The odd thing about taking the bus from city to city is just how few people actually take the bus. Though one could hardly blame them. To call Greyhound Bus Lines stress-free would be a lie. Customer service, as the saying goes, in an oxymoron; often due to the morons either in front of or behind the counter. Riders range from the downtrodden dirt of the earth to high-class elites who are repulsed by overweight women who deigned it necessary to forgo a bra. Black. White. Asian. Latino. Serb. Angolan. Muslim. Buddhist. Quaker. The bus companies don’t care who you are. They just care that you need to get from point A to point B and don’t have a car to do it.
Plainly put, Greyhound is to third class American citizens and nationals what Delta Airlines is to those of the second class. Caught somewhere in the middle, sandwiched between has-been rock stars and 15-year Verizon store manager, is a category called, “unproven college student.” This is where I find myself, currently. Stuck between a 50-year-old rocker desperately clinging to his golden years and a 30-year-old body builder on his way to a tech conference in Mobile.
Which is distressing in and of itself. It all kills my sense of the American Dream a little bit. The part of the dream about travel, at least. Wanting to see the country before settling down in a nice corner of nowhere and raising some rambunctious brats of your own. You know? Quintessential 70’s living, but preferably without all of the social issues from the period.
If you don’t know what I mean, I’m sorry for you. In essence, the idea of travel, of seeing the Grand Canyon or the Four Corners or New York City, has been perverted by the advent of reliable airlines (there’s another oxymoron) and the iPhone. The open expanses of beauteous America are blocked from view by trees, billboards, and little screens. Even something as seemingly Americana as the family RV vacation is now hampered by Steve Jobs and minivans driven by coffee fueled soccer moms. Deplorable. Detestable. Depressing.
But for one individual who is traveling alongside me from Athens, OH, to Nashville, TN, on this nightmare of public transit, the view doesn’t matter. Though not evident from the deft use of an iPod and the absent stares into rolling corn fields, Sam, a 28-year-old accountant from Philly, is blind. The guide dog should have been an indicator, but Hammer (Ham for short) was doing his business behind a bush when I first spoke to Sam. As it turned out, Sam is a stronger individual than I.
Born on Ramstein Air Force Base in southwestern Germany, Sam could see the world for the first few years of his life. This is because, unfortunately, genetics has a knack for not cooperating. By the age of seven, his sight had succumb to Stargardt's Disease, a form of Juvenile macular degeneration which is characterized by the progressive death of photoreceptor cells in the central portion of the retina. Though over two decades removed from his last visual memory, Sam admitted he often imagined what faces looked like based on the tone, timbre, and pitch of a person's voice as well as any and all related respiratory problems. The characterization went further, as he imagined their outfit and guessed their weight based on what they smelled like, how they worded their phrases, and even subtle changes in tone which most people miss.
I continued to interview him intermittently over the three hour drive from Athens to Cincinnati, pressing him for details about his life ranging from favorite football team to what it’s like to not know exactly what something looks like. I asked if he missed seeing the sky. He said only at night. I didn’t say so out loud, but I found it odd that a blind man missed darkness. Then again, moving to West Virginia gave me my first glimpse of the Milky Way, so I can only imagine what living without light must be like.
Around 12:15, the bus finally came to a stop at the Greyhound bus depot in Cincinnati. The passengers all disembarked and went their separate ways. Some met family at the door while others found a seat for their two hour layover. Still others, with an odd twinkle in their eye, strove bravely into a city they clearly did not know. Why or who or when, only God knows.
The Cincinnati bus depot is something out of a 1990’s dystopian world-view. I half expect to see Sylvester Stallone to tackle Wesley Snipes through a brick wall in the next thirty seconds. Long lines of minorities and the occasional grain of salt run up and down the roughly two thousand square feet of the station, itself dimly lit by aged incandescent bulbs which have long disappeared from even McDonald’s. The television, encased by iron bars to prevent theft, is blaring one afternoon over dramatization or another. It may be Dr. Phil. It could be Judge Judy. Perhaps it’s an Oprah spin off. I’ll never know because I don’t care enough to look it up.
Sam, sitting two seats away from me, broke into an uproarious laugh, staring blankly ahead as people throughout the depot turned to find the mad man. I questioned the show of emotion, curious to know what could have been funny enough to a blind man to spark a laugh such as this. He pointed in the general direction of the television and said, “They’re arguing over some of the stupidest shit on there. There are more important things in life than worrying about who did or didn’t pick the Powerball number.” He sighed then shook his head. This struck me as peculiar given he hadn’t seen the gesture in two decades. The little things stick with us, I suppose.
After another ten minutes, Sam’s phone buzzed. He answered then stood up, bidding me safe travels on the rest of my trip. I wished him luck on whatever it was he happened to be in Cincinnati for. After that, almost as if cued by an invisible film director, the PA clicked on to let me know the second leg of my trip would be delayed by about an hour and a half. Oh joy. It is my solemn belief that if we were to bring Benito Mussolini to the modern US, he would marvel at our incompetence. Namely our inability to keep busses running on time.
I busied myself with various insignificant tasks. I doodled a stick figure riding a poorly drawn cat. I picked up a few postcards to mail to friends as promised. I even caught up on the latest John Oliver segments and was again reminded of just how close to the book 1984 the United States has come in recent years. I shivered at the thought and, before I knew it, boarding for Travel Schedule 174 to Nashville began.
The Nashville leg was riddled with emotion. An angry text from Alma and disenchanted rants to an acquaintance familiar with the break up only served to make the ride feel longer than it actually was. I’d like to say everything in life makes sense, that you hit a certain age and all of your questions are suddenly answered, but I have yet to make it to that mile stone. The nitty gritty isn’t important, but all I can say is I’m incredibly sick of losing soul mates. This one hurt more than I thought it would.
