john porter and mary williams moved around a lot in their jobs.
their child, joey porter, constantly found himself going to new schools, and he was a person nobody seemed to notice or want to talk to.
when the family moved to middleville he went to school for almost three weeks before anybody except a teacher or school administrator spoke to him.
and then it was only to say things like “excuse me” or “watch where you’re going” or “get out of my way.”
even the police persons and security guards who roamed the school corridors took no notice of him.
one day, after two months at the school, joey was sitting alone in the cafeteria eating his lunch of a tomato and cheese sandwich and potato chips, when a girl sat down beside him.
joey’s first thought was that she was sitting there because there was nowhere else to sit, but looking around he saw there were many other empty spaces, even a couple of completely empty tables.
“excuse me,” the girl said.
joey turned to look at her. she was an ordinary looking girl, white, with brown eyes and short brown hair. he recognized her as a group of about twelve kids who hung out together, with two girls for every boy.
“we were talking about you,” the girl said to joey. “we decided you were the person in the school most likely to kill themselves, the one most likely to be a serial killer, and the one most likely to start a new religion.”
“thank you for sharing,” joey answered. it was his standard answer whenever he did not know what to say, which was most of the time.
the girl got up. “there was a fourth thing,” she said. “but i can’t remember what it was.”
she walked away. he never spoke to her again while he was at the school, but he did find out her name, which was josephine harris.
the human brain is a mysterious organism, constantly pulsing with strange rhythms emanating from no one knows where.
joey thought he “forgot” about josephime harris, but of course no one ever really “forgets” anything.
years later joey got a job as a bus driver. one of his regular routes was between syracuse new york and kansas city missouri.
one night he was driving his bus back to syracuse from kansas city and was passing through west virginia.
there were only five people on the bus. none of them were traveling togteher. it was about three o’clock in the morning and all five seemed to be asleep.
suddenly a woman seated right in the center of the bus woke up. she checked something on her phone and then rushed up to the front.
please, let me off here, she asked joey. the bus seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, with no buildings in sight.
i am sorry, ma’am, joey replied, but i can only let you off at a designated stop, or within fifty yards of it.
please, let me off, she begged him.
there is a stop about ten miles away, joey told her. it is not a regular stop and will be closed for the night but i can leave you there if you request it.
the woman sighed. all right, she said, if that is the best you can do. she went back and got her suitcase from the overhead rack and sat down in the seat directly behind joey.
they reached the dark little stop and joey let the woman off. at no point had she looked joey directly in the face.
as she got off the bus, joey suddenly thought she looked familiar.
it was josephine harris!
or was it?
joey could never be sure. he wondered about it sometimes, but after seven or eight years he forgot about her, and six years after that he was sitting in the diner next to the station in indianapolis, drinking a cup of black coffee when he had a seizure and fell across the table in the booth, dead.
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