Magic Bus

Winner of the 2025 Great American Fiction Contest

Sam stood in the front hall and looked around. The apartment was old but almost clean (he’d seen to that). There were a few holes in the drapes, cigarette burns on the couch, and the carpet was stained and faded, but that’s how things were and it was not important. The decorations and knick- knacks were hers, but he didn’t care about any of it. Satisfied, maybe as satisfied as he would ever be, he walked out the door, closed it, and checked that it was locked. He’d packed the van the night before, after she passed out in bed. He didn’t need much: blankets and a pillow for sleeping, a toilet kit, some fresh clothes, some coffee, and sandwiches. It both frightened and pleased him that he didn’t know where he was going. He only knew west. West was good. Wasn’t the country founded on going west? Manifest destiny and all that? He pictured her coming home from the restaurant, smelling of grease and food and sweat. She would be sharp, on edge from being tired and sober; she’d focus on his absence like a cat, but he wouldn’t be there. Not anymore.

He studied the place one last time, then drove the familiar streets, traveling up in road sizes until he reached the interstate. The mother road. He didn’t care about scenic; he wanted distance. Miles. He would drive as far as he could before his back or his bladder made him stop. He had an empty milk jug if he really needed it.

He thought of her — of Rhonda — coming home. Looking for him. Concerned, then angry when she couldn’t find him. It wasn’t her fault, really. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. Things grow. Things change. Sometimes together. Sometimes apart. That’s just the way it is, he thought and he turned west on the interstate.

 

He saw the bus on the third day. He’d just driven through Indianapolis when it passed him — a brightly colored hippie thing that made him smile — a converted school bus covered in drawings, peace signs, and flowers. He thought he smelled pot. It wasn’t the Merry Prankster’s bus, it wasn’t The Who’s Magic Bus, and it sure wasn’t the bus where that boy died in Alaska, but it was a bus that made him smile and it took him back. Then there was a curve in the interstate and the bus was gone.

There were no messages and no calls on his phone. It ­bothered him that she didn’t even text. He thought about throwing the phone out the window, like in the movies, but instead just turned it off and threw it in the glove compartment. He’d left her but he wanted her to call, and he hated his hypocrisy.

He spent that night at a rest area, as far as possible from the toilets and vending area. He pulled the curtains and lay on the mattress in the back of the van, but it was hot and noisy from traffic and he slept little.

At daybreak there was a knock on the front glass and he opened the curtain. A young Black woman stared back at him. He rolled the window down a few inches. He could actually roll the windows because he drove a 1962 Chevrolet Greenbrier van.

“I’m looking for a ride,” she said. “Just a ride.” She didn’t look like a prostitute, not a very successful one anyway. She was a heavy girl, with big shoulders and spiky dreadlocks.

“Try the trucks?” He pointed across the way where the big rigs parked. He hadn’t talked to anyone for a while and his voice scratched the air.

The girl frowned. “No. But I will if I have to. I need to go west. You going west?”

“Give me an hour,” he said, and closed the curtain.

He got dressed in the van and washed up in the rest area’s bathroom. When he came out, she was sitting on the curb. “What is that?” she asked, pointing to his vehicle.

“1962 Chevrolet Greenbrier van.”

“I think my Gramps had one.”

“That why you knocked on my window?”

She grinned and stood up. “Maybe.”

When she stood, he saw she was indeed a stout girl, and there was something about her mannerisms that reminded him … of what? A bear? Slow but fast when necessary. Strong. He wondered about her age and if she was in trouble — if he could get in trouble.

“Might as well get it straight,” she said, like she’d read his mind. “I’m over eighteen. I ain’t runnin’ from the law. I ain’t pregnant and don’t intend to be.”

Sam didn’t believe or disbelieve her, but finally figured it didn’t particularly matter. Maybe company would be okay. He motioned toward the van and she climbed in, then he got in and turned the key. The van spat a puff of smoke and the motor hummed.

“Got a name?” he asked.

“What do I look like?”

“What?”

