Short Story | Jesse Pesta

Riding home on the school bus, the twins are having a fight about which is better, John Deeres or Massey Fergusons.

I shouldn’t even be on the bus but I missed my stop. The driver says he’ll drop me off on the way back, but first he has to finish the route.

The twins are punching each other and saying “fuck you” about tractors. The bus slowly empties out.

I live back near town. By missing that stop I gave the twins an opening. They’re just waiting for the right moment.

We stop at Trisha’s trailer. “Bye!” she says, and hops off. The bus pulls away with a roar, kicking up a cloud of gravel dust that soon enough will settle back down on her sunbaked trailer and the cornfield next door. I look back and see her trying to cover her mouth with her Trapper Keeper.

The twin with the scar over his eye has let go of his brother. Now he’s putting a dip of Skoal in his mouth.

“Hey,” he says to me. “Which is better?”

The bus bounces along the edge of the one lane road to make room for a truck passing the other way. Someone’s books hit the floor.

“Massey Fergusons,” I say.

“You don’t know for shit,” he says.

Then I let him have it. “John Deeres are for pussies,” I say.

This isn’t what the twins expected, they didn’t figure on anyone fighting back. I’m liking that feeling. I look the twin with the scar straight in the eye.

“Boys.” Says the driver. “Watch your mouth.”

We turn to the front of the bus. The driver’s got a big long mirror fixed to his visor with baling wire, so he’s been watching the fight. His oily hair is flying around in the hot, dry wind. He’s smiling, which I figure is a vote for me.

But the twins figure the driver’s smile is saying something else. It’s saying that fights on the bus are okay just as long as you don’t cuss.

“How do you know, does your daddy have a John Deere?” the quiet twin asks me. The twin with the scar laughs at that, and gets up out of his seat, motioning for his brother to follow him.

The twins are heading down the aisle toward me. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? There are two of them and only one of me, and they dip Skoal.

In the front of the bus, Jo Linda laughs with nervous excitement.

The bus is loud — the engine, the gravel, the wind. And maybe the driver’s been watching the fight instead of watching the road, because all at once he realizes he’s taking the corner a little too fast. He hits the brakes hard and swings the wheel. The bus violently seesaws left then right.

The quiet twin loses his balance and grabs his brother’s shirt, pulling him to the floor.

Jo Linda shouts, “Kevin!” — that's the quiet twin’s name.

The bus wobbles back to the middle of the road, and the twin with the scar pulls himself up off of the floor, but something’s wrong. He looks worried. He touches his lip with his fingers. He seems a little green in the face.

Suddenly, everyone realizes what happened. He swallowed the Skoal.

“You swallowed your Skoal!” I shout. “He swallowed his Skoal!”

Swallowing your Skoal means just one thing. It means pretty soon you’re going to barf. This fight is over.

The twin with the scar turns to his brother and says, “You’re an asshole” and throws a weak punch.

The quiet twin dodges the punch and says, “No, you're an asshole.” But his heart isn’t really in it anymore. He’s looking at Jo Linda.