"To Buffalo Eastward" by Gabriel Bump

January 1, 2022

This story was chosen by Jesmyn Ward (whose books, all of them, are incredible) for The Best American Short Stories 2021. It was first published in McSweeney’s.

In the back pages of the book, Bump said he got the idea for this story from a feeling he had while in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

The story, upon second read, felt reminiscent of Denis Johnson’s “Emergency,” which involves snow, a character named Fuckhead, and at times wraps the reader in a hallucinogenic world that only feels partially real.

Bump’s narrator is first person, his tone conversational, always vacillating between the present and past. He is driving to Buffalo from Ann Arbor, and during his drive and visits to bookstores he thinks about a new shot that’s been developed from depression and anxiety and wonders “if they had shots for whatever was wrong with me.”

At one point he buys a bottle of alcohol and has a funny exchange with a jogger who accosts him for drinking in a public place. Later, he goes to a bar. That’s after he thinks about his mother, and how once they drove down to see the Chicago projects where she grew up, presumable Cabrini Green, only to find them torn down, surrounded by a chain link fence. (Side note, I used to live across the street from Cabrini, in a loft next to the L Train, right before they were all torn down).

At the bar the narrator, name unclear, meets a carpenter who calls himself Sancho Panza (from Don Quixote) and two women who steal their names from The Great Gatsby. The story is decidedly literary, but its references aren’t inaccessible.

Three pages in, the narrator looks at his watch and thinks of a lost romance, a woman he loved who has a fiancé and expresses anxiety whenever he texts her that he’s thinking of turning back to Ann Arbor.

The carpenter, narrator, and Gatsby girls sneak into an office and fall asleep in a pile, only to be woken by a screaming man in a suit who is yelling so vigorously he spills his coffee. The Gatsby girls vanish but leave a note on the narrator’s windshield: “Invisible Man, make it where you’re going.” This is the last line of the story.

I forgot to tell you about the pills they took, that made them completely misunderstand one another. A lot happened in the story, but not much happened, too. Which makes a good story in my opinion.

I loved this story upon second reading— there is a deep sense of unbelonging. Of going somewhere because it has a name you like. Hoping for something better. Being untethered. Like a good story, every sentence is doing something important. I found the first person narration especially strong. The voice is very sharp and individual, and it was as important as anything else in keeping me immersed.

Bump said he wanted to make the story into a novel, and he did write a novel. I hope to read it after this project. It’s called Everywhere You Don’t Belong.

Did you read “To Buffalo Eastward?” Tell me what you thought in the comments.

I found this interview with Bump and really liked it. Lots about writing and the process of writing a book.

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