“I think its been half an hour, we should get back.” She finally said. We collected our belongings, mine so meagre in comparison to hers, although it seemed to make sense now didn’t it? I lived in a rooming house after all, barely had a closet to myself. Did you really expect me to own much more than could fit nicely into a backpack? See, a vagabond seems so fitting to me. I didn’t have to denounce many possessions and it was far from an emotional goodbye from home. In fact, I wonder if anyone will even notice I’m gone. Nobody seems to remark on invisibility as a characteristic, it is barely considered in comparison to hilarity or intelligence, and neither do I believe it necessarily as treasurable as those two traits, but I do think there is something gifting in it. I’ve stolen many items from the same grocery store and never had an eyelid blinked in my direction. I’ve avoided burning questions from school teachers, I’ve heard all the gossip, the secret romances etc. because nobody ever thinks that I am someone to need to whisper around. Undoubtedly there is something advantageous about invisibility.

But it’s not really in my nature to be optimistic, and having found myself stranded on the side of the freeway with a stranger, our bus long ago departed with out us, I was not then seeing the trait of invisibility in its glory.

The Societal Influence of Jack Kerouac on the Modern Identity

Chapter Four

The final leap, a bus trip and an unexpected influx of bodily fluid

The bus was late. The sun had set and with it gone a ruthless wind had awoken. I waited under the cover of the bus station with only the dwindling light of a streetlamp hanging over the road. I was apparently travelling light, with only a backpack that I hugged close to my chest. The cast of characters that were imminent at becoming my travelling companions all carried swollen luggage. We all stood separately, each hugging ourselves from the sudden cold and the shame of being there at all. I was sure I looked much less the whimsical, careless nomad and better fitting a hopeless teenage runaway. So what, I want to turn around and yell at them, Jack Kerouac did it.

A tired looking vehicle waddles to the designated pick up area. I follow a young couple up the narrow stairs and through the aisle. The floor is sticky with something. Each step sounds like removing velcro. And these are my only pair of shoes.

The couple take an exit into a pair of crumpled seats. I wait while the man shoves his travel bag into the overhead storage, as careless as if he was throwing trash into the garbage.

“Cheers,” he grins, proudly demonstrating bucked teeth. What accent is that, I wonder? I can’t tell, I’m terrible at geography. Nonetheless I nod, a cordial American gesture, and file through to a seat in the middle of the bus. Leather seats, I wince when my bare legs touch the cool surface. Soon they will be sweating like meat on a barbecue.

Perhaps I’m just a self-centred, hopeless, runaway teenager, but while I was waiting for the bus it seemed as though my travelling cohort had been only a handful of people, but now it’s as though there’s a never ending stream of people, from all walks of life. One woman slides into the seats in front of me and through the gap between seats I spy she’s holding a box of tissues. As soon as she sits down she pulls a comforter from her bag as though she’s a magician.

A dark haired man with broad shoulders has to turn sideways to pass through the aisle. I can only guess he’s come from working in an office. He wears suit pants and a shirt so stiff with starch that’s unbuttoned to his clean shaven sternum.

Close behind him a man as tired as the old bus scoops a toddler in his arms and directs another young child with his other. The children sit together while he opts for a single seat behind them.

I think that’s it when the bus makes a sound like it’s exhaling a sigh. The doors swing shut and I hear the gear stick shift out of park, but then there is a muffled yell from the outside.

“Stop the bus!” It says, banging on the door. Collectively the insides of the bus roll their eyes, but the driver obeys the strangers commands and a woman stumbles into the darkened abdomen of the bus. I peek over the rows of seats at her. A heavy knitted sweater engulfs her small frame. She has on a mustard coloured knit cap that has hidden most of her hair, although a few pricks of raven black poke out the sides. She also has an engorged duffel bag that is written in sequins, princess. How un-royal a means of travel, I can’t help but think, but then she glances at me and I stare as though I’m scrutinising something distant out the window. Nevertheless I hear the leather groan as she clambers into the seat opposite to mine.

