My journey began at 7am on the morning of August 2nd with a missed alarm clock and a hangover.
Last nights poor decisions still taking their toll on my clouded mind, I slid into my suit, hastily threw rumpled clothes into a recently retrieved suitcase and ran to my bike. My plan was to to take my suitcase and a quarter sheet cake via bicycle a half mile to the Ann Arbor bus station, where I would shackle my steed with a prayer that it would not be impounded for abandonment, and catch a bus bound for Grand Rapids, where even now my friend and his soon to be wife were beginning preparations for the day’s ceremony.
My bike, however, is more sensible than I am. And after two feeble attempts, it very plainly explained to me “no way in hell are you carting a suitcase on my head with a cake on top of that for half a mile without crashing every three feet. it ain’t gonna happen.” I was dismayed, feeling betrayed by my stalwart companion who until this moment had hauled me and whatever strange cargo I had loaded onto it without complaint.
Hearing the clock ticking inexorably towards “you’ve missed your bus,” I called my father to ask for a ride. “When do you need to be there?”
“Like, now. My bus leaves in twenty minutes.” This was a great worry to me, since my trusty steed, while implacable, is akin to a snail when compared to even the smallest four cylinder car, and so my perception of time required to travel a half a mile has been stretched like plastic wrap pulled too tight.
“All right. Let me put on pants, and I’ll be right over,” told me that I had upended my father’s lazy Saturday irreparably. For while “i’m willing to help you out how I can” is an open invitation to beg for assistance, disturbing someone’s pantsless weekend can irrevocably change your relationship with a person.
Knowing grin and generous spirit accompanied me to the downtown station, where I arrived with a paltry twenty minutes to run across an empty street and sit on a bench before my bus arrived. I and ten other people sat waiting in the slowly warming Michigan morning, thinking hours into the future of when we arrived at our final destinations.
There was a deeper truth in this, which we would all come to learn later. The 8:45am bus, a critical link between Chicago and Detroit, ferrying hundreds of souls across Michigan and Illinois daily, would never appear.
The dispatcher, walking into her booth at 10am expecting another slow Saturday, would have no answer for us.
The replacement driver, arriving at 12pm, having been hastily sent out from Detroit to slog through weekenders and World Cup fans on the interstates, would have no answer.
For some, this was the end of their day. Weekend plans rescheduled for next time, later buses scheduled.
I was thinking of wedding bells, a promise given six years ago, and how eating something might assuage the drum in my head.
While bride and groom began to walk the aisle at noon, my bus became ensnared in downtown Ann Arbor traffic, slowed by dozens of other missed alarm clocks and poor decisions that shuffled across crowded streets in a daze. Perhaps I would never actually leave this place, i thought. Maybe the axle would fail on a pothole in the next block, or some other strange calamity would befall and ultimately keep me homebound.
Nothing so dramatic occurred, thankfully, and we soon emerged onto I-94, an eternity of gentle bends and highway. Here I drifted off into the light sleep that seasoned travelers know to take. You never fully sleep on a bus; sleeping on a bus means ending up in a real life sitcom. Arriving in a strange town hours from home, no friends to call, strangers everywhere and no assurances that your mishaps have been scripted to be exclusively non-fatal. Sleeping on the bus means completely trusting your fellow passengers and driver to wake you when you arrive at your stop, that someone will remember your tired face and that you really have somewhere to go that means a great deal to you.
You do not sleep on the bus.
I was roused from my reverie by the sound of a slowing engine. Had we arrived, I hoped? Had the driver made all haste to our next point, to make up for such a horrendous delay to our morning? Sadly, no terminal greeted my eyes, but a truckstop. The universal waystations of American’s endless highways that will cradle weary souls with all the comforts of home. Energy drinks, chain restaurant food of questionable consistency, a toilet, a heaping helping of American pride, and gas if you really want it. The many other passengers on the bus had been on board for a good deal longer than our delayed crew, and so a stop was in order to stretch tired limbs and assuage aching stomachs.
I bought a tea and returned to my seat. My hangover had not improved.
