OUR LADY OF THE BUS
That’s me on the left with the Top Gun perm!
1985
INT – GREYHOUND BUS – DAY AND NIGHT x 4
Montreal
To Santa Cruz, California.
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Of FM music
Including my boyfriend.
I think, Cool, why not?
Let’s cross that
Big continent
Without stopping,
With no money.
Just you and me
High on the
Power of Love!
We’re not scared!
We have a phone number
To call like a
Careless Whisper
Once we get there,
Arrogant in our belief that
It is normal to
Show up
Looking like something the cat dismembered.
Hello Joy!
Remember us?
We met you a couple of times at that fun place in Geneva!
So we thought we would come all the way from
Switzerland via Montreal
For you to Take On Me
(And him)
In your Hotel California.
But
EXT - SANTA CRUZ - NIGHT - TELEPHONE BOOTH
The Heat Is On
She is not home and I have
Twenty dollars in my fancy Italian handbag.
We get on a Metro bus to
Where?
The Santa Crutz
Nightshift
Feels unsafe to me,
A silly sheltered Swiss girl
Playing Rock Chick
In the brand-new sheepskin coat
My mama bought me because she was
Worried I would be cold in Canada.
INT- BUS - NIGHT:
An old lady is sitting next to me.
I sway with fatigue,
And catch her eye.
Her kind smile tells me
She sees the sheltered, scared girl.
I want to take her hand and hold on tight.
But I just ask her
If she knows a place
Where we can sleep
For cheap.
And she looks deep into my eyes
And says:
“You two look like a couple of decent kids. I live in an old people’s home since my husband Jeff passed away, but I kept my old camper van. It’s parked out the back in the parking lot. So, I’ll sneak you into my room so you can have a quick wash, brush your teeth, and then we'll hustle out back, quiet as mice, and get you settled in the van. I’ll pull Jeff’s old army sleeping bags from underneath the fold-out table, and you’ll be snug as bugs, you'll see! I’ll be back in the morning with coffee and pastries and sneak you back into my room to freshen up.”
And just like that, a complete stranger
On a bus saves two ridiculous
Exhausted twenty-something-year-olds
From a night on the streets.
EXT - SANTA CRUZ - THE NEXT MORNING
Joy answers her phone.
We are safe
And welcome
And Joyful!
And still in touch!
2024 – INT – GINGINS – SWITZERLAND
Every time I hear “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds, I think of that wonderful kind old lady on that transit bus who saw panic in my eyes and reached out to help.
N.B: I am no longer a rock chick. I am now a rock-poet and author of romcom JUST LIKE A MOVIE that is being developed into a screenplay in Los Angeles, and the wife of a retired lawyer, whom I met after running away from California and the rock star when my sister came to rescue me two years later. I got my Kelly McGillis Top Gun hair a week or so before flying home because perms were on sale at Saks Fifth Avenue.