Our Epic, Part Six/Final

So we were in St. Regis, Montana, until the bus was fixed, [actually at the exact place where four of us spent the night 25 years ago when we were caught in a blizzard on our way to Oregon] and then we took off for Spokane, Washington, and got there at about 2 in the afternoon. Along the way, those passengers who knew anything about bus routes and schedules were informing everyone else what their options were, since Greyhound didn't seem compelled to divulge much information.

This bus is going on to Seattle, the driver told us. So we can go along or catch the next ride to Portland. Which, someone else told me, is at 1:30 in the morning.

We got off the bus and milled around like refugees and tried to decide what to do. Jenny and I asked the baggage guy to get our suitcases, and when the driver, who liked to yell, saw us, he yelled at us that we aren't supposed to be there. Hello? We're supposed to send our luggage to Seattle with you?

We went inside to check schedules and figure out how to get home. The ticket/information counter was closed, with a sign saying someone would be there at 4 pm. There were no schedules posted anywhere, no information, no help, no staff, no numbers to call.

A nice older woman named Judy, from Missoula, had taken this trip before and knew the bus to Portland left twice a day--at 1:30 in the morning and again at 11:30 a.m. "I think we should get a motel and a night's sleep," I said, "and then take the 11:30 bus. If they'll honor our tickets."

That was the big question. It seemed entirely logical that Greyhound would make us buy new tickets.

Judy asked if we'd like to get a room with her and split the cost. She knew of a Rodeway Inn close by. I said we would.

A very young couple stood in our forlorn bunch looking utterly lost. Marty the Christian-camp-worker quietly pulled out his wallet and gave them money for a motel.

A few minutes later Judy was talking with a woman I'll call Carol and asked her if she'd like to stay with us too. She said yes. I felt a touch of anxiety because, earlier, on the bus, I'd asked Carol where she was from and she talked for two hours straight about how she'd just been to Minnesota because her dad had a heart attack and she had to put him in a nursing home. Oh well, I figured, she had a lot on her mind and just needed to talk.

We got a taxi and went to the motel.

Carol said, "Oh, fresh air! I need fresh air. I just love fresh air, to breathe, to just breathe it in." And she opened the door of our room and fussed because the windows wouldn't open.

Judy said, "There's a mall not far away if you want to walk there with Jenny."

Carol said, "Oh no! Not the mall! I hate malls, all that air that other people breathe. I need fresh air. Fresh. Oh, it feels so good, fresh air, to breathe."

We tried to find places to stash our stuff.

Judy suddenly said, "My son is getting married Saturday in Portland and I just feel I really need to get there as soon as I can. I wonder there's any way I could fly."

She got out her laptop and I helped her find a ticket and ten minutes later she was on a taxi and gone.

And we were left with Carol, who turned out to be an extreme version of a West Coast, left wing, hippie ("Except the hippies won't have me, because I wear jewelry"), organic, environmental, all-natural, New Age woman. Who talked all the time.

Now let me hasten to say that if someone wants to be on the leftern fringe that is totally their business and not mine, and I can applaud them for hanging their laundry on the line and eating their vegetables.

But talking about it all the time? That is another thing entirely.

Carol said, "You know, they put my dad in a nursing home and you couldn't open the windows. You couldn't. Only like two inches. I said, how is he supposed to breathe. This is not good for these people. I had to get the maintenance man to open the windows. And the food. All this sugary stuff, all this glucose, like jello and cake, and they expected him to eat it, and they kept track. They kept track. I said, put him on fruit. You can demand that, you know, that they let them eat good food. Oh and I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't. My dad voted for George Bush. He did, really. I found that out and I COULD NOT believe it. I'm like, how could you?"

I thought but did not say, "Honey, you said your dad was a 73-year-old ex-military guy from a small town in Minnesota. Hello?"

Carol talked while Jenny tried to take a nap and she talked to Jenny while I was in the bathroom and she talked while I was on the phone and whenever I paused because I couldn't think of the word, she supplied it.

She teaches wilderness survival skills and decided to teach Jenny how to build a fire. "This is cedar. Cedar is sacred. They called it Grandmother Cedar. See, they used it for canoes, for transportation, and for skirts, for clothing, and for fire. Fire is powerful. If you build a fire, you feel safe, it's so powerful. The Native Americans always said cedar is Grandmother Cedar. And this hole in the board is the baby. It's all symbolic. And this stick is the father and this part is the mother. And the Indian way is never to explain, always to demonstrate, always set the example. And Tom Brown was this man who learned from the old Indian ways and the old chief taught him, always demonstrate, never tell people what to do."

Then she put shredded cedar under the hole in the board and put the stick in the bowstring and started pulling back and forth. By this time she was in pajamas sitting cross-legged on the floor. With the door wide open for fresh air. Two young men passed by the door as she sat there sawing away. She didn't actually build a fire as she stopped when she saw smoke.

Somewhere in there Jenny and I took a walk to the bus station to see if we could get some reassurance about our tickets. The ticket counter was closed again.

Back in our room we found some salad ingredients that Carol had bought with food stamps. She shared with us which was very kind. And then she had some unfortunate digestive results from all that roughage, as she called it, and apologized, and kept the door open for fresh air.

Meanwhile I was wanting nothing more than to have ten minutes of quiet to pray and get my bearings and shed a few tears, but the ceaseless chatter continued. I finally went to the bathroom and called a few people and cried, among them my sister Rebecca, who called back and said she talked to Rod and he feels like I shouldn't stay in the room with that weird lady. Oh dear. I talked to Paul and (Amy reports from her perspective) he just hollered, "Flaky? What do you mean, flaky??" and then he shared my feeling that Carol was odd rather than criminal, and we decided to tough it out.

Later Carol was teaching Jenny some more wilderness survival stuff and pulled out her pocketknives, including a fierce specimen of stainless steel about four inches long folded up, and I thought, "Rod would tell us to get out of here for sure if he saw this."

Meanwhile Carol was delighted to be staying with us. "Oh, this is serendipity. Just serendipity."

She also told us about these beads she bought in Minnesota, tobacco and all the chemicals in cigarettes, her sons, the dry wind in New Mexico, her grandson, how she remembers names, fresh unpasteurized milk, and how capitalism has got to go. It has just got to go.

I didn't ask her to be quiet. I was spending a night in the same room, you know, and didn't think it wise to antagonize her.

Finally we all fell asleep. The words started up again the next morning, first thing. Jenny and I got dressed and went for a nice long walk. And then a taxi took us to the station and Greyhound honored our tickets and the sun shone and we got on the bus safely and sat toward the front and Carol didn't talk to us any more and we were headed HOME. What shall we do first when we get home, we asked each other, and decided we would hug everyone and then make a pot of mint tea. Yes, we would.

And then a young man's voice started up in the row behind us, flowing in an unending stream for miles and miles,

Quote of the Day:
"And I just hate this military-industrial complex. I just hate it. We are so far removed from the source of our food and clothing. There's no joy in any of it. We don't grow our food, we don't make our clothes. And corn. You know, I love corn on the cob, raw, oh it's so good, not cooked with butter and salt on it or any of that. But we eat so much corn, did you know the DNA of corn has become part of human DNA? And Monsanto has pushed their corn on Mexico and the seeds are sterile. And most American men eat so much steak and meat there's like 20 pounds of sludge just sitting in their intestines.
[20 minutes downstream] But I have to admit I have two addictions, ha ha ha, coffee and cigarettes.