May 17, 2019
Eury Morrissey
“Do you need a hand miss?” It was the first time that I had seen the ancient bus driver speak or stand since the bus had left Spokane ten hours prior. I still hadn’t really heard him as my headphones were still on my ears but I got the gist of it.
“I’m good thanks,” I said as I struggled to untangle my headphone wires from my cannula’s tubes. After a second of struggling, I decided to at least take my headphones off.
“Do you need a hand miss?” The man unnecessarily repeated.
“I’m good thanks.” There was no doubt that he was just trying to do what he thought was the right thing. The problem was, I didn’t need the hand. Nor did I need the man who looked to be about three-hundred dropping my oxygen concentrator.
The man nodded as he walked back to his seat and sat back down. I’m sure there was something that he was supposed to be doing outside, but instead, he was sitting there watching me untangle myself.
Just waiting for me to give up.
Fat-chance.
All and all, it took me two-minutes and the majority of a song being shouted out at nearly-max volume by my headphones for me to get all of my shit in order. Upon my standing, the bus driver visibly relaxed.
Calm down, dude. It wasn’t like it was life or death, just didn’t want to have to go through the actual struggle of resetting my concentrator.
“Thanks,” I said as I lugged my backpack, my concentrator, and the rest of myself past the driver and down the steep steps. My legs shook worse than a newborn deer taking its first steps, but I managed to make it without falling.
Wow, you really need to work out.
“Is this your final stop miss?” The driver called out to the back of my head.
“Yeah, it is,” I said without looking back. “As disappointing as that is.”
“Well, just make sure you’re careful.” It was late spring and the parking lot was covered in the customary west-coast puddles, not exactly pitfalls I needed to keep my eyes open for.
“Thankfully, I haven’t completely forgotten how to walk over the last few years,” I said as I turned to face him. I did my best impression of people who say funny things without the intention of hurting people's feelings; the forced smile felt almost natural.
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The man’s sagging face folded in on itself as he churned over the words.
“Heard about what?”
“Well, I’m not some reporter or somethin’, so I only really know the scuttlebutt.”
“Then what’s the scuttlebutt?” I cringed as the word came out of my mouth.
Oh lord help me. It’s infectious.
“Well, I mean…”
“Sir,” I tried my best version of the teacher's voice that I had been cultivating these last few years at university. It was still lacking the ‘humph’ that I was hoping for, but my usual lack of breath was a good enough excuse for that. “How can I be careful if you don’t tell me what to be worried about?”
“Well… It’s just that I heard that there was some junkies runnin’ ‘round doing god knows what.”
“Isn’t that what most ‘junkies’ get up to?”
“I don’t know ‘bout that. There’s been some rumours of folks getting attacked and the such.”
“In this town? Do you know who? Like their names?” I couldn’t help but be worried about the few people that I actually cared about that still lived in this shit-smear of a town.
“Nah, sorry honey. Didn’t catch any names or ‘nothing like that.”
“Well, thanks for the warning then. I guess.” The driver looked away like I was scolding him.
“Sorry miss.”
I shot him the classic sucked-in-lip-and-nod smile that meant I was done with the conversation and started to make my way over to the bus terminal. It was damp out. It was also the afternoon on the west coast in late spring so that wasn’t a surprise. While I made a point of buying comfortable shoes, and I made sure to be wearing them for the trip, I definitely did not account for the fact that it would be significantly wetter in Sheridan than it was in Spokane. After I managed to soak my sock before I crossed the parking lot, I made a mental note to change into my boots the first chance I got.
My bag was waiting for me beside the service counter inside the small terminal. After showing my ID to the attendant she promptly stopped caring about it and me. Without a second thought, she returned to her phone that she had so graciously looked away from.
My bag was small, but not that small in comparison to me. Its top stood an inch below my waist. With me being 4’ 10’ that meant that it was pretty damn small. Despite its size, I still managed to struggle with it. After getting a handle on its handle, I rolled it over to a bench near the doors that led back out into the blue, cloudy afternoon. There, I sat myself down and took a well-deserved break. I could hear my oxygen concentrator in its bag at my hip, kicking into overdrive as I sat down.
