My Methhead and I

The great eastern Snowpocalypse is nearing its horrifying end. New York, Philidelphia and Boston are buried beneath the snow. JFK and Laguardia Airports are now operational and the thousands of weary travelers are making their way home.

I arrived back to New York early this morning, not by Delta Plane, not even by Megabus, both of which I had tickets for but were cancelled, but by America’s staple: The Greyhound. I’ve never taken a Greyhound Bus before, but because of the snow, all Amtrack Trains, Flights and other modes of transportation were booked solid for days. I need to work. I need my money. I have to get back to New York. It was like Home Alone, only without the humor of John Hughes.

The one relief I had was that the Greyhound Bus, according to the website, is outfitted with roomier seats, free Wi-Fi and outlets in which to charge your computer. Their motto is that all of this happens at 55mph. The buses…in my opinion, looked shiny, sexy and beautiful.

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Just imagine. A trip to New York from Cleveland couldn't possibly be that bad with all those amenities.
My bus, however, looked like this:

No Wi-Fi. No Leg Room. No Outlets. No empty seats. They were serious about it, and I wasn’t ready for it.

I boarded the bus with a faint hesitation, but I was sure, by looking around at the crowd of weary travelers, that it would be fine. I take my seat, the only one left at the back of the bus, bathroom-adjacent, and the blonde-spikey haired guy next to me chomping down on his subway eagerly said “Hi!”. My heart sank. This was going to be a problem.

I noticed very quickly that the spikey-haired guy (later identified as Bryan) was chatting up a 36-year old Russian man with a thick Boston accent in the aisle across from us. Their conversation quickly led me to believe that someone on this bus, was to be murdered by the time we rolled into the Port Authority. The Russian Bostonian was asking Bryan what he would do if he were around when they cruicified Jesus. Bryan didn’t know. There was a homly girl next to us named Chelsea who was on the bus in from Madison, WI. She had mousy brown hair, glasses, a portly physique and had just gotten her braces removed so she brandished a shiny metal retainer across her newly straightened white teeth.

The Russian and Bryan quickly took an interest in Chelsea. The Russian asked her questions. Bryan complimented her hair. The Russian inquired about her having a boyfriend and when she (clearly) replied no, that’s when I knew that these two gentlemen were going to kill Chelsea at their earliest convience. Bryan informed us all that he had been kicked out of his house because he told his parents he was “gayer than Christmas” and so in retalition he stole his mother’s fabulous white scarf, which he now wears all the time. He shook the scarf’s frayed ends into my face and I recoiled. He went back to his subway sandwich and bottle of gatorade and consistent questioning of Chelsea about her pop culture knowledge. Of which she had none because she’s spent most of her life staining wood in her parent’s woodshop instead of watching television.

It was at this point that I realized that Bryan, was tweaking on meth. His demeanor, general appearance, and the bonus that he was gay (meth is huge in the gay community) made me certain that this would be another one of those trips that I should never have taken. Bryan spent the entirity of the journey snapping rubber bands on his wrists and fidgeting in his seat. He spent the rest of the trip fighting on the phone with his sister and listening to the song “Bulletproof” on speaker through his cell phone over and over and over again.

We pulled into a rest stop in some abandoned helltown in Pennsylvania and the driver informed us that we were taking a 15 minute break. An hour and ten minutes later, after all of the passengers had reboarded the bus and had been sitting for at least 30 minutes, we sent out a scout to find out where the driver was. The driver, a 4’10” black woman, was sitting at the table inside the MacDonalds eating her dinner. Our friendly sentinel asked her what the holdup was and she told us that “I let y’all get your food. Now you gonna wait until I get to eatin’ mine”. And that was that. 30 minutes later we rolled away from our hour and a half, 15 minute break.

Things continued on relatively smoothly, some mild flirting between the Russian and his potential victim, homely Chelsea, and after about 4 hours, we pulled into a stop somewhere near Jersey for a quick break. After Bryan, the Russian and Chelsea left to use the restroom, Bryan presumably to get high, I looked to the Brooklyn-Indie Clothing designer guy sitting behind me and remarked, “do you get the feeling those two guys are going to kill her later?”

He looked around for a bit.

“Never mind.” I said and turned around. A moment passed.

“Well at the very least the gay one is gonna do something weird to her body,” he said suddenly.

I laughed just long enough for Bryan and the Russian to reboard the bus. I got off the bus and headed for the gift shop.
A pack of Peanut M’n’Ms, a 4 pack of Tylenol PM and a 4 pack of NyQuil Gel Caps later, I settled back into my seat. Bryan told his sister she was being a “silly bitch” and she needed to “get out of his house. because she is disrespectful.” Bryan apologzied for yelling on the phone and went back to snapping his rubber bands.

Before I passed out from the massive sleeping pill dose, I noticed Bryan going from person to person complimenting them on various aspects of their outfits, features and personalities. He would then offer them a dirty Ferrero Rocher Chocolate and when they refused, he told them that it was a classy candy and that they simply weren’t classy.

I mean, though, he’s right. They are super classy. The classiest really.

I don’t remember much else about the trip. I took the Nyquil. I took all 4 Tylenol PMs and had the pack of M’n’Ms champed within minutes. I came out of my chocolate sleep haze just long enough to see the snowy streets of New York and Bryan inviting Homely Chelsea over to his apartment for New Year’s Eve.

I quickly grabbed a cab and we made our way through the I Am Legend 2: The Winter Tundra-like streets. Somewhere on the lower west side the cabbie stopped the car next to a girl in a large fur coat fighting with her cabbie.

“We all gotta take care of each other, you know?” he said. She muttered something about Atlantic Avenue (My street) and she got in. It was three in the morning, and I was tired. But at some point your mind and body and Nyquil just says, “what the hell”.

There are a couple kinds of drunk. Sloppy drunk, silly drunk, sick drunk, mean drunk. She was obliterated. She spent most of the trip babbling about Egypt. She spent another good portion holding hands with me. And the third portion, and this is where it gets really interesting, she spent rubbing my crotch with her designer leather glove.

I kept batting her hand away. This wasn’t “Taxicab Confessions” after all so I continued to say things like “Let’s go back to holding hands. Holding hands is okay.” And in her thick Middle Eastern accent she kept saying “No. It’s all magic. Everything is so happiness”. We pull up to Atlantic Avenue and the cabbie turns right to take me home. The middle eastern geisha is going left. The cabbie calmly informs her that he’s simply taking me a block out of her way. She has a fit. She is screaming, yelling and demanding that she be let out. She’s sputtering nonsense and I just toss some money at the cabbie and get out. It’s 3:30, I’m trying to come off of a Nyquil high and I’m greeted on my street by this:

I don’t think that I’m someone who should travel / interact with the general public. At least not at the holidays.

December 28, 2010 | Categories: Horrible Life Incidents | Leave a comment