Ken Derry

Is Your Daddy A Good Man?

 

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The woman was sitting in the bus station lobby, waiting for the arrival of her husband, looking anxious. She used the occasion to wear her favorite spring dress, the white one with the pink and blue flowers. The wooden bench wobbled under her shifting posture, the uneven leg tapping the floor dully in a metronome not imperceptible to the man behind the ticket window and the man on the stool at the register of the newspaper stand. Also not imperceptible was the frenetic wanderings of her son, his rubber soles squeaking quickly over the tile, from the water fountain to the lobby window facing the street to the newsstand where he planted longer than elsewhere and absorbed the painted and wanton expressions of the female form glossy on the covers of magazines, tickling his imagination in ways he could not comprehend.

 

The woman sat with her hands in her lap, and she occupied the first bench, front and center, visible once the passengers disembarked from Gate 5. To her left was the old-fashioned information board where the numbers and letters of arrivals and departures flipped and fluttered into satisfying alignment. To her right was a television monitor displaying the same information.

 

Any minute now, she thought. Any minute.

 

The gold morning light slanted through steel beams along the ceiling, the light catching and sparkling motes suspended in the air, further proof for the woman that time was standing still. 

 

An older man sat on the other end of the bench, which ceased rocking once he settled. He wore an ordinary dark suit, an ordinary tie, ordinary shoes.

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A waiting room full of empty benches, she thought. And he has to sit here.

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“Fine day,” the man said.

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The woman nodding once and smiling at him without showing her teeth.

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“Waiting for a bus?”

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She tilted her head. The man cleared his throat.

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“What I mean is, are you waiting for a bus to bring you someone or are you waiting for a bus to whisk you away? But now that I’ve studied you, I see you’ve no baggage. You must be waiting for someone.”

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“I got baggage,” she said, to which the man let out a guffaw that reached the rafters.

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“That’s good,” he said, settling back into the bench. “A joke. Very good.”

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At the man’s feet was a leather brief case. A business man in a business suit, a commuter, she thought, a salesman, but she decided not to raise the issue. Could be he’s homeless and cleans up here.

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“Your husband, then,” he said.

 

Just then the boy came charging over. He grabbed his mother by the back of the arm and swung around in front of her, but of course this almost pulled her off the bench. Before she could admonish the boy about indoor voices and behavior in public, the man said, 

 

“Well, hello there, young man.”

 

“Hi,” the boy said.

 

The woman took the boy in her arms and pulled him close. He propped his hands on her thigh.

 

“Is this your son?” the man asked.

 

No, she thought. I take other people’s children to the bus terminal. “Yes.”

 

“He’s very handsome.”

 

The boy raised his index finger and began twirling his mother’s hair.

 

“Tell me, young man, who are you here to see this morning?”

 

“My dad is coming home.”

 

The woman snapped her head and shushed the boy. “What did I say,” she said.

 

He pulled his hand back to his chest as if he might have been burned. 

 

“Oh, it’s quite all right, young lady. I’m just making small talk. And where is your father coming from? A business trip?”

 

“Jail.”

 

“What did I say?” his mother snapped. “Please, sir, excuse us.”

 

She took the boy by the fabric of his T-shirt and moved to the adjacent bench and noticed that from this vantage point she could no longer see the approach of in-coming buses. She also noticed the old man had slid across the bench and now occupied her former space. 

 

“A prisoner. That’s exciting. But white collar crime, I’m guessing, nothing violent by the looks of you.” 

 

Deep machinery vibrated the foundation of the station, telling the woman a bus was downshifting and entering the vicinity and, perhaps, this bus would pull into Gate 5 and save her from this company. She saw in the corner of her eye that he was leaning across the armrest into the aisle.

 

“Tell me, young man,” the old man said. “Is your daddy a good man?”

 

“Yeah!” the boy shouted before the mother could object. Nevertheless, the woman clamped down on his wrist and pushed the words between her teeth, “Don’t. Talk. To strangers.”

 

“My daddy was a good man, too.” 

 

A shadow bled into the light and swept across the old man’s face then retreated. The bus slowed, the engine straining under the weight of the gears.

 

“Guess how good he was.”

 

“How?”

 

“He was so good that one night while he slept I took an axe and hacked open his chest.”

 

“Hahaha,” the boy cried.

 

The woman turned to the man in disbelief. “Excuse me.”

 

“All the way through the bone and I pulled out his heart with my hand!”

 

A squeal ripped through the doors of the waiting area and echoed in the chamber as the break pads tightened and the bus pulled to a stop.

 

“Then I clubbed his head and it rolled off the pillow and blood gushed all over the walls and pooled on the floor!”

 

“The fuck is wrong with you?”

 

“There he is!”

 

“And then his body rose into the air,” he continued, reaching for the handle of his briefcase and standing. “And exploded! Parts splashed all over me, the room, everywhere!”

 

The woman rose and the boy broke free and ran toward the double glass doors as the passengers pushed through them and the quiet gave way to noise.

 

“Listen to me, you mother—,” but the man was already gone, another body blended among the many.

 

Ken Derry is the former executive editor of publications for the New York Yankees. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and taught at NYU and Gotham Writers Workshop. His nonfiction has appeared in print or online at Sports Illustrated, ESPN and the New York Times; his fiction in The Carolina Quarterly. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and kids. Bienvenue au Danse, Ken.

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