A little late to the party.
Opening my suitcase, I grabbed the plastic bag that held my rubber-soled boots and swapped them for the wet converse I had been wearing. As I leaned over, my concentrator kicked into a higher gear again filling my nose with the sweet, sweet, absolutely dry as fuck, produced oxygen that my lungs were screaming for. I side-eyed the tank that I had stored in the suitcase and toyed with the idea of going through the hassle of switching to it to get some relief from the concentrator’s judgement.
My contemplation was cut short by Alaska’s entrance into the terminal. “Hey there, slowpoke. You ready to get moving?” She came to a loud stop in front of me.
“Sure grandma. Sorry to keep you waiting.” She pulled her light-blonde hair out of the way of her beautiful face. The same beautiful face that made her as popular as she was back when we were in high school. And the same beautiful face that must make all the small-time teenage delinquents in town giddy with puberty-fueled glee at the sound of her deputy’s sirens, when they really should've been pissing themselves.
“Grandma? Wow, this is coming from the girl still wearing the same boots she wore in high school? And in university, and…”
“Hey, leave my boots out of this,” I said sliding my converse back into my suitcase. I made a point to quickly zip it up to hide the rest of my outdated wardrobe.
“Leave them out of my sight and I might just stop ragging on them.”
“With all this rain, I doubt that’ll happen.”
“True-dat.” As she said the second outdated phrase I felt a look of mild disgust cross my face.
“Oh, now we’re getting hip are we?”
“If you’re planning on being a high school teacher, you really should be aware that is like the opposite of hip.” Alaska said paradoxically.
“Then why’d you say it?”
“Because being ironic is hip right now.” I decided it would be easier not to engage. That would at least save me from having to hear Alaska ‘ironically’ use and misuse outdated slang. After a half-second of conversational dead air, a smirk split her mouth. “Do you want me to teach you how to be cool?”
“God no,” I said with a laugh. I stood up and grabbed my suitcase off the bench. Before I could make it even a single step away Alaska already had two hands wrapped around it, pulling it from my grasp. “Hey! I had that.”
“And now, I have it. But seriously, we could count it as job training. Did you need to pad your resume at all? Or does a recommendation from your mom mean that you’ve already got a job lined up at the school?” Alaska talked as fast as she walked, and she walked too fast to be considerate.
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“I’m not planning on staying in Sheridan, I only told her that I’d check the school out.”
“So you’re saying that I could convince you to stay? You wanna be roomies or somethin’?” Alaska said as she passed through the sliding doors out towards the parking lot. While it wouldn’t be the worst thing to live with Alaska, the idea of staying in Sheridan longer than the two weeks I had already agreed to made my stomach twist just a little bit. Will I even make it that long?
I made it to the threshold of the doors by the time that she had already thrown my bag into the bed of her brand new cherry red truck.
“What, did you get a boyfriend who needed to compensate for somethin’ and didn’t tell me?” I called out to her as she turned back to face me.
“Oh, ha, ha. Make your jokes now, but just remember who you’re going to call the moment you need to move something.” She made the distance between the two of us in two strides. The benefits of being an actual Amazon I’d say. She lifted my backpack off of me and slung it over her shoulder as she turned back to the truck. Had she been a little closer than she was, my own bag and the oxygen tank I had inside of it would’ve smacked me square in the face.
“You can stop doing that at any time,” I said to her as she haphazardly dropped my backpack onto my suitcase.
“What? Helping you out? Stop being so you, and just let me pamper you a little. It’s been what, almost a year since I’ve seen you last? Let me look after my little doll.” Her smirk had taken on new life as a full-blown obnoxious grin and that made it all the worse.
There it was, ‘little doll’. Without a doubt, the worst, most annoying nickname, that I have ever been saddled with. I must've been glaring because her smile evaporated the moment she looked at me.
“You’re going to damage my tanks,” I said flatly as I made my way to the other side of the truck and out of her view.
