Disrupting Christmas: Part II, Bethlehem manger > Montgomery floor

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Our driver to Atlanta, Yvette, perkily greets us leaving Charlotte at 3.30 in the morning of Christmas Eve Day. And, as she begins to describe our itinerary I begin to really question what I’m up to with this whole project.

Traffic into Atlanta will likely be light, Yvette tells us, as most people have hopefully already made it to where they need or want to be this Christmas Eve. . . which raises the question of why we’re on this bus? Where do we need or want to be and why aren’t we there already?

In some sense, it is exactly the bus where I want to be: in motion, with intention, plenty of time and space, getting “there” regardless of what or where there is.

But I’m tired and worn at this particular moment. I don’t really need to be going anywhere at all, and what I really want is to simply be snug.

Nevertheless, I do feel like the Greyhound is the modern equivalent of Mary and Joseph’s donkey. If they were heading to Bethlehem today, I’m pretty sure they’d be here with me on the floor of the Montgomery bus station.

And my Mary and Joseph experiences are increasingly troubling.

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If the NY Port Authority was all organized chaos clearly consequent of holiday travel, the bus station in Richmond, VA, was just plain chaos.

We arrived wildly off-schedule – something like two hours, with the official Greyhound bus tracker showing arrival in Atlanta 4+ hours late. Our driver told us to leave our things on the bus as we’d be returning to the same. The attendant on the ground said we needed to collect our things as we were transferring to a new bus. . . yet another official suggested we could leave our things for now, but would have to collect them at some point in the future, and of course Greyhound was not responsible for any valuables. All this information was conveyed person to person, telephone style. No general announcements deemed worthy enough for all to hear. . .

According to the official schedule, we were supposed to have a two hour layover in Richmond, the beloved Capital of the Confederacy, a break which would have given me time to grab some award-winning bbq I’d sourced in the neighborhood and then cross the tracks to perambulate a portion of recently-in-the-news Monument Ave and contemplate the value of Civil War monuments.

But none of that was now possible as I had absolutely no idea how long we were staying in Richmond. Would they try to get us out as soon as possible to make up time? Were they contractually obligated to have a break of a specific duration? Were we waiting on a bus or driver to arrive? How far away were they?

Amidst all this chaos, I guiltily sought an assuring alliance with an obvious peer. While there had been no real displays of wealth or prestige amongst those of us boarding in New York, there did seem to be a variety of folks making the journey together: old and young, families of various shapes, humans of many colors. In Richmond, however, I distinctly felt my whiteness and my expectation of its privileges.  

We ran from one end of the station to the other as announcements were made about travelers not going to Raleigh and then travelers only going to Raleigh. At one point the announcement sounded more like “Riley,” which is different? But conflated our understanding of who was leaving from which gate. . . had something changed? Or did they just mispeak?

Seated in the station, re-arranging my bags, I bumped into a woman looking remarkably like Taystee from Orange is the New Black. I immediately apologized, though she defiantly held my gaze for an awkwardly long time before condescending to  excuse me, which I gratefully thanked her for. . .

Some two hours after arriving in Richmond, and a good twenty minutes after the Raleigh-only bus had boarded but not yet left, we fought through a bottleneck to board the bus heading to Atlanta. It was nearly full. . . I took the first seat I could find as there didn’t seem to be many more. . . someone mentioned there was one in the middle of the back row? Is that where the infamous decapitation happened? My ally went to investigate. . . there was indeed a seat in the middle of the back row but it was currently being occupied by a pitbull. . . J. would take another bus. . .

I’m sure there are lovely places in Charlotte, NC, aka the Queen City, but the bus station at three in the morning is not among them. The pitbull owner and I bonded over this.

A group from our cohort sought assistance from the info desk. . . anticipating that we were soon going to be asked to show documentation that we as a group were not in possession of, our thinking was the powers that be should have this information, so they could start making a plan. . .

But as the info desk officer continued to explain that our driver should have given us a reboarding pass when we got off, I frustratingly interrupted to again say that that was indeed our problem: we had asked our driver for reboarding passes and he said he did not have any to give us, and that indeed, we did not need any.

His response: “If you’d listen to me, I’m giving you some good information.”
Mine: “Unfortunately, it’s not useful.”
In turn: He turns away from our entire group, and asks someone in line next to us what their question is.

With all these delays and confusions I couldn’t but think of the Japanese train company that recently apologized for departing 20 seconds yearly and causing great inconvenience to many. Why can’t we have nice things like that in America? Our corporations don’t have enough cash?

In the end, we all just got back on the bus without showing any documentation at all, but not without much kerfuffle.

And arrived in Atlanta two hours late, requiring me and at least a dozen others to remake our Christmas plans.
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And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Instead of Christmas Eve in New Orleans, a cozy bed in a boutique hotel, Christmas cabaret at the Ace, and midnight mass in the Garden Distric, I’m sitting on the floor of the Montgomery, AL, bus station.

[Reminder to research Montgomery bus riots.]

I will mention that I briefly entertained the thought of going ahead and flying this leg of the journey. . . for $200 I could get to New Orleans, through Charlotte, in time to do everything I had planned, but that just felt like cheating.

Instead, I was offered very, very many drugs in Atlanta, had a lovely conversation with a young actor from Montgomery (who thought I was 25!), and now find myself sitting on the grungy floor of the Montgomery bus station, laptop plugged into a wall socket. Except for a young Greyhound employee and a 19 year old mother of two trying to get back to them in Chicago, we are alone.

I had tried to find a church near the bus station here in Montgomery to go to Christmas Eve services, but such a prospect proved elusive on this desolate stretch of regional highway. As resourceful as I am, the Greyhound has brought me so low, I can’t even find a church in Alabama.

Echoing Christina Rossetti’s bleak winter, a bus station floor will have to suffice this muggy Alabama Christmas Eve.