Kyler Doss - Greetings From Idaho

Greetings From Idaho Kyler Doss Publisher Kyler Doss USA GREETINGS FROM IDAHO Copyright 2020 Kyler Doss All rights reserved 2022 publication ISBN 978-1-938181-38-2 Cover r3 design Young Adult Fiction Main character male Coming of age New Adult category For Drew

M INNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA On the bus there is no night or day. There is only motion. And you roll through the lives of the boys that you meet. I met seven of them on my recent trip. I can't forget any of them. Fresh out of high school, I was a boy looking at the summer.

Somebody was talking about seeing America by bus. I got on board in Minnesota, where I'm from. The next state over, when the bus goes west on 94, is North Dakota.

N ORTH DAKOTA John is happy. I like how happy he is. I like everything about him...

He gets on the bus in Jamestown, not too far from Bismarck. I've already gone through Fargo with no one to talk to. I'm probably not going to be the one to start too many conversations. I think there are plenty of seats available but John sits down next to me, no hesitation. "I live in Bismarck," he says. "Oh." "Made a trip over to Jamestown." "I see." You can tell I'm not much of a talker.

And you can tell that John is. "Look what I got," he says. He brings his foot up and props it on his knee. The shoe is unusual, two-tone leather, kind of a tan color with a darker brown. "Brand-new," he says. "I found an old pair in the attic and my parents told me they're called saddle shoes.

You can find them in Jamestown." "They're nice." "Oh man, I could have taken you there. We were just there." I didn't know him then. That doesn't seem to matter. He runs his finger along the edge of the sole. I think he doesn't want to get a fingerprint on the upper. "Girls wore them. "Girls wore them.

Boys wore them, too." "Dancing?" "Sure, why not?" They've got style. I will always associate saddle shoes with John. I glance up at his face. He is still admiring the shoe across his knee and that gives me the chance to think about him. He makes you feel comfortable, like all the rules you play by when it comes to boys are just silly to his way of thinking. "Yeah," he says, "we've got places in town." I have no idea what he's talking about. "Oh." "I don't know," he says, "if I want to dance in these shoes." He gives me the nudge of an elbow. "What if you stepped on 'em?" I try to act like this is how we horse around. "Yeah," I say, "what if?" I don't realize until I've said it that I am saying a lot more than I wanted to. "Yeah," I say, "what if?" I don't realize until I've said it that I am saying a lot more than I wanted to.

What if me and John were boyfriends for real? This feels so nice. Like, oh yeah, we're on this bus going into Bismarck where we plan to do some serious dancing. My life stopped making sense when I left Minneapolis. "You never told me," he says, "where you're going." I think about how to say it. "America." He squeezes my neck. "I've got news for you, you're already here." In a lot of ways, that's true.

I already found what I'm looking for. John. I don't think for a minute that he likes me like that. He's just a friendly guy who isn't that different from some of the guys I know in Minnesota. "What are you looking for?" he says. "Whatever's out there, I guess." I sort of have a chance to tell him the truth, but I always back away from the truth.

When I say it in my head where he can't hear it, it comes out again as his name. John is the one at the end of a long journey but this is only the start. I mean, when I got on in Minneapolis I was outbound and looking for the experience of the open road. This is part of it, I'm in North Dakota. I like this guy named John. "There's a lot out there," he says. "There's a lot out there," he says.

I like his way of stating the obvious. It's cute. "Yup," I say, for lack of the nerve to ask about a girlfriend. "I bet you can dance," he says. "It's gonna be fun." "I'm not that good." "Let me see your shoes." I bring a blue running shoe up to my knee like he did. "Okay," he says.

I don't know what me and John have been talking about. I think it's shoes or dancing or me and him as boyfriends. I'm confused but too scared to say anything because it might be wrong. It's too bad I don't have time to get to know him better. There are too many places I have to try and get to, that's the plan. "Who's gonna be there?" I say. "Oh, you know, they will all be there." The more he doesn't say anything about his girlfriend, the longer I can believe that she doesn't exist. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I say. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I say.

I shock myself. "Don't worry about that," he says. "Everybody dances with everybody." He grabs the toe of my shoe. It all seems kind of easy and logical. "Besides," he says, "I got dibs on you." Maybe there is something about North Dakota that I don't understand. This never happened in Minnesota.

I didn't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You finish high school with none of the experiences that other kids had. It's kind of why I'm on the road. "I kind of have to get to Montana," I say. I know that I should go dancing. No matter who I end up dancing with, it's only one night out.

It's better than the way I'm really gonna spend it, which is sleeping on the bus through Montana. And if I end up dancing with John, I'm gonna believe things that aren't true. Then he introduces me to his girlfriend and I feel like a fool. He is going to see everything written on my face, how I felt and what I wanted. And then he will say something like, "You didn't think I liked you like that, did you?" Instead of getting put into a situation where I am saying something like, "That is what I thought, John," I'll just cross the border into Montana. "You've got time," he says, "don't you?" He gives me an out.

If I don't take it now, I can take it later. "Maybe." What that means to me is, maybe I don't know where this is going but want to find out. "Cool." When John says that, it sounds like he thinks he is using up-to-date slang. Like I said, he's cute. I could just stay in Bismarck and never go anywhere else. I would get back to Minnesota for Christmas, of course.

But I sort of like Bismarck for keeps and I haven't even gotten there yet. I still don't know anything about this dance party. I don't know what the rules are. "Were you guys already planning to go out?" I say. "Oh, I'll just call some people up and stuff." I wish I was the one that said obvious things. "Like your girlfriend?" "You're pretty worried about her," John says, "aren't you?" "I'm just wondering who's gonna be there." What a lie. "Like your girlfriend?" "You're pretty worried about her," John says, "aren't you?" "I'm just wondering who's gonna be there." What a lie.

I either hope that John can see through me or that he can't. "I wasn't gonna do anything tonight," he says, "except show everybody in my family my new shoes." He still has that one shoe up on his knee. "How do you like them?" he says. "A lot." I'm always trying to analyze the things he says and the things I say. For instance, his girlfriend is the one he would be showing these shoes to if he had one. "The plans changed," he says, "when me and you wanted to go out." We did? I think I'm willing to let that stand.

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