CHAPTER 1
I had found myself, once again, alone and separated from others while being surrounded by them all the same. It was not something I would classify as a particularly unique or remarkable experience, but it was still isolating. Earbuds in, I had little choice but to people watch and hoped that the dull stream of acoustic guitar could drown out my thoughts. The sky was overcast, and the first few drops of rain fell on concrete as I lamented the lack of an umbrella.
My parents, who I had taken this trip with, were nowhere in sight. I had decided to wait for them outside a department store, and had yet to see them reemerge, though, admittedly, I was not particularly used to the streets of NYC nor was I particularly good at identifying faces.
There was an additional con to this set of circumstances though, and it came not with the rain, but the fact that it seemed like some bodies were more present than others in the crowd. I kept catching the trails of people who seemed to have no shadow out of the corner of my eye, and though their voices were low, they somehow cut through the rest of the city’s hustle and bustle.
The attire of most blended together, but these “half-bodies” seemed strangely dressed, even for the diversity that New York brought. They seemed to be of particular professions from times and places that no longer existed, and I had a hard time making any sense of what was causing it.
My parents were always prone to dismissing such weird observations, while adding some of their own like how by not continuing to participate in sports, I was “letting my family down” and how much they disapproved of my short hair. Typically, I would oblige even if I didn’t understand and, as a side effect of that, I did end up noticing the things that slipped between the cracks of the universe and ended up on this strange third plane of existence. It was like a tertiary layer on top of the physical and immaterial. It was both impossible to put into words but still universal in some way. Or, at least, I assumed that the experiences were not special.
Still, though I found it difficult to understand, I somehow got the inkling that one day, I would and could, so I pulled out my earbuds and tried my best. No one spoke words, exactly, but the lingering hands of both a miller and a woman in a large sunhat pushed me in a direction that led me far from the front of the store and away from whatever the remaining summer plans were.
I didn’t know where I was being guided, who was guiding me, or what their motivations were, but it seemed to be the only thing that inherently mattered as the skyscrapers dissolved into the landscape and crosswalks blurred into one another, forming a watercolor painting diluted by the coming rain. My clothes stuck to me, but I felt what I thought was a physical tug on my sleeve and ended up in front of the Greyhound station, where the presence of the third plane dissolved once again, with its guests leaving with it, and the city just became a city again.
At that moment, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Removing it, “Father” looked back at me and my finger hovered over the answer icon, hesitating before shoving the phone back down into my pocket. Part of me said I would call him back later, but deep down, I knew I wouldn’t be coming back. At least, I would never come back as I was.
With no guidance now, I chose to go to a physical service desk where a woman who was clearly bored and wanted to leave stared at him with the same amount of dismissal she would give to anyone on any given day in her line of work.
“I… um…”
“Do you have a ticket?”
“I would like to buy one.”
She waited for me and it took far too long for me to realize she was waiting for me to give a proper location. For whatever reason, “Chicago,” came out of my mouth. I rang my hands in my blazer, trying to bring myself to make eye contact through the rest of the encounter as she was equally irritated that I paid in cash, but I didn’t know what I was doing wrong or how I could reasonably correct the situation.
I, Laurence Forbes, had never in my life been inside a bus station nor did I know the proper protocol for how to keep up decorum within one. And I felt that this woman I just met could see right through me. Realistically, I knew it shouldn’t matter, but when she gave me the courtesy of showing me where I needed to go downstairs, I both apologized and thanked her more times than any human should under any circumstance.
The trip itself was overnight, and settled into the bus, I let myself be absorbed in my music again. I received another phone call from my father before making the decision to block him altogether. I could feel my body fighting me as I did it, but I felt that having them know what I was doing would make any of it possible, and defeat the kind gesture the non-people had offered me. I always knew, at the end of the day, that I needed to get away and simply needed the catalyst to commit to it. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I would necessarily be missed. My presence would be, and I cared for my parents deeply, but there is a profound difference between a presence and a person and “the existence of a child” versus “what a child actually is” are two different kinds of love. My parents just came from a very long line of those who needed their community to respect them more than they actually wanted or needed to be genuinely understood as people, and with an entire community built with that as the backbone, it led to a world where perception and reality were kept in separate, isolated boxes. Perception was the good china for dinner, reality was the heirloom plates left behind by your parents that you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away, so they rot in an attic seen and appreciated by no one. The new set looks nice, but is devoid of both warmth and sincerity. I thought he had read a book about that kind of presentation in college, but like many things, the name escaped me.
