Enduring this bus trip was worth the money

When is the last time you rode the bus?

Not hopping on the No. 10 at the corner of Eastern and Ponca to run out to Eastpoint for a backyard blow-up pool. I’m talking Greyhound — Leave The Driving To Them! — and I just rode that pale dog across Tennessee to witness the great Tom Waits in concert.

A round-trip ticket from Nashville, where I spent a day reading “The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolano in the shadow of the Dixie Parthenon in Centennial Park, to Knoxville, where Waits’ “Glitter & Doom” tour pulled into the Civic Auditorium, was $70.

That’s a 360-mile round trip for $70. Do the $4.50-a-gallon-and-climbing math on that road trip and you may soon be sitting next to me on the bus. You do pay a little more than money, however, when you step aboard a public motor coach. You step into that unkempt pie chart known as your fellow Americans.

If the bus is crowded and you’re traveling alone, you’ll be next to a stranger for the duration.

[Notice how closely related are the words “duration” and “endure.” That’s how close you’re going to be to the wayfarer — and they come in all sizes, smells and dispositions, from the overburdened grandmother to the stoic working man.]

If your prayers are answered — the elderly woman across from me, Annie Morgan, had homemade “Jesus Loves You” bibs safety-pinned to the front and back of her dress — the seat remains unoccupied.

As the green Interstate 40 highway signs for Lebanon, Cookeville, Crossville zip by, you look out the window, contemplate what you left behind for what lies ahead and try to ignore the guy broadcasting his life story to whomever will listen — his “woulda/coulda/shoulda” career; his hateful ex-wife; his bedrock religious beliefs; and how he won $12 on a lottery scratch-off last week.

On that score, I have two words for you: Ear Plugs! The kind worn by the guys you see wrestling jackhammers on the street.

Ear plugs, a professional driver who guided us through a Cumberland Valley monsoon and Bolano’s masterwork served me well all the way to Knoxville, whose quarries of pink marble provided the material for the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Where, if there is any justice in this world, a portrait of Tom Waits will soon hang.

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