Drop City

real lucky and real smart on a straight-up trade for a slightly dented, almost-like-new 1970 VW van, if you know what I mean.”
    Alfredo was standing there in the rain now too, and Reba beside him; Star came up and slipped an arm round Marco's waist. They were all grinning, even as Premstar ascended the back steps and Norm slouched on by them, his shoulders slumped and his head dropped down between them like a bowling ball. “But I don't want to shut it off, that's the thing,” he said, “because it was a real hassle getting it started--the cat that sold it to me said it was a little quirky, especially on cold mornings.”
    “Cold mornings?” Alfredo said. “This is the _afternoon,__ and if it's anything less than maybe sixty-five out right now, then we need a new weatherman.”
    “Yeah, well, this is a good machine, heavy duty, no more than like a hundred twenty thousand miles on it and it could go three times that, easy, so what I'm saying is I haven't slept in two days and I've done my part, more than done my part, and I think somebody--like Bill, for instance--should be looking to the tune-up or whatever, and the rest of you people should be loading your shit aboard, because time and the river and the county board of supervisors wait for no man.” He mounted the back steps and put an arm round Premstar. “Or chick, for that matter. But I've had it, I'm wiped, and somebody's going to have to build a rack or something all around the roof, for storage, and we're going to need rope and bungee cords and like that. And food, I mean, bins of just the basic stuff, dried beans and flour and whatnot, from the coop down in Guerneville.”
    He paused, patted down his overalls and dug a money clip from the inside pocket. “Here,” he said, peeling off a hundred-dollar bill and holding it out over the steps so that the rain darkened it till it was like a piece of wet cardboard, like play money, “you take it, Reba, okay? For food?” And then he pulled open the screen door and edged his way in, Premstar tucked neatly under one arm.
    The next five days were gypsy days, that's what Marco and Star were calling them, their little joke, no time for sweet wine or beer or dope or meditating with your back up against the big yellow knuckle of rock in the middle of the field, no time for sleep even--the caravan was moving on, fold up your tents, untether the goats and snatch the legs right out from under the chickens. If anyone had entertained any doubts about Norm Sender's seriousness of purpose, the bus erased them. There it was, massive and incontrovertible, dominating the mud-slick yard like some dream of mechanical ascendancy, and all day, every day, from dawn till the last declining stretched-out hours, people were swarming all over it with tools, bedding, food, records, supplies.
    The previous owner--one of Norm's old high school buddies who'd evolved into a ponytailed psychologist in Mill Valley--had installed a potbellied stove, an unfinished counter and sink, and eight fold-down slabs of plywood that served as bunks. He'd had a dream, the psychologist, of outfitting the thing as a camper so he could take some of his patients from the state mental hospital on overnight outings, but the dream had never been realized for the reason that so many dreams have to die: lack of funds. He'd left the first half dozen rows of seats intact, and they'd each seat three adults abreast and sleep at least one, and all the way in the back, across from the stove, there was a crude plywood compartment with a stainless steel toilet in it. According to Premstar, who gave up the information in a sidelong whisper when Norm was out of earshot, the psychologist had got the bus cheap after a collision with a heating oil truck in which three kindergartners had been burned to death. The accident had left the frame knocked out of alignment, though the psychologist had tried to set it right with the help of another old high school buddy who owned a welding shop, and that was something they were just going to have to live with--the thing always felt as if it were veering sideways when it was bearing straight down the middle of the road. And no matter what anybody did by way of sprays and lacquers and air fresheners, a smell of incinerated vinyl--and maybe worse--haunted the interior.
    When Jiminy saw the bus that first night, even as the rain was folding itself back into the mist and a derelict moon crept up over the trees, he drifted barefoot