Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig Read Free Book Online Page A

say it was not so much that I was turning into an inveterate liar around strangers, I simply was overflowing with invention. The best way I can explain it is that I was turned loose from myself. Turned loose, not by choice, from the expected behavior of being “a good kid,” which I was always a little restless about anyway. “You’re being a storier,” Gram would warn whenever I got carried away spinning a tale about one thing or another. Now, with no check on my enthusiasm when it started playing tricks upstairs in me—the long bus trip seemed to invite daydreaming, mine merely done out loud—I was surprising myself with the creations I could come up with. I mean, what is imagination but mental mischief of a kind, and why can’t a youngster, particularly one out on his own, protectively occupy himself with invention of that sort before maturity works him over? One thing for sure, the soldiers on their way to their own mind-stretching version of life ahead did not doubt my manufactured one in the least.
    Shoulders shaking with laughter, Mickey forcefully nudged Gordon. “If it was the cat house, you’d know all about it, huh, Gordo?”
    Gordon turning the air blue in response, Turk nudged me for the autograph book. “Somebody’s got to go first.” I instructed him in the mystery of the Kwik-Klik, and with it in hand, he balanced the book on his knee and wrote for a good long time. When he was through, I passed things across to Gordon, who looked over Turk’s entry with a mocking expression but didn’t say anything before writing his own.
    Mickey balked when the autograph collection reached him. “I don’t know about this happy horseshit of writing in here. What am I supposed to say?”
    â€œPretend it’s your coloring book,” Gordon wisecracked. But Turk took right in on the reluctant penman. “Get with the program, troop. If the kid’s good enough to give a damn about us, the least we can do is put some ink on the page for him.”
    Without looking up, Mickey did so, and after laboring through, passed the autograph book and pen across to me. Gratefully thanking the three of them up, down, and sideways, I retreated to my own seat to catch my breath.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    G IDDY WITH SUCCESS, I read the soldiers’ inscriptions over and over, the pages as distinct from each other as handwriting could possibly be.
    Life is like a deck of cards.
    When you are in love it’ss.
    Before you are married it’ss.
    After you are married it’ss.
    When you are dead it’ss.
    May your long suits be hearts and diamonds.
    Alvin “Turk” Turco, Pfc.
    TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW,
    WHY I’VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD.
    FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA,
    NOW THAT SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD.
    Gordon Jones
    General Nuisance, U.S. Army
    Mickey O’Fallon is my name
    America is my nation
    Butte, Montana, is my home
    Korea is my destination.
    Like the Turk one had said,
Out the far end!
Three fresh pages of inscriptions, just like that. Now, though, I faced a dilemma. Stretch my luck and go back for Kwik-Klik tidbits from other passengers, or quit while I was ahead? The bus was belting along through nondescript country with nothing much to show for itself except a brushy creek and flat buttes, so Havre or any place else was not in the picture for a while yet, and I had time if I wanted to brave the gauntlet of strangers again. But if I wasn’t mistaken, the nun had looked about ready to pounce as I hustled past to stop me from keeping company with the swearing soldiers. Was it worth it to risk falling into her clutches, or for that matter, end up with some talky tourist bunch like the ladies’ club on the Chevy bus?
    While I was hung up trying to decide, blue puffs rose steadily as ever from the passenger in front of me as if she were putting up smoke signals.
    Making up my mind, I leaned way forward to the crack between