Autobus. The mode to which I swore I would never return, bringing as it does many crude and cruel memories of torturous multi-day creeping and crawling through the heat of southern Mexican farmland, savannah, or whatever that hot and arid landscape be. Sometimes desert, sometimes mountainous. Always hot. There was E.Z. needing to shit so bad, infected with a strain of dysentery and he went for the upright coffin loo at the back (the place you never want to head into, ever, if you can help it) only to find FUERA DE SERVICIO, locked tight with a piece of twine. Defeated he returned to his seat only to launch out and try again, his stomach turning and churning and emitting terrible sounds and fumes! This time struggling to break the twine and get the hell in there, regardless what he might find. But to no avail, the wire was tight and did not break, and E.Z. returned, defeated, again, clenching his gut and his butt cheeks tight, while all the Mexicans on board (everyone, in other words, but us) (this was a third class bus at best that we traveled on for adventure, and mostly due to lack of funds; and the patrons were the real deal, no tourists around) watched him with that kind of tired stoic resolve with which late-night exhausted Mexicans reserve for silly gringos. Though I suspect they were laughing inside, knowing EXACTLY what was going on with the American. I admit, I was snickering a bit also, watching his poor plight. I think even E.Z. was giggling, nervously, even while he was sweating bullets and ready to spill through his sphincter. Luckily we arrived at a scheduled stop to re-diesel or whatever, the bus swerving to an all night station and E.Z. hurried off, waddling duck-footed toward the bathrooms. 

Or the time, also in Mexico (same trip? Still with E.Z.) where we both grew so exhausted and back-pained with sitting in one position on the crowded bus, that we took turns trying to pull ourselves up to the luggage rack to get supine: first me, failing (the space was ridiculous tight up there, barely 8 inches from rack to ceiling) then EZ, also failing, then me again, managing to legitimately pull myself up there, through some fantastic desperate contortion, feet first, and slide in with the luggage, arms by my sides, corpse pose, nose inches from the vibrating ceiling. This did help my posture but nothing for the infernal heat which gathered there ever so much more-so and snickered at me. Nor for my status as a respectable person, or American, never mind a guest in the country when, occasionally, someone further down the aisle would try to get something down from the rack, only to find my legs taking up space. God bless them, they were barely startled. Maybe they had witnessed this lunacy before.

Or, finally, the time coming from… Texas? on a long, interminable bus ride. This one American but not much more accomodating, or comfortable and I found myself wedged against the window at the very back right corner of the bus (stage right) where there are three seats instead of two, and none of them reclined at all, so I was even more stiff, 90° upright, and I resigned myself to it and thought well, at least I’m by the window so I can rest my head there and ignore everything and nod off, and just before I did so, I checked the glass (my pillow) and saw the considerable grease slick left there from the passenger before me. 

And here I am again. Outside, tinted landscape turns northeastern: bare gray trees. Others, yearning for spring, show 1000 points of lime green buds. Spring coming, soon. I will greet it and it will greet me back in NYC where wool and leather and fur are reportedly even now being shed to expose the silky form of this or that long-limbed mammal beneath. Dex has mentioned that if any time is simultaneously most torturous and most rewarding in Manhattan for the casual observer/resident it’s spring when all the actresses and models come out of hibernation to greet a new day. Eyes bright with passion and ambition. 

Reunion with TSF! He arrived while I fumbled for my glasses and gazed myopically toward the sound of the opening door. Bleary forms offered ambiguous gestures. My expression betrayed naught ‘cept perhaps uncertainty for, you see, in my state of semi-blindness I remained uncertain who, in fact, had entered the chamber. Probability said TSF (it was his room) but a strong second ran BJ to whom, assuredly, I would have offered greeting of a very different sort. So I vacillated and balked and finally (3… 4… seconds?) heard the familiar voice and, having risen and approached, able to discern the true essence of TSF.

Question being this: TF, entering, certainly not wondering whether or not I wore contact lenses (most likely unaware of my vision deficiencies) assumed, no doubt, that he appeared to me as clearly as I appeared to him and, therefore, perhaps found my ambivalence disconcerting. Yet the whole thing lasted at most 10 secs and then I grinned, he said, “Jay.” I said, “T” and reunited we were.

So we saw New Jack City which seemed the most trite and cliche-riddled strip of cellulite trash that ever I’ve seen in the past 25 years. What more needs to be said?

Later→

We have been literally crawling along this strip of constructionized highway and suddenly the driver calls back to (Friend? Fellow driver along for the ride?) whether he (this other) knew another route. The other man calls back (entire length of the bus, mind you): “I forgot you was even going this way, man. Else I would have told you to get off back there.”

Driver: “I should have got off there, huh?”

Great! Five hour trip suddenly turned six, at least.

Spring Broken.

[Editors Note: Yup, you guessed it: Therein lies the end of yet another Jay Levine Dreamscape section. Hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. Click on! Or maybe sign up. Or sign off. Or maybe sayonara. For now? Forever? Your call. Tschüss.]