The door swings shut again, a final punctuation mark to the list of passengers, and finally we begin to wheel away from the station. This is it, I think. If I had any feeling of ambivalence, it dissipates the further I get from my home city. I watch as everything I know becomes a blur and then eventually turn into streets and buildings that I’ve never known. The glass is cold, reassuringly so, and I lean my forehead against it (forgetting how many others have done the same thing, how many others are so romantic as me?). The whirring of the air conditioner becomes soothing, lulling me into a strange limbo of consciousness and dream state. I probably would’ve fallen asleep, if it wasn’t for the chill, but even hugging my legs into a ball didn’t help.

Ten minutes into the trip the girl (I snuck a peak at her, she turned out to be much younger than I first thought, a teenager, surely) opposite me leaned over the aisle, using the seat rest my bag occupies to hold her up.

“Excuse me,” she whispers. Her voice is raspy. It’s a voice that’s uncomfortable to listen to her speak for more than a few words at a time. “Hi, sorry to bother you.” She spoke to the woman in front of me, who had stuck her head out of her blanketed cocoon unwillingly. “I was just wondering if you had a spare blanket you would be willing to share.”

“Sorry.” The woman, an older woman with a Spanish accent says.

“That’s okay.” The girl says, although she sounds far from it. She looks at me, offering a skewed frown. I think its the only interaction I want to have with her.

Obviously there will be no sleep on this bus trip. Instead I retrieve a book from my bag. The cover slides off completely and instead I yank the naked insides of On the Road. The sandwich shop won’t miss it, really, it’s absence on the shelf only looked as silly as a toothless child. I find the rest of the tattered book and put it back together, although I know it won’t stay. A hot stare from the curious eyes of my neighbour are on the book. What was I expecting though? Really, I must get used to this lifestyle and all the judgements that follow with it.

And so far the lifestyle feels very natural. I enjoy the bus ride. The smell of chemical cleaners, air that is so unnaturally cold it pricks the soft part of my nostril when I inhale, seats that are missing cushioning, the general ambience of mystery and shame. I can only imagine where all these people are going, why they are going, what life they are leaving, or what life they are entering. Some people are easy to guess, the backpackers for example. Others, the father and the children, are a case much harder to solve. That was, until the answer came shooting through as quickly and violently as… well…

Projectile vomit. The toddler has let it go, emptying his innards onto the aisle of the bus, and some of the seat in front of him. The father hangs his head into his hand, muttering into his flesh.

“Great, we’ll be late for the in-laws, no doubt I’ll get the blame.”

It smells so bad, words can’t give it justice. Someone stands up in their seat and shoves their nose into the fan duct. The driver, who is the last to get the news, groans and says loudly that he’ll have to stop the bus. Someone complains that stopping will add possibly hours to the trip. No one responds. Personally, I don’t care how many hours this bus ride extends, I can’t bare to sit anymore than the time it takes to find a rest stop. The smell is toxic.

We pull into a gas station and file out of the bus again, each identically plugging our noses with whatever we can muster. The bus driver informs us that we can go to the bathroom and buy snacks while the bus is cleaned. He says for everyone to gather again in half an hour. He also covers his nose and speaks in a nasally voice.

“You forgot this on the bus,” the girl says to me, outstretching the worn copy of On the Road.

“Oh, thanks.” I reply. Others begin to disperse. The father takes his children to the bathroom first.

“I didn’t want you to lose it. It’s a good book.” She said.

“Thanks.” I said again. I shoved it back into my backpack.

“Is that what you’re doing, you know, travelling.”

“Um, I guess.” I shrug. She stares at me, anticipating more. I sigh. Do I really want to explain this? Do I really want to reveal the mystery behind my new nomadic life?

“Do you want to get something to eat?” I ask her. I do.

A 21st Century Vagabond

Chapter Three

I’m lost.

I do what I’ve been dreading to do for hours now, and take out my phone. I check the vitals. 16:36. Battery life 87%. No new text messages.

Real vagabonds wouldn’t need to have a map, or a phone, or even a compass. Real vagabonds wouldn’t need anything to tell them where to go because real vagabonds don’t have anywhere to go. They are like spores, ready to drift and land wherever the wind takes them.