“Just call me what I look like. Then there ain’t nothin’ to remember.”

“Bear,” he said.

“Bear?”

He nodded and put the van in gear. “Your idea,” he said.

She looked out the window for a minute. “I suppose you got a name?”

He laughed. “Just call me what I look like,” he said as he eased into the interstate flow.

It was her turn to laugh. “Okay,” she said. “Okay … Old Lost Man. Old Man for short.” Then they both laughed and she sat back and they headed west. Bear didn’t say much, which he liked. He’d left the yapping behind, yapping about nothing like little dogs that won’t shut up.

Outside of St. Louis, Bear nodded off and he studied her, not in a bad way, but as an artist might study a face or a flower. Her cheekbones were high and he wondered if she might be part Native American, though her dreads had a reddish tinge. Black-Indian-Irish, he thought. A farrago. Her backpack on the mattress behind her looked empty.

After a while, his back started to bother him and he looked for a place to stretch and get gas, somewhere with a restroom and some quick food. Bear woke up when he slowed and had that look travelers get when they wake and don’t know where they are. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just pulling off to stretch, pee, get gas. You hungry?”

Bear yawned and scratched her ear.

They got gas and peed, then went through the drive-in of a burger place. When Sam went to pay at the window, Bear pulled a ten out of her shoe and gave it to him, which surprised him. After he got the food, he handed her the change. The sky had grown heavy with clouds and the air smelled of rain. “Let’s go,” she said, and they ate as they drove.

A few miles down the road, he saw the same bus ahead of him again and pointed at it with his burger, but Bear shrugged as if she didn’t see anything. Then, as before, the bus disappeared around a curve.

 

Rhonda noticed the van was missing when she got home from the restaurant. At first, she wasn’t concerned, but at eight o’clock when Sam hadn’t returned, the minutes began weighing on her, first with worry, then with anger. Though they’d almost learned to tolerate each other, there was always a smoldering thing between them. Stupid Sam. She thought about driving to the bar to look for him — Did he dive off the wagon? — and maybe call the police and report him missing. Serve him right. They’d fought before he left. She was drunk and couldn’t remember what it had been about, but she knew she was justified in her anger. Now he was gone and she both missed him and hoped he was miserable.

 

Sam began to relax as he drove west. He would be in St. Louis soon. They would be in St. Louis soon. Then the real west.

“Where’s this road go?” Bear asked.

“Some place in Utah. Starts out in Maryland. St. Louis coming up.” He glanced at Bear. “Listen — I got to stop and spend the night somewhere. My back has had enough. I can let you off wherever, but I’ve had it for the day.” Sam wanted to get past St. Louis and leave the smothering east behind, but he wasn’t going to let her drive. Didn’t know if she could drive, but she didn’t offer, only tilted her head and nodded. Then the painted bus came out of nowhere and passed them. Sam said, “There! See it? That thing’s following us. Or we’re following it! Playing leap frog!”

She laughed.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”

“Maybe we’re goin’ to the same place.”

For some reason the thought amused him. “You didn’t see it?”

“Oh, don’t know. Don’t matter. You might be crazy, you know.”

“Probably so.” He pointed south. “The arch is that way, but you can’t see it from here — too cloudy or too far away.” Bear nodded, but said nothing. “You ever seen it before?” he asked. “Looks like a big wicket.”

“What’s a wicket?”

“A hoop.” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Never been west,” she said.

Past St. Louis, though still in the feeder towns, he could feel the land begin to open, allowing itself to breathe, a prelude to Kansas. West, he thought. Always west. Always somewhere else. It was only a direction and he knew no one ever arrived. “I’ve wanted to go west ever since I was a child watching cowboy movies and TV shows. I knew it wasn’t the Ponderosa, but it was something to believe in.”

“What’s a Ponderosa?” she asked.

He shook his head and smiled.

“You sure are old. Like you’re from another time.”

He was quiet for a minute. “Look — I’m going to pull off at the next town, wash up, grab some food and hit the hay.”

