Have you ever played "Truth or Dare?"...If I ever come upon the chance to join in this teenage game of honesty and risk again, I would have the ultimate dare. I dare you to ride the Greyhound...alone...through the night...as a young, white female.
First, I'd like to uplift Greyhound for their new marketing campgain. The silver symbol of the greyhound appearing as sleek and swift as a panther leaves one with little doubt about the functionality of the bus. Throughout the Greyhound stations, banners of jubilant, young people riding home to eat grandma's chocolate chip cookies, to see a new nephew, or to attend a friend's wedding hang from the ceiling- giving you a sense of goodness, company, and happiness. That is until you get on the bus...
No one was riding home to see grandma. Passengers were quite poor. Many were Mexican workers on their way to Chicago or Indianapolis to find more work. There were single moms with crying babies along with Ghetto-fied teenage homeboys. There were even some homeless men. None of this bothered me. Ill admit I got nervous when they weren't any seats left except for next to some of the scariest passengers-but i was often saved by a nice 40 year old woman who saw the desperation on my face. And let me tell you, finding a seat on this buses is no joke. The open seat next to a person is guarded by bags, mean looks, and "seat's taken" when it obviously wasnt. I actually had to a push a "sleeping" lady over in order to get a seat on a crowded bus. She grumbled when i sat down.
The layovers were the worst. I sat in Cincinnatti's, Lexington's, Indianapolis's and Milwaukees stations in the middle of the night, sometimes up to 3 hours. I ve never studied vending machines so much in my life...being too tired to read and feeling too awkward to sleep, i found food was a better source of distraction than the stares of strange men.
Before I tell my most memorable experience, I'll give a quick description of Greyhound's specific traits (as opposed to ther coaches, public buses, airplanes, or amtrak).
- Crabby, antisocial drivers who wouldn't stop the bus if it were on fire and get to the next station at exactly the right time, no matter HOW late the bus left.
- Huge luggage compartments where luggage is not so much stowed as shoved, crammed, and dispersed like peices of garbage
- Station attendants who insist on people lining up to board at least an HOUR before departure
- Greyhound security station men more concerned with you sitting on a table than people selling drugs or stealing bags
- Stacks of tickets all connected, if any one ticket in one's package is disconnected from the others, all tickets are VOID.
So anyway , here's the craziest i encountered.
Id been alseep on an off from 3am to 4am next to a middle aged lady. Across the aisle from me was a young black guy and next to him a mexican immigrant who spoke NO english. I woke up to see the black guy looking at the mexican next to him about every 5 seconds. Is he going to steal something i thought? Then i began to notice the anger in his face, it was dark but he was so close i could feel the tension. Then he started rubbing his fist as getting ready for a heated battle. Eventually his cussing got louder. Within 15 minutes he is swearing up and down that he is gonna kill the Motha F-er next to him. He claimed that as he fell asleep the Mexican fondled his crotch area. Over the course of the hour the Mexican almost got busted in the face twice, was called a homosexual and a child molester. The only word the Mexican could visibly comprehend was "police". Obviously concerned about running into any police, but having no idea was this black guy is about to rip his head off, he offered his phone, his money , and even his face to take a beating if it meant NO police. This only enraged the "molested" victim more as he felt the mexican was trying to get off for his sexual offense ...the "victim" mentioned several times that he wasn't racist but make quite a few racial slurs about the mexican.
I thought it was interesting that this all happened in this time of immigration controversy and tension. I know the mexican did not molest the black guy. I dont know why the black guy made it up, but no one doubted his story. Before the bus reached its destination everyone was sneering at and showing visible disgust for the mexican.
So if you must travel, GO greyhound...you'll never be the same again.
Im still trying to figure out how i got home.
It's not that I'm fat, I'm just PREGNANT.
