As I waited for my bus to have its half-hour break in Barstow on the way to Los Angeles, I watched as the sob story of the man next to me slowly unfolded. He barely spoke a word of English and more or less refused to communicate in Spanish, but he told me he was from Mexico and I was able to learn that he was promised a seat on the incoming bus without buying a ticket only to have me come and buy up his seat.
While I puzzled the ethical dilemma in which Greyhound had just placed me, I learned further that the man had left his luggage on the previous bus from Vegas when he overstayed the driver’s lunch break in Barstow and it was now sitting someplace at the LA Greyhound station awaiting his arrival.
As fate would have it, he was inside the Greyhound office at the moment the bus was ready to depart, so I abruptly severed the conversation I was having with a down-and-out drifter—another remarkable story for another time—and made my way onto my bus (despite the p*** and vinegar I received from the driver).
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