“Eury I’m sorry! It just slipped out.” Alaska started to follow me around the front of the truck but doubled back once she realized she’d have me as a captive audience inside of the vehicle. I heard the electronic locks of the truck disengage and pulled the door open as quickly as I could. I wasn’t quite sure where I was running to because the quicker I got into the truck, the sooner I’d be forced to listen to Alaska’s apology. “I’m sorry, it just slipped out. I really didn’t mean to say it, honest.” The words flew out of her mouth faster than the time it took for her to sit down in her seat. I struggled for a moment getting into the high seat of the truck, the seat of which was only a few inches below my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” I said as I settled into my seat, my condenser kicking into high gear again to give the oxygen I needed to fuel my angry huffing.
“Obviously it’s not.” Alaska had fully turned in her seat to face me.
“I said it’s fine.” The whine of my condenser was the only consistent sound in the truck’s cab.
“How can I make it up to you?”
“How about you take me out for a drink?” I said trying my best to forget that because of my oxygen I couldn’t drink.
“Don’t you wanna see your parents?” And there was another good reason for me to be drinking.
“There’s a reason I’m staying at your place, Lask. Let’s just go to O’Brian’s.” She knew that there was no reason to argue with me, so with a shrug and a push of a button, she turned the truck on.
“But wait. I thought you couldn’t drink?” Of course she would remember that little thing.
“Can I at least get some bar food then? A bit of grease and some dancing?” I said deflecting her good sense. Alaska looked back at her flatly cut nails as they curled around the steering wheel. “And maybe I can find a little bit of non-alcoholic stress relief while I’m there.”
“Okay, that I can get behind. You have been gone for a while, and missed out on some of the better cuts of meat ‘round here. But I need to get changed at least.” Lask said as she pulled the truck into reverse.
“I don’t mind a little bit of a wait,” I said as I watched the small bus station shrink away from us.
----------------------------------------
It was a solid three ‘deep’ breaths before the oxygen from my tank made it to my nose. I never did like switching to the tank with the gas already running so that always left me in the awkward limbo between the concentrator’s oxygen and the tank’s where I was forced to actually breathe in—shock—the surrounding air!
How do those normal fucks do it all the time?
That thought was an odd one, but after having a few good nosefuls of pure Sheridan air again, I couldn’t help but think it. The town didn’t smell good. Or, after several consecutive months away, and a few years before that, I just was just keenly aware of the smell again. I guess it is one of those things that you instantly forget the moment you stop thinking about it.
“Okay, are you ready to get going?” Alaska called out to me from the other side of the balcony doors. “What’re you doing out there? Are you ready?”
“I’m taking in the view,” I said admiring the better part of the single street that Alaska’s balcony looked out over. The majority of the houses on this street were at least ninety years old, making them some of the newest in town. They did lose that title if one took into consideration the half-finished development on the edge of town that nobody lived in. But for obvious, plumbing related reasons, nobody did.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Alaska asked as she stepped out beside me.
“It isn’t,” I said as I slung my bag back over my shoulder. Cleared out of everything other than my oxygen tank, my iPod, my headphones, and my wallet, it was significantly nicer to carry. Still heavy as hell, but nicer.
“Oh come on. Do you need to be so negative all the time?”
“I do have a need to be accurate, yes.”
“If you just dropped the sass for a moment you’d notice that this town isn’t so bad.”
“Lask, that’s literally why I’m back in this shithole.” Alaska looked at me for a second in her quasi-motherly way until her annoyed expression broke into a confused one. “What I mean is that, sure, I plan to drop my sass, better judgement, and good-taste and give Sheridan another look.”
“That’s great! I can…”
“But! That begins tomorrow. Tonight, I will be as displeased and crabby at the fact that I’m being forced to come back here, and only greasy foods and moderate dancing will bring me back down to publicly acceptable levels of Eury-ness.”
“Oh Jesus, you really haven’t changed all that much huh?”
