So I stepped off the bus, glad to be rid of the close quarters – only to be slapped in the face by the southwestern summer heat – a wall of scorched, breezeless air that burned in my lungs. For a few moments, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And while the heat was (as I was told) “a dry heat” I didn’t really have a concept of what that meant until I stepped off the bus. Dry heat is heat that still makes you sweat, but then boils you in your own juices --- so you go around all day like a giant pig cooking on spit.
While most bus stations are all the same, they do vary in size and grandness. Some stations are large and classical, like Union Station in New Orleans – one of those bus stations you’d expect to see in a movie with some inauthentic man saying farewell to an unrealistically stunning woman. Some bus stations are like the one in Cincinnati – medium sized, but not so grand; you instinctively start looking over your own shoulder because there are plenty of shadows for people to hide in and wait to take your bags, your wallet, or your life. The Santa Fe station reflected the image that the city wanted to offer to the world – faux western architecture, lots of stucco and Mexican-inspired fast food. Very arid and stale and untouched by the grime that you normally find in busy urban areas.
The Phoenix Station was an odd mix of grandness, sterility, and denial. Like Union Station in New Orleans, the Phoenix station was also where you caught the train – as if anyone really travels by train anymore, except so they can later tell people they did – and so was quote a bit of space to move around. It was located near the airport, and, I would soon discover, uncharacteristic of most buildings in Phoenix. The architecture was neither modern nor classic southwestern. It was an odd gray pimple on the flat, dusty landscape.
I didn’t quite know what to expect when I stepped off the bus. I mean, no one really told me. I didn’t know anybody who had been there. Any information I had about the southwestern portion of the United States came to me from movies, and all anybody ever sees of the southwest in the movies is desert: giant red rocks, cactus (cacti?), salamanders, scorpions, and the occasional sprig of grass or tumble weed. I seemed to remember from the countless number of cowboy movies I watched as a kid that people moved out west because the air was cleaner. What I found was that the only time the air wasn’t sterile was when a car, truck, or bus sped by blowing exhaust fumes into the already asphyxiating atmosphere. I also found that besides being tired, hungry, and dirty, I was also over dressed. I was wearing a comfortable pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and my beat up brown shoes. I owned exactly two pairs of shoes: my shiny black dress shoes that I wore so seldom that they still hurt my feet from being too stiff, and my brown shoes. I wore them everywhere, in any weather. Most of the people around me were wearing shorts, tank tops or t-shirts, and flip flops or sandals. The only ones who weren’t dressed like this were people like me who had clearly come from a different climate. From the minute my feet hit the cement, I felt them cooking in my shoes.
I stood around and waited for my bag to get unloaded – I only had the one suitcase plus my satchel. The sun was bright, even for the late afternoon. I looked at my watch. It was eight o’clock in Cincinnati. That meant it was… I had to think about it and at that point even simple math was difficult, I was so fucking tired … five o’clock in Phoenix. After I retrieved my suitcase, my next order of business was to find shelter – someplace easy, someplace cheap, and something near a bus line.
I’d been trying to sort out where I was going to stay since my first transfer in St. Louis. Before beginning my trip, I’d made sure to look up some numbers. I had the number for the YMCA, and a few cheap motels. I was also given the number of some people who lived in Phoenix – they were relatives of friends from Cincinnati – but I didn’t want to call total strangers and beg a place to sleep. But I also didn’t want to blow all my seed money – which there wasn’t much of – in the first few days, either. And even cheap hotels start to cost after a while. That meant my first option was the Y. I knew it wasn’t glamorous, but there’d be a shower, a bed, and door with a lock. When I called them from the station in St. Louis, still slightly drunk from the going away party right before I boarded the bus, they didn’t have any space, and there was no way I could reserve one.
“Keep calling,” the man’s voice on the other end of the phone told me. “We usually know what beds are empty by four or five in the evening.
I called again – this time from Amarillo, Texas. A different person answered the phone – a girl this time. But the conversation was complicated by the shoddy condition of the payphones at the Amarillo station, and by the fact that somewhere between St. Louis and Amarillo, I lost my voice.
“I can’t understand you,” she said.”
Cough. “I… said… do…” cough “you” cough “have… any… rooms?” My voice came out like a bad Don Corleone imitation. More than two or three simple words and I started coughing.
It was my own damn fault. Before leaving for Arizona, I had to decide what to pack and what to leave, and I didn’t want to carry a lot of stuff with me. A couple of day’s worth of clothes, a couple of dress shirts, khakis, a tie I hoped I’d never have to wear. Toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving kit, shampoo. The one thing I didn’t pack – a coat. Why would I need a coat? I thought. It’s the fucking desert. It’s fucking Arizona. What I didn’t count on, though, was that the bus driver would keep the median temperature of the bus just above refrigeration. I got on the bus drunk and sweating from the humidity of Cincinnati in August and shivered the entire time. By the time the bus reached St. Louis, my throat was scratchy.
