Trip

Thrasher Magazine, March, 2003 by Jeffrey Knutson

A Greyhound leaves my town bound for Wherever, USA four times a day. I had to get to San Francisco: 26 hours, two layovers-Salt Lake and Sacramento-and one bus change in Laramie from point A. There were a few chartered bus rides under my belt-mostly high school field trips or other such activities. THIS WOULD BE MY FIRST TIME ON THE GREYHOUND, America's cheapest transportation just short of hitchhiking.

My friend Charles gave me the lowdown. He rides the bus a lot. With furrowed brow and a shrug he went on: "When the bus stops for a break, don't go far, or they'll leave you in butt-fuck nowhere. Oh yeah, and if you. sleep, wrap your arms, around your backpack so no one steals it."

How bad could it be though, really? Lots of people take the Greyhound. It was October 11th, exactly one month, after, and I still couldn't find an affordable plane ticket. I wasn't quite ready to jump in a plane either, unless the price was right. Amtrak-in lieu of the drop' in airline ticket sales-must have jacked up their prices. October is no time to be hitching across Wyoming and Nevada, and it's never a good time to hitch through Utah. Mind a rash of recent bus-jackings, Greyhound's $120-round-trip ticket to SF seemed like a steal.

FUCK IT. I'm going to California. I'm going to skateboard in the sun underneath palm trees. Fuck this town. Fuck work. Fuck you crazy bus-jackers. Fuck it, I'm leaving tomorrow.

I scored 10-bucks-worth of good herb and rolled a joint with the-middle-of-the-night-in-Nevada written all over it.

I've never been able to sleep in moving objects.

I figured I could steal away and smoke at the last pit stop before I felt like sleeping. Headline news bombarded my living room with the latest, up-to the-minute "...In yet another apparent bus-jacking... A man accosted the driver with a knife... The bus careened off the road in rural Mississippi."

The odds seemed better than flying, atleast at the time. There are lots of busses out there. I tossed my big backpack over my shoulders, put on my sunglasses, grabbed my board, Discman, and CDs, and walked to the bus station. I put the joint in my front shirt pocket. It wouldn't break there, and if any cops tried to search me, I could just throw it under the seat and say it wasn't mine. THAT WOULD WORK.

According to the printout on the back of my ticket I had one transfer in Laramie, Wyoming. I stood at the station reading it, going through the whole trip in my head. There would only be five minutes-just enough time to change buses.

My bus was late. The driver hollered at me to hurry as. I threw my pack in the undercarriage. He promised to make up the time on the highway. Inside, a thick yellow line was painted across the floor, on the walls, and over the ceiling behind the third row of seats. The driver told me no one was allowed to sit in those seats closest to the front, a new company rule. I sat in the most convenient pair of open seats and watched out the window FOR WYOMING.

"YOU'VE GOT TO HUSTLE!" exclaimed the driver as we pulled into the Laramie station. Things gathered and I stood in the aisle, balancing. I had to run across the parking lot to the I-80 bus destined for SF. The bus was running with the doors open, waiting for me. The new driver helped me shove my big pack into the belly of the bus while it idled and coughed diesel smoke, all the while growling for the freeway. Everyone stared down the aisle at me as I caught my breath. Each set of double seats was occupied. Mexican immigrants, teenaged single mothers, cut-up men with dirty hands, shelter types, all sprawled out in both seats, pretending to daydream. No one acknowledged my need for a seat. The first three rows remained empty, per company policy. I nearly sat with a large man, but foresight saw little sleep there. After taking the seat behind him, next to a Mexican boy, I noticed the fat man's bleeding wound on the window-side of his forehead. Twenty-six hours?

The bus went nowhere and I wondered what all the goddamned rush was for. I put on my headphones and sunglasses, leaned back and closed my eyes. The bus doors opened and closed a few times. I could hear the driver talking. He walked past me in the aisle, counting heads. I found the footrest. Still, the bus didn't move. My body heat rose to my face in the cool, stale bus air.

THE JOINT IN MY SHIRT POCKET STARTED REEKING. I OPENED MY EYES.

FIVE POLICE CARS SURROUNDED THE BUS.

The joint was really stinking now. Before I knew it two troopers came down the aisle at me. A third waited at the door, shotgun drawn. I stopped my CD but left the headphones on. From behind my sunglasses I closed my eyes again and pretended to be sleeping. I felt the first one walk past me. I swear I heard the second one stop and give two short sniffs. The crease of his over-starched pants brushed my arm as he continued to the back. Each pair of cop hands grasped an arm as they led an olive-skinned college-aged kid, not much younger than myself, from the back seat. His shaved head made his ears stick out and his smile said embarrassment as they jerked him sideways down the aisle. Maybe he snuck on the bus. But the cops-why so many cops for that? Maybe he has a warrant, a local troublemaker. They took him inside the bus station. A MURMUR ROSE AMONG THE BUS. The younger Mexicans asked questions of the older Mexicans in Spanish. The moms gossiped.