Twenty hours on the Dog
A small trip from NYC to South Bend
I’m used to long trips so I thought little of taking the Greyhound from New York City to South Bend, a trip of two buses and eighteen hours.
I am doing it for the experience, the reminder that not everyone can drive or fly. Everyone else around me is taking the bus because of a lack of money, documents, or the ability to fly. For some people, flying is too much of an ask, requiring a functionality currently out of their reach.
That’s the case for the guy right behind me in the line at gate 84, who is talking to himself, loudly, about security cameras, hands being chopped off, and the Bible. We meet eyes, mine out of curiosity, his out of what I realize is a fear of me.
I am the weirdo on the bus, the odd man out, the one doing it for esoteric intellectual reasons, not out of a necessity, and it shows. No matter how simply I dress, how much of a slob I am, how much time I spend hanging with others, you can’t hide fifty years of education and wealth.
Not that anyone else cares much, because a long bus trip half way across the country isn’t a big deal to them. Just another part of life.
The bus is packed, and my first seat mate is a boy of maybe seven. His parents, perhaps twenty five at best, are behind us, cuddled up watching a telenovela.
He is shy, but curious and excited, looking at me and all around the bus. I ask him his name. He smiles and says nothing. I point to myself and say “I am Chris”, then at him, “And you are?” He sits for awhile, then as if pulling a line deep from his memory says mechanically, “My name is Oscar”, then beams proudly.
We leave an hour late, moving slowly through the rush hour traffic escaping Manhattan. A fight breaks out a few rows ahead. A woman’s voice grows louder and louder, until eventually she yells out, ”BUS DRIVER. BUS DRIVER. HE’S ALL UP IN MY SPACE. THIS MAN IS ALL UP IN MY SPACE. BUS DRIVER. I CAN’T BE NEAR HIM.”
From a few rows up the bus, a guy gets up, confused and shaking his head, muttering something about “nacho cheese smelling shit.” A few heads crane to look, but most everyone ignores the little drama, including the man from the line who’s still talking to himself. He is across from me and Oscar, the only person without a seat mate, waving his hands around to punctuate whatever point he is making.
The ejected man sits next to him, turns to me and Oscar and mutters, “From one crazy to another. That’s the dog for you.”
For the next eight hours it continues. Hours of bumpy silence punctuated with the occasional drama. The driver misses the turn to Allentown’s bus station, bringing yells of “Turn left! Turn left!” A man sprawled across the back seat, his feet blocking the bathroom, brings a yell of ”Let me use the bathroom! Hey! You! Let me use the bathroom.” A woman openly smoking in the back, brings exaggerated coughs and lots of muttering. A guy shouting, “People jumping through windows. Doing crazy stuff on this bus! That’s why I’m gonna buy Greyhound and shut this shit down,” brings a few giggles.
As the bus empties a little at each stop Oscar moves to be across from his parents, and his seat is quickly taken by Santiago, moving to get away from the guy blocking the bathroom. “Sorry. May I sit here? There is a crazy guy in the back. He’s out of his mind.”
We get to Pittsburgh two hours late, ejected from the bus so they can change drivers. Everyone is sleepy and confused. Most are like me, headed to Cleveland to change to a bus to Chicago that leaves in less than an hour.
Confused riders circle around the old bus driver, a young woman wearing a cartoon backpack. She tries to help everyone figure out their connections, but she doesn’t speak Spanish and half the questions are in Spanish.
Including from Oscar’s parents who turn to me, flashing a google translate page asking the nonsensical question, “Is Jenifer back today yes. Ok?”
I bring them to Santiago to translate. They are headed to Denver and don’t understand their tickets. He tells them to stick with me, that I’ll get them on the Chicago bus. They smile and follow close to me to the next gate where the ticket taker yells out, “You guys going to Chicago, enjoy Cleveland. That bus has left. You gonna spend some real time in Cleveland. Bad day for that.”
Our new driver introduces himself, walking up and down the aisle, telling everyone, “I’m not like that last driver. I don’t mess around. I don’t accept no smoking, no drinking, and no touching. I’m a retired cop. I worked sex crimes for ten years and homicide for fifteen. So behave yourself and sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Fifteen minutes later, the ranting guy starts ranting again, and the driver pulls over, stops, turns on the lights, gets up, and talks to the guy quietly for five minutes. Softly. Ending with a hand shake and a pat on his shoulder.
In Cleveland the Chicago bus is miraculous still there, being held for the twenty or so of us needing it.
Oscar and his parents follow me, sit next to me, smiling. Behind them are a new couple, a skinny Mexican guy and a larger white women who is bilingual. She explains to Oscar’s parents she will get them on their next bus to Des Moines. They appeal to me, and I tell them it’s ok. All is good. She will help you get to Denver.
At Toledo the ranting guy, who’s stared at me at each stop, asks me for a smoke. I say I’m sorry, but I don’t have one, then he asks if he can use my phone. I give it to him and he spends the break trying to get on Facebook.
Two hours later, and twenty since I started, I get to South Bend and I’m completely exhausted, flipping between emotional highs and a deep fatigue. Everyone else that started with me has at least another three hours to go. Oscar and his family probably have another twenty to reach Denver.
They are not complaining though, not bothered. The bus is half empty, Oscar has his own seat and is watching cartoons, or out the window at the passing Semis, peering into the cabs with excitement. Or blowing onto the window, making hearts in the frost.
As I get off the bus, the ranting guy fist bumps me goodbye. He’s still talking to himself, but now between puffs of smoke from a wrapping paper someone gave him, that he soaked in nicotine oil someone else gave him.
Two days later I’m still exhausted from the trip. Physically and emotionally. I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve spent a lot of time doing exhausting things, and this wasn’t anything special. Certainly not for the others on the bus. This was their life. You’re in Queens and you get a better job in Denver, you get on the bus and go to Denver. With your wife and kid. Doesn’t matter that it’s a forty hour trip. Or if you’re no longer welcome in New York, for whatever reason, you use the last of your money to jump on a bus to where you might know someone, however tenuous. Doesn’t matter that you’re out of money, smokes, and extra clothes.
You don’t think about it as anything special. You certainly don’t think of it as an experience to change your perspective, or to write about.
You do it because that’s what life is. A series of events you get through. However best you can.
In the year of the bicentennial, 1976, Greyhound sold a 7-day bus pass for $76. I used all seven. DC to NYC, NYC to Boston, Boston to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle, Seattle to San Francisco and LA. (And then a cheap ticket on Air Siam, a long-defunct discount airline, to Tokyo, where I got a job and stayed for 2 1/2 years.)
Of course I was young and more amenable to adventure and the discomfort that accompanies it, but I couldn't hide my wealth and education either. It was Down and Out in Paris and London. Poverty tourism.
There was less dysfunction then. A few crazy people, but mostly the trip involved quietly watching the plains go by and occasionally wandering out into fields near a bus stop to smoke a joint.
When a young single woman boarded, we all jockeyed for a nearby seat. I got the seat next to her and was making some progress, or at least I thought so. But then a nearby crazy guy began to talk to himself and the driver got on the microphone and threatened to throw us all off. January in Minnesota at midnight? That will quiet you right down.
I see a lot of Substacks, but I always read yours, Chris. We are alike: I just spent 3 weeks walking from Seville to Salamanca. Your 'How to Travel' posts mirror my own philosophy. You are an anthropologist at heart, and I value what you put out into the world. Observation, not judgment. Thank you.
Chris, thank you.
First, for writing about your experiences. Second and more importantly, for actually doing them in the first place.
Matthew 25:40