Seemingly a day later, we left again for destinations greener than today’s asphalt promises of an end of the journey. I dozed off again, thinking of traveler’s dreams: my arrival, my commute, why would it be strange if hippos were naturally green, and hundreds of other thoughts that trailed away like the exhaust fumes of our bus, disseminating into the atmosphere and leaving no trace of their presence save a faint smell of hot air.
We arrived in Kalamazoo at 2:30pm; a shell of the American boom hollowed out, and slowly being overgrown by blight and bright artistic florals. Beaten, worn homes sprawled like mushrooms amongst the trees, towering buildings with peeling paint on worn brick, sit alongside repurposed buildings with new light. A Bell’s brewery general store stands proudly, showing its bottled fruit of escape and new promise of tomorrow. It reminded me of further West, in places like South Dakota; empty, hot, and with no real idea what it was doing with itself.
Such an environment is not kind to someone in a suit. I change in the bathroom, transforming from harried wedding guest to an everyman. Bride and groom were wrapping up their reception; I was looking to kill time, and see what I would as an unexpected tourist.
I walk a few blocks, back to the Bell’s store our coach had passed minutes earlier, hoping to see the same alluringly tan woman I had spotted as we rolled past. She was gone.
Two employees throw an empty jug of coleslaw in a game of catch behind a slatted, barbed wire topped fence. It flies too high, clears the fence, and bounces off of two cars, exploding and sending the remaining coleslaw like gooey confetti across their sides.
An employee emerges from a side gate, wondering aloud whose cars he hit.
Across the empty four lane road, I reply “you hit the red and grey one.”
He looks at me, expression guarded, annoyed.
My hangover has slightly improved.
Across from the brewery, I find a small cafe occupying what was clearly a small railway station. Inside it is cool and comfortable, with vibrantly blue colored tile walls and a low ceiling. A cooler and counter frame a kitchen densely packed with machines, ovens and three young and bubbly baristas. Organic teas, coffees, and strange tea blends from faraway lands line the walls, as well as commemorative mugs, burlap bags, and shirts. Surely, this place would have some food and comfort for a tired traveler.
A cute blonde takes my order. I tell her I am passing through, and am looking for a good dark roast.
She tells me they have a special organic blend that is earthy and full bodied, and tastes really good. She’s a light roast drinker herself, but she thinks this blend is really good.
Her co-barista agrees with a smile, a bald and scruffy young man dressed like a fit urbanite who found himself in Michigan; a pinch of Manhattan in the downtown of the rustbelt.
I smile back, hand them my travel mug and say “caffiennate me,” and order a chimichurri burrito.
They laugh.
Her eyeliner makes her eyes almond shaped.
We make idle chatter. I notice a tip jar that reads “barista student loan repayment fund.” I laugh, and say I sympathize, being indebted myself.
They laugh.
I do not tip.
The coffee is really good, as is the burrito.
My hangover, at last, fades away.
Halfway through my one hour layover, I head back to the station.
I watch internet videos while I wait.
Bride and groom are wrapping up the after party, thanking guests and seeing friends off.
3:30 arrives, and I nearly miss my second bus.
An hour later, I arrive at the Grand Rapids central station. The groom has told me to meet them at Grandlan in downtown.
“Grandwhat?”
“Grandlan. Look it up.”
A video game store, and four blocks away from the station. Of course. I set a brisk pace through the low but persistent heat of the cloudless afternoon, nearly breaking my wrist holding full travel mug, cake and suitcase. In a moment of supremely annoyed desperation, I halfheartedly shove my travel mug into my pocket.
It fits completely, and is not the least bit uncomfortable. One unexpected benefit to wearing oversized pants, it seems.
I arrive at 5, and tell the groom I’m here.
“We’re dropping some things off, then we’ll be over to pick you up.”
I sit inside. The air is dark and cool; two dozen different computers line the wall, all dedicated gaming consoles. Energy drinks and sodas fill two small coolers in the far corner, small groups played cards or tabletop games, and a few other souls flitted in and out to window shop or meet up with friends.
I will stay at this station the same way I have stayed at other bus stations all day; for a few hours longer than I would like. I am eventually retrieved by the bride and a friend, and after another twenty minutes, I at last arrive at my final destination. I am tired. I have had a thoroughly long day, with the promise of a longer week after tomorrow, but for now I am where I need to be.
And the cake made it without so much as a dent in the icing.