The Battle of the Bus

We arrived in NY three minutes before my bus was scheduled to leave. I ran to the terminal and bolted past the line of people waiting. "Is that the bus to Boston?" I asked the man loading bags into the luggage compartment. "Yeh," he nodded. "Can I get on?" "You gotta wait in the line." As I stood in this line, I realized that many of my fellow passengers had tickets for a 4:00 bus. Mine was a 3:30. I watched, regretfully, as the 3:30 pulled out of the terminal. As I got some life safers from the vending machine for lunch, I rehearsed what I would say when I reached the ticket-taker. I was infuriated that they'd filled my bus first-come first-board. I would never expect this on a train or plane, why should it happen on a bus?

When I reached the front of the line, I spoke up. "Sir, I had a ticket for the 3:30, can you please tell me how, in the future, I would be permitted to board the bus which I purchased a ticket for?" This was my attempt at assertiveness, addressing a slightly different issue from the one at hand. The ticket taker, a short black guy, didn't respond, didn't look up. "My ticket was for the 3:30 bus," I tried again. "You can git on the bus," he said finally, looking up, confronting me. "What is your name please?" I asked, anger escalating. "Why?" "Because when I call Greyhound I want to let them know who I spoke to." "You can speak to the supervisor, or you can git on the bus." Deep breath. I'm losing this one. "Fine, I'll get on the bus." Realizing I'd be traveling for at least 10 hours, I felt the anger in my chest transform to defeat and frustration. The feeling traveled to my eyes. I've never, since childhood, been able to inhibit this automatic response to stress: crying. I tried to suck it up, opening my novel and pretending I was deeply moved by the story.

The ticket-taker turned out to be the driver. He walked past me briskly, checking the seats and aisle. I'd probably be pretty snippy if I had to drive a bus between NY and Boston for a living, I thought. Just one dose of rush hour traffic on either end is enough to drive a person mad. I began to feel sorry that I had taken out my frustration about missing the bus on Driver. We began our journey as Driver honked and hollared his way out of NY.

I was distracted from my novel by the angry letter to Greyhound I was fashioning in my mind. I am clearly not good at letting things go. "How dare I be inconvenienced?!" part of me was shouting. And then on a side note, "Do I have an inflated sense of intitlement?" My mind was in a mental tug of war. Around dinnertime, Driver turned off the highway and pulled into an Arby's parking lob. Arby's, why? I thought, as if this were a direct affront of my dining sensibilities.

I got out of the bus and everyone filed past me to stretch and get some fast food. Driver and I were left outside alone. "Hey, how you doing?" he asked, walking over to me. "I'm fine," I said, not knowing quite how to answer this question. "Really?" he seemed genuinely concerned. "Yah, it's just been a long day." I felt irritation lift, as if sucked out of my body by a giant emotion-sucking vaccuum cleaner. I noticed Driver had a large mishapen lump on his head, and wondered how this cranial deformity has influenced his life. He smiled at me and disappeared into Arby's. I spotted a convenience store across the street and headed over to get some cheese sticks and gum.

As I climbed up the steps to board the bus again, I told the driver, "Thanks, I really appreciated that." "Yah, no problem," he said, "I was worrying about you." I sat down in my seat, struck by how much impact total strangers could have on each other. I managed to fight and make up with someone I'd encountered for only a few short moments. I figured he probably saw me tearing up.. Separately, we'd taken a conflict and wrestled with it- me angry, tired, but understanding; he tired, nerves spent, but caring. If only there was more of this open emotional commerce in the world, allowing us to make peace with our fellow human beings, things might not escalate to the point of angry letters.