Waiting For Greyhound

Book smarts aren't required to ride Greyhound. Neither are teeth. At 3 a.m., the bus terminal in downtown St. Louis is hopping. To wait for the bus, I stood in line with my luggage--the wrong line, at first, but then the right one. A lot of other travelers park their luggage in line and wander off to socialize. With hours between buses, talking to strangers is how time passes. Not five minutes after I got in line, the right line, I was offered a Jolly Rancher candy. The person sharing was about 18, his pants were belted somewhere around his thighs. He wore a baggy shirt and his hair was dreadlocked. I laughed at the candy offer, having just broken my tooth. He laughed, a gold-toothed laugh, and said, that yeah, he'd broken a few teeth, too. My line buddy Lady in Red took a Jolly Rancher and then, we talked. Or mostly I listened as she held court. She was somewhere between 30 and 40 years old and had no front teeth. She wore a black and white blanket draped across her shoulders; her shirt, pants and sneakers were bright red. Lady in Red started riding Greyhound as a child. She knows the routes and the drivers by name. Turns out, even on 9/11 she was riding a bus. From Illinois. To Los Angeles. For a blind date. It was a rough ride, she said, what with the panic over where terrorists might be. The bus took weird detours and law enforcement kept stopping the bus to check identification looking for terrorists or illegals sneaking around the country. I asked about the blind date--how did it go? Fine, she said, except on the bus ride home, she figured out she couldn't  be faithful long enough to wait months until he got out of prison. So she turned him loose. We got on the bus. I grabbed a window seat. Lady in Red grabbed an aisle seat on the other side of the bus. I got a nice seat mate and thought I'd done o.k. for my maiden voyage on a crowded bus. Then I noticed Lady in Red. Sprawled across two seats. Comfortable. Sound asleep.