All Aboard the Ho Chi Minh Express!

"The Possibilities Are Vast, Inc."

Tonight's Tale of terror....

"Not the actual company name"

Actual Chinatown bus photo

I don’t know if any of you have had the pleasure of having to travel long distance by bus, but let me tell you, it is an experience in sub-culture that has to be seen to be believed.

One year, during the Christmas Holiday season, my son and I had been given two buddy passes to fly to Atlanta.  After spending several nights sleeping in LaGuardia due to the nor'easter that nearly shut down anything moving,  we were informed that all buddy passes had been embargoed due to the weather, until further notice.  

 Determined to get my son to see Atlanta, and not spend a dismal Christmas at home due to the fact that I had no contingency plan, I checked Greyhound, Amtrak, even the Dominican Van service “Mangu Rapido” or whatever they’re called, everything was booked solid, or was so expensive you had to mortgage the tickets, not buy them. 
My brother called and said there was a solution.  A bus company in Chinatown that offered low rate bus transportation to Atlanta, and other points south.  Let’s just call the company “The Shang Hai Express” or “Ho Chi Min Horse Trail”.  We purchase two tickets online and are instructed to print the E-ticket to bring to their Chinatown office 20 minutes prior to the 10pm departure time. One carry-on and one large piece of luggage were allowed per passenger, and valid identification was required upon check in.  Seats were pre-assigned at check in.

"We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

We arrive at the address listed on the website, and the curb in front of their ticket office looks as if refugees were escaping Bosnia!  Bundles, boxes, chicken wings with French fries, Duane Reade Shopping bags, hand carts with laundry bags tied on with electrical extension cord…all that was missing was live chickens and goats, and I’m almost sure two women went by with stuff balanced on their heads.  The ticket office was crowded, filthy, and doubled as an Asian electronics store.  The lines extended to the street, and there was only one surly woman checking passengers in at the bullet-resistant glass booth.  I gave her the printouts, and our ID, she read them briefly, scribbled something on them with black sharpie marker and replied “B-bus, ow-sigh, teh o’cock.”  I asked if seat 49 was a window, and she replied “Maybe.” 

There was snow on the ground, and the curb was lined with two foot high snow banks from the sanitation plows pushing away the earlier storm.  As the buses arrived, people were running along-side along the snow banks as if this were the last life boat off the Titanic!  Kids in one arm, those red-white, and blue burlap sacks I call “The Mexican Tourister” for luggage in the other.  It was the Housing Authority Fashion Show, featuring all those famous, high quality brands: Cacawear, Baby Cat, Hot 29, Pumpkin Bottoms, John John, all the favorites from your neighborhood Pay/Half Store.

The buses stop, and the driver can’t even open the door.  One of the office staff met the bus at the curb, and helped direct them, and passengers away from each other.  I turned to my son, and shrugged in apology.

The door opens and people begin to pour into the bus, as water floods into a sinking ship.  There is no regard for sex, age, and no chivalry for women, children, or the elderly.  Every savage for himself.  The epitome of the ghetto mentality and philosophy; “I’m gonna git mines!”  We get to our seats after placing our luggage underside.  The driver was a surly Asian with a Chin-fro, glasses, and a painted on sneer his face.  After the melee of boarding, the driver walked through, counting in Chinese as he went, cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth as if glued there.   

He yelled something to one of the staff on the curb, and he slammed the door and we were off.  We turned off of First Avenue so hard you had to hold on to avoid being dumped into the aisle.  We were on Canal Street when the driver’s phone rang, his ring-tone was the song “Sukiyaki”, made famous by the group “A Taste of Honey”, only this was the original version, in Chinese, and it sounded like wet kittens mewing from a wet sack, in a trash can.
 

The driver made a series of hard turns as he appeared to curse to himself, “magahay!” We came around a corner, and were back in front of Chow Fun Bus’s base office.  A woman emerged carrying an overnight bag and a Pullman; “Is this the Atlanta bus?!”  The driver continued to roll, screaming at the woman as we went “You kungh now, you mate bus lay!”  She approached the bus and said “can I get on?”  “Kung NOW, Now, geh on, bus is lay, you mate bus lay!”  She had to board the bus while it was moving, throwing her luggage onto the bus ahead of her, and the bus never stopped, even as she maneuvered through the bus to find an open seat.  The driver slammed the door closed with a resounding FWOOP, and we were off again.   

Now the driver was trying to make up time, darting in and out of traffic as if he were driving a Toyota Sienna minivan.  After crossing Canal Street, another hard right, and we were in the tunnel to New Jersey.  After the toll plaza, the driver was cutting lane to lane as if we were a fire truck chasing a call, occasionally, we’d ride the shoulder on the sleeper ridges BRRRRRRP brrrrrrrp brrrrrp…

A passenger seated directly behind the driver apparently had issue with his smoking, and made it clear: “Driver, DRIVER, I gots asthma, you isn’t puposed ta be smoking” on da bus, I’m gonna call the company!” Without even missing a beat or turning his head, the driver smiled: “I dun cayuh, you cah company, is MY COMPANY, MY BUS, YOU CAUH COMPANY!” The passenger murmured something to the guy next to him about this being fucked up, sucked on his inhaler but that was that. 


We drove at speeds between 70 and 80 mph, zipping from lane to lane on the NJ Turnpike, it was like a 45 foot roller coaster.  FORGET about falling asleep!  The snow and sleet pelleting the windshield, the herky-jerky movements of the driver, the potpourri of feet, pink hair relaxer and port-o-john wafting from the back of the bus, ahhhh the bliss.   

