A week ago I was travelling back to Dallas from Houston in
the afternoon bus. It was due to a last minute change of plans that I had to
take the bus. I reached the bus station 15 minutes before the departure and it
was a holiday weekend so it was pretty crowded. The crowd did not give me a
good feeling as I was travelling alone and a crowded bus meant no choice of
seat. Luckily the scheduled bus was full and they had to arrange for an extra
bus for the rest of us. This meant there were only 15-20 people in the new bus,
it was a huge relief even though I had to wait for an extra 30 minutes for the
bus to leave.
I boarded the bus and chose a good seat. A man had smiled at
me while I was waiting at the bus station and he happened to come into the same
bus and sat right across my seat in the next section. We exchanged smiles again
and the bus started moving. Within no time I had dozed off, thanks to my motion
induced sleep. I got up after an hour and saw that we hadn’t even left Houston
city limits. The roads were packed with cars and it was pouring cats and dogs.
In the semi-sleep state I sat there cursing my fate and started staring out the
window wondering how long it would take for me to reach home. I heard a voice
say ‘Excuse-me’ I turned around. It was the same man. He said “Do you know how
to put your seat back?” I said yes and started to explain how. Apparently he
already knew how and was asking just to make sure I knew so that I could sleep
comfortably. ‘Very sweet of him’ I thought to myself and told him that it wasn’t
necessary and that I was just fine sleeping bending forward with my head on my
knee. I tried going back to sleep, when I woke up I realized only 10 minutes
had passed since my attempt to sleep. After
two and half agonizingly long hours we reached our mid-way stop where we would
have some time to go out and get something to eat and drink.
I was parched so I went out and got a bottle of water and
some peanuts to munch on the way. This man came back few minutes after me and
was walking around restlessly in the bus talking in Spanish to various people.
I did not bother much and got busy eating my peanuts. He came to me after a
while and asked me if he could use my phone to make a call. I gave it to him at
once; I really had no second thoughts. He called someone and spoke something in Spanish.
From what I could make out he was informing someone about the delay in the bus
schedule so that they wouldn’t have to wait in the bus station for long. It then
occurred to me that I have got to inform my husband too. He gave the phone back
to me and I immediately sent a message to my husband informing him the
approximate arrival time. The bus driver was back in bus and he asked to see
around and make sure all our neighbors are in bus to ensure we don’t leave
anyone back. My only neighbor was this man who had just used my phone so I did
not bother to spend more energy and got back to my peanuts, I offered him some
but he politely declined it. A lady passed by us to go to the restroom and this
man informed her that he finally could make the call from my phone and that
lady said ‘God bless you’ to me and moved on. I was left wondering why.
An hour later I checked my phone and it had 2 unread messages.
First one was from my husband acknowledging me and asking me to call when the
bus reaches Dallas and second one was from the number this man had called
asking whether he was still around. I replied to both the messages and starting
gazing through the window, we were near Ennis. The landscapes and flora of
Ennis is absolutely beautiful. Acers and Acers of land was covered with a
browny red blanket of flowers called the Indian Blanket. It was just too beautiful
to watch the farms of sunflower and the grass land covered with Indian blankets
complementing the cloudy grey skies. Few minutes later I got a response from
that number asking me to inform this man to call again. I dialed the number and
gave my phone to this man again. He spoke and informed them that he was near
Ennis and would be reaching in an hour to Dallas. He thanked me and started
talking to me, he said that he was into construction of barns and he had
constructed a huge barn and a stable for horses here in Ennis for someone. We
just started talking about all generic stuff at first and then suddenly he said
that he was returning from the Prison and that is why he doesn’t have a phone.
I did not know how to react, I guess a thousand thoughts might have crossed my
mind right then because I had never met/spoken or even directly seen a prisoner
before. I did not want to offend him with my silence so I asked him the first
thing that came to my mind “Why were you in the prison?”. He started his
narration “I used to live in Dallas, working in a fire alarm inspection team
for a private company. I also do some construction work on the side. Six months
ago in a bad part of Dallas my car’s battery had gone off and I needed a jump
start. I asked many but no one stopped their car. I finally got a man who
agreed to help me jump start my car but demanded that I give me 10 bucks for
that. I agreed as I had no choice, I went out and connected the wire from his
car to mine and this man sat in my car to try and start my car. As soon as the
car started he took off with my car. I called the cops immediately and informed
them that he could not have gone far so they could nab him in the surrounding
area. It was a new 2010 black Ford F150 whose loan wasn’t paid off.” I interrupted
him to sympathize with him and asked whether insurance covered the loss. He
said that insurances has a clause stating that if the car key is the ignition
then they will not replace the car to the owner but just pay off the remaining
amount of the loan to the bank. He expressing his frustration saying how can
one jump start a car without leaving the key in the ignition. He makes a valid
point I thought and asked him to continue. He continued “So now that I had lost
my car and my money, I was on the lookout for a second hand cheap car. I found
one and bought it, within 30 minutes of driving it off the dealer I was caught
by the cops because it seems that I had just bought a stolen car. They asked me
for the papers, I gave it to them and they told me that it was fake and
arrested me. I told them that it was the dealer who had cheated me but they did
not listen to me. In the court the judge asked me to name the dealer and give
out his details. I did it promptly and then the judge ruled saying even though
it wasn’t my fault I was getting six months imprisonment because during the
arrest the car was in my possession.” I
told him how sorry I was that this happened to him and expressed my discontent
with the police who failed to find his stolen car but arrested him for some
other. He went on to tell me the mess the cops had created for him after his
release “During his arrest the arresting officer asked him about his birth place
and he said X city, New Mexico and the officer by knowingly or unknowingly
wrote it as X City, Mexico and so soon after his release he was sent to the
immigration department where he had to sort it out. Sometimes when things go wrong they really go
wrong from all sides. He went on to tell me about how his life changed because
of this incident and that he had learnt a very simple lesson in a very
expensive way. He said that he was going to start afresh in a new house with a
new job.
I felt really sorry for that guy and honestly I never had
any doubts about whether this guy was lying. In the end to add to the adventure
I already had, the bus driver lost his way and was heading in the wrong
direction. All of us were unaware of it until this same guy realized it and
went to guide the driver to the bus station. He saved us all a lot of time from
the already long journey. As soon as the bus stopped at the stand this guy got
down after me and vanished into the crowd, leaving me with my second strange
encounter. I was dead tired from the journey but too excited to see my husband and
tell him all about this man. Although I knew I am going to get the usual lecture
“Be careful always and do not trust everyone. Why do you give your phone to
strangers?” Well, It doesn’t matter now. I haven’t heard back from the cops and
it’s been a week now so I guess I am not in any sort of trouble. Plus, I really
did believe everything that man told me.
