Dead in the tunnel

From our "Entertainment" compilation.

The Dead are in town, playing MSG (Madison Square Garden). With The Dead come the hippies, all of a sudden Manhattan gets a 1960s or 70s feel about it.

The tourists are baffled and excited.

The cameras are out and the smiles flash.

A white bus, an old International, with a big American flag along the inside of the windows, a big green, only slightly rusty cargo rack running the length of the roof top of the bus, is slowly making its way toward the Empire State building.

Crouched on top of the bus, holding on to the green railing, are maybe about ten people, mostly hippie girls. Holding on to the lumbering vehicle, they wave to the tourists and the locals.

The bus completes its lap of honor around the Empire State building, and the police car behind it does not care one iota about the unsecured cargo on top.

Uniformed police line the entrance of MSG. A lot fewer than in the old days, said one of the old hippies.

The undercovers are all neatly dressed in new Yankees' T-shirts with matching baseball hats, as if putting the potential evildoers in the crowd on notice in an understated "just doing our job" sort of way.

Is it just the passage of time or an unintended side effect of terrorism, which makes hippies finally be recognized as completely harmless? 

The Garden does shake when 25 000 people dance, if you want to know.

A few hours later, the buses parked along the side street just opposite the main entrance start to fill up and pull out to the next show.

At the Port Authority bus terminal, the next NY to Newark Int'l bus starts up. There are only two passengers and the driver. As a local radio station comes on, one of the passengers pulls out a red and blue CD sleeve and asks the bus driver if he would consider putting on a cd.

The middle aged New Jersey Italian looks at the passenger then the cds in her hand, and with a cautious, well, let's see, agrees.

A few seconds later, the first bars of The Dead fill the bus as it pulls out into the light traffic. A minute or so into the CD, the driver turns up the volume.

Dead in the tunnel, says one passenger to her companion.

The bus driver and the two part ways at Newark Int'l.

The security guard inside the terminal is sprawled on a bench, fast asleep. The photo of the sleeping beauty never makes it on the internet.*

Live and let live.

* Well, it eventually does, but fuzzed and without a date.