The bus’ totally dark interior due to the lack of courtesy lighting ensured that someone would use your head for a grab rail feeling their way to the “boom boom room”.  We stopped at a rest stop for fuel, and a passenger asked if he could get off  to smoke.  “Ok you smoke, fi mins, fi mins!”  There was an exodus to Pilot Truck Stop!  The driver yelling “Hey, you come now, no bake, ony smoke, ony smoke fi min!”  Two thirds of the bus emptied out and pranced passed the fuel pumps to the eatery.

The driver yelled behind them and they ignored him and continued.  He was on his phone as he stood holding the door to the restaurant open, pleading in Chininglish for them to return, “Herroo, Neu Yok Alana, go to bus, we ah lay, Alana Neu Yok!” some did since they had their munchies and drinks, but the rest continued to stand in huge lines to place their orders.  He returned to the bus, and began honking the horn intermittently, then moved the bus in an effort to get the rest to return to the bus, all the while heatedly complaining to someone on the phone in his tongue.  When he thought he had collected  all of the absconded, we proceeded out of the rest area onto the highway.  A woman in the back of the bus yelled “DRIVER! DRIVER! Someone make him stop, the lady next ta me ain’t back yet, she still inna sto!”  The driver ignored, and we pulled back onto the road. 

Now wer’e flying down the road, in and out of traffic, trying to make up lost time when suddenly….PEEEOOO-PEEEOOOO-PEEEOOOOO-PEEEEOOOO Chit-ZING-TISSSSSsssss….RRRRROOOOOWM BA BA ba ba ba!!  The bus stalled out and now the only sound was the tires, and the wind. The driver was on his phone to his base or the other bus (A-bus) seemingly asking for instructions on how to deal with the situation as we coasted to the shoulder, tires humming and grinding on the sleeper ridges as we slowed, and pitched slightly to the right on the embankment.  The peeoo peeoo sound continued as the driver tried to start the engine, but only clicks, then the chirp of the low air pressure alarm could be heard. Silence, except for the intermittent whoosh of passing traffic, and passengers sucking their teeth, and murmuring to each other.  One guy asked if everything was alright, but the driver ignored him and continued to stare through the steering wheel at the instrument panel. 

Wooo woo woo woo wooo CRRRrrrAaaaaaank…..wooo woo woo woo woo woooo CRRRrrAaaaaaank.  No dice.  Now mind you, through all of this, there has been no announcement from the driver, no “Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologize for the inconvenience, no free spring rolls, no happy ending..NOTHING!  After a pause that lasted for an hour, (5 minutes) and a couple more woo-woo cranks, the engine roared to life.  The driver revved the motor for awhile to get the low air pressure to release the ICC brake, and after awhile, we were rolling again.  Back into traffic, zipping and zooming. Sighs of relief could be heard from the other passengers (one ghetto broad said “shit, he drivin’ crazay, but it’s better than being stuck on the road!”)   We were really moving and despite the herky-jerky dodges in and out of the lanes we were moving, we were actually going to get home!

PEEEOOO-PEEEOOOO-PEEEOOOOO-PEEEEOOOO Chit-ZING-TISSSSSsssss….RRRRROOOOOWM BA BA ba ba ba, TRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooowwwwwwl!!  Guess what?

We lost 45 minutes between the three stalls, and when we passed a trucker rest area, we stopped.  The driver turned the wheel hard as we rounded the pumps and pulled up to the entrance of Big Bob’s, or Jimmy Ray’s or whatever else they’re called.  You know, where they sell coffee, slim jims, tractor trailer TV sets, scrapple wraps, skoal, plaid flannel shirts with the built in hoodie, Nascar license plates, Dixie flag baseball caps, cowboy hats with the big feather badge in front, toy trailer trucks, corncob pipes, cb antennas…..Hickmart! You get the idea right?  Ok, let’s go on.   

The driver stops the bus by pulling up the emergency air brake and the bus snaps on a dime, and rocks to a halt; “Teh min bake!”  If you stuck your hand into the aisle, you’d be snatched into the tide of cattle stampeding off the bus!  But I can assure you, “dem niggas was back onna bus in 9.37 minutes! Jackie Chu, or whatever his name was, wasn’t taking any crap from stragglers!

  

The total ride was 15 hours, it was like an Indiana Jones movie, the one with Short Round driving the car with the blocks on his feet, but without the opening floor show.  My son slept through the entire trip, and I wish I could have.  Through the smell of feet, porta-john, pot, cat urine, chicken wangs, motions hair conk, getting his head grabbed by someone who lost his balance looking for the can, through the harrowing and dangerous drive, and the ghetto fashion show that took place each time the savages got on and off the lifeboat.  My wife and the other kids were there to get us at the shopping center in Atlanta, and we were glad to be greeted by familiar,  friendly faces.


I looked at my son, and shook my head and said “well, I said I’d get you here for Christmas, by hook or crook!”  “It’s alright Dad, now I can cross sleeping in an airport, and kamikaze bus trips off of my bucket list, and besides, now you have some new stories to tell!”  My son is a trooper!

There is no regulation, package inspection, ID check, customs, red caps, air fresheners, life preservers, flare guns, and I wonder if the drivers even have a CDL.  How can you pass the licensing process if you can't speak English??!

It's the underground railroad all over again.  I can only IMAGINE how many kilos, AK47's, surface to air missiles, kidnap victims, fugitives, vampires, Bigfoot, illegal aliens, extra terrestrials, hookers, endangered species, and whatever else you can think of are on those buses cause NOBODY'S checking!  

The bus stalled due to an air leak, that brought the primary pressure to less than 65 pounds, activating the ICC emergency brake and killing the engine.  When was this bus inspected, or cleaned?  You want an adventure filled with thrills, chills, danger, drama, bedbugs and action?  Can you piss in total darkness in a smelly box that keeps throwing you from left to right, while trying to aim at a hole you can't see? Try a ride on one of Kamikaze Koach Lines to anywhere!

May the force be with you!