The Blue-Haired Boy by Courtney C. Stevens Page A

tug at one of the loose threads in the fraying knee of my jeans. “Nope.”
    “Right. Well, you should figure it out if you enlist. Boot camp and deployment are lonely without letters. Especially without ones from pretty girls.”
    Life is lonely, man. “Thanks,” I say, trying to will him away from my bench.
    He doesn’t go. I sit in awkward silence while he continues to lean toward me, clasping his hands together every couple of seconds. I crack my knuckles and then grip the Clip-N-Save plastic sack with my lunch. If he won’t go, I guess I will.
    “Nice talking to you, Lieutenant.”
    He opens one of his Velcro pockets and hands me his card with four million social network ways to reach him. “Come back and see me when you finish school.”
    “I will,” I say, even though I know I won’t.
    It’s time to change benches.

Chapter 2
    LUCKY for me there are two other benches in town: one at the bus station and one by the river. Of course, there are a ton of benches, but these plus the one at the Clip-N-Save are the ones I call mine. Last night was awful, so I knew this would be a two-bench day even before the lieutenant interrupted my peace and quiet. Since it’s the closest, I walk to the bus station.
    The station is old and smells like dirty pavement and people who haven’t showered. And Cheetos. Bus Station Odor is not exactly a scent to bottle and sell, but I like it. Hope smells bad and good at the same time. I take another whiff: cigarette smoke. A bus must be unloading. Yep, one en route to Panama City, Florida.
    I run my hand over the worn wood before I sit down and flick away a pile of crumbs. This bench is against the side wallof the station, so I can lean back and watch the buses unload and reload. I say reload because the passengers get off and then get back on after a smoke and a vending machine run. Passengers don’t stay in Rickman.
    I’ve thought about buying a ticket fifty-seven times—I actually counted—because that’s how many times I’ve watched a bus pull away since I turned fifteen more than a year ago. According to the rule, you have to be fifteen to travel alone.
    There’s a bus leaving in twenty minutes. I’d still have time to buy a ticket, but I don’t move.
    Thirty smokers and bathroom-goers mill around me. And I pretend I am one of them.
    “You got a light?” someone asks.
    I’ve been asked this at least once before each of those fifty-seven buses pulled away. Which is why I bought a new lighter at the Clip-N-Save this morning.
    “Sure,” I say. Then I flick my Bic like an expert and inhale with the man who has trenches on his face instead of wrinkles, and a shirt so thin I can see the hair on his chest through the fabric.
    “Thanks,” he says. “Too long between smokes.”
    I don’t ask how long, but I smile at him. Which is clearly not something he’s used to, because he pats down his pockets and squints hard at me.
    “Where you headin’?” the man asks.
    “Nowhere,” I say.
    “That’s the only place this bus goes, boy,” he says, anddrifts away toward the vending machine.
    Here, I’m always boy . If it’s late at night, a grandmother-like lady will say, “Boy, does your mother know where you are?” Or if I hand some guy a quarter for the Coke machine, he’ll say, “Boy, I really appreciate that.” I like it. Boy isn’t said with the same snarl my dad uses. We boys aren’t cowards for staying with mothers who won’t leave their fathers.
    If they start calling me man , I’m in trouble.
    Of the benches, this one’s my favorite. Because no one joins the army anymore, at least not while I’m watching. (Except Ben.) And no one drags a raft and a sack down to the Cumberland to float away. God, I’d love to see some runaways pull off a decent Huck and Jim. Freakin’ heroes. But people do get on buses going to nowhere.
    And I envy the hell out of them.
    I light three more cigarettes and give my lighter away to a construction worker in need of it