The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck, Gary Scharnhorst Read Free Book Online Page A

frankly penetrating odor of oil and gasoline. It was an old, old bus, and it had seen many trips and many difficulties. Its oaken floorboards were scooped and polished by the feet of passengers. Its sides were bent and straightened. Its windows could not be opened, for the whole body was slightly wracked out of shape. In the summer Juan removed the windows and in the winter put them back again.
    The driver’s seat was worn through to the springs, but in the worn place was a flowered chintz pillow which served the double purpose of protecting the driver and holding down the uncovered springs. Hanging from the top of the windshield were the penates: 1 a baby’s shoe—that’s for protection, for the stumbling feet of a baby require the constant caution and aid of God; and a tiny boxing glove—and that’s for power, the power of the fist on the driving forearm, the drive of the piston pushing its connecting rod, the power of person as responsible and proud individual. There hung also on the windshield a little plastic kewpie doll with a cerise and green ostrich-feather headdress and a provocative sarong. And this was for the pleasures of the flesh and of the eye, of the nose, of the ear. When the bus was in motion these hanging items spun and jerked and swayed in front of the driver’s eye.
    Where the windshield angled in the middle and the center of support went up, sitting on top of the dashboard was a small metal Virgin of Guadalupe 2 painted in brilliant colors. Her rays were gold and her robe was blue and she stood on the new moon, which was supported by cherubs. This was Juan Chicoy’s connection with eternity. It had little to do with religion as connected with the church and dogma, and much to do with religion as memory and feeling. This dark Virgin was his mother and the dim house where she, speaking Spanish with a little brogue, had nursed him. For his mother had made the Virgin of Guadalupe her own personal goddess. Out had gone St. Patrick and St. Bridget 3 and the ten thousand pale virgins of the North, and into her had entered this dark one who had blood in her veins and a close connection with people.
    His mother admired her Virgin, whose day is celebrated with exploding skyrockets, and, of course, Juan Chicoy’s Mexican father didn’t think of it one way or another. Skyrockets were by nature the way to celebrate Saints’ Days. Who could think otherwise? The rising, hissing tube was obviously the spirit rising to Heaven, and the big, flashing bang at the top was the dramatic entrance to the throne room of Heaven. Juan Chicoy, while not a believer in an orthodox sense, now he was fifty, would nevertheless have been uneasy driving the bus without the Guadalupana 4 to watch over him. His religion was practical.
    Below the Virgin was a kind of converted glove box, and in it were a Smith & Wesson 45-caliber revolver, a roll of bandage, a bottle of iodine, a vial of lavender smelling salts, and an unopened pint of whisky. With this equipment Juan felt fairly confident that he could meet most situations.
    The front bumpers of the bus had once borne the inscription, still barely readable, “el Gran Poder de Jesus,” “the great power of Jesus.” But that had been painted on by a former owner. Now the simple word “Sweetheart” was boldly lettered on front and rear bumpers. And the bus was known as “Sweetheart” to all who knew her. Now she was immobilized, her rear wheels off, her end sticking up in the air and resting on a four-by-four set between two sawhorses.
    Juan Chicoy had the new ring and pinion gears and he was rolling them carefully together. “Hold the light close,” he said to Pimples, and he turned the pinion in the ring all the way around. “I remember once I put a new ring on an old pinion and she went out right away.”
    â€œBusted tooth sure makes a noise,” said Pimples. “It sounds like it’s coming