The wind has taken me to a children’s park. Of course it is teeming with the little nymphs, the day still seems young, the sun is still high in the sky. I think about approaching one of the adults and asking for directions. Surely that wouldn’t be breaking any vagabond guidelines.

I stray up to the fence and rest my idle hands on the rusting metal. There’s a gaggle of doting Mother’s guarding a decorated table. Squinting, I can see a cake layered with magenta colored icing and a squiggly handwritten message; happy birthday! I would be a fool to interrupt the festivities. Instead I target the desolate woman who sits on her own island across the park. Her daughter looks almost identical to her, both with thin blonde hair although the daughter has hers done in two pigtails. Sometimes she turns to wave to her Mom, but the poor woman can only manage the smallest twinge of a smile in return. I lean further over the fence.

“Excuse me,” I say, “Hi.” She doesn’t startle but turns around slothfully. Her eyebrows furrow. It must be a maternal instinct. I introduce myself and ask for directions. When she hears where I am trying to go she darts her eyes back at her daughter, as if she’s afraid this is some maniacal ploy to distract and kidnap. But all is good and well in the world, the cherub is still making a slow descent down the slide, oblivious that she has just had her first lesson in physics, she has met the force of friction.

I sense her Mother is still wary of me. She notices me looking at her daughter and quickly rattles off a list of instructions. I get the cue. Thank you, I appreciate it, I nod and fall away from the park fence.

I can’t help thinking that I should be feeling sentimental as I walk away from the park. Shouldn’t I be having memories of scraping my knee on the pavement, of getting dizzy on the swing set, or sharing a peanut butter sandwich with my Mom? I don’t remember anything of the sort. Not surprisingly, of course, maybe I would expect some sort of nostalgia if there had been any of that in my childhood. But no, I think the only time I went to the park as a child was with a friend from elementary school. The wood chippings that cushioned the ground were like shards of glass in my bare feet. I never wore shoes when I was little. Mom didn’t see the point in them. Honestly, she didn’t see the point in clothing either but society is more condemning of a naked child than a shoeless one.

One day I will have a whole wardrobe of shoes. One day when I’m far from home, far from my Mother and her ideals and when I have written my novels and have money of my own to spend. But for now, all I have is the left over money I’ve been hoarding in a sock for five years. I’m sure all added it amounts to quite a lot, but at the moment it just looks a mess of metal and withered paper notes. Also the only pair of shoes I brought are the ones on my feet. Old white Nikes, scuffed and tight on my toes. Apparently you can get in grown nails from wearing too tight shoes. That would be a problem as a vagabond.

But problems didn’t seem so intimidating. I had just solved my first one after all. The Mother’s instructions had been exacting, and just as she had intuited I was traversing the overpass within ten minutes. It suddenly felt real then. A grey sedan whirred past, yards away from where I walked on the uneven pavement. I stared down at the Shops, where there really was some sentimentality. Only a dash, approximately a teaspoon of nostalgia for the old Railway Workshops. I could only remember glimpses of the day; my Grandfather’s broad back hunching forward as he pulled himself into one of the historic carriages, the smell of musty linen as we shuffled single-file through the boarders corridors, climbing on one of the large metal wheels of the steam locomotive. It’s like watching a scratched record, my memory. Everything exists only in fragments. I am certain of only a few things from the past. I know that for most of it my Mother was unhappy. I know that it was only the two of six years and then all of a sudden I had grandparents who had never existed before. I know for one year my Mother disappeared, and then it was only my Grandparents. And then my Grandfather died, and my Grandmother was unhappy and then it was me and Mom again. I don’t remember the details, just the basic plot.

I’m shocked out of my daydream by a vibration that travels from the overpass up through my feet until even the tips of my ears oscillate in time with the incoming train. Within seconds it’s shot into my vision, carving a long silver streak through my sight of the archaic Workshop. The corrugated roof is rusted, the red brick growing black mould, the windows that are almost opaque from so much dust; all of it is so kitsch but in the same way so quaint and romantic. A snapshot of life before. Exactly the same, down to the very last detail.