“Okay.”

He glanced at her. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well … I’m gonna sleep in the van. You realize that I am going to sleep in the van! By myself!” he sounded harsher than he meant to. “Listen. I’ll pull off at one of these bedroom towns and get you a room. That’s the best I can do.”

She slapped the dashboard. “I don’t need nothin’!”

“Well, you could’ve fooled me.” He lifted his hand, palm up. He couldn’t let her sleep rough, but what was he doing? The girl was likely nuts. No question. Maybe they both were. Well, she wasn’t Rhonda. The thought of Rhonda made him accelerate, and this made the Missouri highway patrol officer, who was hidden behind a bridge abutment, turn on his revolving lights and awful siren and pursue the ’62 Chevrolet Greenbrier van.

“Oh, great!” Sam said, flipping the turn signal, slowing to pull over.

Bear snapped her head around, winced, and shook her head.

“Hello, officer.” This was not a greeting Sam wanted.

The patrolman looked at the back seat, then at Sam, then at Bear. “License, registration, proof of insurance, please.”

As Sam fumbled through the glove compartment for the documentation, Bear stuck her hand in and found it. “Here it is, Dad,” she said. Sam handed the government-required documents to the officer.

“That your daughter?”

“Yes, sir. Adopted.”

“You don’t say. You know you were going 20 over the limit?”

“Sorry, sir.” Crap, he thought.

The officer looked at Sam’s license. “What’s your dad’s name, honey?”

Bear, who had no idea what Sam’s name was, paled in her blackness, and Sam quickly said, “Sam. Right there on my license.”

The patrolman stepped away from the van. “Let her answer,” he said curtly. “What’s your dad’s full name, honey?”

Crap-Crap-Crap!

 

As was her habit, Rhonda got drunk the night of Sam’s disappearance. In the morning, she took a cold shower, drank four cups of hot coffee (with ibuprofen), and went to work. She was rude with the customers and staff, as was also her habit, and someone complained to the manager, but the manager was short of help and ignored the complaint. Rhonda was efficient, if not personable, and did not complain about the horrible pay.

She’d decided not to pursue her husband, Samuel, who was, after all, not really her husband. Stupid Samuel. He was “Samuel” when he did something wrong. Why would she want him back? The effects of his previous drinking were catching up with him. He left the tap on. He left the stove on. His eyes were yellow and his cheeks sagged. He asked obvious questions. At first, she thought he did these things to irritate her. Then he took to wandering, though until now he’d always made it home.

It had pissed her off that he’d been able to stop drinking and she hadn’t. “Quit cold. It’s the only way,” he’d told her. “You just got to stop doing whatever you shouldn’t be doing and pay the price. There’s always a price,” he said. “That’s just the way it is.”

She celebrated his second night away by drinking two bottles of bourbon. It maddened her that he wasn’t there to blame. STOOPID SAMUEL! She wished he were there to drink with her, and this also made her mad because he wouldn’t drink with her anymore.

 

The highway patrolman was reaching for his clip-on radio to call for assistance when it happened. There was a blaring sound of a horn, then a strange bus smashed the patrol car’s left rear panel, crushing the tire, which exploded with a loud bang. Then the bus careened wildly to the left, missed the patrolman, and continued its way.

The patrolman, frightened from the noise of the exploding tire and the sight of the huge, colorful thing bearing down on him, dove against Sam’s van and managed to knock himself out on the driver’s door. He also wet his pants.

Old Man, as surprised as the patrolman, jerked away from the window and watched the bus speed past. He and Bear both said a bad word.

Sam looked down from the van window to see the officer lying with his face in the road, clutching Sam’s official and required government papers in his unconscious hand. Sam flung open the door, grabbed the documents, threw them into the van, and then lifted the patrolman’s arms and dragged him to the side of the road. It surprised him that he had the strength. The few other drivers slowed but did not stop. The patrolman groaned and tried to sit up, but Sam pushed him back down.

