Hilary B. Bisenieks recently hosted me on the podcast Tales from the Trunk, where I narrated a brand new story called "The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round.” Go check out the podcast, which also delves into a number of other subjects including the genre community, the joys of short fiction, and why Randall Kenan is one of my favorite authors.
Many thanks to Hilary for having me on the podcast!
If you also want to read my new story, it’s pasted below.
The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round
by Jason Sanford
All the neighborhood kids except for Jane cheered when the torture bus stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house. After all, her roses were far too red and her white-painted house far too dazzling and she continually asked kids not to short-cut across her lawn of perfectly cut grass.
Jane tried explaining that Mrs. McKinney was nice and didn’t deserve the torture bus. However Binny pushed Jane aside and declared that Mrs. McKinney deserved to be hurt.
“I knocked a baseball in her backyard last week,” Binny said, “and she didn’t return it!
He said this last part as if he’d just revealed the suspect behind a grisly murder.
“Did you ask for the ball back?” Jane muttered. The other kids rolled their eyes.
“Doesn’t matter,” Binny snapped. “It’s my ball. You don’t give it back, that’s stealing.”
Binny wasn’t the biggest kid in neighborhood, but he was the meanest and he knew how to punch. Plus, his parents had been subjected to multiple visits by the torture bus. Binny told anyone who’d listen that he no longer feared punishment for his misdeeds. If his parents could survive the torture bus, so could he.
Jane fell quiet as the other kids glared at her. Those kids were certain they were right. And for them, Mrs. McKinney clearly resided on the evil side of the neighborhood.
They watched as the torture techs opened the back of their yellow bus and wheeled out an iron maiden stretcher and a satchel of scary tools. The techs wore black coveralls embroidered with a grinning cartoon devil holding a red whip. The lead torture tech skipped happily to Mrs. McKinney’s door and rang the bell.
Mrs. McKinney opened the door, her entire body shaking, and let them inside.
Once the door closed the kids ran across the street and stood on her lush green lawn. Jane didn’t want to go but Binny grabbed her arm and dragged her along.
The kids listened as Mrs. McKinney screamed.
Everyone but Jane oohed when Mrs. McKinney shrieked.
Everyone but Jane aahed when Mrs. McKinney cried.
And when Mrs. McKinney begged for mercy, everyone but Jane laughed because they knew begging for mercy did no good.
Jane tried to leave but Binny held tight to her arm. When Jane finally said she had to go home or she’d miss lunch, Binny nodded like a beach ball bobbing in a pool of splashing kids.
“Let’s listen up close,” Binny whispered. “From the bushes. Then I’ll let you go.”
Jane and Binny hid in the bushes beneath Mrs. McKinney’s living room window. Being this close to the house made Jane feel as if Mrs. McKinney’s cries shimmered in rainbow colors. As if Jane saw the screams in reds and whites and blues instead of hearing them.
Sickened, Jane turned to leave but Binny sucker punched her in the stomach. Jane doubled over between the house and shrubs. She gasped, tried to stand, couldn’t. She fell back, still gasping.
“You’ll leave when I say,” Binny said with a snort.
When the torture techs left two hours later, the other kids applauded. The lead tech, a tall man with the name LEROY sewn on his coveralls, waved at the kids before the torture bus drove away.
Only then was Jane allowed to stagger home.
#
That night Jane didn’t sleep well. She dreamed of baseballs bouncing into Mrs. McKinney’s yard, causing the old lady to cry out in pain each time one touched her lawn. Jane woke screaming, as if the torture bus had parked inside her head.
Her mother opened the door to her bedroom. “Bad dream, hon?” Mom asked.
“What did Mrs. McKinney do?” Jane whispered. “To make the torture bus come?”
Mom sat on the edge of Jane’s bed and hugged her. One of those reassuring hugs Mom frequently gave when Jane was young.
Jane was now too old for that and pushed the hug away.
“Seriously, Mom,” she said. “What did Mrs. McKinney do?”
Mom sighed. “How should I know? Maybe it’s all of what we do. The times you’re nasty to some stranger. The moment you gave the finger to another driver. The day you called in sick at work so you could go to the beach. Our sins add up.”
