THE GANSTER

The guard clips my ticket with a look of concern. I smile bravely back in return trying to reassure him and myself that  I am a confident independent traveller half way through a 23-hour bus ride from Boston to South Carolina and I’m riding the greyhound with my fellow, too-poor-to-fly, passengers. It was only later that I discovered many Greyhound passengers catch it because they are criminals who are on the 'no fly' lists. 

I board the bus and am greeted by a gangster. He looks like a drug dealer from ‘The Wire’ with all the frills. Five sizes too big jeans, baggy shirt, gold chain and bandana intact. He calls me down to a spare seat at the back of the bus. No thanks. I grab a seat close to the front. Rattled, I eaves drop, “Cuantos hijos tiene?” a Latino man asks a woman with a baby how many children she has, and my muscles slump into the chair, my heavy eyes close. I am just another immigrant riding the bus. 

The lights shut off. I feel a body shift into the seat next to me. I take a peak and see the gangster from the back of the bus. Up close, a scar runs deep from his eye to his lip, and he suffers from severe acne. 

“Hey” he says.

I stiffen,  drowning in fear.
“Hey” I say, choked. I look out the window engulfed in darkness. I try to take comfort in a familiar Coca-Cola billboard, but everything feels foreign. I feel like a child who has lost a favourite soft toy, and all the warm security that came with it.

A pang for my bed safe back in New Zealand suffocates me. I plug my iPod in, an attempt to shut out my new surroundings - even though it's the United States where I have pretty much grown up on their culture through televison shows it feels like somewhere far away from the familiar.

“What ‘chu doing?” The gangster asks me.

 I wonder what route would this story take if I answered differently? If I confided in my bus companion about being lonely. Maybe he would share some street wisdom with me, and we’d become great pals.

 Instead I answer with all the ’leave me alone’ attitude I can muster at 3am in the morning.
“I’m riding a bus. What does it look like I am doing.” He recoils, then smiles a metallic grill. I turn my back and stare out the window.

I catch the gangster staring at me. My exterior tries to project  ’what are you looking at’ attitude while my interior searches desperately for that lost toy and security blanket. The gangster matches my stare, and we are locked in a show down.

“What beautiful eyes you have” the gangster says.
‘All the better to see you with.’ I think. I break away.

He closes his eyes and rests his hands on my outer thigh. I reel away, revolted by his touch. The further I squirm closer to the window, the more he takes advantage of the space, until we are spooning. Every inch of my body screams no. Frightened to move but more afraid to do nothing, I turn on my reading light to attract attention to me. I use my grown up voice.

“Excuse me, I am not comfortable with you sitting here. Can you please move.”
An older man behind me stands up and stares down the gangster.

 The gangster looks at me, hurt and hateful. Then looks at the older man. Finally, he slinks down to the back of the bus.

I smile gratefully at the older man. I feel like Blanche in ’A Streetcar named Desire’ always depending on the kindness of strangers. Relief emanates from my every pore. I hear the calm snores from the Latino woman and her baby, reclaim my space of both seats, and settle into a steady slumber of my own.