The patrolman would recover, though he would remember nothing about the traffic stop. Somehow, the camera on his dash malfunctioned and its data was lost. No one ever knew what happened (except for Old Man and Bear). The following month, the officer retired with his wife and pension to a beach town in Florida.

Old Man and Bear sped west.

“Did you see the bus that time?” Sam yelled, sweating, continually glancing in the mirror.

“Maybe — not sure — slow down before we get stopped again.”

“Why did you tell him I was your dad? I’m not your dad!” He felt proud, though he would never admit it.

Bear shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it’d look better.”

“We got to get off the interstate,” Sam said. “No more I-70.” It always amazed him how quickly things could change; one minute you’re going along just fine, the next you’ve got a deadly disease, or a meteor splits your head open, or a woman … he concentrated on his driving.

They were well west of St. Louis now. A sign said “Kingdom City, 10 miles.” They would get off there. He pointed to the glove compartment. “Get my phone and turn it on. We need a map.”

The phone came to life; the girl fiddled with it a second and said, “Get off at Kingdom City, go south on 54 to Jefferson City, then west on 50. There we can hook back up with I-70.”

“Good,” Sam said. The adrenaline had left him and he could barely hold his eyes open.

“Here,” Bear said, pointing to the exit.

Kingdom City looked like a thousand other towns: the same chains, food, motels, gas stations. In a way, Sam found a comfort in homogenization. In the United States, you never really went anywhere; “different” always had the mark of sameness. Interstates were just rivers — paved rivers — with lots of tributaries.

They passed a motel. “Last chance,” Sam said. “I’ll spring for you to stay.”

Bear, who’d been looking at his phone, looked at him. “Where you stayin’?”

“In the van.”

“Okay,” was all she said.

He pulled to the side of the motel, out of sight of the front office. “You stay here. I’ll get the room.” On the way to the office, he took down the make, model, and license plate of another car in the parking lot. They never checked, he knew, but the policeman had scared him.

Sam stood at the counter while the pimply-faced clerk finished her business on her phone. Then, “Yeah?”

“A room for the night please.”

“How many?”

“Just one.” It was true. He wasn’t going to stay in the room.

“Do you have a card?”

“Cash.”

She told him the amount and he paid, thinking about his limited funds. He had a card but wasn’t going to use it. Nothing traceable. Not anymore. The clerk gave him the key.

They left the van where it was and walked to the faux-modern room with two beds. It was musty but more or less clean. He’d stayed in worse. “All yours,” he said. “Enjoy.”

“What do you mean?” She set her backpack on the bed near the window.

“I told you I’d stay in the van.”

Bear looked around the room. “It’s okay,” she said. “There are two beds.”

“No,” he said. It was trouble he didn’t need, even if there was no trouble. She looked hurt. “Tell you what — I saw a burger place next door. Let me borrow the shower, get cleaned up, then I’ll go get us something to eat and bring it back.” After he said it, he thought again about his cash flow. What the hell. Does it matter? He wasn’t tired now, maybe because he was not driving, or because he was in a place he’d never been. But he knew it wouldn’t last. He’d never felt so old yet so alive. He woke even more after he showered and changed. Then he bought greasy burgers and fries and soft drinks, and they ate in the room like the hungry travelers they were. After they ate, they both got a boost of energy, and at the same time an ease settled over them, and, maybe because they had been together awhile, they saw that they were both different and alike.

Bear surprised him. “Why you goin’ west?”

“Could ask you the same thing.”

She shook her head. “I asked first. None of my business though.” They sat in silence, then Bear lay on the bed by the window and Sam took a chair in the corner. He didn’t want to lie down because he wouldn’t want to get up again, and he was determined to sleep in the van.

“My name is Samuel,” he said quietly. “But Old Man is fine. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t think either one is my true name. I done a lot of this and that, mostly regrettable, but I always thought there was something maybe out of sight, just over the horizon. West.”

Bear nodded. “Something west,” she said.

“Exactly.” Somehow, he knew she understood. He tapped a cigarette from its pack and lit it with a match. It was a NO SMOKING room.