Mom kissed Jane on the forehead and walked back to her own bedroom. But now Jane definitely couldn’t sleep. Were her sins being compiled somewhere? She opened the blinds on her window and looked across the street at Mrs. McKinney’s house. A single light glowed from a second floor window. The silhouette of Mrs. McKinney stood behind the glass as if contemplating the neighborhood.
Jane thought about turning on her own bedroom light. Maybe if she blinked the light Mrs. McKinney would know she wasn’t alone.
But she didn’t. Instead, Jane stood in the dark and watched until Mrs. McKinney’s own light turned off.
Jane lay down again in her bed. But she still couldn’t sleep.
#
The next afternoon Jane sat on her front lawn tossing a baseball into the air and catching it without a glove. Binny and the other kids were at the park playing a pickup game. Even though Jane was the best pitcher in the neighborhood she’d refused to join them. Jane knew if Binny or the others teased her about yesterday she’d lose her temper. Which would cause Binny to beat her up. Or worse, her own anger might make the torture bus arrive.
As Jane sat on the grass forcing herself to think happy non-sinful thoughts, a small white van with no markings on the side stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house. A tall man in a plaid polo shirt stepped out holding a black bag. He walked to the front door and rang the bell.
Jane recognized him as the lead torture tech from yesterday. When Mrs. McKinney opened the door the man walked in without being invited. Mrs. McKinney hesitated before slowly closing the door.
Jane glanced at her own house. Mom wasn’t watching her right now and no one else in the neighborhood had noticed the torture tech. Probably because he wasn’t driving the scary yellow torture bus or wearing his usual black coveralls.
Jane ran across the street and stood in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house, tossing the baseball and catching it as if she had nowhere else to play. She did this for nearly a half-hour before the front door opened and the tech walked out. He thanked Mrs. McKinney, who grinned nervously and said it was her pleasure before gently closing the door.
LEROY was embroidered in small letters over the right pocket of the man’s shirt. As he walked to the van Jane dropped the baseball, which rolled under the vehicle.
“Let me see if I can reach it,” Leroy said, kneeling and looking under the van.
“May I ask a question?” Jane asked.
Leroy stopped reaching for the baseball. “Might be dangerous,” he whispered. “You’ll be on people’s radar. They’ll see you talking with a torture tech.”
“No one’s watching. And you aren’t in uniform.”
“You’d be surprised what people notice, even on discreet follow-up visits like this. But go on. What’s the question?”
“What did Mrs. McKinney do?”
Leroy laughed. “You’re not supposed to ask that. Hell, not even Mrs. McKinney knows what she did.” Leroy looked around the neighborhood. No one was watching. Even Mrs. McKinney’s blinds were closed. “You really want to know?”
Jane nodded.
“Every action has an opposite and equal reaction,” Leroy whispered as he pulled a clipboard from his bag. A stack of pages with swirling images and colors lay attached to the board, the top page bearing Mrs. McKinney’s name. Leroy tapped the page. The swirling colors coalesced into words and diagrams and information about Mrs. McKinney.
“Let’s see,” Leroy said. “Ah, look here. The tipping point was a few days ago in a grocery store. Mrs. McKinney took so long paying that Betty Deviny, who lives down the street and was in line behind her, complained. But that’s merely the peak of our nasty little iceberg. Mrs. McKinney also recently yelled at her grown daughter for staying engaged to a man who abuses her. And she’s said sacrilegious things to the preacher at her church — on Easter, of all days — and there’s something here about a baseball in her backyard not being returned.”
Jane frowned. “That would be Binny.”
“The ball? Ah yes, I see the footnote. You’re correct.”
“But none of that’s bad.”
“Maybe not. But it’s enough.” Leroy shuffled the pages on his clipboard. “Want to see your page? Or your Mom’s?”
Jane glanced at the clipboard’s new top page, where her name appeared in black alongside a swirling rainbow of deeds and events from her life. She recognized the cruel words she’d said a while back to Binny and the time she’d yelled at her mother because she didn’t want to visit relatives. Jane even saw this very moment, as she wrongly learned of the connections and events which brought the torture bus to someone’s door.
Jane looked away. “I don’t want to know.”
Leroy placed the clipboard back in his bag and reached under the van, pulling out the baseball. “You’re a good kid, Jane,” he said, even though Jane hadn’t shared her name. He handed the ball back. “I’ve got something for you.”
