I’m sitting on a curb outside a vape store travel center co-op on the outskirts of Texarkana in northwest Texas. The pair of golden-brown aviators I’m wearing belong to a man I just met a few minutes ago, and I’m holding a rusty metal baton, also not mine. I’m trying to understand a YouTube how-to by Dan the Wheelchair Man on troubleshooting lift ramps for a Greyhound bus. A group of four stare at me, waiting for my instructions.
How did I get here? I caught a 4 o’clock flight out of South Bend on the Friday before the September 27 football game at Arkansas, where I would take photographs for The Observer. I landed in Charlotte and boarded my destination flight. All standard, so far.
We were delayed on the tarmac for an hour because the software for allocating jet fuel went down airport-wide. Then, when I landed in Fayetteville an hour shy of midnight, I realized the airport was another hour from my hotel. The game was 11 a.m. the next day, which meant I probably wouldn’t get my full 8 hours — a bummer after a few back-to-back late nights.
I rode in an Uber with a driver who identified himself as “deaf” but “likes to chat.” Kris was an exotic animal catcher. He explained how, with a pest control cert in hand, I too could answer the call to tango with a python or wrangle an alligator. We then reviewed the telltale gators by state, their lengths, hunting laws and regulations, his preferred firearms for “the kill” and where to buy one skinned.
I arrived at the Extended Stay America Select Suites an hour later with low expectations. I was guaranteed two things: a check-in time between midnight and 1 a.m. and a bed.
At midnight, I found no one at the front desk. In fact, it was locked with a metal screen. I called the help line: no answer. My “guaranteed” bed didn’t exist. I was on my own.
My funds and phone battery were both running low. I found an outlet in a hallway and convinced myself sleeping right there on the floor wouldn’t be so bad.
I was just settling in when I heard a thud on the lobby door. There was a man outside. He was trying to get in with beer in both hands and overflowing out of four pockets. I opened the door for him, and he offered me one as thanks before returning to his room.
He came back later with a box full of Coronas and sat down right next to me. He was from Mexico and spoke almost exclusively in Spanish. I knew enough from summers in Spain and Peru to stumble through some conversation, but we also resorted to passing Google Translate back and forth on his cracked phone.
While we played this charade, I hurriedly scanned Booking.com for a way home. Two days prior, I realized I had booked my return flight for Saturday morning instead of Sunday. Now there was nothing available for under $1,000.
There was only one viable option left: cross-country busing. I was to leave at 2:30 a.m., barely more than 24 hours from now, on the Jefferson Lines from Fayetteville, arriving in Texas at dawn. I would then board a series of Greyhounds that would take me through Little Rock, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, and then a straight shot up I-57 to Chicago. The plan was that I would arrive at 5 a.m. on Monday, before catching the South Shore Line home. Just reading my ticket made me laugh.
My new friend said he was sad. He said he wouldn’t leave me until I could get into my room. He said he wanted to go home, or go to the bars and take me with him. We talked for almost an hour: about family, about happiness, about love.
Honestly, he just seemed like he needed someone to talk to. But I couldn’t be sure of his intentions, and he was getting irritated that I wasn’t drinking or smoking. When he went for another smoke, I made a break for it to another Uber.
I realized almost immediately I had booked a trip to the hotel next door. “Just get me out of here,” I said.
He dropped me off instead at the Administration Building at the University of Arkansas. It was 4 a.m., and I was officially stranded.
I tried to find a private spot to shut my eyes. No idea was off the table. My first try was a golf cart with padded seating. I lasted about 20 minutes before losing the court of public opinion to a steady stream of band kids who side-eyed me on their way to a gameday practice.
The night air was just cold enough to make sitting still unpleasant, so I began trying doors. I got lucky at the Arkansas student union, manually lifting a lock and sheltering next to a gas fire. That brief blessing was cut short by an irate security guard who demanded to know how I had broken in.
It was time to face the music, and the fast-approaching sunrise. I knew if I could stay awake until 9, I could enter Razorback Stadium and drink a copious amount of caffeine in the press box.
I just started walking. When I strolled past the university’s admissions center, I came across a large crowd waiting for an early-morning tour. I joined in and learned that the Old Main Oak Tree is over 150 years old and that the flags in the flag room represent all 193 UN member countries.
