Stranger (un) Danger

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

So this one time when I was nineteen, I left Colorado to head back to a Wisconsin after an unsuccessful attempt at living in a ski-bum, party town as an adolescent. Shocking. Big A and Suze were good about letting me come back to live with them, I think mostly because they were surprised I asked. But they weren’t going to pay to get me there.

Departing Vail on a Greyhound bus back to Wisconsin was my final of many walks of shame I took at 8,150 miles above sea level. I wasn’t going to be missed enough to warrant a going away party, but Eric B did give me an eighth rolled into 5 little joints, as a send off. I put them in a little change purse with a cartoon marijuana leaf on it.

I remember thinking the busses we took for an hour up to skiclub in grade school were nicer than this Greyhound I paid the last of my money to ride across the country in. It smelled like exhaust and everything felt sticky.

We’re 2.5 hours in with an hour and a half before our next stop. I look in my change purse, there’s a bathroom at the back of the bus. It has a window. Fuck it. As I’m walking to the back of the bus I spot a pair of beautiful black men sitting a few rows back from me. I’m wearing a pair of sweats pulled down low on my hips, my thong showing out the back, and a half tee- no bra, that’s my signature. I put my shoulders back, slightly and bite my bottom lip just a little bit. Make a tiny bit of eye contact and then look down to the side. I’ve played this game before, I’ve never lost…depending on what you consider to be losing in this particular sport.

In the bathroom I take just a couple puffs off my joint being careful to blow all the smoke out of the minuscule window. I think I’m pretty slick, no alarms go off or anything. As I walk down the aisle and approach the hot guys, they point at me and then at each other and say, “Waaat?! Dayumm.” I smirk and sit back down.

An hour and a half later, we stop at a McDonald’s somewhere in Nebraska. When we exit the bus my witnesses approach. They are mostly just impressed with my daring. Years later I understand why they would never consider even consider such a stunt, and the privilege I had in knowing the worst that could happen to me is I’d get kicked off the bus. The privilege of giving no fucks.

We went to a field behind the strip mall and we shared a joint. We laughed as they recounted seeing the skinny little white gurl walk out of the bathroom blazed as fuck. I learned they were brothers, 23 and 25 headed to Detroit. They had to get off in Lincoln, the next stop to keep in that direction. The older of the two turned me, “Listen little girl, you’re just a baby. Me and my brother we’re good guys, but most aren’t. You can’t just go smoking joints with strangers in back fields. You’re a bad ass little thing, but don’t be stupid.”

When we got to their stop, big brother flashed me a peace sign, little brother gave me a nod.

I didn’t learn a lot of lessons in my adolescence, and this particular lesson may not be conventional wisdom. But in my experience, it’s not the strangers on the Greyhound bus that need to be feared, but the acquaintances at multimillion dollar house parties.