Single Serving Wendy
Buses are strange things. Last Thursday, I slept at "hotel greyhound" from midnight to 6am on a bus to Plattsburgh and arrived relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed, enough so that I was good company for the friend that I was visiting and didn't feel like I'd been up all night. For all the tossing and turning I'd done, the 6 hour bus ride had been fairly uneventful, and everyone kept to themselves.
After two days seeing my best friend off from college (so to speak, he graduates in 2 weeks) it was time to head home, and I didn't have the luxury of overnight travel this time unless I wanted to go straight into work from the bus Monday.
Immediately, we were delayed more than an hour by our bus, which was stuck in customs at the Canadian border.
I should preface this story by telling you that I stick out like a bit of a sore thumb in Plattsburgh. I was the only one there that I saw wearing any black at all, and due to the fact that I kept my hoodie on the whole time to keep from freezing, I was pretty much all clad in it the entire time I was there.
Standing out in the parking lot, waiting for the bus, I wandered from the sun to the shelter a few times as the weather changed (it fluctuated drastically for my entire stay). After a few trips back and forth, I noticed a girl walking towards me. I was moving towards the shelter of the bus port, and she changed direction to match.
I turned and smiled, which is my default reaction whenever I notice someone on a collision course.
"Can I ask you a question" she said in a pronounced southern drawl. She sounded like Tate, a friend of mine from Texas, did when he first arrived in NY.
"Sure." I said, somewhat apprehensively. I was half expecting a "why do you look so weird" or "do you war-ship say-tan?"
"What kind of music do you listen to?"
I was taken a little off guard by the question and softened a bit, lowering my defensive.
"Oh... Well" I stall, trying to figure out if there's a single genre I can name that covers what I listen to.
No such luck.
"Well, I folk-acoustic I guess, but also rock, punk, emo"
"I knew it, I'm always right." she said, and headed back to her car, where her mom was waiting.
"Ok, that was a little weird. " I thought to myself
She looked anywhere between 20 and 30, with dyed red hair and darkish eyeshadow. She wasn't exactly a freak, but she wasn't your typical skinny Plattsburgher either.
I went back to my game for a few minutes, and then hear footsteps approaching me again.
"Okay, y'all are going to be looking at me strange a few times by the time we get on this bus. Do you mind if I ask you another question?"
"Of course not, as long as you don't mind me asking why your curious"
"Oh, me? Nothin, I'm just nosy and loud, and I've got a long bus ride ahead of me and I'm bored sitting here. So okay, how old are you?"
"Okay, well, I'm 24."
"What're you doin' here in Plattsburgh"
We chattered for another few minutes, and in those moments, I was starting to plan my escape. As interesting as this was, I don't make a habit of chatting up girls on long bus rides, and I could start to see where this was going.
Just then, I caught a flash of color from her ear. She had pride rings hanging from her piercing. Coincidentally, she just happened to be giving away that information verbally at the same time.
"yeah, I was out with my friend, well, I though she was my friend," she began "and I said, "damn, girl you got a foin ass" and she slapped me. And I was like, what, I don't mean anything by it, but really, your ass is fine. And she slapped me a second time!" She exclaimed, following deadpan with "I like chicks."
"Yeah, I figured" I said, as I motioned to her ear. She paused for a moment, as if trying to figure how how the hell I knew she was gay by the side of her head.
"Oh, these!" she said, finally remembering her earrings. "Wow, yeah, I've just worn these things forever. So you live in New York?"
"Yeah, my wife and I have an apartment in Queens." In other words, you're gay, I'm married, we're safe here, right?
Just then, the someone's horn blew twice loudly in the parking lot in front of me. My new friend turned around and looked.
"Ooop, that's my mawm. Gotta go!" she said, as she loped back to he car.
The bus took another 45 minutes to come, and since she never came back, I assumed that was the last I would really see of her.
It's not often that I make an assumption that's quite so wrong.
As we were piling into the bus, there were just slightly over half enough people to fill it, which meant that a few people had to share double seats.
"Mind if I sit with you" I heard from my right as I started to settle in for the 6 hour haul.
"Of course not"
I could spend pages recounting the conversations that transpired over the next 6 hours, but by the time were were reaching new york, I'd long since learned that my new friend's name was Wendy, and beyond that,I heard just about the entire history of her life. Consequently, so had about half the bus. She hadn't been exaggerating when she said she was loud.
It's hard not to connect with someone after 5 hours of solid conversation, and Wendy was a serial conversationalist. She listened well, and bridged any of the gaps I left with ease. Heading back home to Texas from Canada by bus takes a certain resolve, and Wendy had adopted a "single serving friend" strategy to keep sane and occupied for the trip. After I got off in New York, she had nearly two more days of travel ahead of her, assuming she made all her connections.
Riding through the strip mall hell that is Paramus, NJ, Wendy began to get antsy. We were both tired and a bit motion sick.
"Where's the city? "she whined playfully. " I can't see a thing but stores and buildings, aren't we almost there? I've never seen it but on TV."
I smiled, knowing that she was in for a treat. We were arriving in the city around 9, the perfect time to see the skyline as we approached from the west, culminating with a photo-worthy cross-harbor view just before going into the tunnel.
