lifestyle

There was a Thursday night play to cover at the Ancon Theater, but also a gardener to let in the first thing the following morning. I knew the drill.

This time, however, I had two others with me, one slowed by age, the other by gout. I got to the usual spot for a ride to the bus terminal quickly enough, but as I was waiting for them a couple of buses and a couple of taxis whizzed by. By the time they joined me, more or less, another taxi was coming and it stopped. So was it a delay of two or three minutes? It was something like that.

The cabbie's clock said 10:43 when I got to the terminal. The last Anton bus left at 10:40. Ah, but there was a Penonome bus yet to go. The guy in the booth said they just sold the last seat and it was pulling out.

There was a Chitre bus, but they didn't want to take anyone to San Carlos. Neither did the express bus to Santiago.

Oh no! If I didn't have to be in San Carlos first thing in the morning, it would have been a simple matter to head back to the office in Perejil to sleep. Instead, I'd have to hang out at the terminal before the wee hours buses started heading to the Interior, bearing people who had to be at work bright and early the next day.

I took a seat in a nearly-deserted waiting room, facing through a couple of glass walls into another waiting room crowded with people waiting for the late double-decker bus to David. Had I come prepared I would have brought my science fiction book, but no such luck. No laptop, no reading material, just my photos to roughly edit --- delete the ones that I clearly wouldn't be using --- as I whiled away the hours.

They started turning many of the lights off at 11:00. It's to save electricity, not to help people sleep. You're really not supposed to sleep at the Terminal Nacional de Transporte, and after hours they have security guards who may take it upon themselves to see that you don't. The basic thing is that you can doze while sitting, but you can't lie down, and the sitting or slouching dozers may occasionally be stirred by the light right above them being turned on. I suppose that the guards may justify this as a practical means of determining whether certain people are waiting for a bus, or have died in the process.

At 11:36 the driver boards the David bus, but there are stragglers. It's nearly midnight before they get underway.

With no buses readying to take on passengers and my photos sorted, I head out for food and caffeine at a place I knew would be open, if for nothing else but to serve the graveyard shift at the nearby National Police headquarters, the Niko's at the end of the terminal's larger food court.

I like Niko's, and knowing the reasonable demands for the police department's business --- a number of 24-hour places, which have a decent selection of food --- I won't make an issue of bid specifications that only they can meet. When, sometime after midnight, I headed that way the Pio Pio chicken place was also open. I headed for the greater selection, but chose wrong.

As reliable as Niko's meals might usually be, somewhere around midnight their chafing food table undergoes a transformation from perishable to undead. The roast chicken was turning a strange color and had lost most of its taste. The hojaldre was stale. The large cola and the small jugo de maracuya were decent.

I could have had the sandwich guy make me a gyro with fries. I could have taken a salad out of the cooler. I could have asked the doughnut lady what was fresh. But no, I made my choices and won't hold them against Niko's.

I sat down to watch soundless TV. No sports this time of the night, just gratuitous violence. The bad guy got a fatal 9mm slug in the solar plexus. The good guy took a whack in the nuts. The femme fatale didn't seem to be overly concerned with any of this, but given that she had just been taking shelter from shotgun blasts her emotional batteries may have run out. So what was this all about? Does it have to be about something? Isn't mindless violence one of Hollywood's --- and the National Rifle Association's --- universally applicable general principles?

So when do the morning buses start? Will I get to San Carlos in time for any sleep at all? I ponder these thoughts as I make my way back to the even more deserted waiting room.

Hardly had I sat down when a guy from the Veraguas express bus came by, and asked if I was the guy going to Coronado. Not me --- I'm going to San Carlos. Same difference, he explained, and there's room for me. At about 1 a.m. we were underway. The sun would not rise with me waiting for a bus this time.