Stalked and unshowered

XVI.
My assumption that I would find places to shower had proved unfounded. I was relying on talcum powder, liberal applications of deodorant, and washing my hair every day in a Greyhound bathroom.

(There was a sort of sisterhood of the bus station bathrooms: in each one, I found a woman who would offer to hold the water faucet on long enough for me to dunk my head and scrub at it, and then would hand me a bunch of those scratchy industrial-grade brown paper towels to dry off with.)

After a few days, I was stuck in the St. Louis Greyhound depot. It was 11:00 at night, I was in a bad neighborhood, but the people inside the bus depot were scary as hell. My plan was to catch the bus to Denver, but it didn't leave until almost 5 a.m. I didn't think I could wait that long. The woman behind the counter assured me that I could easily connect from Amarillo to Denver in the morning.

That lying bitch.

I arrived in Amarillo at around 4 p.m. The sun was shining, and the whole town was deserted. Closed up and dingy. I assume everything is closed because it's a Sunday, but it seems entirely likely that the entire town might have wandered off and left the town standing empty and sickly.

The only buildings in sight are dive bars, bail bonds houses, and gun shops. Thankfully I found the public library; I figured I could kill some time here. I sat down with a book and tried to read. A man on the other side of the couch turns around and starts talking to me. I try to answer curtly and return to my book, but he does not take the hint. He starts talking about how his friend has a car, maybe they can show me around. I'm thinking, yeah, sure I'd just get into a car with a creepy guy from the library.

I leave a few minutes before closing because I don't want him to follow me out. I still have four hours before the bus leaves. I find a Taco Bell -- a tiny strip of nice, new suburbia -- too bad you have to walk under the scary-ass highway overpass to get there.

I get to the bus depot and sit down in a small diner. We'll be closing soon, hon, says the waitress, and they're just about to, when I see him. The scary guy, with another guy (presumably his friend with the car), who have come looking for me at the bus station. I freak out and run back into the diner. Luckily they are nice, and I plead with them to let me stay inside because that crazy guy out there has been following me. I sit in the dimmed diner while they count out the cash registers, and am unbelievably grateful for the cramped and smoky bus interior when that time finally comes again.

Thursday 07 February, 04:10 PM