The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle Read Free Book Online Page A

check for three-hundred-ten bucks, man, and now I’ve got to split in my school bus.”
    “Here’s the owner’s card, son. Be careful backin out.”
    The dog is in the bus, man, and I am behind the wheel, and starting up the motor.
    “Come back again, son. I got a lot more stuff here you should look at. Got an old airplane engine here, if you like to fly.”
    “I’ll be back tomorrow for it, man. Don’t sell the airplane engine to anyone else. I can use it to fan my studio.”
    The old school bus is moving, man, listen to that engine purring. It handles like a tank, man, I can hardly steer it, what an advantage. Turning it around, man, in the junkyard practically tears my arms out of the sockets. I should have remembered to get a driver’s license, man, but there is plenty of time for such things later because now, man, NOW, I am off and away, onto the highway and heading back toward New York City, with a school bus at last, man, piled with precious objects and a dog.
    Fenders rattling, windshield broken, hole in the floorboards, wind rushing up through–my cool school bus, man. Maestro Badorties is wheeling along at last, man, forty miles an hour in his own valuable vehicle. The things I can do with this bus, man, the incredible adventures and fifteen-year-old chicks I can get in here, man. But the first thing I must do is slow down, man, there is a sharp curve up ahead… .
    … slowing down, brakes working all right, but the wheels, man, do not seem to be turning in the direction I must go in. There is a little dirt road, man, head for it directly, go down here bumping off the highway and down this narrow steep dirt road, fighting with the steering wheel which turns, man, but nothing happens and I cannot stay on the little dirt road either, man, I am careening along with the brake pedal all the way to the floor and it is not working, man, there are no brakes, I’d better shift it down, man, double clutch down into low gear, there is no more low, man, the clutch is gone watch out, man, the bus is going off the dirt road and over this bank, man, and down, man, my life is rushing past me, man, there is Van Cortlandt Park before my eyes, man, and I am bouncing down this bank of rocks and dirt and going down into New Jersey swamp grass, man, down into a foot of water and mud and coming to a stop, man, in a swamp of tall weeds, with my wonderful school bus, and my dog is looking at me.
    “That’s it, man. We’ve had it.”
    We are mired in fetid grassland with pussy willows coming up past the windows. I’d better get out before the fucking thing sinks completely under, man, and the state police come and discover I have no license to drive my school bus. How awful, man, to leave behind my school bus with air-raid siren, minesweeper, and subway-braking mechanism, man.
    Can’t get the fucking door open, man, so it is out the window with my satchel and umbrella, man, and dropping down into the swamp. Now to get my dog out. “Come on, man, crawl out of there.” Water, man, and muck, and there, man, coming over the hill is a police car. No time to get my dog out, man. The police will have to remove him. I’ve got to get the hell out of here, man, through these tall pussy willows, man, and continue off through the swampland, which feels exactly like the floor of my apartment, man, about a foot of water and mud. I can go through it easily, man, with trained footsteps, they’ll never catch old Horse.
    Keeping my umbrella low, man, I proceed through the swamp grass and there are the state troopers, man, swarming over the school bus and scratching their heads, man, looking at my dog behind the steering wheel.
    I am out one school bus, man, but it will be returned to the owner of the junkyard, along with the rubber check I gave him, and now, man, I am slipping far away from the scene of my wonderful yellow school bus. Through this grove of trees, man, I can watch as they bring down a tow truck, man, and haul out the old