“What?” the girl on the phone was getting bored.
“ROOMS,” I managed to push out, but it made my entire throat throb painfully. “DO… YOU… HAVE… ANY… ROOMS… AVAILABLE?”
“Oh.” She checked. “No, not at the moment. Check back. We usually know by four or five o’clock if we’re going to have any empty beds.”
They must have a goddamn script, I thought.
I hung up the phone and looked over my list. The motel numbers I’d written down were chains, which meant they’d probably cost more, even if they were cheap. My mother’s voice crept into my head. “What do you mean, you don’t have a place to stay out there?” she’d asked. “What are you going to do? Sleep on a park bench?” Naturally, I told her I’d be ok. And I knew I would be – it was just a matter of what degree of ok I would be. There’s ok “I found a place to crash” and ok “I found a place to sleep where I won’t get knifed.” I could always go to a shelter if I had to – but I was trying to avoid that if I could. I had decided that if I couldn’t find anything else, I’d call the people who my friends insisted would help me. I wasn’t sure that either scenario was one I would be able to live down.
I walked into the Phoenix station and looked for the payphones. I called the YMCA, only to be told there were no bed; try again tomorrow. I looked through the phonebook and found the number for the downtown shelter. Then I looked at my short list of hotels. I knew I could call one of them and get a room easily. I was in sore need of a shower and a bed to sleep, with food being a distant third. I looked up the list of motels, and focused on the cheap ones advertising weekly rates. I steered clear of the ads that seemed too eager to impress with lists of amenities. Free cable. Swimming Pool. Continental Breakfast. I focused on the small ads – and found one for the Lost Dutchman. All the ad read under the phone number and address was
NIGHTLY AND WEEKLY RATES. CLEAN ROOMS.
I called the number. Someone with a thick Middle Eastern accent answered the phone. “DO… YOU… HAVE… ROOMS?”
“Yees,” the man answered. “Some weeth Keetchenettes. Some not.”
I thanked the man and hung up. I looked over towards the kiosk with the bus schedules; but I was too tired to want to get on another bus, let alone try to figure out the metro schedule. Fuck it. It’s worth the cash to take a taxi and not have to think about it.
The taxi stand was outside, in front of the station. There were three cars parked. A tall black man wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt saw me first. “Where you headed?” I was about to tell him when a short Mexican woman grabbed my suitcase. “I take you,” she smiled. Then she glared at the man in the Hawaiian shirt. “I get you there FASTER, ok? This way.” I was too tired to argue; plus, she did have my suitcase. So I followed her to her car. The black yelled. “YOU BITCH,” he called. “I TOLD YOU, WE DON’T DO THAT.” At first she ignored him. “I’LL GET YA, YA FUCKIN’ BITCH!” Then she turned around, looked at the man, and spat on the ground. I didn’t look back. I was following my suitcase.
“Ok,” she said, opening the trunk and putting my suitcase in it. I tossed my satchel in and she closed the trunk. Then she opened the back door for me, got in, and we were off.
“Where to?” she asked.
I gave her the address.
“Ok,” she said. Once we were pulling out, I looked back. The tall black man in the Hawaiian shirt was watching after us, shaking his head. Then, as if he had an instinct, he turned and saw a woman with two large bags approaching.
The driver spoke to me. “What’s the address again?”
I told her.
“What’s that?”
“Motel,” I tried to answer, “Lost Dutchman.”
“Ah, ok.” she said. “Just so you know,” she added, “I don’t open trunk until you pay. If you tell me you gotta go meet someone at their room and get the money, you lose your stuff.”
“Fine,” I said.
She started chattering on about other things. I don’t know exactly what. I wasn’t paying attention. Something about how I had to watch out for people. How I couldn’t trust anybody anymore, not even cabbies. I wondered how much I was going to have to tip to get the trunk open, but at that point, the only place on my body that wasn’t aching was my little toe. Just get me to the motel, I thought. I’ll worry about other shit later.
After a short trip that probably could have been shorter, we pulled into the parking lot. She turned around and smiled. “$20.75,” she said.
I reached into my pocket, found a twenty and a five, hoping that would be enough. “Keep it,” I said.
She thanked me, then got out to open the trunk. Before she pulled off, she gave her card. “You need ride, you call me,” she said.
I mumbled a thank you and dragged my ass to the office, where I put money down for a week. When I got to my room, I didn’t even bother to shower. I fell on the bed and was sleep before my head hit the pillow. I didn't even bother to kick off my shoes.