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Midnight in St. Louis.
Despite the hour, the bus depot is a hive of activity. I'm seated about a third of the way from the rear of the bus; a third of the way through my four-day trek back home from Columbus, Ohio. My neighbour, just returned from a smoke break, tells me that a bus broke down coming in from Chicago, with the end result being three busloads of people trying to squeeze into only two available busses heading west. The stark orange lighting outside is playing tricks on my eyes, as the crowd surging towards the door appears to amalgamate into a single seething mass of limbs and straining faces. I'm so glad I've already got a seat.
Ten minutes later, our capacity reached, we pull out of the depot and the mood onboard abruptly turns festive. As we leave all the stress and tension from minutes ago behind in a cloud of exhaust, a group of women two or three rows behind me burst into song. They're not half-bad, although my knowledge of R&B isn't exactly encyclopedic. The rest of the passengers don't seem to mind either, as various requests float back from the front of the bus - and are ignored, of course. I recline my seat, turn towards the window and watch the lights outside slide by though my reflection. The city recedes, and by the time the lights have dwindled to a few lonely street lamps marking barren intersections, the bus has fallen silent. I pull my cap down over my eyes and fall asleep.
"I said shut up!"
I am jolted from a dreamless slumber. What?
"She's doin' it on purpose," a shrill voice exclaims. "She's tryin' to keep me awake!"
"I am not! I'm just talkin'," comes the reply.
I lift my wrist up to my face and hit the LIGHT button. God, it's three forty-five in the morning. This can't be happening. A chorus of whispers rises out of the darkness, trying to hush the first voice.
"No! Not until she shuts the hell up!"
"I'm not talkin' that loudly," the second voice says. "I don't have to be quiet. There's no rule that says I can't talk."
"You better shut up!"
Somehow, the whispers manage to soothe their screaming sister and the situation seems to have gone back to normal. I can hear a few passengers murmuring to each other around me, no doubt as annoyed as I am at having been woken up. I look out the window for a minute, note that both the lights and my reflection have disappeared, readjust my cap and settle back into my seat. I can't believe I've got three more days of this... this is the last time I -
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Oh, boy. Here we go. "There are passengers on this bus tryin' to sleep! Who do you think you are talkin' all night and keepin' them awake? Bitch!"
This outburst triggers a series of responses from the around the bus, a collection of comments and jibes all basically telling this angry woman she should practice what she is preaching. I'm already digging through my pack for my headphones, as I have a feeling this isn't going to be resolved quickly. The second woman, buoyed by this unexpected show of support, decides to launch a verbal counterattack.
"Why don't you shut up," she starts. "I'm not the one who just woke up everybody on the bus! I'm just talkin' quietly and you're the one carryin' on and makin' all the noise!"
"You shut up, bitch! You started this," the voice becoming surprisingly baritone and aggressive. "I'll smack you up! You wanna tell me to shut up?"
"Yo' mama! You ain't smackin' nobody up! So siddown and shut up!"
Lights are flicking on the length of the bus. This is getting intense - is the driver just going to ignore this? The taunts and insults are flying fast and thick now, and the language is becoming increasingly crude and violent. Heads are popping up over the backs of seats, necks craning to get a better view; for a half-second, I imagine I'm looking at a pack of prairie dogs scanning the horizon for signs of trouble. I am yanked back to reality as one of the women snaps and attacks the other. I've got to look.
The back of the bus has become a scene right out of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The two women are writhing about in a hair-pulling, eye-clawing frenzy. The spectacle is riveting: two women at each other's throats in the aisle, oblivious as other passengers begin cheering them on. Whoever was trying to get the first voice to calm down is nowhere to be seen as the bus screeches to a halt on the shoulder of the highway and the pair lurch forward into a pool of light. I hear my neighbour's voice:
"Oh, my God. Is she pregnant?"
She is. They both are. As I make this disturbing realization, a very burly - and very surly - driver comes barreling down the aisle, grabs both women and drags them bodily off the bus. The other passengers are silent as we hear the driver's muffled bellowing through the closed door, and I figure the two women are looking at an uncomfortable night at the closest rest stop. The silence is broken as a man mutters a low "holy shit", and people lapse into uncomfortable laughter.
A few minutes pass and the door opens. The women board the bus; heads bowed as they silently make their way back to their seats, avoiding all eye contact on the way. The driver appears at the end of the aisle, his face a mask of barely controlled anger.
"Now," he growls. "I hear either one of you so much as lay a fart, and both of your asses are off the bus, and I don't give a damn how pregnant you are!"
The bus starts up, lights are switched off, and I am back to looking out the window. I doubt I'll be able to get back to sleep for a while. I'd really like a rest stop and a smoke break right now, but that seems rather unlikely. Gentle snoring fills the imposed silence as the other riders drift off to sleep. We hit the sunrise somewhere east of Kansas City.
Three more days.
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