 Last weekend I appeared at a club that is about 200 miles from where I live. Normally I would drive the three hours and spend a hundred dollars on gas. But the club I was to play was located downtown and the hotel I was staying in was only a two-block walk from the club. I wouldn't be needing a car while I was there so I began to look at other options.
I decided to take a train.
Trains have always been my favorite way to travel. There are no security lines, there are no middle seats, and there's no way for them to lose your luggage. Plus there's really no way to hijack a train. You can't put a gun to the conductor's head and demand to be taken to Cuba. The train is going where it's going. Period.
However, while a lot of people back East travel by train regularly,
in Texas it isn't done all that often. Contrary to what a lot of people
in the country believe, we don't all travel on horseback, but you're
more likely to see a Texan in a pickup rather than an Amtrak.
I was excited about the trip. Traveling by train has always conjured
a really romantic ideal for me. Trains are where people like Cary Grant
get it on with Eva-Marie Saint. Strangers meet each other and discuss
Socialism. Vistas are taken in. Sometimes, there's a murder and a
mystery ensues.
At first I was not disappointed. A conductor yelled, "All Aboard!" A
guy in a uniform that was replete with the cute little hat came into
the car I was in and bellowed, "Tickets please!" Plus, as the train was
leaving the station my wife, who had dropped me off, ran beside the
train, waving at me and telling me she would wait for me.
But as I discovered, the only people who do travel by train in Texas
are really, really old people with a deep-seated mistrust for air
travel. I struck up a conversation with one of the denizens of the
Caravan of Geriatrics.
Old Guy: Ain't this better than flyin'?
Me: Sure!
Old Guy: No sir! You'll never catch me on one of those Hot Air-less Balloons!
It was also fun to watch these elderly people try to amble up and
down the aisle to use the restrooms. These are people who have a tough
time perambulating when the floor isn't moving. Make them walk down the
middle of a moving train and they look like toddlers who've come off
their seats on a merry-go-round.
I arrived safely at my destination and had a relaxing weekend full
of shows that every good little comedian boy and girl dream about.
Crowds were wonderful, food was great, and free drinks flowed like honey.
The last show was Saturday night and Sunday morning arrived like a
hammer to my forehead. I awoke at 12:30 to the sound of a woman
screaming in broken English that it was time to vacate the hotel room.
Maid: YOU SLEEP!
Me: Okay... I will.
Maid: NO! GET UP! I CLEAN NOW!
Me: I'm sorry... my face is stuck to the sheets.
Maid: YOU CHECK OUT 30 MINUTES AGO!
Me: Well that's a relief.
Maid: I CALL POLICE!
Me: I'm up. I'M UP!
I gathered my things, scrambled out of the room and staggered into the harsh Texas sun.
I dragged my things two blocks to the train station and
presented my ticket to the agent. She informed me that my train was
delayed. I asked how long it had been delayed and she said they didn't
know. Apparently, there had been what the good folks at Amtrak refer to
as a "crossing incident." This term apparently covers every eventuality
from a train having to pause for a herd of cattle that have wandered
onto the track to a locomotive having to pull a double-buckle onto a
busload of orphans.
I sat and waited for an update. I was soon told that the train would
be four hours late. As glorious as the ride up had been, I didn't
relish the thought of an eight-hour wait to get back to my wife. At
about the same time that I noticed the yellow sweat that was coming out
of me from the beer and nicotine from the night before, I noticed that
there was a Greyhound bus station right next door to the train station.
Everything romantic about traveling on a train is reversed on a
Greyhound bus. Where a train has cocktails and conversation, a bus has
dirty diapers and dysentery. There are restrooms on a train. On a bus,
you can let fly with whatever bodily urge you can imagine right there
in your seat. It's like riding on a mobile Petri dish.
There were two women seated behind me with a baby. From what I was able to hear, they had been on the bus for the better part of the last thirteen hours and they were out of formula and out of diapers. They had plenty of cigarettes, though. Every time the bus stopped, these two sorry excuses for mothers would hop off the bus and chain smoke with the little tyke in their arms. I swear after the first few stops, the kid started looking more and more yellow.
I listened to this poor little bastard scream for the entire ride. I felt bad for the kid. He didn’t ask to be born to Madge and Patsy from Wyoming, who had saved up the leftover income that wasn’t flushed away on Marlboro Lights and Strawberry Hill wine to buy a couple of $99 tickets and take a ride from Regret, Wyoming to Bad Decisions, Texas.
At one point I looked down and realized that my hands were clasped tightly around my own throat. I knew that it was physically impossible to strangle yourself to death with your hands, but I thought maybe I could do it just long and hard enough that I could lose consciousness and not have to be awake for the slow descent into madness that was surely fated for me.
I languished on the bus for the five hours it took to go 200 miles.
At the end, my wife met me at the bus station. I looked awful, but I
felt great. I felt the triumph of a man who had looked into the face of
Hell and laughed. I looked like Tim Robbins in Shawshank when he first
comes out of the prison through the sewer pipe.
I clenched my fists, raised them at the sky, and screamed in triumph.
Apparently you're not allowed to do that at a bus station.
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