I love getting to see the city through an outsider's eyes. You can quickly get jaded traveling up and down the streets of NY. Watching Wendy's childlike reactions to everything was rejuvenating. She was giddy over the sight of just the empire state building in the distance, and as we rounded the corner where can see the entire New York skyline, she was literally bouncing up and down in her seat.
It's hard to truly explain Wendy. She had a certain precocious innocence about her, and I'd heard enough of her past to know that her enthusiasm for life and joviality were chosen traits, and not just the product of naivete. She gleefully showed me her stuffed animal frog, and caressed it like a beloved pet. In the same breath, she explained that she loved him because he was her stoner frog, and they got high together. She flipped his eyelids up, then down, taking him from hyper to stoned. "I love weed" she said, for probably the 50th time that trip.
I laughed, add admitted that the frog was, indeed, cute.
Her juxtaposition of childlike mannerisms and gritty, experienced past didn't end with the stoner frog.
"I've been through a lot" Wendy had said, earlier in the trip, and she had. I'd heard everything from tales of her abusive, alcoholic father to how being the 'favorite girl' in the strip club where she worked, and how the favors and free drugs that brought, wasn't always a good thing.
I laughed a bit to myself, thinking that that conclusion was a bit obvious, but it was a lesson she'd learned first hand.
"I used to be a little bastard. I was so angry all the time, and just a bitch to the people around me, and one day, I just woke up, and I was like "Hey, how you all doin?"", her voice echoing a genuine interest and enthusiasm. "And I've woken up like that every day since."
"My family almost had me locked up. They though I'd just plain old gone crazy." I'd made much the same decision near the end of my adolescence, choosing to be happy rather than letting life's turns and my emotions govern my disposition.
Wendy was the extreme embodiment of that choice. Although we differed in many of our views and choices, we connected through that shared life-view.
When we arrived in NY, we were 40 minutes late, and Wendy had, ironically, 40 minutes to make her transfer. It didn't help that the turn into and travel through the tunnel can make even an astronaut sick to their stomach, and she was as pale as a ghost and about to lose it when we pulled in.
"Well, What the heck" I though to myself, and picked up Wendy's spilled bag and packed it all back together, following off the bus where she'd sprinted to "solid land."
I found her outside the bus, finally starting to get her constitution back a bit.
"So let's get you to your next bus" I said.
"Are you serious?" she said, surprised at my offer.
"Sure, you might just make it if you know where you're going, but it's confusing in here.
We found out where the next bus was, and sprinted to gate 73, only to arrive just as it was leaving. I ran out into the concourse, flailing my arms trying to flag the driver down, but he just shook his head and drove away.
Wendy was now in for quite wait at port authority before she even got to embark for Virginia.
"Okay, this is good" I said to her. She looked at me slightly forlornly, as if to say "how in the hell is this good?"
"Well, this means you get to see some of New York. We're right in the heart here, why don't I walk you around the block, show you Times Square, and then I'll catch my subway and you won't have to wait quite as long for your bus."
That one block around Times Square illustrated to me how much I knew about the city at this point. I was able to be a tour guide, pointing out a novelty or telling a neat story for nearly every 10 feet. Wendy truly became a kid on Christmas, burning through an entire roll of film in the time we'd walked around the block.
She oohed and aahed just getting to see the edge of Times Square where Chevy's is. We stopped at Madame Tussaud's to stare at the Samuel L. Jackson figure, gaped at the 42nd street McD and the Lion King, and stood for nearly 5 minutes as we rounded the corner into Times Square Proper and she attempted to look at everything.
"I'd like to have that in my living room" she deadpanned between squeals of excitement, looking up at the giant TV where everyone watches the ball fall on New Years.
The walk back down 44th was filled with little surprises as well, and she filled her camera snapping pictures of the marquee for Spamalot and listened as I told the tale of my ex-professor meeting, and then being propositioned by Bob Fosse when he worked at Sardi's.
There was a commotion outside of Sardi's that night, and I asked a PA if there was an opening that night. Sardi's is home to just about every Broadway show's opening night celebration, and tonight's party was no exception. "Yup, this is the party for Glengarry Glenn Ross" the PA said.
At the corner of 43rd, I showed Wendy The Times Square Hotel, the first building that Common Ground bought and converted from welfare hotel to permanent supportive housing, which she'd heard plenty about on the trip down. She noted the building, but I don't think truly understood its purpose yet. That came about 5 minutes later.
As we walked back down to her gate in Port Authority. We passed an old man sleeping in an alcove under the stairs.
I motioned for her to keep walking, so that I wouldn't have to talk about the man where he could hear me. She hesitated for a few steps, and then continued past.
"I know you want to help, but that's where he's chosen to sleep tonight, and he probably wouldn't like being woken up. The sad fact is that the shelter system is crowded and dangerous, and this is a warm, dry place for him right now. We're working to get him and others real, permanent housing and whatever help he needs, but it's slow work."
She looked a little less distraught, but still visibly torn that she couldn't help, that she couldn't simply make it better.
"That's just about enough to make me cry right here." she said, as we started walking again,
I left her at gate 73, and gave her a brief hug. We hadn't exchanged any information, and I didn't really ask. In some ways, I kind of liked the idea of just doing that one nice thing, and letting it go at that. I get to be remembered as that nice fella from New York, and, I figured, I certainly had a hell of a story to tell.
