February 17, 2020 @ 9:37 AM
A McDonald’s tucked into the Walmart
San Antonio, Texas
The trip from New Orleans to San Antonio began in a creepy fashion. The driver showed up wearing a pressed Flixbus shirt, a very handsome white shirt with bright green trim. He drove a bus that didn’t reflect the brand at all, an ancient bus for a bus line whose name didn’t ring a bell. I was expecting a nice Van Hool bus wrapped with the Flixbus signage. A white Abbey Walsh bus showed up, and the shocks recorded the bumps in the road. I found a plug to keep my phone alive, but the plugs looked like a household socket. I might have had the only one on that side of the bus.
I heard the people in back discussing the lavatory, a little closet in the back smaller than most bus lavatories. “The door is broken”. “The lavatory is broken. Don’t use it”. I was gripped by fear. We had an hour to Baton Rouge. From there, we had another hour to reach Lafayette. Four hours away, Lake Charles awaited. I thought about my jar of peanuts. I could transfer the peanuts into a bag and, well, make do after covering up with my big Carhartt jacket. But before making that a Plan B, I checked the lavatory.
This really upset a woman sitting next to the lavatory. She repeated, “The driver says the lavatory is broken. It is broken”. I actually know how to install and repair flush toilets, so I gave it a look. A bus lavatory consists of a latrine that the company pumps out at the station after the run. It was working. The flange that keeps the smell from escaping was working. The only component that I found dysfunctional? The flush button wouldn’t wash out the bowl, only necessary if someone left a mess in the bowl. As I actually look for the plunger when I find a clogged public toilet, I decided I would keep the bowl clean for the trip. And it never got clogged.
We didn’t stop for a break, food and a walkabout, until we reached Lake Charles, Louisiana. I loved the unaltered truck stop that looked the same as truck stops looked in the Sixties. I thought about catching a trucker shower. We had twenty minutes to buy food, and the only item I found that I could eat were the Cliff Bars. Three biscuits for two dollars and the man charged me a dollar ninety-nine each for two Cliff Bars. In most grocery stores, I can buy ten for ten dollars, but I wanted to maintain my diet. So I bought them.
A bus lobby had messages from the old days of Greyhound, days when those buses always ran full and no one like Megabus or Flixbus had entered the market with friendlier offerings. The sign had firm instructions. I took a picture. I took a picture instead of taking the sign home.
ALL BUS PASSENGERS
YOU MUST
CHECK IN AT TICKET COUNTER
TO BE ASSIGNED A NUMBER FOR BOARDING.
SEATING IS ASSIGNED BY ARRIVAL AND CHECK IN.
DO NOT LEAVE THE PROPERTY
ONCE YOU HAVE CHECKED IN.
NUMBERS ARE NOT ASSIGNED
OUT OF ORDER & ONLY TO
PASSENGERS WHO ARE PRESENT.
We had driven by marshes and bayous since arriving just west of New Orleans. After the airport, the water takes over, which made habitat for Great Egrets, the slender white birds who fish like blue herons. I spotted lodges upon the water. I wondered what it would take to drive piles into the bayou to build a house on posts and a maze of docks. I would have to find a bayou builder who would show me how because how can a post stand in water and help hold up a house. This landscape continued all the way from Kenner to Lake Charles, where the land transitioned into woodland and cattle ranches as far as the eye can see.
I thought about the man from Lake Charles I had met as I stood outside in the sun of early evening, enjoying the partly cloudy day with a cheering breeze. He had departed his ten dollar bus ride at this station, probably going home with a friend who had the car still running when the bus pulled up. He had taken a few serious rounds of chemotherapy that had saved his life. We went over the bridge over a canal that allowed freighters to travel back and forth to the gulf. Lake Charles looked beautiful, casino resorts making the west shore look like a magical city. But what was wrong with the environment, if anything, that had made a man that sick?
I contemplated the woods and ranches as the sunlight failed, and I fell into another slumber. I awoke as we made our way into the massive array of skyscrapers that made Houston look like a fortress. We parked in a lot with many Flixbus buses, wrapped with the brand wrap, and I had to help a man find his bus to Dallas. That's how an upstart bus company should look, people boarding looking happy and expectant. This had not been my experience the first time around with Flixbus.
I liked the driver, a professional who could beat the schedule. We had to wait until 7:15 PM before we could set out for San Antonio. I walked into a Starbucks in a building still partially under construction and talked with a few people. “How old is this Starbucks”? “We’ve been serving coffee here for ten years”. Then why was construction just putting in the steel two by four framing on the second level?
The bus emptied out on a dark lane near a Holiday Inn, not even a Flixbus sign to indicate the stop. I pulled out Google Maps on my Android and saw I could walk to the heart of San Antonio and see the San Antonio Riverwalk for the first time. I passed by lovingly restored ranches, including the Casa Navarro, the homestead of José Antonio Navarro. I remembered well my friend Trent Navarro, who now sells trophy homes in Florida after a career with Marriott. A mural painted on tiles showed the location of the San Fernando Cathedral and the first buildings of the Mexican village called Bexar.
As I continued towards the Riverwalk, I found historical markers honoring the villagers who decided to fight for independence from Mexico, a bloody war that took many brave soldiers defending the Alamo. When Santa Anna attacked, his soldier massacred over two hundred soldiers, including the legendary frontiersman James Bowie and Davy Crockett. The forces under Santa Anna cremated all the bodies and threw the ashes into a mass grave. The Mexican Governor had ignored all entreaties by Bowie and Crockett, looking to avoid the massacre.
If my dad was alive, I would have called him, no matter the hour. Dad loved the story of the Alamo. If I weren’t looking for a bus stop by the riverwalk, I would have found the old fortress just to see it for myself. Remember the Alamo? Should even a Pacifist forget?
The riverwalk surprised me because I was crossing over the narrow channelized river before I knew I had reached its shore. Yes, it looks as if the river passes through a concrete channel to keep it from flooding downtown. Yet, with the walks along the banks, the fountains drizzling water sounds in the night and the buildings that had grown close to the walks, I knew the design of the riverwalk had managed to weave a thread of water through the city that connected past and present and future.
I talked with a few men at the bus stop because I had figured out how to text for exact arrival times. I was stunned to learn that an all day pass cost only 2.75, a full fare, one way ride on most bus systems.One man walked with a cane, too young for it. A second man demanded water, and the first man said, “I just happen to have a bottle of Ozarka”, and he gave the cold bottle freely to the thirsty man. The second man asked us, “Do you have any weed, pretty please? No? Do you have a smoke”? Sorry, man of San Antonio, I happened to find myself fresh out.
#Flixbus
#Alamo
#SanAntonio
#JamesBowie
#DavCrockett
#Ozarka
#Houston
#LakeCharles
#Greyhound
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