Episode notes
Chapter 5: The Moon Over Manhattan
When the Green Tortoise bus rolled down Broadway the citizens of New York took notice. As the antique bus maneuvered through traffic, horns beeped, and arms waved enthusiastically through open car windows. Cabbies leaned out waving and truckers blew air-horns. Pedestrians on the sidewalks stopped in their tracks, lining up along the curb as the bus rolled past, cheering, and waving like the bus was a big green float in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
One passerby yelled excitedly, “The Hippies are back!” A young woman shouted affectionately, “I love your bus!” Someone asked loudly, “What’s a Green Tortoise?” The passengers joined in the fun, shouting, and waving to fans. Much to his mother’s chagrin, the little kid, Josh, pulled his shorts down and stuck his bare ass out an open window. The passersby cheered. Then, this hilarious guy on the sidewalk shouted, “Lord Jesus, I’m having a flashback.” He held his hand to his chest, staggering backwards like Redd Foxx calling to Elizabeth on Sanford and Son. It was comical.
As the bus circled the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, we turned the second corner and saw flames under the bridge where street people and indigents in dirty clothing were drinking and smoking around a fire barrel. I noticed one of the dark figures shaking his head furiously in disbelief, as if the green bus rekindled a memory of some unfulfilled promise made in the Sixties. Driver Chris turned the bus onto the side street below the towering stack of iron decking leading to the massive bridge. A line of taxicabs and shiny limousines waited at the curb of the bus station across the street, ready to escape the city.
As the bus pulled into a loading zone on Fort Washington Avenue, a group of men with squeegees surrounded the bus and started washing the windshield and windows. The passengers quickly started closing the windows to stop the spray from getting everything wet. The old metal school bus style windows were hard to close. This created a commotion throughout the bus as passengers got sprayed as they struggled with the metal latches.
Driver Chris slid the driver’s window open and hung his head outside. “We don’t want our windows washed,” he told the man at the windshield, waving him off with his hand. “We can’t pay you,” he shouted, shaking his head emphatically.
“We wash your windows and you pay us, yes?” the guy shouted in broken English. He sprayed the windshield with a bottle. “We do a respectable job.”
“No,” our driver shouted persistently, “we’re not paying you.” He waved the guy off again with his huge hand. “We don’t want our windows washed.” He slowed down his words. “We’re not going to give you money!” The squeegee man kept spraying and swiping the rubber blade on the glass. When he tried pulling on the wiper blade, expecting it to lift off the windshield, Driver Chris yelled, “Stop!” Then, he drew his head back inside and removed his seatbelt. He was clearly upset. “Mother fucker’s going to break our damn wipers and they’ll still want money.”
I stood up from the buddy seat and let him pass.
“If you refuse to pay, they threaten to smash your windshield,” he told me, like a shot he was out the door.
Chicken Jim had been sitting up front, strumming his guitar. He tossed the instrument on the seat and followed the red-haired driver off the bus. Together they engaged in an intense argument with the squeegee man while the others continued to wash the side windows. After arguing for several minutes, the squeegee team finally backed down. He called his men with a loud two-fingered whistle and they disappeared.