Barry Yourgrau writes, performs & attempts humor in multimedia. His early works A Man Jumps Out of An Airplane & Wearing Dad's Head are considered surreal classics. His book Haunted Traveller plays with imaginary travels. Fans know him too from MTV, NPR & the film The Sadness of Sex in which he starred. For kids (?) there's recent NASTYbooks series. South African-born BY lives in NYC, travels a lot. Has great nostalgia for years in LA. More info @ www.yourgrau.com & www.nastybook.com.
I fall asleep on a bus, amidst the lurching, the cacophony of chickens in baskets.When I wake up, it takes me a few moments, and then I panic. I half-rise, leaning out into the aisle, and shout at the driver about where we are. He gestures behind him in the air, without looking back, by way of information.I'm able to fathom that I've passed my stop. "How far to the next village!" I demand. More vague gesturing.
"How far!" I repeat. A burly Indian with a bowler hat and jet-black braids murmurs something stolidly at me.He holds up a squat array of fingers several times.
It's a fair number of miles; but not so many I have no choice. I'm in a quandary, whether to make the bus halt and get off, or to go on to the next clutch of muddy adobes and corrugated shacks around a bad well. I reach up for my bag in the rack, swaying as the bus jolts.The man in the bowler makes a tamping motion with the flat of his hand. I should sit.I do so, slowly, and with unease.
I stare out the window at the stark, dusty wayside. Patches of drab snow lie shriveled among the sparse outposts of cactus.When I turn back, my bowler-hatted interlocutor is gazing at me.He shakes his head."Road no good here," he informs me. "Desperadoes.Cutthroats."
He draws a forefinger slowly across his windpipe, and nods dourly. I stare at him.The bus lurches, in rapid succession. The chickens storm in their cages. A thin trickle of blood makes it way down the Indian's brow from under his bowler. He rolls his eyes up to it. He grins over at me faintly and turns away, wiping himself with his thumb.