At 9 a.m., I was finally able to head into the stadium. Still a few hours until the game, I drifted through the maze of hallways until I found the right door for a 9:30 a.m. press conference with former Fighting Irish and Razorbacks coach Lou Holtz — something I’d overheard a few guys mention in the media line.
I started snapping pictures immediately, but it took me a minute to work up the courage to ask him a question. When he saw my 1980s satin blue ND jacket, his eyes lit up. I asked him what both teams needed to learn from his brand of football.
The football game itself was a blast, but like I anticipated, it was pretty clear-cut. I bore witness to a 56-13 demolition and watched the entire Arkansas student section stomp their cowboy boots home at halftime.
Afterward, without a place to stay due to my flight mix-up, I loitered where I could, first in the photo work room, then the press box and then the student union building. At midnight, I was kicked out by the same security guard, who looked at me now with visible concern.
The bus station was 10 minutes away by Uber, but it was $35 before tips and fees. “I’ve gotten this far,” I said to myself, preparing for another walk. There were few streetlights and fewer people, but plenty of janky fast-food spots along the way.
My first choice for dinner was Waffle House, but there was an arrest going on inside when I walked by. I instead chowed down on a bacon Whataburger while Razorback frat bros stared daggers at me.
I half-walked, half-ran under a pitch-black highway bridge, passed through a wooded trail and finally emerged into a clearing with a small house that serviced the bus. The line wouldn’t be there for another hour, but a few early birds in fuzzy blankets were there already.
One guy shouted at me about his life. He had been a Teamster for 30 years, but spent his retirement helping a traveling circus in Missouri. He claimed the conditions were inhumane and he had escaped one night when the whole circus flooded.
I listened absentmindedly, lying on my back across the concrete steps and watching the night sky. It was surprisingly peaceful: a respite from 24 hours of uncertainty.
Just before 3 a.m., the bus sauntered into the empty lot. By that point, we were joined by a man in a wheelchair and multiple people with ankle monitors. I jumped on and fell asleep instantly.
We pulled into Texarkana before the sun rose. There was nowhere to sit at the station, just a single bench under a faucet leaking an unknown slurry, and the curb. I chose the latter, and tried knocking out some autonomous mobile robotics homework while listening to the chitter-chatter of the ankle monitors.
That group took the 8:30 a.m. line to Houston, so now it was just me and the old man in the chair waiting for the bus to Memphis.
Before the Houston bus left, a kind lady informed me she had been taking care of him for a few stops since his wheelchair broke, and he couldn’t move without help. He was now my responsibility.
I asked him about his travels and he explained he had come to visit his only daughter and her kids. He had taken Greyhounds from Anderson, South Carolina to here, and was now on the same trip home.
While we sat there, I took a few calls. The first was from my parents, who made an honest effort to mask their consternation with curiosity about my bus plan. They eventually insisted I look for a cheap flight out of one of the airports I would pass along the way. A few friends and Observer editors checked up on me as well, giggling at my misfortune as I recounted the full story.
I made some calls myself, vying with reps from my crummy hotel and Booking.com over my hard-earned money. I managed to claw back my initial payment after settling for an additional $80 “cancellation fee.”
I found a plane in Little Rock, Arkansas, that would take me to O’Hare, where I would board a flight to South Bend after a three-hour layover, curtailing my road trip by a couple of hours. I could now safely dream of sleeping in my own bed that same night.
The Greyhound arrived on time, and with some effort I wheeled my new friend over. There are retractable platforms on the side of the bus that can lift people with disabilities to seat level so they can avoid the stairs. The lift deployed but wouldn’t budge from the ground. The driver left us to call for help.
She returned with three passengers from the bus, all complete strangers, who stood around the lift brainstorming.
I jimmied with wires while they tried a metal bar to crank the machine manually. Someone handed me a few personal items — including a sleek pair of aviators I slipped on — while they laid down under the bus to check for more mechanisms. At one point, I had the idea of looking up a tutorial.
We went through it step by step, turning the bar clockwise instead of up and down, and securing the yellow handlebars in their upright position. The machine began to buzz, and the grandfather, on his battered throne, rose.
We got on the bus and were met with hoots and applause, enough to sustain me for the 16 (mercifully uneventful) hours still ahead until I made it back to campus just after 2 a.m. Monday — after a much-needed trip to IHOP.
Gray Nocjar, a junior electrical engineering major with minors in energy studies and JED, is this magazine’s fall intern.