Still, there had to be more out there than being comfortably unhappy, and the first step to breaking that was to be uncomfortable and pray you found the happiness along the way. And for all my threats of running away as a child, I never made good on that promise until now. Or, maybe I am comfortable? I never really could put my emotions into words nor did they end up making much sense to me. I still don’t know how to feel about most things. I guess I was never properly taught that skill, and it left me as much as a half-human as the ghost people? So much talk goes into finding “your other half,” so maybe that was what was missing?
The rain served as nice background noise as I was forced to take my earbuds out to preserve the battery, watching as green forests gave way to the mountain paths at what I assumed was the foothills of the Applachians. Realizing how much longer of a journey this truly was, I tried and failed to sleep and realized the relatively cheap cost of the bus came with all comfort and basic amenities lifted. I could complain in my head, but it was still my choice after all, and being able to sit and look at the rising green slopes without worry at least helped clear my head. I was only listening to Vivaldi’s “La Folia” on repeat anyways. Anything more complex or simple than that would simply break the gentle balance I was maintaining between starting my first major outing outside the thumb of my parents and the desire to go back to both the familiar, but also being able to serve my parents as everyone intended me to do as an only child. I had only started listening to music that was truly my own in adulthood, but still found the comforts of the classics to be grounding. I never really learned why my parents insisted I listened to only classical music when they didn’t do so themselves.
No one spoke to me and I didn’t speak to them until I woke up in Detroit, having stopped at several bus stations along the way, but the only thing of note was the blandness of the coffee and the exhaustion seeping through my veins as I sat in silence with the rest of the bus as the drivers were swapped. The screaming children had all long given up and parents and travelers alike who were more talkative at the beginning of the trip were beaten down by the length of the journey and the forceful awakening.
Detroit during the day was far more forgiving and less of a hostile wasteland both in terms of weather and the bus station’s design, but with it came the first flickers of panic of a finite amount of money and no place to stay. I didn’t know anyone in Chicago, and while I had enough to cover budget hotels or AirB&Bs for a while, I still didn’t have any real goals or destinations in mind. I comforted myself by trying to convince myself of the lie that it was just for the summer and I would go back. My body fought me on this decision, and my distress must have been obvious, because another boy sat next to me, his voice extremely loud as he asked where I was headed.
Startled, I nearly dropped the hot (equally bland) coffee into my lap. The boy didn’t so much as apologize, laughing instead.
“No need to be nervous! See?” the boy opened his jacket for reasons I didn’t fully understand. Was he trying to portray that he didn’t have a gun on him? His laugh was annoying too and far too loud for the headache I had coming on. Despite my inexperience, I was also almost certain it was a social faux pas to talk to a stranger in the bus station like this. The only ones I saw doing that were all older or clearly intoxicated. Likely both. For a second, I thought he may be one of the guiding hands that had pushed me in the first place, but a tap on his shoulder proved he was flesh and bone unless this was somehow a dream.
“Oh. Sorry! By the way, my name is Ethan.” ‘Ethan’ extended a hand and I tentatively accepted it, still more committed to getting up and leaving as soon as the opportunity came.
“Laurence.”
Ethan gave me a shit-eating grin.
“That’s an old person’s name.”
“I… I think it’s a fine name.”
“So, Larry?”
“I hate that.”
“Why? Laurence is too prudish. You can’t call someone Laurence in a bus station. It would be like calling a burger “filet mignon.” It’s all about context.”
“Well, the context is that’s my name.”
“To be fair, you also stick out a lot.”
“How so?”
“I thought you were coming here to meet someone. You got no bags on you and that’s the nicest jacket I’ve ever seen someone wear in this bus station in my life. I thought to myself ‘I gotta help this guy or he’s gonna get robbed,’ y’know?”
I must have made some sort of weird face, because Ethan started laughing again, but I was trying to think through the circumstances of how someone would take their coat off of me in broad daylight in a crowded bus station. I would assume it would be on principle. The regulars here may see me as an easy target because of my strangeness in the environment alone. I also realized I never answered his question.
“Oh, by the way…”
“Where are you headed?”
I pursed my lips. “Chicago?”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
And I wasn’t, but the lilt in my voice was an old habit I was trying to kick. People didn’t take you as seriously if you said statements as questions, but it was also a definite way to avoid people from getting frustrated with you if you gave them all the control.
“Well, I am sure I am going to Chicago. I have a ticket there.”
