Don't Think About Philadelphia

We had a corner of the sacramento buss station. There was some kind of pipe benieth the floor which kept it warm. I had met her in Oakland, she smelled like a greyhound and her face was swollen. She told me she was twenty one, but I guessed much younger. I was counting my fortune of quarters and she was eating a packet of saltines out of an old wendies bag. I brought her a bowl of chillli and we sat in silence next to each other on the buss out of town.
“Well plow the fucking road, mother fuckers. Ever heard of a fucking plow? Fuckers... I gatta get the fuck up out of here,” a man yelled at a buss station employee. I had brought with me a bottle of tylonol pm, and we had each taken three, but were still staring forward, leaning on a wall. It was nearing dawn.
A woman who looked as if she weighed less than her child was having an animated conversation with a bemused Mexican. The child fell off the bench, and started to cry. In one odd gesture she picked it up and resumed her diatribe. The child continued to cry.
She readjusted her position next to me. “My but’s asleep,” she leaned her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I looked at her and woundered how she would age. “Stop staring at me,” she said with her eyes still closed. I tried to reach my coat to put it over her, but the strain of reaching made me shiver, and when extended my hands shook too much to grasp. The child continued to cry.
“Am I bothering you?”
“No, you’re fine,” her head on my shoulder was the first good feeling I’d had since Philadelphia. And although Philadelphia was a long ways off, there were bad feelings everywhere.
“Are you sleepy?” she asked with her eyes still closed. She liked her lips.
“No. A bit neausus.”
“Why can’t I sleep?” Her mouth dropped open when she she stopped speaking.
“What are you thinking about?”
She chewed nothing before she spoke, “Seattle. What are you thinking about?”
“Philadelphia.”
“There’s your problem,” she licked her lips. A strand of her red died hair fell on her nose. “Think about Boise.”
“Can I think about Boston?”
“No.” She wrinkled her nose. “Is that a bug on my face?” She asked with her eyes still closed.
“No. It’s your hair.”
“Same thing. Will you move it?”
“Your face?” I said.
“My hair.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” Her face had a questioning look, despite her eyes still being closed.
“My hands shake too much.”
“You need a drink,” she diagnosed.
I put my hand up to her face. I grasped part of the llock of hair, but my hand started shaking and the effect was to tickle her nose with hair. “Sorry.”
“I hate the feeling of not quite sneezing.”
“Sorry.” She was quiet for a moment. She had young hands with cheap jewelry on. She had chewed a hole in the sleve of her hoody through wich she stuck her thumb. She moved her hand slightly like a sleeping animal. Shhe bit her lower lip a little. Her eyes jolted open.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I just remembered somthing,” strange green eyes.
“There’s your problem,” I said. She settled back on my shoulder and closed her eyes. Some time in the late afternoon we finaly left the bus station.