By Mark Kneeskern
Desperate conversations are best had on a pay phone at the Denver Greyhound station.
The depot where ambitions go to expire is also a good place to learn about homelessness. I myself look like a vagabond, and drifters, like birds, are drawn to those whose plume (and smell) they recognize.
There is no escaping CNN as I wait in line to get my bus ticket. In fact, no place in this station is safe from the broadcast. I’m tempted to push through the steel doors and past the human chimneys in the cold damp streets to get away from the news. The only consolation is some abbreviated, dark, abstract humor scrolling at the bottom of the screen … a similar humor crawls across the gray tile as I wait for the sassy hip-hopster chick in front of me to finish her tirade. She’s at the counter, bellyaching about how her first bus had a flat, her second bus broke down, the third was delayed, and now her hair is a wreck. The Greyhound representative, whose fingernails look like surfboards, seems to empathize.