Gigantic.43

On the Bus

I’ve always ridden on buses.

When I was eight years old, I rode the bus to New York City by myself. It was the mid 70s, New York City at its graffiti-covered, crime-ridden apex, but my mom put me on the Trailways in Kingston and off I went.

The air on the bus, if you could call it that, swirled with sunlit cigarette smoke. People dressed for travel. The old man across the aisle was wearing an out-of-date checkered jacket and smoked a cigar. No one paid me any mind.

The Port Authority was chaos. After scanning faces for a few moments, I found my Nonnie, four-feet-eleven-inches, elbowing her way through the crowd. We rode another bus back to Queens where’d I’d visit for a week before reversing the process.

Five or six years later when I announced I might head to Buffalo to visit a friend over Christmas break, my mom’s response was:

“Be back by the time school starts.”

That particular bus trip was an overnighter. Through whirling snow I glimpsed a string of western New York cities I didn’t even know existed. In Buffalo, despite being plainly underage by a long shot, I went to bars with college-aged people and no one batted an eye.

By my twenties I’d covered half the country on buses. They were smelly, crowded, and often entailed standing catatonic in late-night stations like Cleveland waiting for a transfer.

Not a romance exactly, but a lifelong relationship had placed buses firmly in my psyche. A gritty conveyance to be shared with the general public. At worst they got you where you needed to go, at best they might lead to true adventure.

Imagine my delight when we finally got our own tour bus.

There it was, gleaming in the Holiday Inn parking lot at the edge of Kingston, all the more miraculous after having crisscrossed the country in that shitbox van that nearly killed us.

Climb aboard, come for a little tour. First, there’s a front lounge, with two long couches, a table, chairs, kitchenette, tv, stereo, mirrors, recessed lighting.

In the middle of the bus are more than enough bunks for all of us, plus a small bathroom (number one only, if you need to do number two, ask the driver to stop somewhere, an absolute tour bus rule.)

In the back, a second lounge, more couches, another stereo, another tv. Generally, the back was dominated by video games and more of a party vibe. The front was more of a chill place where you could read, less noisy.

From the beginning, I claimed an upper bunk, and would remain an upper bunk person for the entirety of my touring career. Some people don’t like the climb. I quickly developed a trick for hopping up and in, as well as a patented flip maneuver that landed me on my feet every time on the way back down.

The mattress, thin but comfortable, a single blanket and pillow comes with your bunk and does the trick. I’m just slightly above average height. Curled up no problem. Sleeping diagonally, I could almost stretch out. The sound of the engine at night, rather than a distraction, is a loving embrace in the arms of morpheus. It cancels out snoring and whatever else comes with close proximity of so many dudes in a relatively small space.

When the bus rounds a tight bend late at night, you can be fast asleep but your hands will automatically grip the thin mattress and prevent you from rolling and falling from your bunk.

Waking up that first morning in a truckstop somewhere down south, the bus was parked way out with the big rigs. By the time you walk in, you’re feeling second cousin to the surrounding truckers heading in for breakfast.

My first purchases, a wide-based travel mug so my coffee wouldn’t slide across the kitchenette table, and a Best-Of Merle Haggard tape, which I popped on the stereo when I climbed back on the bus.

“What kind of bus you think Merle rides?” I asked Terry, our driver.

There are two main bus makers, Prevost and Eagle.

“I think he rides an Eagle, like this one.”

It was heartening to think that Merle might be out here somewhere at this very moment, riding on a bus just like ours.

Growing up, my best friend’s dad had been a trucker. On a trip to South Carolina he’d taught us trucker etiquette, CB lingo, and a few choice jokes from the 50s about a girl named Cindy.

This is why I got in the habit of riding in the captain’s chair up by Terry, so I could pick up where I’d left off. Like a lot of drivers, Terry had driven a big rig for years, then switched to tour buses to keep from going batty from isolation. Most drivers seem to hail from the south, have been in the service, and have an ex-wife, or two.

Terry was as happy-go-lucky a guy as you ever want to meet. I never came right out and asked him, but I was pretty sure he was high most of the time.

Down in Texas, the cities rise from the plains almost biblically. I could see Houston coming for some time. I kept watching it as we passed it, and then it was behind us.

“Terry,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Wasn’t that Houston?”

“Where?”

“Back there.”

Terry looked in his rearview, then checked a passing a road sign.

“Oh yeah,” he said.

We still made it to the gig in plenty of time.

Our first leg of the 98-99 tour was opening up for Jesus and Mary Chain. Two nights before, the Reid brothers had gotten into what would prove a historic fight. William Reid quit the tour, leaving Jim Reid about as fun to be around backstage as you can imagine. The band broke up shortly afterward.

After pretty much imploding ourselves, Mercury Rev had somehow reimagined itself. Two of the original members had just left, new touring members had taken their places. It wasn’t just the bus that was new. It was sort of a new band.

Two and half years before I was the new guy, now I was middle management. Soon my days would be dominated by promotion and other responsibilities. But on that first bus tour we still didn’t know what was coming.

I was free to kick back and enjoy the ride.

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