Jocelyn watched out of the bus window. She had spent a good week with her dad - though only the amount of time spent with him had been great. School was starting back up soon, and he had begged her to stay until the first day, a ridiculous proposition. This was her first semester in her own rented apartment, and she had to get things set up beforehand. That was her excuse, at least.
She was on a bus from her dad’s house in Ann Arbor to Chicago, though she would have to switch busses there to get to Des Moines. He had offered to buy her a plane ticket, but the amount of layover necessary would have been longer than the trip itself.
She grew up in Albany herself. Her mom and dad met there, working for the New York state government. Her mother had been elected to the assembly for the past 15 years, and her father originally did clerical work, but was fired due to repeated intoxication at work. Their marriage broke down, and he moved far away, to his hometown of Ann Arbor, where his sister watched over him with a loose eye.
His drinking problem had gotten better over the years, though his relationship with his family had not.
Jocelyn’s mother had begged her for years to stay within the area, or within the state at least. But Jocelyn had known deep down for a long time that the Midwest was her true home. Her father repeatedly said that those desires were from his half of her DNA, but Jocelyn never thought of Michigan as the Midwest anyway.
She watched a swamp fly by, full of muck and who knows what else. Probably like, moose, or dead bodies. Nah, this is Indiana. Not exactly the crimeliest state.
She looked at the guy next to her, but only a little bit. He looked like he was purposely ignoring her, like he wanted to say something but not creep her out. He would probably creep her out.
His hand caught her attention. It was bouncing left and right, up and down. It reminded her of a concert pianist, playing along to the song he was listening to on his iPod. She paused her own music for a moment - his song sounded as eclectic as his hands portrayed.
He looked through the corner of his eye and saw both his hand and her looking at his hand. He stopped, embarrassed. Jocelyn looked back out the window.
She went back to thinking about her father. What had her mom seen in him? Her mom was never able to answer that question, though she would usually respond with “he wasn’t always a drunk loser.”
“It’s a miracle I was even born,” she thought. The man next to her started his hand-dancing again.
The bus came to a rest stop.
“We’re gonna stop at this Subway. You have 30 minutes to get back on, and we’ll go,” announced the driver. He put the microphone down, but put it up again momentarily.
“There is no roll call.”
He put it down finally and walked off the bus, followed by everyone else.
Jocelyn wasn’t a big fan of Subway, and even if she was, she wouldn’t be in the mood for it anyway. Her father took her there the other day for dinner. It had bothered her that during her whole trip, her father never cooked anything, and took them out for every dinner. Even when she offered to make him dinner, she didn’t find a whole lot to cook with.
She ordered her sub and looked around for a seat. The guy next to her on the bus was sitting at his own table. He saw her and played it off, immediately looking away. Jocelyn was getting annoyed with this.
She sat down at the table behind his, so that she could see him, but the reverse wasn’t true.
She got on this bus to stop her father from annoying her, but clearly annoyance was an ever-present force.
Later when Jocelyn got home, she laid on the couch, with her roommate sitting in a recliner, watching TV.
"Amanda, do you ever wonder why people do the things they do?"
"I would imagine most people do."
"I mean, like, my dad is so scattered that I can't imagine how he goes about his day. There was a guy on the bus that was really weird and like, enigmatic. I dunno."
"I'm not sure any of us do."
Jocelyn knew she shouldn't have started this with the philosophy major. She fell asleep on that couch, wondering if any of us controlled our actions anyway.
