When I finished my drivers test last week, I was welcomed aboard as a new full time driver for Lisa Motor Lines and given a choice: if I wanted to start trucking that very afternoon I could have an International tractor right there in the yard in Fort Worth. If I didn't want to drive the International (and who does?) I could have an older, five years, Freightliner tractor...

...but...

...The Freightliner was in Tampa, Florida, another reason to opt for the Freightliner. March in Florida, how bad could that be? I'd have to go to Tampa to retrieve the truck...

...but (and this was the really BIG BUT!)...

...Lisa would only send me to Florida by bus, a Greyhound, thirty hours from downtown Fort Worth to Tampa. The bus left at 6:00 a.m. the following morning and, God willing, would arrive in the Sunshine State around noon the following day. I hadn't been on a cross-country bus since I was a kid. It might be kind of fun in a weird sort of a way, I thought. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?

I presented myself with all my gear (a lot of it) at the Greyhound station in downtown Fort Worth at 5:45 a.m. and was immediately assailed by the driver, a big man who threw his considerable weight around like a wrecking ball. He would not answer any questions from passengers, shouted orders like a drill sergeant and cussed and griped under his breath the rest of the time.

He yelled orders; passengers had to line up inside the terminal behind a specific door (we were all standing outside at the bus door). When a woman asked him to repeat the door number he dismissed her. "I already said the door number and I ain't going to repeat it. You better learn to listen better." He walked off. Later as we were boarding, a young man stepped out of line to throw a piece of paper in a nearby trashcan, the driver yelled, "Hey! When I say 'all aboard' I mean get on the bus! Don't you get out of line again or I'll leave you here!"

This bullying of the passengers continued all the way from Fort Worth to Dallas (what, a half an hour?), but I was so furious by the time I arrived at the Dallas terminal I was ready to chew through anything that got in my way. I found the station supervisor. "You need to fire that driver! You need to fire him off this job right now! He's the meanest son-of-a-bitch I've ever met!" The words spilled out of my mouth like too-hot soup, but it was obvious this was not news to the supervisor who just turned and sauntered away.

The attitude of all the Greyhound employees I encountered, be they drivers, counter help or baggage handlers, was the same. Their sarcasm, condescending attitudes and aloofness were unconscionable! The drivers had all the warmth of vengeful prison guards. When a black woman, just as angry as me, deigned to ask still one more question, the driver retreated to an almost identical tirade about. "I already said it once, I ain't going to say it again...," like he had memorized it out of the company handbook, doubtless the very short chapter on Customer Service. But this brave woman wasn't taking any more lip from the driver. "When I want a lecture I'll call my mama!" she yelled back, overpowering the driver. "What I want from you is a civil answer to a simple question!" I joined in the applause the woman had earned. The driver was not moved.

The problem facing Greyhound is not merely one of escalating fuel prices, expensive equipment in poor condition and spotty passenger counts, but one of attitude and if it's true that 'manure' roles down hill, Greyhound's front line employees are standing in the cesspool created by distant, insensitive and uncaring management. The bad eggs need to be rooted out and fired. If there are any employees left after that house cleaning, they need to know that they're going to be next ones thrown 'under-the-bus' if customer service doesn't improve.

The ride was interesting. The bus was sort of clean, kind of like a football stadium right after a big game. It ran well when it was running (it quit three times, once in traffic and the police had to come and stop cars while the driver [a different but equally rude one] rummaged around in the engine compartment).

The day wore on into night and the array of odd passengers made the trip surreal. It was just as weird to see a well dressed, refined woman with coiffed hair and stylish clothes, as it was to see the grizzled old man in three different plaid pajama pieces, a bathrobe, slippers and a cowboy hat.

But in the hours when you can only see another passenger in the headlights of a passing car or truck, everybody looks weird. At that hour of the night we are all refugees, monsters who don't know, don't want to know, or don't want anyone else to know where we are. It's a grim parade with vampire overtones, one that kept us all from restful sleep.

Tampa came into view as the sun was hovering over the bay in the western sky. Only six hours late - not bad, I was told. I didn't make any lasting acquaintances, you don't on a trip like that, only momentary relationships that serve to wile away the daylight hours or to keep the monsters - the other monsters in the night - at bay.

But unlike our Greyhound drivers, when the sun came up, we passengers turned back into human beings.