American Bus Ride, Part 4: On the Road Again

Effingham, IL — I sleep through it.

Indianapolis, IN — They make us get off the bus while they clean it at 7 am, which really feels like 6 am, since we have just changed time zones. I sit bleary-eyed in the bus station. The bus driver warns us about a couple who live in the bus station who are known for stealing people’s luggage. 

Cincinnati, OH — I wake up at some point in Ohio. I have not yet taken it for granted that there are trees now.

Cambridge, OH — At first, I think that we are simply in stand-still traffic, and I don’t take too much notice. I knew that traffic would come back at some point as we ventured further north and east. Perhaps more foreign than the landscape of the first leg of my journey was that throughout the entire twenty-one hour trip, there was no traffic. Soon, however, the lack of motion sparks interest and disgruntlement among the bus passengers. There has been an accident on the highway, and not just any small accident—a semi truck has skidded and crashed, blocking all lanes of the highway. The bus is hot and stuffy; a woman who has already complained to the bus driver goes up to the front of the bus again to ask if she can adjust the heat, to which the driver mildly explodes. I begin chatting with the complainer and another man near us who’s wearing a knit sweater. The complainer asks if I can ask the driver to adjust the heat. Someone asks to be let off the bus, and a few others follow suit. Then, I am standing on the side of the highway with the complainer and the sweater man. The sweater man is coming back to New York from visiting his sister in Indianapolis. All along the static highway, people are getting out of their cars, standing helplessly, or trying to see what’s going on up ahead. A girl who had been on the bus, who is probably a teenager but appears younger because she’s short, is crying on the phone. The complainer tells us that she’s been crying throughout the bus ride; her parents are getting divorced. Neither of you care at all about me, the girl screams desperately over the phone. I have to admit that of all places to stop, the view off of the highway is quite nice—the rolling hills, emaciated trees, beautiful in a melancholy kind of way. Finally, after almost an hour of being stopped, we get back on the bus. It has taken that long for a tow truck to reach this highway in rural Ohio. Once the bus starts moving, people cheer. Someone points out how lucky we are that we were a mere few hundred feet away from the accident; a few seconds different, and we might not have missed it. 

Wheeling, WV — do I love West Virginia? Or do I love that we are moving again?

Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Norristown, PA — pass by in a blur. I know I am on the side of the country I grew up in again when nearly every seat is taken, and there’s at least three people playing videos aloud without headphones or having conversations on the phone for hours.

Philadelphia, PA — I am thoroughly bus-fatigued at this point. The crowded bus, the traffic, and the state of Pennsylvania is disappointingly familiar, marking the near end of an era of adventure. We stop at a rest stop for twenty minutes, and I buy a soda and sit outside even though it’s cold and dark; I need the fresh air like I need the trip to be over. 

New York, NY — I am home now, at last, around 1 am. The woman who had been sitting next to me, points at her printed ticket and asks me something in broken English. Her ticket—St. Louis to Philadelphia. It pains me to tell her that she was supposed to get off a few hours ago. I try to find someone in the bus station who speaks French, or at the very least, someone who works at Port Authority who will help her change her ticket.

I am home, at last, and there are no unknown towns or cities ahead of me. All that there was to see has been seen. The stories to tell your grandchildren, or for the ambivalent childbearers, the days that stick in your memory when most of the others have washed away with time. All physical traces of the journey are gone except the hole in the knee of my jeans from a St. Louis sidewalk that expands every time I sit down until satisfied with the gusts of air it makes room for in the cold New England winter. That reminds me of a time when I was embodied by an adventurous spirit, when I was a person who did unusual things when I was so moved. That begs the unanswerable question of if this spirit is an essence of youth, or an essence of me; if it was a short-term visitor or a passenger that will stay for the whole ride.