Holler of the Fireflies

1°
MOMS HAD WARNED ME I’d get deep in trouble one day. I shoulda believed her. Today was that day.
I hadn’t really wanted to ditch my family and ride to West Virginia. At least not until after William Dexter got stretched out on our concrete block in Brooklyn. After that happened, everything changed.
Now the bald dude with the scar kept glancing back at me from the front row of my bus. The expression on his face said he wanted to carve me up like a turkey on Thanks- giving.
I got tense and reached for my right eyelid. I always did that when I got anxious. Rubbing it, I sank down in my seat and stared out my bus window to avoid Bald Dude’s insane googly gaze.
Outside on the highway, I read a sign: WELCOME TO WEST
VIRGINIA: WILD AND WONDERFUL.
Some comedian had spray-painted over it: DON’T DRINK THE WATER!

They had so many trees down here. I couldn’t see not one tall apartment building nowhere. Out the window, there were only green hills and sleepy trees.
For the gazillionth time since I climbed on a different bus this morning at Port Authority, I wished I hadn’t left home. I missed Brooklyn already. I missed Daddy and Poppa. And even though that noisy argument me and my moms had had made me eager to leave, I actually missed her and Shireen too.
After a while, the big gray bus slowed down and rolled into a parking lot in front of an old gas station that was locked-up dark. The folding door at the front of the bus squeaked open.
“Horsewhip Hollow!” the driver yelled back.
I had arrived, finally. I stood up to exit and, of course, crazy Bald Dude with the scar stepped off right in front of me. This man, made a’ muscle and fat, musta been at least two feet taller than me. I was twelve years old, but short for my age, like my daddy.
Bald Dude’s skin was pale and red in spots, not smooth and cocoa brown like mine. His looked like it’d been sun- burnt too many times.
The only hair he had was some brown stuff on his chin. I think it mighta been called a goatee. I was probably wrong about the name.
I did know he was built like a pro wrestler.
A beast.
“Here you go, sonny.”