bar twice. The offending brown-green slime was oozing its way down the pole, much like a low rent stripper. I was getting nauseous. Making it through the throng to another pole was out of the question. A kid of about twelve off to my left was sneezing like his mother was shoving pepper up his nose. The friggin’ germ factory wasn’t even covering his mouth. I felt like I was in a rolling Petri dish. And our shuttle driver must have been a foreigner because he was paying absolutely no heed to state and national laws in regards to load limits.
He kept packing people in like he was getting paid per pound delivered. I was being pressed closer and closer to the pole with the snot snake wrapped around it. I was using what minimal leverage I had trying to keep from pressing up against it. Something or someone was touching my ass. I kept praying that it was some hot Yugoslavian model, but the last time I had turned around, I remember seeing an overweight man who looked like he had just downed a bucket of fried chicken. I noted that his hands had appeared greasy. Now I wasn’t so sure what was on his diet and why his hands were greasy, but I was not feeling so good anymore.
I was losing the leverage battle. I pulled my hands up into my jacket so that I would have at least one barrier between the human goop that riddled the pole and me. I gripped it with both jacket-clad hands and moved a foot off to the side. Greasy Hands had two wet fingers shoved in his mouth and was sucking deeply. His other hand was still located where my ass had just been. I felt pretty dirty and violated. He winked at me when he caught me looking. I would have vomited had I the chance to make sure I could get away from it. My luck right now and this bus would break down with the doors unable to open.
Greasy tried to slide over my way, but a small, older woman blocked his path. I would have kissed her except for the thick moustache she sported, well, that and the scowl, well, those two things and the marble-sized mole to the left of her nose, or did she have two noses? I hadn’t quite worked that one out yet.
Someone else picked up the sneezing torch as Georgie Germ stopped. I think Fanny Phlegm started hacking up a lung. I could see particulates flying through the air like airborne missiles. I was going for a world record in breath-holding, forty-two seconds and counting. I wondered if anyone would pick me up if I could find enough open space to topple over. Greasy Hands probably would; that was of little comfort. And then I’d be left wondering what was on the floor and if the rest of the shuttle was any indication, then I’d be swimming in a sea of viral stew, with chunks of unidentifiable material.
Six or seven days later, the cross country journey finally came to an end. Two Nose cut me off as I tried to make a hasty exit. Greasy Hands immediately pulled up to my rear and Georgie Germ heralded our passage with a heavy barrage of wet, viscous germ spewage.
“Tell your kid to cover his mouth,” I said loudly to a mother, who was too busy playing on her phone to monitor her child. Of course, until I said something about her son, and then she became a Kodiak bear, protecting her cub. Her shrill screams of “Mind your own fucking business” are still etched on my eardrums.
Greasy Hands was making our last few feet out a free for all. As soon as we hit terra firma, I turned and slammed him back into the bus. He licked his lips at me.
I clenched my fists and was about to make him pay for our encounter, when Tracy alit from the shuttle.
“Ah, Talbot, I see you’re making friends again. I really can’t take you anywhere, can I?” Tracy said, laughing.
Greasy Hands winked one more time and got back on the bus. Obviously, this was something that got his rocks off and it looked like he had been doing it the entire holiday season. Tracy grabbed my tensed shoulder. “Come on, let’s go,” she said without turning back around to witness what I had.
We had gone a few feet from the bus when I made a great showing of patting my pockets down. “Aw shit, hon! I left my phone on the bus. Go in, I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll be right there. Go in; get warm.”
I had hit the right button; she headed towards the mall entrance.
I jogged back to the bus. Greasy Hands was sitting in the empty bus on the seat that I had previously rejected due to the supposed Orange Julius contents.
“Back for more?” he asked, standing up.
I pulled my fist back somewhere around Detroit and let fly. I caught him flush on the cheek as he attempted to dodge my blow. He sat back down heavily. He would be sleeping for at least the next few bus rides.
“Fuck, that hurt,” I said, shaking my hand around.
“You can’t do that here! Get out of here!” the bus driver was yelling at me.
“Calm down, I was just getting my phone. And why don’t you clean this pit up while you’re waiting for people? Starting with Sleeping Beauty over there.”
“Get your ass off my bus or I’m calling security! And don’t try to get back on, you’re not welcome!”
“I’d rather walk on my hands and knees back to the lot than get on this lab, gone bad.”
Tracy was by the mall directory board when I came in. “Your phone, huh?”
“My what?” I had already forgotten my lying premise.
“Remember? You went back to get your phone.”
“Right, right.”
“Did you find it?” she asked.
“I had it in my pocket the whole time.” I explained, trying to get my most innocent face in place.
“Your knuckles look pretty raw,” she said as I jammed my hand into my jacket so she couldn’t get a closer look.
“I fell,” came stumbling out.
“And you braced yourself with your knuckles?”
“It was a very awkward fall. I was lucky to even get that to stop me or I would have landed square on my chin.”
“Oh, and then your new boyfriend would have been so upset.”
“He could have at least taken me out to dinner before he started to take liberties with me.”
Tracy laughed. “Let’s go, we’ve got a lot of shopping to do.”
We hadn’t even started and I was already wiped out.
The mall was packed, but fortunately not as bad as the bus, but much more so than my living room, which I so desired to be sitting in. Most folks looked panicked. They were running out of time, and as of yet, not picked out their significant other a proper gift. This led many to go over the top, and at least one jewelry store was the beneficiary of that panic.
There were two competing jewelry stores on either side of an opening that led down to another string of shops. There could not have been fifty feet separating the vendors, yet one was filled to the brim with customers and the other had three people in it, two of which were employees and one who had yet to look up from her split ends she kept pulling up in front of her face.
The packed one was Kay Jewelers, you know the one. I bet you’ve already sung the jingle without any prompting from me. “Every kiss begins with Kay.” Sorry, now you’ve probably got that stuck in your head. The other was a place I’d never heard of called J.D. Robbins Jewelry. The only difference I could discern in the two stores was that one had a fancy ad campaign with a catchy jingle and the other didn’t.
I pointed this out to Tracy, but she didn’t seem nearly as intrigued about it as I was.
“I’ve thought of a jingle that I think would get that store packed!” I told her excitedly.
“I’m sure you have. Do I even want to hear it?”
“Okay, you know the one “every kiss begins with Kay?”
She nodded.
“Now use the same jingle only with these words, Every Jerk-off begins with J! That store would be fucking packed right now!”
Tracy nearly snorted on the cookie we had been sharing, but she quickly recovered. “What is the matter with you? It’s Christmas!” She was trying to sound disgusted, but I could tell she was inwardly laughing her ass off.
“I personally couldn’t think of a better gift,” I said lasciviously.
“Go find your bus buddy!” she laughed as she pushed me away.
One short year removed from that story, I find myself huddled in the cold with the remnants of humanity. How I wish I was back on that bus, not with Greasy Hands, mind you. I hope he was patient zero, but I’d even take Georgie Germ as long as he was on the far side of the bus. I could maybe do without Two Nose and the bus driver and maybe Georgie’s mother, but I think everyone else would be fine. This story has done what I’d hoped it would
