I rode a Greyhound bus for three hours on the night of August 7, 2006. When I stepped off that dark, hulking coach, I knew that I had undergone a dark transformation. A stark metamorphosis had occurred between  the sun-drenched afternoon when I boarded the bus and the dark evening when I arrived at my destination.

Dramatics aside, this is an account of anger, grime and gas inside the confines of a single Greyhound transport.

That morning, I was happily preparing to visit my college friends Yeoman and Peter John in Indianapolis. I was living in Louisville, Kentucky, at the time, and knew it would be an inexpensive and short two-hour bus ride that would enable me to hang out with the hombres. This pleased me. Of course, my delight was premature, making me defenseless and unprepared for what lay ahead.

Indeed, I wasn’t ready for the bus: the smell, the close quarters and the driver, I’ll call him Ned, who was more upset and furious with his job than any man I’ve met. This short, furious man actually screamed at passengers approaching his “cockpit” area. They just wanted to know the estimated time of arrival in Indianapolis, but for some reason, undoubtedly rooted in paranoia and unrivaled uptightness, he believed they were trying to violently ambush him. Frazzled, he recited a rule I can’t remember entirely, but had this common thread: “No person is permitted to cross over the cockpit line and approach the bus driver for any reason. Persons wishing to speak to the driver must do so from their seat or from at least one yard away from the cockpit line…”

I would understand his concern if the passengers approaching the cockpit were the least bit suspicious, but one was an acne-covered pubescent teen and the other an elderly lady dressed in various shades of pastel pink. Plus, Captain Ned wasn’t entirely vulnerable where he was. He was enclosed in a protective metal cage! A simple, calm explanation would have been more effective and agreeable.

After Ned barked in the face of the harmless elderly woman, disapproving grumbles emanated from passengers back in the cabin. That’s when his next outburst occurred (I don’t remember the exact wording or absolute details, but the content is true and he did use the word “jettison”): “You must obey these rules or under section blah, blah, blah of category blah, blah of the Greyhound Transportation Guidelines Manual, I will park this bus and jettison immediately to the next gas station leaving you all here to wait for another driver…”