The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories (7 page)

I
n Hell, they put me in a cauldron of boiling water. My flesh smoldered and burned, my skin was covered with blisters, and the pain was so bad I couldn't stop screaming. They had these giant screens where you could see everything that was going on in Heaven. Suffer and eat your heart out, watch the screen and suffer. I think I spotted him there for a second, playing golf or cricket or something. There was a kind of close-up of his smile, and right after that they showed this couple making love.

Once, after we'd made love, my wife said: “Seven years you've been with them, slaving for them, bringing work home every weekend, and now, when push comes to shove, they won't give you a promotion. And you know why? Because you don't know how to sell yourself, that's why. Take
Katzenstein for example.” I took Katzenstein for example. My whole life I'd been taking Katzenstein for example. I wanted to take a shower, but there was no hot water. The water heater was broken. Took a cold shower instead. I bet Katzenstein has a solar heater.

In high school, I couldn't get into honors class. To my mother, it was a really big deal. She cried her eyes out, and said I'd never amount to anything. I tried to tell here how tough it was to get in, that only ten percent made it, only the really smart kids. “I met Miriam Katzenstein at the grocery store today,” Mom sighed. “Her son got in. Is Miriam Katzenstein's son smarter than mine? Not on your life! He just tries harder. And you—it's as if you're trying to spite me. Driving me to an early grave.”

Wherever I went he was always there for them to compare me to. In class, on the block, in the yard, at work, everywhere. Katzenstein, Katzenstein, Katzenstein, Katzenstein. It's not that he was a prodigy or anything. An average guy, no genius, no great shakes at athletics and not very sharp either. Just like me, only a tiny bit better. A tiny bit here and a tiny bit there and another tiny bit . . . Hell.

It was my own idea to quit my job. It cost me plenty of fights with my wife, but eventually she resigned herself to it. We moved to a different city, far away, and I started working as an insurance salesman. Did pretty well. Didn't see him for about seven years. Things were going my way. My son was born. My grandfather in Switzerland died, and left me a lot of property. On the flight back from Basel I saw him sitting there, in first class. By the time I spotted him, it
was too late. The plane was taxiing down the runway, and I knew I was in for five very long hours. Next to me was this rabbi, who didn't stop yapping, but I didn't hear a word. For five hours straight, my eyes were glued to the back of Katzenstein's head. “Take a good look at the empty life you lead. You're a shell of a man. No values.” The rabbi was holding a mirror up to my sins, sprinkling his sermon with sacred verses. I had some orange juice. Katzenstein ordered a Jack Daniel's. “For example, take . . .” the rabbi said. No thanks. I sprang up and made a dash for the rear of the plane. The flight attendant asked me to return to my seat. I wouldn't.

“We're about to land, sir. I insist you return to your seat and fasten your seatbelt, like . . .” True, she went on to say “like all the other passengers,” but what I saw in her eyes was Katzenstein. I pushed down on the lever and forced the door open with my shoulder. I was perfectly calm as I was sucked out, leaving all hell behind me.

Suicide is still considered a dreadful sin in the Afterlife. I begged them to try and understand, but they wouldn't listen. As they were dragging me to Hell, there was Katzenstein. Him and the other passengers, waving at me through the window of the tour bus that was taking them to Heaven. The plane had crashed as it hit the ground, about fifteen minutes after I'd bailed out. A rare malfunction. One in a million. If only I'd stuck it out in my seat another few seconds, like all the other passengers. Like
Katzenstein.

O
n Tuesday, Alon Shemesh didn't show up at school, and when the teacher, Miss Nava, handed out the stencils, she gave Jakie two of them, because he's Alon Shemesh's best friend, and their families know each other, and they go on picnics together on the weekend and everything, so it made the most sense for Jakie to bring Alon his homework. “And, Jacob, don't forget to wish Alon a speedy recovery from the entire class,” she announced. Jakie, who's a regular con artist, went like “Piss off, you bitch,” with his head, but the teacher thought it was just a nod.

Wednesday morning, Jakie didn't show up at school either. “He must have caught it,” wheezed Aviva Krantenstein the crammer. Meyer Subban wasn't buying: “No way. I bet
they're both playing hooky, together with their families,” he said. “They're all having a cookout on the beach.” “Quiet, children,” Miss Nava squeaked. “Do we have any volunteers to bring the homework to the children who are home sick?” “I'll take it to Alon,” Yuval volunteered. “We live on the same block.” “And I'll take it to Jacob,” Dikla snapped before anyone else got a chance. Everyone knows she has the hots for Jakie. “And I'll take it to Jacob,” Meyer Subban mimicked, and everybody laughed. “Wanting to help a sick friend is nothing to make fun of. I will call the children who are not well myself, to see how they are.” “Wanting to help, my foot. She's itching to get laid, that one,” Gafni said in a really loud whisper, and was out on his ass.

