Chapter 12

Simon never liked the Bus Terminal much. It sits on around Fortieth street, and there’s nothing in there that doesn’t remind a traveler that he’s in a bus terminal. It’s the type of building that was meant to serve that one particular purpose. It sort of stands there, this behemoth of a building meant for buses. Simon worked below ground, down where the people from the subways vacated the hot underground and hit the cool once they passed through a wall of glass doors. Simon found those doors difficult contraptions. One or two were open, and the rest of them closed, not locked, but closed, and when a crowd rushed through them he always ended up holding the door open for a few seconds more than he liked, or when he faced an oncoming commuter, he wondered: ‘who’s going to get through this door first?’

He worked the night shift at the Greyhound ticket counter. He rang up bus tickets to every domestic location imaginable:,, upstate, down South, you name it, but he also eyed the clock. He was one of those clock-watchers who couldn’t wait for the supervisor to set him free after the dull night’s shift.

‘It’s almost time,’ thought Simon, punching the keypad.

And out of the machine came an ugly looking ticket with letters and numbers on it a mile long. He never knew why the ticket itself had to be so complicated, but people didn’t ride the buses as much as they used to. Nowadays they took the plane, and the bus was reduced to this artifact from the Depression era or from the Civil Rights days. Although the ticketing system was a little outdated, the computers old, and the lines not as long as they used to be, the passengers waiting online still had a dreamy look in their eyes, as though they could better their lives in some other place. Or sometimes they arrived at the counter a little sad that they couldn’t make it in the. And so they purchased a ticket back to or some territory away from the fast life - back to the ranch, you could say.

Simon had seen about every type of passenger – young and old, white and black, women, men, and some who were questionable. It just seemed a little strange that he couldn’t join them on their journey, and he wanted to be on the other end of the counter someday, buying a ticket to the promised land or the easy life where one didn’t have to pull twelve hour shifts or get roped in for weekend work. He even envied the retired crowd. They had youth in their veins, a certain sparkle that said ‘Yep, I’m getting the hell out of here and going some place better, because I’m older.’ Everything ran smoothly, though, especially for a weekday night.

It approached one in the morning, and in an hour or two, he’d go upstairs, out into the cool air and back to his apartment. He lived a couple blocks west of the terminal in a shoddy apartment building that had seen better times. Yes, the night ran smoothly until one particular customer came up to the counter and said:

“A ticket to, please.”

She was the handsome African-American woman, slightly older and dressed on the fashionable side.

“One way or round trip?” asked Simon.

“One way,” she said.

“But you don’t have any baggage.”

“You know the deal. I just want a ticket to, and please hurry up. I don’t want to miss the bus.”

“But the bus doesn’t leave for another hour. You have plenty of time.”

“Listen, Simon,” she said, “don’t be difficult. Not tonight.”

Simon wore a nametag. His customers used his first name too, especially when they got upset.

“But how can you go to, “ he asked the woman. “You have no baggage, and it’s the middle of the night. There’s no rush. There’s really no rush at all. You can’t jump on a bus like that without any baggage.”

“I didn’t come here to argue. Just do your job and give me a ticket to, alright?”

Simon always did his duty when push came to shove. He punched up the ticket. The printer made a loud, rackety noise. He put the ticket in an envelope and slid it across the divider.

“That’s one hundred and fifty-five dollars,” he said.

She put cash on the counter and went downstairs to where the buses gathered and people stood on line for out-of-state destinations or waited for hours for a bus to. But she left her ticket at the counter. The ticket sat there like it ought to be crumpled up and thrown away. Simon thought it a shame that tickets to are always wasted – one hundred and fifty-five bucks of riding pleasure thrown away.

The next customer came up and noticed the extra ticket there. He was a young guy, a little shy and innocent-looking. He had short brown hair and wore a knapsack over his shoulder. He wore shorts and a tee shirt bearing the name of a liquor company. He looked serious too, not about getting his own ticket, mind you, but more about chasing after the young African-American beauty who hurried downstairs without it.

“She left her ticket here,” said the kid to Simon.

“Don’t worry about her. Where are you going this time of night?”

“A ticket to, please.”

“One way or round trip?”

“Listen,” said the kid,” lemme just run down there and give her the ticket. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“No,” said Simon.

“No?”

“Why don’t you open it first,” pointing to the ticket already there.

“I’ll run down there first. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Why don’t you open the envelope she left behind?”

The kid opened it and discovered a free ticket to inside.

“So now you have two tickets to, “ said Simon. “The question becomes: do you pocket the ticket and run out of here, or do you do the honest thing and run downstairs and return the ticket to the good-looking woman, and pay for your own.”

“The honest thing,” said the kid angrily.

“Of course. Of course you do the honest thing. Everyone always has to do the honest thing. There’s no in between anymore, just the honest thing, huh? Don’t you know where the honest guy ends up? He ends up in the dumpster out back, that’s where he ends up. He sucks on his whiskey bottle and warms his hands over a barrel, you know that? I think you should seriously consider if doing the honest thing is in your best interests, because when people do the honest thing, they get punished for it, and believe me, the punishment is long, slow, cold, and hard.”

By this time Simon’s supervisor at the far end of the counter overheard their conversation. He rushed to the scene like an ambulance, poised and ready to handle the emergency. The supervisor had taken kindly to Simon. He was a friend of the same generation, only a bit more level-headed. He tapped Simon on the shoulder.

“Uh, Simon, mind if I had a word with you for a minute?”

“Get this: another honest person in our midst. Well, Mr. Honesty, say hello to the supervisor of this racket. You can call him ‘supervisor,’ but I like to call him ‘Oh Mighty Facilitator Of Honesty,’ spreading honesty throughout the world, because you know my doe-eyed little friend, we got here long before you did.”

“Just settle down,” said the supervisor in a bedside manner.

“Settle down? I am settled down. I’ve been living in the bowels of this factory for far too long, and do you know why? Because I had to be honest, just like this kid here.”

“I can always come back another time,” said the kid, wondering what the fuss was about.

“Look at that,” said Simon. “He’s not only honest, but he has the decency to ask if he can come back later. What an honest kid we have on our hands.”

“Listen,” said the supervisor to Simon, “why don’t you go upstairs and get a drink, okay? It’s been a long night, and you’ve had your share of passengers. Go upstairs and have a drink, okay? It’ll relax you.”

“I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore,” said Simon. “I really don’t know if a ride to will do anybody any good. It has gone on long enough, and nothing good comes of it.”

“Simon, let me handle this, okay? Look at yourself. Your uniform is all wrinkled, and you didn’t shave today, and right now you need a break. Take the rest of the night off. Go on now.”

Simon sighed like someone who had gone through years of work only to get laid off. The supervisor was right. He was always right. Simon took a last look at the kid and said sadly:

“Yeah, do the honest thing, kid. Pay for your own ticket and run downstairs. The woman’s at the gate.”

He then unpinned his name tag, pulled off his clip-on tie, and got on his way. It was the silent retreat horses take when they’re taken out to pasture. Simon had many more years, though. Just thirty years old, and he was too sluggish to move, too tired to walk to the other side of the terminal and take an escalator up another flight to the bar near a set of gates.