“Same. Do you want me to show you the gate? I’ve taken this bus in particular more times than I could count.”
“Are you from… Detroit?”
“Nah. I have family here though. Or, at least I think I do? Frankly, I’m not entirely sure if they even constitute “family.” Do you like deer?”
“Y…yes?” I wasn’t sure why he was asking or where that question came from. It broke every social convention that was drilled into my head about handling strangers. I wasn’t sure if I was intrigued or uncomfortable. I’m sure the true nature of my feelings would register later.
Ethan nodded and that train of thought ended. A long pause remained in between. “So, are you visiting family? School?”
I shook my head, mumbling something about knowing when I got there. I realized I opened myself up to more interrogation, but Ethan just hummed and the conversation naturally died again.
“Food?” He asked.
As a perfect answer, I felt my stomach gurgle at me. I was too distracted to think too much about eating, and had just gotten small things along the way. I nodded.
Without me asking, Ethan helped me up, talking something about a generic burger shack. My mind was elsewhere at that moment both wondering if meeting someone “helpful” was a blessing or a curse, but more importantly, wondering about the deer question. He was being asked what he wanted when he snapped out of it, and must have ordered in a daze because he barely registered the burger both in terms of sight and in taste.
Ethan didn’t seem to mind much, eating as though he wasn’t there and browsing through his phone.
“How old are you anyways?” His mouth was full and I needed to keep it together in order to not snap at him. Burger stand or not, there was something that fundamentally bothered me about bad food etiquette. Often, it felt like the only social etiquette that made any sense.
“19.”
“Sweet, I’m 22. Going to college, orr—? I mean, I don’t really want to make assumptions, but…”
“Yes.”
“Major?”
“Don’t know yet. My parents want me to go into business or law. Unless I can come up with a good argument for something else, I think I’ll just go with one of those.” Ethan looked at him expectantly. His eyes were intense: a shining green that I had only seen maybe a handful of times. I blushed when I realized he was waiting for me to return the question. “A…and you?”
“Music Education. Final year. I’m on my way back now.”
“Music…”
“You a fan?” Ethan laughs at himself again.
I wave my hand back and forth. “A little.”
“Could say the same for me. I hate the majority of my courses. I debated dropping out. This year is mostly just a final project of my choosing though. I like that. That’s why I chose music in the first place. I wanted the most amount of freedom possible. I didn’t realize there were so many rules in music you had to learn until professors allowed you to break them. I just sort of picked up instruments and messed around until I found something that sounded good… or interesting. Those two aren’t mutually exclusive, y’know? Anyways, I’m so sick of cantus firmi. Sometimes, I take the bad mark and do things wrong on purpose. But I don’t care what Bach had to say about music. He’s been dead for hundreds of years. He didn’t even know what synths or an equalizer were. Why are we still using his ideas as the basics of all music theory?”
I hummed and nodded. I had taken music theory courses before but still only knew about half of what he was saying. “I like Bach though.”
“Bach is so boring. If you’re going to listen to music from that period, literally any other composer is more interesting. Bach got by by being pious and hard-working. He was technically proficient, I guess. But, don’t you think he lacked soul?”
“I mean,” I thought things over as best I could, “that can be replaced with a good performance though.”
“That’s the thing about Bach though. He’s the death of that kind of thinking. From Bach onwards, it’s all about the composer, the savant, the artiste. It’s not about the dance between composer and performer, it’s just performers serving as pawns to realize the composer’s visions. That’s why my focus is composition.”
“I would think it’d be performance with the way you talk.”
“Nah. I want respect and I want to create. Performers used to have more say in that process but now it’s all composers and producers. I wanna be both. I’d rather have my own visions realized than making those of others happen.”
I hummed. I didn’t fully understand, but Ethan is the kind of person where he could keep talking and I think, even if I didn’t believe him, I’d at least believe that he believed what he was saying. “Did you just want to talk to someone about school then?”
Ethan shook his head. “A lot of the time, things just flow out naturally. Usually, I feel like people won’t understand it and give up, but your vibes are different. I’m not sure if it’s an age thing or what.”
“Sounds like you just like hearing the sound of your own voice.”
“You’ve got some sass, Larry.”
“And you should pay attention to the time.”
Ethan looked at his phone, muttered curses under his breath and grabbed my arm as he pulled me to the gate. Ethan puts his headphones on when we get on the bus and I did the same as we drifted back into our own respective worlds. I had only had a glimpse into his, but while back alone, my own was stifling and all-consuming.
