Savannah Schroll Guz

Richard was always very brusque with Liam, for whom he expressed a patent dislike. “Your brother’s just a weak-willed sonofabitch,” he’d heard Richard whisper loudly to Marcella at a picnic. Liam had been standing near them, and the wind carried Richard’s words. They had cut him deeply. Worse was that Marcella did not defend him or look in the least bit offended, and since she and Liam didn’t share a mother, perhaps she agreed. What was bad in Liam was no reflection on her."

From "Buses from Bridgeport":

"He heard the thrumming of the diesel motors. The buses had rounded the long bend and were heading towards to exit, which lay ahead. Jim moved first to the curb and then onto the sidewalk. He began to register that the buses were progressing with incredible slowness. They did not stop to let children off either, or at least it didn’t sound like they did. The engines just kept thrumming along, pulling occasionally as they accelerated to keep speed. Jim stopped and turned to look at them. They were still too far off for him to see either of the drivers’ faces. He waited, curious now that buses like this would come into the development without children. He felt lighter, sharper, more interested in everything now that he’d considered a new array of possibilities.

 
As the buses drew closer, he saw something fly out a side window: a soda can. He walked towards the bus, which was slowly motoring towards him. “Hey!” he shouted, “Hey! You can’t just throw trash out here!” He pointed to the can.  

He stood parallel to the first bus, from which the can had flown. There were faces at the window, black faces, white faces. They were adults, not children and they seemed to be shouting at him. He thought he heard the word motherfucker. Something else flew out the window and made direct and stunning contact with his head. The people inside the bus roared with laughter. When he looked down to see what had hit him, a crumpled Pepsi can lay at his feet, rocking back and forth. He was bewildered for a moment and said nothing, and when he looked again at the bus, one small white figure in a backwards baseball cap and a puffy plaid shirt shot him the finger. The people in the bus that followed merely looked at him, as if he were an animal at the zoo. And then they turned their attention back to the houses, at which several of them pointed and appeared to comment on.  

Jim stood there for a few moments, trying to make sense of what he’d seen. The response of the people in the second bus reminded him of the tours people took in Hollywood, when they went to see the mansions and hillside estates of movie stars.  He’d seen pictures of them years ago, their faces covered by sunglasses and sun visors, heads turning back and forth on swivels between gated villas. These people on the buses, the ones he could see anyway, looked like figures from the inner city, or so it appeared to him. Many were young, although an equal number were middle-aged men with hardened, deeply lined faces and squinting eyes that bore a toxic kind of hatred. Others were gray-haired mothers, who sat with big eyes, just looking, taking it all in. Several of the younger passengers had had camera phones they were holding up, as if they had been taking pictures. But why? Jim turned around and went back the way he came. It was the shortest distance home. He picked up speed as he walked, listening intently for the pulling of the diesel engines."