Big Voyage in New Jersey

Franklin Lakes, NJ

This is one of those stories which has no business being a blog post, but I thought it deserved a larger audience, and while this blog has only one responder, my stats page tells me it has a few score regular readers and it is really big in Ukraine, for reasons known only in Ukraine. 

It was told to me by a thirty something, whom I will call "E.G." but who is known in cyberspace as "Big Voyage," his nom de guerre through the London recording studio, "Circus"  which carries his music. 

Last weekend, E.G. accompanied his girlfriend from his home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to the Port Authority, where they caught a bus to Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, to visit her mother for her mother's birthday.  E.G. had never been to Franklin Lakes, but he described it thusly:  "You know, Potomac (Maryland)? Well, Potomac mansions would look like the carriage houses outside the main estate in Franklin Lakes.  There was one house, painted all yellow and in the driveway were two Hummers, same yellow and a yellow Ferrari.  That kind of wealth. The wealth which demands to be seen."
  His girlfriend, E, grew up in Franklin Lakes, but in a more modest home.  

More Franklin Lakes

Her mother was very happy to see E.G., whom she likes, but she also considers him a project and a challenge. She is an evangelical Christian, and she wanted to know if E.G. had found Jesus and when he did not attest to that, she began a day long exigeisis about the virtues of Jesus, to which E.G. replied mostly, "Well, he certainly sounds like a remarkable guy."  Not a guy. A God. So, these replies did not deflect but only seemed to stoke renewed efforts to impress on E.G. that he should accept Jesus as his personal savior, something which E.G. had not previously thought he needed.  But this is his girlfriend's mother and the whole idea of the day was to give the mother a happy birthday.  

E threw E.G. many looks which clearly said, "Welcome to my world. You have to take it for one day. This was my life. This is why I live in Brooklyn."

Not Versailles. Franklin Lakes again

The day was, E.G. thought, mostly a success, although mother never got the ultimate satisfaction of knowing E.G. had accepted Jesus; but at least E.G. had taken pains to suggest he would consider Jesus and think about His virtues. 

They caught the last bus back to Port Authority at 10 P.M. 

E.G. noticed  E was looking a bit green about the gills, the telltale sign of car sickness and E.G. realized the bus had been stopping and starting and lurching and he looked through the front windshield for the traffic jam but saw only open road and it was then he noticed all the blue lights and within a few minutes police were on board the bus, pulling off the driver, who was said to be having a "diabetic event."

This left the driver's seat empty and the bus stopped along the side of the road, pointed in the general direction of Manhattan. Eventually a policeman or someone got on board and announced there were no more bus drivers available from the bus company because it was now 11 PM and no bus drivers were hanging out at the bus company. 

This left the passengers to discuss their fate with each other. It hardly seemed a good idea to get off the bus in the dark, along a road where cars were flying by at 70 MPH, so they talked amongst themselves.  

E.G. spoke with a Black man, about forty, and his wife and daughter. They had been hoping to get to Newark, which meant taking the bus to Port Authority and then catching another bus back across the Hudson to Newark.  They were not happy, but they were not distraught. Apparently things like this happened when you were trying to get to Newark.

Across the aisle, however, a Chinese man, who E.G. described simply as "old" (which means he was at least 50)  was trying to talk to E, the girlfriend. Did I mention E is Chinese American?  Asian people are always trying to speak with E. When E.G. and E went to Thailand, all the Asians assumed she was Thai and spoke Thai to her. Same thing in Japan. The Chinese man spoke some dialect which E could barely understand but his distress was evident, even to E.G., who speaks no Chinese and E did manage to understand that this man had been working in New Jersey at a Chinese restaurant and he had to get to Sunset Park, Brooklyn to work in another restaurant the next morning and if he arrived after midnight at Port Authority he was sure he'd never find a cab to Brooklyn and may not be able to afford it if he did. He had been planning to take a subway, but that seemed chancy if he had to get on a train at 1 or 2 AM.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

E.G. had read an article in the New Yorker about Chinese men who worked at various restaurants around New York, crashing on couches of friends, skimping and saving and ultimately, they'd get a mortgage from a Chinese bank and buy a house. E.G. had been fascinated by this article and now he had a genuine specimen in front of him, and this poor guy was struggling with his predicament. 