I take out my phone. Not to take a picture of the scene, although I could. I just doubt that’s the vagabond way. No, I will try hard to remember this moment, the details of the Shops, the formation of the clouds obscuring a tangerine sky. I check vitals. 16:11. Battery life 69%. No new text messages. By the time I’ll reach the Bus Station the sun will be setting. I take out my sock and count nine dollars from my coins. A one way ticket to San Francisco please.

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Sweat and Sandwiches

Chapter Two

The First Pitstop of my Journey: How Quickly I Had Become an Outsider

I haven’t chosen a very pleasant day to begin my vagabond experience. The wind becomes violent as soon as I get walking. It hisses in my ear. I get dizzy from the pressure or something to do with the fluid bouncing around in my cochlea. We learnt it in eighth grade science but I can’t remember.

The only thing the wind is good for is the sweat. It’s still hot, midday mid July. I’m wearing a tight tee, purple cotton with the letters of the brand big and bold stretched over my chest. The sweat stain under my arms and the howling wind are battling it out. So far the sweat is winning. A fist sized circle of moisture shouts victory. I don’t care though. The real victory is the distance I’ve covered already. I could’ve taken the car, the old grey hatchback, but that would’ve defeated the purpose. Besides, I can’t stand that hollow husk. The rearview mirror is splintered and there’s a pale pink stain on the fabric of the roof from a spilled milkshake. Neither were my doing, although Mom would say otherwise.

I wonder what Mom would say about this; my adventure. I wish I could see when she read the note, plucked right off barren mattress I’ve spent so many restless nights on. Doubtful she will cry. I expect her to laugh. Not to chuckle, or chortle or snort. Just one short and sharp laugh. A scoff more like it, but with an air of incredulity. Ha!

A prepubescent group of girls hear me scoff. They all turn to stare at me and my growing sweat stains; all braces and spider-legged eyelashes armed and aimed at me. Prepubescents are menacing like that. I stare back. Usually I’m much more reserved, much more fleeting with where I spread my attention, but right now, at the beginning of my new journey, I feel like an explorer. I feel like I should be documenting my travels, and the foreign species I encounter. Entry number one, July 23rd 2018, 13:07, four crater faced girls, all clad in low rise denim shorts and cat claw acrylic nails, spotted outside a smoothie bar. Species do not appear to be a threat, there is no immediate danger. The stare down seemed to work, eventually they turn their ruddy faces back to their cell phones, giggling.

I don’t care. It’s my new mantra. I don’t care if they think I look dishevelled, or if I truly do look a disgusting sweaty mess. I’m a nomad after all, I should look a state of anyone camped out in Skid Row. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a Chinese takeaway window. I take a moment to frown at myself. I don’t look barely as bad as the scowls of pedestrians passing had me believe. Besides a few loose strands of hair and beads of sweat growing into a moustache, I’m just as presentable as anyone looking to dine on the greasy food of this restaurant.

The door opens with a clattering of a bell, and a plume of hot fragrant air bellows out into the street. Involuntarily one hand springs to cover my nose. Truthfully, honestly, its not that it smells bad. To many I’m sure the smell would be tantalising. Surely it would stimulate in many the saliva glands. Maybe if it had been different circumstances I too would have been swelling at the mouth with viscous enzyme-rich fluid. But for now, I can’t spend another moment inhaling the fumes of fried shrimp and chicken chow mein.

The wind has died down, or at least the blockage of street-front shops is serving as a barrier against the blows. Across the street the rows of spindly oak trees is still being berated by the gail. In Autumn those trees are usually a nice crimson. Too bad I didn’t choose Autumn to run away. Actually now that I think of it Autumn would have been a much better time. Summer was not a good idea, I think as I grapple with the straps of my backpack. The coarse fabric is damp and threatens to slide off my shoulders completely. I fold. There’s a new sandwich shop opened at the end of the road. The entire shop is tiled in smooth black ceramic and it has old time photographs framed in fancy gold curlicued frames. I order a tuna salad sandwich. When I release my backpack from one of my shoulders I can see the cashier wince at the dark purple line the bag has cast down my shoulder. I don’t care, I remind myself, although the haste that I shove the eleven dollars fifty cents (in exact change) into her hands tells otherwise.

