Just before the train arrived in Spokane, we were informed that the segment from Spokane to Portland was canceled due to an equipment issue. Because of this, Amtrak would be placing everyone on a charter bus for the remaining 5 1/2 hour ride.
A bus was never factored into this trip, but hell, why not. I had already played planes, trains, and automobiles. May as well add a bus while I’m out here doing my thing.
Once the train arrived in Spokane, everyone disembarked and filed into the station where Amtrak employees were waiting to direct everyone to their respective buses. Apparently the cancellation impacted more than one route. I told the employee where I was going and they pointed me to a bus at the far end of the parking lot. Of course. When I inquired as to the fate of my checked bag, I was assured it would be transferred over. (If you believe my bag made it, you haven’t been following my journey since the beginning)
I moved to the back of the bus and chose the seat directly in front of the bathroom in hopes no one else would desire to sit where the stank might be. My sinuses haven’t been right since COVID, so I wasn’t concerned much.
As the last remaining passengers boarded, I caught a glimpse of a petite female making her way to the back of the bus. She had a hoodie on, so her face was mostly obscured by the hood she had pulled over her head along with prescription glasses obstructing my full view. She had a braided ponytail that came down around her neck and down to about mid-chest. It was a mix of brown hair that transitioned into blonde the last 6-8 inches.
As I turned to look back out the window, the person in front of her stepped out of the aisle, which allowed me to see her from head to toe. That white hoodie was almost all she had on. The spandex booty shorts that peaked out from under the low hanging hoodie left very little to the imagination. I mean… Damn this girl had no reservations about showing what she had.
She was maybe 5’5” and I’m guessing 115 pounds? I could tell she was Asian but not much more beyond that because of her glasses and hood. Her body was what I would call a traditional/stereotypical Asian body type. Pretty face on a curveless frame. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Her caramel legs made for two eye appealing straightaways.
As luck would have it, she took a seat right across the walkway from me. By the time the bus left the terminal, both of us were sitting alone. So if I needed to look across the way to see something of interest outside her window, I could do so without any obstructions. Not that I looked that way very often (lying).
About an hour or two into the trip, she took off her hoodie to reveal a cropped top that revealed her entire midriff. I didn’t want to look that often but it was sort of hard not to. And I want to stress that I didn’t leer at this young lady or sit there staring at her like a froth-mouthed madman. What I am conveying is done so in humor and with a little extra added in because yes, she was quite pretty from what I could tell and since I’ve been cooped up for so long, seeing something so blatantly sexualized is like trying to pass a car wreck without looking.
With that being shared, I do want to point out that directly in front of both of our seats, there was a group of Amish men and women all traveling to OR-E-GONE, as they said, for the first time. It was also their first time on a train, and by the way the men looked at the girl across from me, the first time they had seen a half-naked girl outside their bedrooms. The women did not appreciate her nearly as much as the men did.
For the first hour, she stayed balled up in her seat like she didn’t want to be noticed. An hour later, the hoodie came off, her cameras came out, and she began taking pictures of everything. I could see she was excited to capture her trip so any time something interesting would come into view on my side, I’d get her attention and point out the window. I thought it was the right thing to do, you know? Help this young lady make memories for her trip home. I didn’t know if she spoke English and she never seemed interested in conversation so I’d just point out the window. She’d smile, grab her phone and jump over into the seat right beside me, take pics and videos, then return to her side. She would always smile and say thank you in a really low tone, almost whispering.
As the trip continued, she became more comfortable and would lean closer to the window and then linger longer after the pics/vids were taken. At one point, she was so close to me I could smell a light body spray and feel her body resting against/on top of my leg. This girl was practically on my lap with her face maybe 12” from mine – well within my personal space. I won’t lie. That distance made me a little uncomfortable. It’s one thing to amuse myself with having such an attractive, scantily-clad young woman leaning across me to take pics. But when it gets to the point of almost being intimate/sexual in nature, that’s too much. (Had I been single, it would’ve been different)
I will admit. I was a little shocked. It’s rare for me to see a girl dressed like she was, traveling alone and in such sexualized attire. What she had on is what causes couples to fight in public. No joke.
Then she turned it up a notch. About 90 minutes from Portland, the bus pulled over and announced a smoke break. We could get out and stretch our legs for 5-10 minutes. Naturally, miss booty shorts made her way off the bus. I stayed on. My leg wasn’t feeling up to climbing the stairs again.
Once outside, she positioned her small camera on a log, stepped into the sunshine, and began posing. Of course, many shots had her ass to the camera. She genuinely didn’t have much of one, but the spandex emphasized what she did have. She posed and danced around a little – She had managed to capture almost every single person’s attention. The Amish men looked at her like she was a shiny, new, state of the art woodworking tool. (Well, maybe that’s not too far off) The Amish women had nothing but daggers. Matter of fact, I’d say if looks could actually kill, there would have been multiple arrests that day.
Smoke-break over. Everyone piled back onto the bus. The Amish man who sat in front of the Asian girl kept finding reasons to look back over his seat. It was cracking me up. The spandex girl paid no attention to him. She sat there taking pics and listening to her earbuds without a care in the world.
As we began our approach into Portland, what I began to notice outside made me uneasy. It was as if we were driving into an episode of The Walking Dead. Graffiti covered everything that trash didn’t. Where enough space was available there would be tent communities or even the small compounds of cardboard and tents. I legitimately felt the anxiety growing within me about how safe I’d be once I got off the bus. When is a bus terminal NOT in a low rent district? The only defensive weapon I brought with me was in my checked bag. Then my mind switched to the young lady across from me. Holy shit, they were going to love her. Talk about an assault waiting to happen.
I wanted to pull her aside and warn her to be extremely careful if she ventured outside the station. I was sincerely more nervous for her safety than I was my own. By the time I made it off the bus, she had disappeared inside the station. I had no idea where she went, but I wasn’t going to stalk her so I made my way to the bathroom and figured that once I came out, if I saw her, I saw her. If not, then oh well.
After doing my business, I was walking back out to the main lobby when I saw her out of the corner of my eye almost parallel with me from the women’s bathroom. I slowed down a little, looked back over my shoulder and asked her where she was headed next.
In a raspy, mid-range voice with a slight sprinkling of gay attitude to it, HE said HE was almost done with all the delays back to San José. Then peeled off to my left to go into the news stand.
So. Yeah. It was a dude… With a world class tuck job. Either that or a girl who chain smoked from the moment she left the birth canal…
Then I began to recognize the signs I looked over because I was too busy looking at “her”. The fact she *was* by herself on the train and dressed so provocatively. The fact she used the hoodie, glasses and long hair to disrupt and/or hide her neck and facial features. The fact she was completely at ease leaning across a stranger’s lap and well within my personal space, to the point of physical contact, in order to take pictures. And finally, the reason she only said a word or two and at low volume.
In one way or another, everyone on the bus had been checking this person out, completely believing he was a she. I was a little weirded out, but I was also impressed as hell.
Off The Rails 