Towards 7:30 at night somewhere in mid-Oregon, roughly 12 hours after Starship hit the Interstate, the bus heads off the highway and onto a gravel road through a thicket of trees and brush. Within moments, the sights and sounds of the highway have disappeared and the overhead sun has become darkened by the untamed forest. Melanie leans over and quietly comments, “this is the part where they kill us.”
“Welcome to Cow Creek!” says Wigs.
Cow Creek is the Tortoise-owned “compound” where travellers stop for their meals and a dip at the
clothing-optional beach.
“Compound” is perhaps the most apt word for this place. As the bus comes to a halt, a thin and gangly, bow-legged man, with scraggly grey hair and equally grey eyes awaits us. Charlie Manson? Hey, what’s he doin’ here? His name is Don, and he is the groundskeeper at Cow Creek. To call the busload’s attention he blows into a large conch shell, and points out where we can and can’t smoke. He hobbles off on his thin twig-like legs and Melanie wonders aloud whether he will be skinny dipping as well.
Almost everyone on the bus quickly doffs their clothes en route to the beach and plunges into the clear creek. A twelve-year-old boy timidly slips into his swim trunks as Marisol and others nakedly tug on him to join in the fun. Evidently, he is enjoying this part of the trip.
Dinner is later eaten quietly, as the hungry travellers scarf down their portions of poached salmon, corn-on-the-cob, mashed potatoes and caesar salad. Wigs announces that there are special substitutions for the vegans on the bus.
For the first time in their lives, Melanie and companion realize their taboo of still eating – and enjoying – meat. Conversation soon heats up, and the Canadians are violently backed into the carnivore closet.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” says Melanie. They feel, even more, so far from home.
Before re-boarding the bus, Wigs, Scott and Don perform what is called the “Miracle.” They remove the pillows covering the benches and unfold, layout, refold, bang, shove and tada! The inside of the bus is transformed into one communal bed.
There is no one right or best way to spread out for a comfortable night. One can guarantee themselves that the hours between central Oregon and northern California will be spent with someone’s feet to one side of their face, and someone else’s hairy armpit on the other. The astute drivers know, as well, that the urge to pee does not necessarily end as night comes on and so the hourly pee breaks that have considerably slowed this journey continue. And at each one, somebody is always stepped on, someone is kneed, and whoever’s shoes happen to be closest to the door have them borrowed and worn by questionable feet for those urgent midnight runs.
The night passes slowly. It seems at each stop, more and more people board. Is there enough air on this thing? If only people would go to sleep, they’d use up less oxygen and we might actually make it to San Francisco.
Melanie cannot sleep. Surrounded by more body hair than she can handle and hankering for a hamburger or steak, she, in a bold affront to those on the bus, pulls out a Glamour magazine and reads about the latest makeup tips and fashion faux-pas of the summer.
Somewhere near her head, she can hear the soft clicking and clucking of kissing. Ohhh, how sweet. Two people who haven’t showered in days, and appear to have not eaten – meat, anyhow – for months, have found love aboard the Green Tortoise.
She, who skinny dipped at Cow Creek with a festering lesion near her groin, which Melanie-the-med-student said may or may not be syphilis, talks about the time she was kidnapped by a crazy woman with whom she later fell in love, and he, who says he doesn’t know why he has never kissed a boy, talks about his plans to join a fairy community once the bus gets him to California.
At 6:30 the next morning, the bus enters Berkeley. Some people get off, including Marisol. She has many well-wishers, and after giving each one a hug she leaves the bus behind and doesn’t look back.
The bus is so close now to San Francisco, but there is the matter of traffic around the Bay area. It is another two hours before Starship makes its final stop at the bus station in Frisco’s once beatific, now dirty, sex-shop laden North Beach.
Wigs and Scott thank everyone for coming. They tell those travellers that have reservations at the Green Tortoise hostel to remain on the bus. Then they ask if anybody is continuing on with Green Tortoise to L.A. There are audible and menacing grunts. “Maaaan, don’t go to L.A.!” Only one person, Patric, a 24-year-old teacher from Quebec owns up.
There are many goodbyes and exchanges of phone numbers and addresses. Some linger wide-eyed, mouths agape near the bus station, but most disperse. Perhaps it is California, or perhaps it is 30 hours on the Green Tortoise, but nobody really seems to know where they are going.
Read all three parts of On the Bus:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three