The shop is arranged humbly, with brown leather chairs around round wooden tables. There are weather beaten shelves with equally timeworn books. I pluck On the Road from the collection and turn it over in my palm. The book part of it isn’t even connected to the cover anymore, it almost slips out but I catch it in an unprecedented moment of quick reflex. Just then my name is called, Nome, as I gave it. The cashier looks uncertain as she hands me the wrapped sandwich. I give her a look that is supposed to communicate, it’s short for Nomad, as in The Nomad, as in my preferred name, but then, for the same reason that I gave the name ”Nome” instead of “The Nomad” I can’t really explain with confidence my truth. Instead I sulk back to one of the leather chairs in the corner of the shop.

The only other customer is a middle aged man with motley stubble and a tartan coat that fell just above his knees. He wore rimless glasses that reflected the screen of his laptop. Emails. He was probably an entrepreneur. All he had bought from the shop was a coffee, which he had in a take away cup. What a character, I thought to myself. Out of the back pocket of my backpack I retrieved a note pad and as discrete as my retractable pen allowed I jotted down some notes. I know, it seems wrong to document about someone, and after all, I hardly have the authority to be laying judgement. I think if I ever left this notepad, filled with all the ostentatious and mysterious and wonderful characters I have encountered, anyone would think it had belonged to some sort of freak. Well, then, how far from the truth would that be?

I eat my sandwich quickly. I still have a lot of ground to cover today. The bread is the best part about it, crunchy and with a snap that sounds like Autumn leaves (I really should’ve arranged this journey for Autumn). The tuna salad has too much mayonnaise. I make sure the last bite is mostly bread, and then I crumple the napkin and peel my legs from the leather seat.

“Thank you,” I smile to the cashier, who tries to busy herself wiping down the cash register. She’s not fooling me. I also smile at the entrepreneur, but he’s too deep in emails to notice me. 14:27. Eleven dollars and fifty cents down, a few more miles to go.

Birth

Chapter One

Not the type that is covered in amniotic fluid.

Rebirth.

The door opened, the July wind gushed in as if it had been piling up against the other side of it. After that initial shock you get used to it, the wind. But because I know this is possibly the last time I will ever stand here, I do more than simply accustom to the weather. I really try to notice the surrounding of the old house that has been my home for eighteen years. I hear the tickle of the neighbour’s Quaking Aspen, the scrape of sun-crisped leaves being stirred along the concrete ground. I can’t help but think that soon none of this will seem so familiar. Soon it will only be a memory, and my memories always seem to fade. Sometimes I pick a moment, as mundane as any, and I tell myself that I will remember it in years to come. I still remember walking under a fall tree, staring up at the single brown leaf among a chalky grey sky.

But I don’t want to remember this moment. Not any more than I would like to remember my actual birth. C-section. Premature. Fifteen hour labour. At least that’s the tale my Mother likes to tell, usually inspired by some type of spirits. Who cares, I think when she divulges into the topic of birth. She knows I’m thinking it. It’s the look I make, the careless eye roll, the nonchalant yawn.

But she knows how to get back at me. She wraps her hand tighter around Micheal’s leg, sometimes she might even tiptoe her fingers up his thigh. It’s like playing a game of Chicken. I always lose, I can’t stand watching her and him. But I’ll win again soon, when it’s Tracy or Jessica or Caramel (I know right, that’s her actual name) laying in his bed, right up besides him. She’s never been too good at sharing, which is why I’ve never understood why she chose this lifestyle. I could think of anything better than this house and these people. I have thought of it, and it is this:

I let the wind ravish me while I contemplate my near journey. It’s hot, even hotter because it’s so humid. The clouds are dwarfing down on me. The only solace is the cool metal door knob that’s still tight in my fist. Will this be the last time I ever hold this door knob? But so what? I will find better door knobs. Bigger, and colder. Brass, crystal maybe. Oh, all the door knobs I will see, grasp, turn. All the doors I will step through. So many births and rebirths to come. Come wind, take my hand and lead the way, from here on out I am yours. I am,

The Nomad.