I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

___________________________________________________________________

It’s night, Yoko and I are on a greyhound, on our continuing gypsy journey. We were habitual wanderers, had been for a year, searching for something that probably didn’t exist. We did it for one reason: Yoko was dying, and there was a world out there that wouldn’t wait. We searched for love and life and some feeling of home that we had abandoned when we’d hit the road, having sold all our possessions except for some clothes, blankets, my laptop and Yoko’s 1960s Land Polaroid camera (in powder blue).

Yoko is awake and staring out the window, little orange ipod buds in her ears, I can just hear the sounds of Sean Lennon escaping out the plastic and rubber. She’s bigger than me though I am older, and takes care of me; I worry what I will do once my traveling buddy leaves this earth. So I’m trying to ignore the creep leering at me from across the way and I’m trying to sleep before we hit Utah, which I consider one of the most beautiful places in the world. I convinced Yoko two nights before that we needed to climb Snow Canyon together before she died. She agreed.

That’s why I’m on a greyhound to the Mormon capital of the world.

The bus is nearly empty, except for Creepy Leering Man, the Marx Brothers (seriously, if just one of these things were blonde, they could pass for Harpo) and single mom with fussy-now-sleeping toddler. I was feeling sleepy myself, but could never sleep comfortably whilst traveling. I didn’t know one of these people and Creepy Leering Man was not making it easy to sleep.

A cell phone goes off, an obscure jingle that you know you’ve heard but can never place. It was the third time in five minutes this phone had gone off. It was one of the Harpo boys. The other two looked nervous as the first pulled out his cell phone, silenced it and stuffed it down deep in his pocket again. “We should answer,” whispers one, thin but in a healthy way.

”Not yet,” says the first, “We wait.”

”They’ll call the police. I don’t my face plastered all over the news and milk cartons!” hisses the third, small and mildly Jewish-looking.

I study them harder, these Harpo boys, their angular faces, brown eyes and nervous hands. Their hands fiddled with their sleeves, pockets, hair and fingernails. Plucking and picking and pulling. The phone went off a fifth time, and the boy followed the same procedure as before.

”Excuse me?” I turn in my seat, drawing Yoko’s attention, “Are you boys in some sort of trouble?”

To Katie: This is where this is going...

________________________________________________________________________________

The boys fidget and look down at their shoes, up at the ceiling, around at the empty seats. Guilt is written all over their features. The cell phone goes off, causing them to jump. The eldest boy shuts it off. I can see now they’re brothers, or at least close cousins. They have a look about them and I recognize it: green, excited, anxious and idealistic. Runaways, I’ve seen it before in my and Yoko’s travels. ”I say,” I say again, in my ‘grown-up voice’, “are you boys in some sort of trouble?”

”No,” whispers the thin one.

”You runaways?” I look them up and down, daring them to lie at me.
”Not persay…” begins the young one, slowly, “We’re gonna call them when we get to the city.”

”How old are you?” I demand.

”Twenty,” answers one, before pointing to the others, “nineteen and sixteen.”  They were old enough, certainly, to be on their own, but obviously not mature enough to tell their parents when they were going. Or at least, too new at the game, too scared, too sheltered.  Judging by the ringing cell phone, I can tell someone is looking for them and something was keeping them from answering it. “We’re going to call them, really. We just…need to get away.”

”Be careful to use the word ‘need’,” I said, and they gazed up at me, confused and seemingly eager to understand.

Oh ho ho! Runaways! Maaan, that'd cause some uproar in the world of teenage fandom. Ho ho ho!

Anyway. Yeah. Mintage. I see you have a title. =]

Yoko's love for spy novels and her chameleon-like abilities made her a great traveling companion. She's an artist, with one thrift store trip and a bottle of hair dye and she can a new person. So, she sent me to the drug store for a bottle of bleach, vinegar and blonde hair dye, shouting "If you can find a knit Quechan-type hat, buy it!"

She now stands in the bathroom, with Joe nervously leaning over the sink as she washes the brown out of his hair and down the drain. Nick is already blonde and standing in front of the mirror, pulling at his wet curls and looking uncertain. Kevin sat on one of the bed, watching What Ever Happened To Baby Jane in his new earflap took. Yoko had suggested he grow a beard and buy a striped knit sweater. 

"Won't people still recognize us?" asks Nick.

"Maybe a few, but definately a whole lot less," replies Yoko.

"No, I mean our names," he replies.

"Um..."

"Change them, if you're worried about it," I say, like its the most obvious thing in the world (because it is).

The next day Yoko, and I, along with the newly-christened Nello, Joseph and Paul Jones go apartment shopping, because hotels aren't homes, even if they do get Showtime.

Mintage. Blonde Joe and Nick? WEIRD. I like this fic. I'm afraid for Yoko too. =[