He listened respectfully at first, filled with compassion, tears forming in his eyes as she narrated having been abandoned as an infant, left in a dumpster high in the Sierra-Nevadas, rescued by dumpster-diving circus riders who put her, untethered, on the back of a jumping stallion every night till she was sixteen. Years later, escaping one night off the coast of San Diego she waded into the ocean, hoping to end it all, only to be netted by Tijuana shrimp fishermen who forced her to peel shrimp for years in a rickety boat, the best life she's ever known, before falling overboard in a hurricane and washing ashore in San Francisco at the precise moment an 7.4 earthquake hit. How she got to the Greyhound station in Sparks she was still unclear, and could he spare a hundred bucks to help her find her rightful family, whom, she believed, might at this moment be remorsefully searching for her on the outskirts of Death Valley. By now dry-eyed and stone-hearted, he reached into his wallet for a five, which he slipped into the outer pocket of her spangled handbag and, not looking back, hopped quickly onto his bus while she prattled on with her Tale of Whoa!
by Monkey's Dad July 6, 2021