Leroy pulled a business card from his pocket and placed it in Jane’s hand next to the baseball. “One free torture,” Leroy said. “You call that number, say a name, and the bus will pull up at their door within the hour.”
Jane stared at the card, which was absolutely black except for a series of glowing white numbers.
Leroy stepped into the van and drove off with a big wave of his hand and a big grin on his face.
#
Jane sat on her front lawn for the rest of the afternoon, the baseball in one hand and the card in the other. An hour after Leroy left a car stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house and her daughter stepped out. The daughter had a large bruise on her left eye, which Mrs. McKinney didn’t comment on as the daughter helped her mother walk to the car. They drove off without a word, not wanting to be late for evening church services.
Jane flicked the card against the baseball. Maybe she should call and name the abusive jerk engaged to Mrs. McKinney’s daughter. He deserved to be tortured. Maybe it would make him stop hurting people.
Or maybe Jane should call about Betty Deviny, who’d been in line at the grocery store when Mrs. McKinney took too long paying. Of all the silly reasons to be angry at someone. Leroy said that incident was the tipping point which caused Mrs. McKinney to be tortured. Surely Betty Deviny deserved punishment for that?
But Jane was uncertain and carefully slid the card back in her pocket. Could it truly be this simple? The pages on the torture tech’s clipboard showed so many slights and wrongs and mistakes and misunderstandings swirling around each person’s life. So much information collected about each of them. Information building and growing until one minor issue went bumpety-bump and the torture bus arrived at your door.
And Jane knew she wasn’t innocent. Her own page had shown the time she’d yelled at Mom because she didn’t want to visit relatives. Jane had been in a sour mood that day and merely wanted to be left alone. She didn’t hate her family, but that was how Mom took it. When the torture techs eventually knocked on Jane’s door and dragged in their iron maiden stretcher and satchel of scary tools, would they say — as Jane screamed — that this is how she’d made her mother feel on that long ago day?
Jane shuddered and cursed. Not pretend curses like the kids muttered to avoid bringing the torture bus, but a real curse.
She was still sitting on her front lawn when Binny and the other kids walked down the sidewalk, returning from their pickup game.
“Aww,” Binny said in his booming, bragging voice, his baseball bat slung over his shoulder. “Jane has no one to play with.”
That’s going on your page, Jane thought but didn’t say. What she did say, though, was “Piss off.”
The kids stared at her in shock. “What was that?” Binny asked in a low voice.
“I said piss off! Leave me alone!”
The kids looked around, as if bad language alone would cause the torture bus to appear. Binny’s hands shook. Usually he was the one who spoke bad words and beat up kids and did all the other wrong doings in their neighborhood.
Binny pointed the baseball bat at Jane. “You better be careful,” he warned. “My dad’s been tortured four times, my mom three times. I don’t fear the torture bus.”
“You should,” Jane said as she stood up, her baseball gripped tight in her hand, ready to be pitched at Binny’s head if the bully attacked. “I’ll crack your skull open with this ball before you reach me.”
Binny glanced nervously at the baseball Jane held. All the kids knew how good a pitcher she was. “You do that,” Binny said, “and the bus will get you.”
“Maybe. But it’ll get you first. Your head will be split open and you’ll be crying and there will be the torture bus, the techs knocking at your door.”
Jane glared at Binny, daring the bully to try her. Jane felt the baseball in her hand. Felt the business card poking her slightly in her pocket.
Binny looked at the other kids. “Let the bus have her,” he said, pretending to more bravery than he felt. “When the bus comes, we’ll laugh as she screams.”
Jane jumped forward as if to bean Binny with the ball, causing him to stumble backward and fall. Binny quickly jumped up — his face red, embarrassed — and glared at Jane before walking down the sidewalk toward home. The other kids stared at Jane in shock before following him.
Jane stood on the front lawn. Thick, green grass, although not as thick nor as green as Mrs. McKinney’s yard.
Jane knew this was going on her page. All of it was. Every day of her life becoming merely one more step before the torture bus arrived for her.
But if everything went on her page, did it even matter if she was good or bad?
Jane pulled the card from her pocket and tapped it against the baseball. Binny and his friends would be at his house by now. They’d be laughing at her. Calling her names. Deciding what to do the next time they caught her alone.
Maybe, just maybe, the torture bus could take care of both Binny and his friends.
It couldn’t hurt to ask.
Jane walked inside to make the call.
END