Having toured the Northeast coast for spring break, I have seen more than my fair share of American bus stations. Strangely enough, the majority of which are called Union Station. Not only that, but also every town and city in the country seems to have a Main Street, High Street, and Church Street, just like here in Middletown. For a country with so many individuals, where has the individuality gone?
My first bus station experience began in our own Middletown Area Transit. An archway marks the entrance to an open courtyard with a circular bed for plants in the centre of the pavement. Sounds beautiful, right? Maybe five years ago. Hard to see initially, the archway is grimy and the letters “MAT” are difficult to read. The courtyard has aged and weeds are more visible than flowers. Where passengers once relaxed before a trip, now suspicious characters with hoods drawn over their faces loiter aimlessly. The bus station beyond is shrouded in darkness and this seems more like the entrance to a cemetery than to a public building.
I marched my way into the darkness and headed over to the ticket office. I had bought my tickets online, so I had to produce my receipt to receive the tickets. “Knock for service,” the sign said. So I complied, only to be met by a glare of annoyance. The cemetery feel shifted to a prison waiting room atmosphere. There was a thick glass wall mounted between customer and assistant and immediately I felt like I wasn’t welcome. Her raised eyebrows and look of total disdain was just what I needed. I began to explain to her that I had this print out and I just wanted…“WHAT? SPEAK UP!” So I spoke louder, aware of the fact that everybody in the station was now staring at me. She still couldn’t hear. I shouted my request through the tiny air hole in the inch thick glass and squeezed my printed page under the tiny slit below. They don’t even have a glass slider to pull back for when customers come, so if you have a problem, prepare to yell it in front of everybody. I’ll admit listening to other people’s business serves as a good distraction from the boredom of waiting for a bus, so at least I was providing some entertainment for the unruly crowd of travellers watching me.
I went into the bathroom with all my bags strapped to me, clinging to my possessions for dear life. When I opened the door of the cubicle there was a woman right in my face, waiting to get in. She didn’t step aside to let me out, so I walked forward and as I turned to head over to the basin, forgetting how wide my rucksack was, I accidentally brushed against her face. Very lightly, I might add, but I, of course, immediately apologised. Well, I didn’t hear the end of it…“HEY! ”YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WATCH THE PEOPLE,“ she cried, in her half-broken English. I washed my hands as she continued to rant from the behind the cubicle door. Apparently, it was still bothering her when she came back into the lobby and continued to mumble to herself.
I had a layover in Springfield, Mass. for three hours. The prison feel was again apparent, but this time there was a McDonald’s and a Dunkin Donuts thrown in, although maybe that added to the atmosphere…The main lobby consisted of rows of metal seats and a television screen mounted onto the ceiling with CNN on full blast. An old woman hobbled through the aisle yelling names at people as she passed, waving her stick frenetically in the air. Nobody paid her any attention; this is normal in bus stations. I read the New York Times for a while and then went to the bathroom. I have seen port-a-loos on mornings after a drinking festival in Dublin cleaner than these. I washed my hands in the miserable dribble of water that eked out from the dangling tap, still shuddering in disgust. The hand dryer was in complete contrast to the water pressure. An aircraft engine must have been installed to power it, the noise was incredulous, and I think I lost my epidermis to that monster.
Pittsburgh, Penn. This station wasn’t so bad, for a while. Maybe the time of the transfer had something to do with it; we were leaving for New York at 1:30 a.m., but I have never, ever experienced such mayhem and chaos in my short life. Firstly, I went up to the Greyhound desk to get a luggage tag issued for my bag when the assistant behind the desk had a real-life nervous breakdown. She threw the stack of notes and tickets on the counter around her in every direction shouting, ”Customer SERVICE! Customer SERVICE! I am trying to SERVE YOU! I’m trying to HELP YOU!“ She looked frazzled and drawn, obviously on a bad day. She ranted away for a good five minutes as her colleagues tried to calm her down. This was not good move. Police were called, names were taken, and she resigned and stormed off. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for my luggage tag.
Just then, a lady from behind me pushes herself through the growing impatient queue over to the policemen still taking reports and claims her tickets and chequebook have been stolen by a man (whom she couldn’t describe at all and who conveniently slipped away on another bus). They, clearly used to this kind of accusation, sat her down and pretended to make a report.
Then from across the station, more yelling could be heard. Like sheep, the entire queue did an about turn and gaped at the shop where a passenger had asked for a sandwich. He was late for his bus and asked the assistant to hurry up. He would later regret such a request. This sales guy stopped in mid buttering, put down the knife (we were all thankful for that), and slowly walked back to the customer who had that shifty movement of somebody who is late for something. The sales guy slowly asked not to be rushed. It was his fault for ordering the sandwich at the last minute. ”Don’t blame me because you have bad time management.“ ”Just give me the damn sandwich!“ the passenger retorted, his eyes darting from the bus outside to the sandwich and back again. This, needless to say, did not speed up the sandwich-making process and further infuriated the staff member. He eventually abandoned his late night snack and flung himself in front of the bus as it pulled away, much to the driver’s annoyance.
Twenty-one bus trips on Greyhound: $465; round trip NJ-transit Philadelphia to Atlantic City: $15; tuna hoagie in subway: $4.35; meeting escaped convicts and crackpots? Priceless. There are some things money can’t buy—for everything else, there are Greyhound terminals.
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