On The Bus (1 of 3)

Two girls. One bus. Interstate 5. And thirty hours to go. California, here they come. And watch out, ’cause they’ll be coming “on the bus.”

Three decades ago this might have meant, at least to a fellow named Ken Kesey who perhaps inspired all such trips (or is that “trips”?), a certain hip je-ne-sais-quoi. But these two girls are simply trying to get to San Francisco from Seattle. One of them heard this bus was the way to go.

The rickety-looking, green and white bus that rolls into the empty parking lot of Seattle’s Greyhound bus station on this rainy Sunday morning to the delight of a well-seasoned crowd of about a dozen and a half people is not like any other bus. This is a Green Tortoise bus, a last gasp from the Sixties, when vanloads and busloads of budding hippies sought cheap transport to the garden that was California, and then beyond.

From the look of the crowd this morning, it seems apparent that the Sixties never ended, at least not on the west coast, not even on the Microsoft-gilded streets of Seattle. For, aside from the two girls who hail from Montreal – which is beginning to seem further and further away – the travellers-to-be waiting to get “on the bus” could easily be mistaken for a group of Woodstock-bound flower children….

The bus driver steps off. He is a short, middle-aged man, balding on top with a long braid at the back. He is rotund and smiling, gently tugging on his rainbow-striped suspenders holding up a balloon-like pair of yellow pants.

“Good morning,” he bellows. “Welcome to the Green Tortoise. I am your driver, Wigs. I will quickly tell you some of the rules on this trip. If you don’t obey them, we won’t take you, okay?”

Okay, Wigs, shoot.

“No smoking on the bus, anything.” Good, at least they know out here the dangers of second-hand smoke and it’s not just an eastern paranoia.

“No drinking, either.” That sounds reasonable, too.

“No shoes on the bus.” Hmmmm, how often do hippies wash?

“Let’s all try to get to know each other and love each other, alright?” The crowd applauds. Do you mean that in the biblical sense?

As the crew boards the bus, Wigs issues each one a ticket. “Do you want supper with that?” he asks.

What are you serving?

“Poached salmon,” he says, annoyed at the gall of asking. Eastern fears of salmonella and other unpleasant effects of uncooked food come barreling back. Is that it?

“Yes, that’s it. It only costs five dollars! What the hell do you expect?” Excuse me, but who’s the customer here, again? Okay, okay, salmon sounds fine.

The girls from the east find seats close to the front of the bus. One, Melanie* (*name changed due to subject’s fear of a ruined professional career, should past exploits be made public), 22 and a first-year medical student at McGill University in Montreal, looks around in disgust.

It was not her idea to take the Green Tortoise. Her companion promises that they can fly back….

Soon they begin to roll. The bus is stuffy, and the odour of sweaty Birkenstocked-feet begins to waft throughout the air. But with all the windows open, a highway breeze quickly refreshes the bus. Seattle’s Space Needle slowly fades into the distance and the bus named “Starship” is on its way.

Read all three parts of On the Bus:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

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