“They’ll charge a cleaning fee,” Bear said.

“Charge all they want. Didn’t give them a card.” Sam was feeling good from the meal and wanted to talk more and it surprised him. “So,” he continued, “I guess I reached the Ecclesiastes period. You know — from the Bible? All that ‘everything is meaningless’ stuff. In a way. Depends on how you look at it, you know?”

Bear nodded. She was young and didn’t know, but she would know later.

“Anyway, there was the drinking thing and the relationships thing and the disappointment thing and the old thing, and then comes the Ecclesiastes thing and I’d had enough, especially enough of her. I quit drinking and she didn’t, or couldn’t. Things look different when you get sober.” Sam dropped his cigarette onto the ice in his cup. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’ve never been an old White man.”

Bear was silent a minute, then said, “You’ve never been a big Black girl.”

This struck them both as funny and they started to laugh. Each time they caught each other’s eye they laughed harder until Sam started to cough like his lungs were on fire and they had to rest from their laughing.

Outside, the colorful bus drove by the motel and slowed.

“The thing I learned,” Sam continued, “true for me anyway, is that when you’ve loved someone, you’ll always love them in some way, no matter what. That’s just the way it is. Though we like to pretend otherwise.”

Bear remained silent.

They both started when his phone rang. He cursed because he’d forgotten to turn it off. “It’s for you,” he said, handing the phone to Bear, not even looking.

“What? Who?”

Sam lit a cigarette and grinned. “Guess.”

Bear held the phone to her face. “Hello.”

“Who is this?”

“Bear. Who is this?”

“I want to talk to Samuel. Put him on. I know he’s there, dammit!”

Bear held the phone away from her mouth. “Sounds drunk.”

Sam nodded. “That’s her.”

“Goodbye.” Bear ended the call and switched off the phone.

Sam placed both hands on his forehead as though he were tired of thinking, of everything. “Glad you got to meet her.”

“So you still love her?”

“I reckon, but you see, the things you love change … or you change … or they go away … or die. Hell — everything changes.”

Bear’s eyes glistened and she looked away.

Sam stood and grabbed his things. “Okay. Headed for the van. See you in the mornin’, Bear. If you’re still game.”

Bear stood. “Don’t you want to hear my story? My name?”

He paused at the door. “I do, but I’m mighty tired now.”

The girl sighed and the two of them saw each other in the room — the big Black girl and the old White man.

“My name’s Vanessa.”

“Pretty name. Glad to have met you … Vanessa. Sleep tight.” Then he was gone out the door.

 

Old Man — who was Samuel — adjusted the van windows for air but could not sleep, so he smoked another cigarette and started to cough. After a while, he heard the hum of a motor and smelled diesel. When he opened the curtain he saw a brightly painted bus pull beside the van. People on the bus, people he used to know, that he’d almost forgotten, looked at him and waved. The driver smiled and pulled the handle to open the door.

Rhonda — who was and would always be Rhonda, until the day she would run a stop sign — slept the fighting sleep of the drunk on her stained couch, whiskey spilling from her cup, drool pooling on the cushion.

Vanessa — who was Bear — tossed and turned for a moment, and finally slept, feeling safe in the room. It had been a long time since she’d felt safe.

In the morning, she found the keys to the 1962 Chevrolet Greenbrier van on the floor inside the motel room door. The keys sat atop a stack of twenties and fifties. The money sat atop a scribbled note that said: Vanessa Bear, your story’s not written yet — not all of it. I hope to hear it one day. Go west. And I think you’d make a great daughter. —Old Man Samuel

Bear did go west and never saw Old Man again, though as she grew older and the years mapped her face, she would see a colorful and odd-looking bus now and then. It would get her attention, then disappear around a corner so that she could never quite catch up to it. She never forgot Old Man and his kindness. Sometimes, in the lonely of the night, she liked to think of him as her father … which was the way she’d wanted it to be … and that was just the way it was.

This article is featured in the January/February 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.