Abe's Misadventures 4
Transition Memories
Abe sat on the end of his bunk, mind too busy to sleep. He regretted lying to Derrick about why he enlisted, using something he came up with after the fact, after arguments with his father, after all the noise stopped and he was alone with his thoughts.
His old counselor would say he didn’t truly regret lying and was simply tossing it on the pile of things to self-rationalize away instead of dealing with things head on. He shut down those memories and let others fill his mind.
He remembered staring out the window as the bus pulled out and headed for the freeway. He watched his hometown fall away, passing places he knew well. He should have felt victorious or nostalgic or melancholy, but nothing touched his feelings buried deep under the disbelief he was on his way.
He thought on the life he was leaving, heavy chains dragging behind him, guilt, regret, unfinished things. Parting with the locale was easy, parting with the past difficult. His father would continue ranching, taking over Abe’s chores with the sheep, leaving more of the alfalfa farming work to his brother Ken. His mother would continue working at the university one town over where his brother studied and Abe didn’t have even a slim chance at being accepted. The plasma of life would ooze down to adjust and fill in the void he left.
It all hardly mattered. Every relationship was distant, even when he was present. He was a loner for whom loneliness became the norm, a non-issue. Abe was an outlier, a recluse in the middle of a crowd. He was weird, awkward, misunderstood, uncomfortable with people. But people took his lack of social engagement as frosty. “He thinks he’s too cool to hang out with everyone,” they would say among themselves. They read supreme confidence, even narcissism, into his solitary behavior. The way he walked was called a swagger. The way he blew off coaches' admonishments to cut his hair, sheer moxie. It was all false. He was an untethered raft on choppy seas.
It started at home. Abe was the genetic exception in the Dykstra family. He did not inherit the brunette hair, hazel eyes or ruddy skin that grew duskier even in indirect sunlight. Abe was fair haired, with hard, dark blue eyes, and a pale complexion. His DNA fashioned from a few long past ancestors. He never attained his father's height or heavy muscular build, being average in all respects. He did not inherit his mother's intellect or talent with numbers, again average in every consideration. He could pass as a Dutch boy from Friesland centuries before, missing the influence of darker complected and heavier built members of his lineage. An albinal runt.
His thoughts were cut short as the bus arrived at the terminal. The passengers scattered off in all directions, insects fleeing the light. Abe began scanning signs for a reference that matched the ticket he carried. Fortunately, the terminal was small enough to navigate easily. He boarded the city bus as soon as he found it. The driver commented that it would be a while before they departed, and Abe shrugged it off. He didn’t want to go into the terminal’s lobby.
Abe rode to the end of the bus route, never seeing his stop, other passengers deboarding until he was the last one left. He knew he would screw this up but not so soon.
The driver did not fail to notice.
“Where’re you headed?” the driver asked.
“The MEPS building,” Abe replied.
“OK, I gotta take my lunchbreak now, but I’ll let you know the stop on the way back.”
“Thank you,” Abe replied, relieved.
The driver finished his lunch, fired up the bus, and pulled a slow, wide U-turn. The stop wasn’t far. The driver pointed out the building and wished Abe luck.
Then the real fun began.