“If you look at me with a microscope maybe not, but compare me now to the me from a few years back? It’s been a big change.” I said as I walked back into Alaska’s bedroom.
“I guess you’re right there,” she said as she followed me, “you are ready to go though, right? Happy hour’s ‘bout to start.”
“Don’t worry, I'm a cheap date,” I said as I popped into the next room over. “Free actually.” It was the guest room that I would be staying in for the next two weeks. The room was small and smelled dusty, but it was quiet and the only window faced the neighbours peeling siding rather than the street, a perfect view for me.
“You're not the problem, short stuff. I'm in a rush because I'm not and I want to make the most of the night.” Alaska said with a laugh from the doorway.
“I guess you wouldn't be,” I said as I took out the concentrator’s batteries and plugged them into the charger beside the other four. As I turned back to face her, Alaska was admiring the blue liquid oxygen tank that my Dad had brought over for me earlier that day before I had arrived. She must’ve felt my eyes on her because she snapped back to attention like she was expecting me to yell at her or something. A side effect of getting yelled at every day when she was a G.I. I’d guess. Her posture softened as I adjusted my bag’s straps so they were better camouflaged by my top’s few black pleats. I tried not to make eye contact with her as she mulled over her next words.
“Your Dad is such a good guy, hey?” She said as she rapped her knuckles on the tank. As the most overprotective, over-prepared, person that I knew, I guess that’s how he could be seen. There must’ve been a reason why I had grown up in martial arts. There must’ve been a reason why he was willing to spend thousands on oxygen equipment over the last few years.
“Sure,” I said, trying my best not to look at the tank. The sight of it severely souring my already less-than-great mood.
“I know better than to ask you what your problem is,” Alaska said as I walked past her into the thin hallway and towards the stairwell at the opposite end of the hall.
“But I get the feeling you're still about to,” I called back to her as I quickly made my way down the stairs away from her and the conversation.
“Only because I think you’re being an idiot and I promised myself that I would try my best to help your dumb-smart-ass whenever I could.” I saw the front door and with it my escape from this conversation.
“Help? Oh great, I’m excited to hear where this conversation is about to go.” I said as I made my way over to my boots and struggled to slide them on.
“Are you really trying this hard to run away?” Alaska said from the landing of the stairwell. The window behind her encircling her in the soft orange light.
“I’m not running. I’m getting ready to go.” I hobbled, one boot half on, over to the bench beside the front door and started to force the second one on.
“Sure and I’m the queen of Mars. Oh sorry, were we not saying things that are obvious lies?” She said in her most obnoxious voice.
“Oh shut up.”
“Just remember, you’re stuck with me for the next two weeks.”
“Don’t worry, I’m already dreading it,” I said as the thick zipper got caught halfway up the boot.
“Jesus, you’re so rude,” Alaska said as she slipped on a pair of red one-inch heels. I admired her get-up. Black leather jacket over cherry red blouse all on top of tight-fitting ripped jeans. In comparison to her, I felt practically childish in my dress.
“Are you trying your best to look like a model or something?” I said in an attempt to derail her before she really got going.
“Don’t try and change the topic by appealing to my wonderful fashion sense.” She said looking away. “But, you can keep on complimenting me.”
“Maybe after you get a few drinks in me. You know how loving I can get with a few ounces of tequila in me.”
“Oh, you can be such a harsh mistress. If I must, I will abide by your request.” She said holding the back of her hand against her head like she was a Victorian fair-lady. Only breaking to see how serious I was about drinking. She must’ve been satisfied by whatever expression I had because she immediately fell back into character.
The boot’s zipper finally gave, and with that, I was finally ready to go.
“So, you ready to get walking?” Alaska asked as her hand froze on the door handle.
“Alaska...” I felt myself starting to get all unpleasant again but the smile that cracked across her face stopped me.
“I’m kidding! Obviously!” She said with a phony joviality. “It’s no problem that I have to hold myself back now to drive my stupid truck home. But whatever!” She sang in the same cheerful-ish tune.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like it’s your fault Eury I’m just being stupid.”
Not my fault. Sure.