Travels in a Tin Can

and he 'bought me' with a coke. I felt incredibly relieved when he got off the
train with (a) no power cut having plunged us into darkness and (b) me
staying on the train. As he left he ruffled my hair then waved from the
platform. Everyone else saw and smirked, just to make sure my humiliation
was complete. Compared to what we endured nearly ten years later in Texas
however, slightly creepy old man on the train to Birmingham was a cakewalk.
San Antonio is a fairly compact town in west Texas and before we got
there fellow travellers had recommended that we get the bus in to town rather
than driving. So we stopped at a KOA site which proclaimed 'nearby bus stop'
as one of its features. When we checked in we were given directions and a
timetable, noting that the last direct bus back was not very late - but late
enough for the 'hot cocoa couple' from the UK. We found the bus stop easily
the next morning and had an uneventful trip in - save for the obligatory old
man talking to himself in the corner. When it came to the evening we spent a
fraught few minutes trying to work out exactly which bus we needed and
where it would leave from.
Armed only with a cartoon map of the town centre and vague advice
from the campsite this was less easy than it should have been. Our fears
were compounded by the fact that we had to wait at a dark bus stop in what
seemed to be an unusually quiet neighbourhood considering it was only about
ten pm. Nevertheless we did catch the correct bus and were able to breath a
sigh of relief.
That is until we fell foul of the local crazy. In his 40s and wearing a red
shell suit he looked unassuming. Actually he looked ridiculous, a middle aged
white man trying to ‘be’ black and 17. Plus, Emma swore that she had owned