When a winter wind sets to blowing across Iowa there isn't a lot to stop it or even slow it down. Just me, it seemed. Three days before Christmas, 1985. As I stood there with a hangover and my thumb out. Going home.
Going nowhere, though. Nobody had the slightest interest in stopping for me. Back then, I blamed 'em. Not in anger, sadly. The rejectioned deepened my lonliness, homesickness. Made the distance too painfully apparent. Half a continent. The thousands of cold miles between me and where I wanted to be.
So I said fuck it. Walked back into town and found the Greyhound depot.
To Vernon. In British Columbia, I told the girl.
She thought I wanted to go to South America. Y'know, Colombia. British Honduras sort of idea. Nope. Someplace really exotic. Canada. Which exists, we determined. After a bit of a search.
A hundred and fifty bucks. Three days on the bus. Now, $150 was what I had, pretty much to the dime. That's why I'd set out to hitchhike. Cause it's a damn long trip and I might decide I'd like to eat something, somewhere along the way. But, baby, it was cold outside. And you can't starve to death in three days. So into a nice warm bus and try to find a seat.
I say try cause it was three days before Christmas and I wasn't the only one going home. So, apparently, was most of the U.S. army, navy and air force. So I squished in with those guys.
All guys, back then, really dumb ones. Talking loud, laughing stupid and throwing shit around the bus like kids on a field trip. This was still the cold war (which I kind of miss) and these young fellows had never heard of terrorists. Nope, they said things like 'kill a commie for your mommy'. No, they really did. That's a quote.
The only person on the bus other than me, at that point, who wasn't a soldier was about as opposite as he could be. I'd call him a beatnik except those didn't exist anymore, even in 1985. He had longish hair, a turleneck and one of those ridiculous berets that artists wear in cartoons.
He was reading War and Peace, probably because he felt he should. Not that there's anything wrong with that sort of motivation. That's pretty much why I picked it up for the first time. Ain't why I couldn't put it down though. Oh, those Russsians. Rah, rah.
I remember that guy so vividly after a quarter of a century because he was such a contrast to the rest of the gang. For all that his uniform was just as precise. He kept his nose stuffed in his book and my impression was that he was so full of indignation at the multi-faceted wrongness of the rest of the boys on the bus that he could barely contain his skinny-ass little self but had the good sense to realize it'd be a really good idea. Prob'ly just my imagination though. Guess he's doin' something, somewhere theses days. Big old world.
So, tired, hungover to start with and sitting bolt upright as we bombed north into Minnesota. At each stop soldiers got off and a roughly equal number of identical ones got on. Yes, yes, I know they weren't identical. I know there are nuances. I know they were individuals. Seriously, though, you'd never fucking know it.
One of those stop and shuffle things where we got off briefly to get a little dark, cold great plains air and deisel exhaust (heady mixture) and then got back, sometimes onto a different bus. I found myself sitting next to an old man to whom I said nothing the rest of the way up to Minneapolis and don't forget St. Paul. At which point he said something to me, which was: "when was the last time you had something to eat?"
It had been a while, by this point, and the next time was another while out in front. So. "Let's go get you some dinner."
A big, full, hot meal in the crappy Greyhound restaurant, which are measurably less crappy in a big city like the twins.
I'm comforted knowing that gent didn't do it for the eloquence of my gratitude cause I was an exhausted, strung out, ravenous 20-year-old, and there was none. He's no doubt long gone by now, and, of course, there's no reward. But I haven't forgotten.
Minneapolis/St. Paul was the big layover of the whole trip. Measured in hours, maybe a large chunk of the unlit part of a winter day. There was stuff to do if you had money, like the soldiers. I didn't, so I watched them do stuff. In the bus depot and out on the sidewalks, lined with bars.
Finally back on. And on, and on. The rest, most of the ride, was a blur. Cause nothing changed. Until we hit Tacoma, the last town anyone's ever heard of. And so damn close to home. The town where almost all the soldiers got off and almost none got on. The town where I got two seats to my self and stretched out and really went to sleep.
No one's ever heard of Wenatchee. The site of my last bus transfer. That's where I woke up. In the quiet dark. Too late.
The bus driver was just gathering his shit and heading off to wherever they go at this point. Home, at one end of the line, I guess. Some Motel 6, or such, if not. Anyway, up I sprung, jabbering questions. With some naive Canadian expectation of being taken care of, I suppose. What I got, instead, was the door to the side of the road.
A much warmer road, I'll grant you, on the right side of the Rockies, than the one out of Osage. But, man, the unfairness. Now just a couple hundred miles from home. And having endured every fucking hardship that was in the story I signed on for. Broke. Starved. Still in the fucking States.
I found my way to the highway through the Christmas Eve darkness and stuck out my thumb.
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