Your new driver

Around 1 AM Chris Christie arrived on the bus. Actually, not likely the governor of New Jersey, but someone who could be his Doppleganger. Looked just like Chris Christie. It didn't matter to E.G. and the people on the bus whether he was actually Chris Christie or not. All that mattered is he  might drive the bus. Chris announces he is the dispatcher from the bus company, not a bus driver, but he once drove buses before he retired from that and became a dispatcher, so he'll drive the bus. The problem is, he is new to New Jersey so someone will have to come forward and sit in the seat behind him and tell him which way to turn and give him directions to each of the next two stops in New Jersey and then on to Port Authority, New York City.

 Given Chris Christie's record with traffic in that part of New Jersey, E.G. is thinking, nothing here bodes well. 

However, despite E.G.'s low expectations, things go better than anyone expects and Chris Christie pulls the bus into Port Authority just about 2 AM.

The old Chinese guy announces (in his Chinese dialect translated by girlfriend E) he needs to use the rest room, which is okay since girlfriend E also needs to use the rest room, in Port Authority, at 2 AM. 

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

According to E.G., for all the great revival and gentrification of New York City, there are still pockets of New York as it was in the 1970's when the city was sliding toward default and your mother didn't want you to live there.  Port Authority is such a pocket and there are very odd looking people shuffling through the corridors and lying about in corners and on benches. 

E.G. does not really need to use the bathroom but he's concerned the old Chinese guy might need some shepherding, because, after all, the guy is frazzled and he is trying to earn enough money to get a mortgage and make a  down payment on a new home.  So E.G. accompanies him to the bathroom, where, from behind a stall comes the sound of wild boar snorting in search of truffles.  E.G. cannot see who is in the stall, but he finishes his business and collects the old Chinese guy and hustles him out into the waiting area where E meets them, looking relieved.

Ordinarily, E.G. and E would bound up the stairs and head for the subway, but the old Chinese guy cannot get up the stairs so they find an elevator. But just as the three of them make it into the elevator the  two  wild boars emerge from the bathroom and  rush headlong into the elevator and as the doors close behind them, they look at E.G. and E and the old Chinese guy, and their eyes, E.G. cannot help but notice, are as "large as saucers and dilated."  The taller of the two, with hair which looks as if he has just stuck his finger into a wall socket fixes on E.G. and says: "Wow! Isn't New York just fantastic!?!"   

Now, E.G. loves New York and is proud to live there and despite the possibility this guy's head might just explode, E.G. does not wish to disrespect him and he replies, "Yes, it is wonderful."
"We'regoingtoNewHampshiretoski!" the electrified man screams. 
"Oh?" E.G. says, wonering if they know it is May and the ski slopes in New Hampshire may be closed, but he doesn't want to be a wet blanket and he's not really sure about the ski slopes because it's been a cold Spring and he finally decides to simply say: "My parents live in New Hampshire."

"Oh, this is so great. We can crash with them!" screams the electrified man
This presents something of a dilemma for E.G. who does not think his parents would be keen to host this pair of coke heads--and  it will be ever so obvious even to his out-of- it parents, these guys are high on cocaine.

E.G. ushers E the girlfriend and the old Chinese guy off the elevator and looks over his shoulder at the coke heads and says, "Next stop is the platform to the New Hampshire bus," and watches the elevator doors close behind him.

Just as E.G. reaches the sidewalk outside to find a cab, he realizes the platform where the bus to New Hampshire leaves from was not a floor up but a floor down. He has sent the coke heads in entirely the wrong direction.

"I gotta go back and tell them," E.G. tells the girlfriend, E. "They'll be wandering around lost."

"If you go back into Port Authority, I will never speak to you again. Or, alternatively,  I might kill you."

"But..." E.G. starts to object.

It is then the girlfriend demonstrates how very well she really knows E.G.: "No, wait, if you go back I will not kill you. I will kill this old Chinese guy."

"You wouldn't."

"I will put him in a cab and tell the cabbie to take him to the South Bronx, which is effectively the same thing."

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

That settles it:  E.G. gets into the cab with the old Chinese guy and his still girlfriend and they head off to Brooklyn.

"Ask him," E.G. says to girlfriend, "If he read the New Yorker article about Chinese guys who work in restaurants and crash on couches and save and scrimp and ultimately  buy houses."