The next day, Yuval and Dikla didn't show up either. “I don't know about the others,” Subban said, “but Yuval stayed home because of the geography test. I'll bet you anything.” “Maybe they came down with typhoid fever. It says in the Reader that the pioneers had it a lot . . .” Aviva Krantenstein was at it again, but Gafni threatened to burn every notebook she owned, so she shut her trap. “I tried calling the homes of the children who are absent, but there was no answer,” Miss Nava said. “I have no choice but to pay them a visit. And meanwhile, I forbid you to visit the absentees until I make certain that they are not contagious.”

After school, the whole class met by the mulberry tree at King David Park. “Who does she think she is, telling us we can't visit our own friends?” Meyer Subban yelled. “Thinks she's hot shit.” Gafni was getting worked up too. “We'll show her! We're all going to visit Jakie today. And no
excuses, Krantenstein. So help me, if I don't see you there, I'm going to swallow every fucking Magic Marker you've got.”

I couldn't go in the end. My mother left me a note saying the repairman was coming to fix the fridge, and that she'd be late, so I had to stay home, which really pissed me off. I knew Gafni would believe me, but some of the others would say I was chicken.

Friday, just me and Michel de Casablanca showed up at school. Not even the teacher came. Michel de Casablanca said nobody told him yesterday about the meeting at King David Park, so he just went home. We put the wastepaper basket on the desk, and shot spitballs all morning.

It's been a week, and Michel and me are really cool now. He's been teaching me all kinds of games with funny French names, and we're having a swell time. Mom says it's outrageous, what's going on at school, and she wants to get the parents together, there's no answer at anyone's house but except at Michel's place, and she can't get hold of the principal either. His secretary says he called three days ago to tell her he'd be a little late because he was stopping to visit Miss Nava, and he hasn't been heard from since. Mom is taking the whole thing very hard. Keeps chain-smoking and writing letters to the Ministry of Education. “Don't worry, Ms. Abadda,” Michel keeps trying to reassure her. “They probably all went for a cookout on the beach.” He may be right, I don't know anymore. Or maybe Aviva Krantenstein knew what she was talking about, and they really did all die of typhoid
fever.

O
n my last flight home from New York a flight attendant fell in love with me. I know what you're thinking—that I'm a show-off or a liar or both. That I think I'm some kind of a hunk or at least that I want you to think so. But I don't. And she really did fall in love with me. It began right after takeoff, when the drinks were being served. When I said I didn't want anything, and she insisted on pouring me some tomato juice.

Truth is, I was getting suspicious even before that, during the emergency drill before takeoff, when she didn't take her eyes off me, as if the whole thing was just for me.

And if that wasn't enough, she brought me another roll after dinner, as soon as I'd finished eating. “There was only one left,” she told the little girl sitting next to me, who
was giving the roll a hungry look, “and the gentleman asked for it first.” But I hadn't. To cut a long story short, she had the hots for me. The little girl had noticed it too. “She's got it bad for you,” she said when her mother or whoever she was went to the toilet.

“Go for it, go for it right now. Give it to her right here on the plane, with her leaning on the duty-free cart just like Sylvia Kristel in
Emmanuelle
. Go ahead, screw her, brother, bang the hell out of her, for my sake too.” It surprised me a little, that kind of talk coming from a little girl. She seemed like this well-behaved, barely-ten-year-old blond little thing, and suddenly all this
bang her
and
Emmanuelle
stuff. It was embarrassing, so I tried to change the subject.

“First time you're going abroad, sweetie?” I asked. “Mommy taking you on a trip?”

“She's not my mother,” she spat back. “And I'm not a little girl. I'm a dwarf in disguise, and she's my operator. And keep this under your hat, but the only reason I'm wearing this getup is because I'm walking around with five pounds of heroin stuck up my ass.” After that, the mother came back, and the little girl started acting normal again, except whenever the flight attendant passed by with cups of water and peanuts and the things that flight attendants bring, and smiling, mostly at me.

