~~~
Going Greyhound
~~~
At
the Palm Street Station, a few miles this side of the Mexican border, a
few others & I stand in the dark waiting for the trolley when ~
when nothing happens. Except that eventually the trolley comes by &
we all get on.
The trolley ride is uneventful ~ except that I am surrounded by hungry Mexicans. None of them have guns. El lone gringo is not molested. Sometimes I become fascinated by this group of people who daily commute across the border to work or otherwise carry on. They're so, so earnest. The young women, of course, fascinate me the most. From where does such stoic & penetrating beauty come? The only answer I can fathom: it comes from below the border.
At 12th & Imperial, I get off, walk across the street to the little Greyhound Bus veranda, show Security my back-pack & wait for the Greyhound. The sun moseys up into the sky & I contemplate the colossus public library, fresh built, not yet open, a little ways up the street. I'm proud of San Diego for planting such a fancy edifice to knowledge on the southeast edge of downtown rather than locating it in a distant suburb.
Years ago, I'd driven half-human junior-high-school ghetto-rodents in school buses outta this area to the swank suburb of La Jolla, for the Voluntary Ethnic Transfer Program. Now those kids are men and women. Bless 'em.
And here comes our bus. Some Black & Asian Americans & me wait some more. The driver, a skinny old White man in uniform & with rock-star-length white hair under his Capt'n cap, steps out of the bus & does his chores, one after another, an endless string of 'em. Finally we are allowed to deposit our bags into the belly of the beast. The driver finishes up some more chores. He takes our tickets. We climb aboard and wait some more. Then at last, at last, the old codger climbs behind the wheel, says garbled things on the loud speaker and we roll outta town ~ get waylaid in El Cajon where more folks board and we wait some more. Then we head up over the mountains & down into the chartreuse desert ~ a-glide to Arizona.
Sooner or later when you ride Greyhound the pretty woman gets on the bus. This time it happens in Yuma. She come walking across the shopping-center parking lot arm-n-arm with her stud ~ a Hispanic skin-head in a baseball cap & t-shirt. They look smug and happy and we all know what they've been doing. The young lady jiggles along in a sleeveless low-neckline tight black-denim fit. She looks pretty good from a distance. She looks even better bobbing alone up the aisle ~ slender & long & pale & freckled & strands of long red-hair falling out of a sloppy bun ~ here come da' White Girl!
She sits directly across the aisle from me. I rip off the glue and avert my eyes ~ look out my own window at a quaint Jack In The Box across the street & think, "Oh my oh my."
Once the bus gets out of Yuma, the desert landscape gets significantly enthralling, the sacred feminine entity gets significantly relaxed, and I find myself to be a dirty old man glancing there & here & staring there, in Picture Book Heaven.
Then the plot thickens ~ like a brick slammed up against the side of the head. It absolutely knocks me out ~ when her warm thigh bumps into the suddenly no longer empty seat next to me & a voice girlishly bubbles & perks next my ear, "Are you Rawclyde?"
I turn my head and boom ~ I'm out. The blackout is complete. Apparently I can't handle pretty women in my old age. I don't know how long this blackout lasts. When I come to, her hand is squeezing my knee & she is worriedly asking me, "Are you okay?"
"No, I am not okay," growl I. "And, yes, I am Rawclyde!"
"Glad to meet you." She holds out her hand.
Limply I grab it. My head is spinning.
Her
delicate fingers are warm and cool. Point-blankly & with
outlandishly green green eyes she says, "I'm Submissivania Whapp, your
partner on this mission." When she smiles, her teeth magnificently
ricochet the desert light from outside our galloping coach. With a roll
of her eyeballs she adds, "I'm the White House's other favorite secret
agent."
She has knocked me out again.