Chapter 2: Billie Schmidt and the “Chool Bus”

Billie picked up her phone and opened the email around 3:00am. Normally fast asleep this time of night, but for some reason her eyes popped open automatically. She knew Professor Thompson had applied for a grant to conduct a year-long series of road trips aimed at visiting every one of the lower 48 states, meeting and interviewing people about their awareness and relative engagement with popular culture and politics. Billie really wasn’t all that interested in the details, but she knew she was on the list of companions and was looking forward to going on this coast-to-coast tour with her friends on the bus she had lovingly spent the last several months customizing. Inspecting all points of potential failure, preparing for brutal miles over scorching hot pavement, vicious cross winds and punishing steep mountain grades. She was more than up for the challenge. And now, so was the vehicle the gang had christened, the “Chool Bus”.

The Chool Bus was a solid rolling apartment, designed to accommodate four people comfortably with kitchenette and full restroom facilities in back. Now, bedding in the Chool Bus resembled that of bunks in a submarine. A little tight, but each pod had privacy curtains, reading lights, and the kind of high-tech mattress that delivers real comfort with a small footprint. Billie was a tomboy through and through, but she was in possession of impeccable taste and the Chool Bus interior reflected that taste in spades. The floor, ceiling, and side panels were covered in cedar paneling with plenty of wool insulation for holding in the heat on cold days or the cool air conditioning for the dawg days. Cabinetry finished with ebony composite material, light weight, but strong and resilient, ready for the many thousands of miles their journey would take them.

She gazed across the shop floor at her father, the owner/operator of a used car dealership where she worked. “Hey, Dad, can you help me with this belt install,” called Billie?

“Sure, Pumpkin,” said Billie’s father.

“Please… don’t call me that. I’m not a little girl, anymore, in fact, i’m not a girl at all… call me ‘Bruno’, cause i’m one badass bitch of a Chool Bus mechanic.”

“Ok, Bruno,” her father was all smiles. He really loved this little firecracker of a human being. She was by all conventional western standards, strikingly beautiful, statuesque, radiant skin, smiling eyes and a spunky countenance that variably beamed with mischievous energy. Precocious as a child, musically inclined and mechanically adept. In younger years, she played the drums in Professor Thompson’s grunge metal band, but was glad to leave that lifestyle behind as MTV had grown less and less inclined to play music, and more inclined to those barely “reality” shows. She had other reasons as well, as someone with unconventional gender inclinations, she grew tired of the drunken advances of guys who mistook her conventional beauty and good natured mischievousness for invitations to amore. “Good lord,” she would often exclaim. “Is this all guys ever think about?” 

Billie adjusted to her gender contradictions early on. She had to mature even faster than her female classmates as it’s not easy being this kind of different. But her parents, being rainbow hippies from way back, refused to hard-sell gender roles so she was able to reach adulthood relatively well adjusted. 

She had been anxiously waiting to hear from Professor Thompson about the grant. Would they be off on their first sojourn after graduation, or back to the normal routine working in her dad’s auto repair shop? The application had been submitted all the way back in January, and Billie had been frantically mapping out routes for favorable weather. She was driving Professor Thompson crazy with endless questions about who he wanted to interview and could they plan the route for not only meeting the interviewees where they live but also hitting some of the best destinations for sightseeing. Making bucket-list suggestions, leaning in, barely able to think of anything else.  

Professor Thompson had always loved this endless spring of nervous energy. He was aware of her personal challenges, she was mildly introverted and deeply empathetic, never brooding or sinking into depression funks. She always came alive around her friends, fiercely protective, she could be a bit of a hot-head. Many a time when folks mistook her fair appearance for being a push-over, they quickly learned, Billie could peel paint from the walls with her sharp tongue and buccaneer’s vocabulary. So now, when Billie opened that email to see that the grant had been approved, she nearly woke the neighbors with her whoops of celebration. “Game on…! WOO HOO,” she exclaimed! The gang and the Chool Bus were going on tour, sea to shining sea!

NEXT WEEK:
Chapter 3: Jack Dean makes paranoia a viable career path

GO BACK => (Preface & Chapter links)