That's when the little girl would wake up and make these really vulgar screwing gestures. After a while, she got up to go to the toilet, and her mother, who was in the aisle seat, gave me a tired smile. “She probably drove you bonkers while I was gone.” She shook her head sadly. “I guess
she told you I'm not really her mother, and that she used to be a marine commander, and stuff like that.” I shook my head, but she went on. You could tell she was carrying the whole world on her shoulders, and that she was dying to share it with somebody.

“Ever since her father died, she's been trying to punish me,” she began. “As if I was to blame for his death.” By now she was really crying. “It's not your fault, ma'am,” I said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Nobody thinks you're to blame.” “And how they do!” she snapped, pushing my hand away. “I know they do, but the fact is that I was acquitted in a court of law, so don't you patronize me. Who knows what you've got to hide!”

The little girl was coming back. She glared at her mother to shut her up. Then she gave me a softer look. I was huddled in my seat by the window, trying to remember what awful things were lurking in my past, when I felt a small, sweaty hand pushing a crumpled piece of paper into my hand. “My love,” it said. “Please meet me in the kitchenette.” It was signed:
The flight attendant
in large, childish block letters.

The little girl winked at me. I stayed put. Every few minutes, she'd elbow me, till finally I'd had enough. So I got out of my seat, and pretended to be heading for the kitchenette. I was going to walk toward the tail, count to a hundred, and head back. I hoped maybe by then the little pest would lay off. There was less than an hour left to the flight. God knows I was dying to get home. Near the toilet, I heard someone calling me in a soft voice. It was the flight attendant.

“Good thing you came right away,” she said, kissing me on the mouth. “I was afraid that creepy kid wouldn't give you the note.” I tried to say something, but she was kissing me again. Then she pulled away. “There's no time to lose,” she panted. “The plane's about to crash any minute now. I've got to save you.”

“Crash?” I jumped. “But why? What's wrong?” “Nothing's wrong,” Shelley said, shaking her head. I could tell her name was Shelley, because that's what her tag said.

“We're going to crash on purpose.” “Who's we?” I asked. “The flight crew,” she said, without batting an eye. “It's an order from the top. Once every year or two we crash a plane in mid-ocean, as gently as possible, and a child or two may get killed, so people start taking the whole flight safety business more seriously. You know, so they'll pay attention when we give those demonstrations of emergency procedures and all that.” “But why this plane?” I asked. She shrugged. “Dunno. It's an order from the top. Probably they caught on that things were getting a little sloppy lately.”

“But . . .” I tried. “Where are the emergency exits?” she fired at me without letting me finish the sentence. To be honest, I couldn't remember. “You see.” She nodded her head. “People are too complacent. Don't worry, my love. Most of them will survive, but with you, I just couldn't risk it.” Then she bent over and handed me this plastic backpack, like a kid's school bag. “What's this?” I asked. “A parachute.” She kissed me again. “At the count of three, I'll open the door. That's when you jump. Actually, you won't even need to jump, you'll be sucked out.”

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really want to. Jumping out of airplanes in the middle of the night just isn't my thing. Shelley thought I was worried about her, afraid of getting her in trouble. “Don't worry,” she said, “if you don't tell anyone, no one will ever find out. You can always tell them you swam your way to Greece.”

I don't really remember anything about the jump, only the waters below, cold as a polar bear's ass. I tried to swim a little, but then I realized I could stand. So I started wading toward the lights. My head was throbbing, and the fishermen on shore were getting on my nerves, making out like I'd been in deep trouble and they'd saved me, just so I'd give them a few bucks—carried me on their backs, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the works. But when they tried a body rub, I really lost it, and slapped one of them.

I'd obviously hurt their feelings, and they left. Next, I checked into the Holiday Inn, but I couldn't fall asleep, on account of the jetlag, I guess, so I watched cable. On CNN they were showing the rescue operation live, which was kind of exciting. I recognized lots of people from the line to the toilet. They were being scooped into lifeboats, and were all smiling and waving at the cameras. On TV it looked really heartwarming, the whole rescue operation.

It turned out there'd been no casualties except for one little girl, and even she turned out to be a dwarf who'd been wanted by Interpol, so that all in all, things had turned out pretty well. I got out of bed, and walked to the bathroom. From a distance, I could still hear the cheerful
off-key singing of the survivors. And just for a second, from the depths of the bidet in my sad hotel room, I could imagine myself there, with the rest of them, hugging my Shelley on the bottom of the lifeboat, and refusing to wave at the cameras.