Roads West
by Chavala Ymker
“Final Destination: San Francisco,” scrolls across the front of the Greyhound bus as my mom and I leave Chicago. The carpeted seat itches my legs as I try to move my feet from under an overstuffed backpack. Through the window, clouds gather, pulling a curtain on another mile of corn fields. Shoving my pillow against smudged glass, I close my eyes and try to focus on the spinning of wheels and forget I’ll be on this bus for another 40 hours before we get to Flagstaff, Arizona.
“Who is there that does not recollect their first night when started on a long journey, the wellknown voices of our friends still ringing in our ears… and that last separating word Farewell! Sinks deeply into the heart. It may be the last we ever hear from some or all of them, and to those who start...there can be no more solemn scene of parting, only at death.”
A plaque describing the journey West before roads at
The Western Historic Trails Center, Iowa
The lights of St. Louis awaken me and I catch a glimpse of the Arch before we descend to the bus station. Anxiously, we wait for the next bus, desperate not to miss it.
“Did you lose your pocket?” two men sit on the tiled floor, their skin wrinkled and teeth yellow. “Did you lose your pocket?”
Mom stops, her face getting red.
The bus arrives, and we join the straggling midnight line, the misfits of society.
As we enter Oklahoma, the sun rises, and noon burns in Oklahoma City. A young mother and her two daughters find a church soup kitchen for lunch. I ration the peanut butter cookies I packed. Driving through each city, I catch glimpses of painted horses and beautiful streets, but we always stop in the most back alley, boarded-up areas.
…Since 1900, the more well-to-do families…have moved in large numbers to outlying suburban areas, some of which have been included within revised limits of the growing city. The old homes, vacated by this movement, have descended to the less well-to-do, and by stages large areas have finally reached a critical stage of decay.
Toll Roads and Free Roads, 1939 study by
Herbert Fairbank and Thomas MacDonald
“‘The sun has ris’, the sun has set, and here I is in Texas yet,’” I whisper the words to a tattered billboard glittering in the desert heat. In front of me, a weathered old man tells his story to a grandma across the aisle.
“The Holy Spirit was working, you know. I felt guilty. And just as the rush was comin’ on, I remembered the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t get a Bible until I was 55, and I wouldn’t believe in miracles if it wasn’t for my salvation,” he gestures wildly and she nods her head.
“I’m from San Francisco, and I’ve been clean since 2006. Prayer does the work. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, you know. Do you smoke weed? It’s really easy to get a prescription. Just say you busted up your toe.”
The old lady smiles gently.
There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.
The Green Book
by Victor Hugo Green
The New Mexico bluffs rise alongside us, little distraction from the endless miles of barren dirt. Suddenly, we pull into a lonely gas station. Sirens surround us, one police cruiser, then another, and another. Five sets of lights skid to a stop around the bus.
“I told you, if you kept swearing, I would have to remove you” the bus driver addresses the two Black men seated near the back.
“I’m not getting off this f****** bus,” one yells.
I get off and buy a postcard of a sunset.
"Our unity as a nation is sustained by free communication of thought and by easy transportation of people and goods… Together, the uniting forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear – United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts."
President Eisenhower,
Message in Congress, February 22, 1955
“Would you like to read my newspaper?” the woman in front of me speaks with a French accent.
I grasp the newspaper over the seat and unfold it. French words trail across the page and I turn to a comic of President Macron.
“I’m traveling to San Francisco to bike the coast,” she smiles, happy to find friends.
In Flagstaff, Arizona, we get off, and she rides on, staring at us through the window.
The bus driver closes the doors and all I can remember is that she worked at a post office in the south of France.
