Waiting for the bus down the road

from the Freemont Street Experience

is like enacting the first scene from

The Power and the Glory, with Tench

trudging to the port for his ether. You keep

forgetting why you're there, and look

at the sky a lot. Instead of vultures,

overhead are helicopters taking

people to the Grand Canyon –

but they've got as little to do with you.

      It's hot, a woman announces. She's

draped in black, and wears a woollen hat

stained around the edges

with copper curls poking out

near her ears. She looks at the

sun, like there's something about it

she can't believe, but also with

resignation – like there's many things in this world

she can't believe.

Damn, it's hot.

      Sweat meanders

past the dark roots of her hair

which is the first layer of hair

under the volumetric licks

that give her head a knobbly

appearance.

      She surveys the others – perhaps

to see if any response will be forthcoming –

perhaps not. When the bus arrives

there's a sheet of cardboard across the money

repository.

      It's broke, the driver says. Happy Christmas.

      He keeps repeating

this, as the passengers heave

their legs up the steps, clutching the

handrails; gripping their sides. A blank-faced

woman is the only swift mover

and she stumbles on

as though something has taken hold of her legs and

is working them for her; an event the rest of her

body can't register. She is marked

with yellow and purple, and holds a bottle –

clunk – against the metal rail of the seat.

The bus stops, and the woman

with the curls prepares to get up;

the movement of the top parts

of her body not producing

any corresponding reaction

in the lower parts, for a certain, delayed,

period of time.

Is this Charleston? a languid voice

from somewhere, enquires.

            No. This is Sahara.

The woman with the curls is

easing herself down the stairs at a

diagonal.

      Can I get to Charleston, on this bus?

No,

Charleston is back there. It runs

the same way as Sahara.

      Oh man, I'm tripping. The response comes,

after a while. The voice tilts

forward; indecision has caused it

to become stuck, at some indeterminate point.

            You want to get out here?

Here?

            Charleston is back there.

You stay on the bus and you're getting

further away from it.
Ride the bus all day if you want.

Ain't nothing to me.

      Man, I'm tripping.

The woman with the curls
makes her way across the empty lot. This

empty lot is like no other empty lot

you've seen, because it is all the empty lots

you've seen. Cézanne has been here

and made of it something permanent, like

in the museums. In cream, and red. Barbed wire

like tumbleweed throws

a hump-shaped shadow, a sliced resemblance

of more terra firma. Cracked

concrete. Broken bottles. So

beautiful you want to weep.