
17 August 2009 - 18 August 2009
Greyhound from
Birmingham, AL to Port Authority, New York, NY
I met D at the back of the Greyhound bus in Birmingham. He was sitting alone across from me. I was sitting in on the outside of a two seater on the right hand side of the bus next to a pretty black girl with short, stiff hair who was twenty years old and had been traveling the country by bus since May. Although she was sitting I could tell that she is much taller than me. Sitting in the seat in front of us was a young man in his mid-twenties who was moving from Los Angeles. Across from him in a three seater were two women who are on their way home from somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico. I think they are mother and daughter, but it's hard to be sure. The girl next to me and the boy from L.A. and the women returning from the west and I all trade stories about the bus and our summers and traveling, there's a lot of laughter and the girl leans into me in a strange way while we're laughing, as if she's known me for a lifetime. Everyone's final destination is Atlanta, except for D and me.
The bus leaves Birmingham station two hours behind schedule. Our first and only stop before Atlanta is Anniston, Alabama, which we hit about an hour after leaving our origin. The station here is small and desolate, tall dying grass seems to sprout up all around it as far out as I can see. There's an old drive in theatre a couple of minutes before the station and it's impossible to tell whether or not it still operates.
D is still sitting across from me when we leave Anniston. At one point he seems to ask the open air around him, "Does anyone smell that? I smell the brakes burnin'." This is the last thing I want to hear after the van fire ordeal in Bulls Gap, Tennessee that landed me on this 26 hour bus trip in the first place. I end up explaining this whole story to him later when we become aquainted. I smell what he smells too, but barely over the stench of the bathroom, which is overwhelming. Everytime someone opens the door it reeks hot and sour and fills the cabin and fills everyone's eyes with water and then subsides, prompting another passenger to open it and trudge inside.
D is a middle-aged, single black man who lives in Florida with a jack russell/rat terrier mix that he bought his ex's youngest daughter before they split. He spends less than a week at home every month because of his job, and rides the Greyhound regularly. He works in Massachusetts with his brother and owns two houses in Birmingham that he is restoring. He plans to sell or rent one of them and to keep one, as an asset. We pass the hours with conversation, being forced off and on the bus at nearly every stop for cleaning which we can never recognize once we're allowed to get back on.
When we reboard in Greenville, D puts on deoderant. At the Charlotte station he buys me a bottle of water and I learn how he manages to smoke joints undetected at the station stops. D doesn't drink alcohol anymore, but he really enjoys smoking. Justifying the purchase of the water for me, he claims that "he'd hope someone would do the same for his kids if they were on the road." Around 4 o'clock in the morning we get to Raleigh, where all the Marines that were on the bus from the stop before get off and get in line to go back to Camp Lejune. I think about John and wonder how many times he had to take the Greyhound. I fell asleep sometime after leaving Raleigh and slept until the sun was coming up and we were in Virginia. After Atlanta D always let me have the window seat. Once you make it through the darkness it feels like a lot of the trip is behind you.
D is wearing tall white socks that are scrunched down, baggy green shorts and a tee shirt. He's missing his front left tooth, and the front right one is chipped pretty severely. He's got big, watery brown eyes and has an accent I can't place; pronounces his hard A's like in "GUARD" and "YARD" really heavily. He's always saying,"It just don't make no sense." I guess a lot of things don't.
He and I part ways in Washington, DC, where our itineraries finally differ on paper. He gives me his phone number but I never use it. When I get back on the bus the seat next to me is empty until I get to New York.