Sixty Hours on a Greyhound Across Canada Almost Killed Me

I’m lying across the back three seats of a half empty Greyhound when the bus comes to an abrupt stop. I jolt forward and my foot barrels into the bathroom door. A distinctive smell—part cleaning fluid/part stale piss—wafts into the cabin. I cough on the scent and gradually open my eyes. Through the squint I can make out a man standing over top of me. He’s maybe a hundred and ten pounds. Oversized baseball jersey. He’s got three days stubble and looks sketched out. The man mouths something inaudible then starts slapping at my face. Repeatedly. “HE’S ALIVE EVERYBODY,” shouts Sketch. “NO NEED TO CALL THE POLICE! HE’S ALIVE AND HE’S MOVING!”

“Fuck. Stop it. What’s going on?” I say while grabbing at the guy’s arms. The man backs down. “We all thought you were fucking dead,” says Sketch. “I thought you said you could hold your fucking shit. Are you trying to get me arrested? Are you fucking mental?”

“That was…Jesus. How much did I smoke? That was some really strong pot.”

“Dude, that wasn’t pot. That was…” Sketch trails off and looks at me in disbelief. He starts shaking his head and runs a hand through his thinning hair. He might be 30 he might be 65. Sketch leans in close and brings his gravelly voice to a sharp whisper. “That wasn’t pot. That was heroin. We smoked heroin and you’ve been out cold for, like, nineteen hours. We just got into Saskatoon.”

I had always thought if I tried heroin it would be some dark night of the soul shit. I pictured being holed up Sid and Nancy style contemplating suicide and making angry music. I pictured creating sketches in a blaze of comedic glory like Farley or Belushi. Instead I smoked horse because I was bored and a little bit lonely on a long haul bus ride. It wasn't like I had never tried drugs before, but to be honest the reason I had smoked wasn't even about getting high. I had smoked because I wanted to make a cool new pal, somebody to chat with and pass the monotony. It was like every after school special come to life except it was happening three weeks before my thirty-sixth birthday.

Content that he didn’t cause an overdose, Sketch turns his back and starts sauntering away. He’s another single serving friend off into the night, one of many I’ve had on the trip. On my own I start looking around the cabin. People pick up their bags and shuffle out the door. The bus driver is outside lighting a cigarette. If we’ve caused any problems the other patrons haven’t noticed…for most of them a brown dude passed out in the back of the bus seems far preferable to a brown dude being awake or—god forbid—moving around. On the bus every time I shifted my shoulders some asshole passenger would give me a double take: is the bad guy from True Lies about to fuck up this Greyhound? Is my commute to Thunder Bay about to be blown apart by ethnic Howard Payne ? The racism was shitty but it's really the arrogance that bothered me. Like who would want to do a terrorism on Saskatchewan? It's not important enough to hate. What was I going to do? Blow up a Tim Horton's because their stupid province is impossible to spell?

I try and stand up but my legs are still wobbly under the power of drugs. I have been on the bus for 35 hours—there’s another 25 before I’ll get to where I’m supposed to go—and I’m barely able to stand because I accidentally smoked heroin. The bus makes a loud exhaust noise and I’m starting to think that maybe this was all a very bad idea.

There were two reasons I was taking a long haul greyhound bus halfway across Canada: resentment and stand up comedy. I've worked in Canadian comedy for over a decade and I’ve had some success. I've won awards, performed at Just for Laughs, and opened for Russell Peters. But like every other mildly successful Canadian entertainer I also have a day job.

I work at a call center for American Express. My job is listening to people yell at me until I can transfer them to the appropriate, more important, person to yell at. One day during a particularly stressful afternoon at American Express, I got a text from a friend letting me know that another comedian just booked a half hour television special. I'm not usually one to get jealous but that comedian’s best five minutes are comparing the skin of a hairless cat to the skin of his ballsack. That is his closer. If that was the type of shit that was getting on television what hope did the rest of us have?

For about 20 minutes I didn’t know what to do. Then I had a revelation. It was time to step up the game. No more feeling sorry for myself. I had access to free long-distance calling and broadband internet. It was time to get booked. For two hours I cold called every comedy club across the country. The responses are mostly the same: Who are you? What? Your name is what? Faisal Butt? No. No, thank you. Our diversity quota is met. We hired a Chinese comic three years ago and our bartender says she is 1/16th Ojibwe. We’re good.

Eventually I catch a promoter in Edmonton who does not give a fuck. They said they were leaving the club and agreed to book me sight unseen. No tape. No audition. I could come perform as long as I was a headliner. Which meant 45 minutes a night. I’ve got about 23 minutes, total, but whatever. I figure I’d crowd work the rest of it. I agree to the booking and hang up the phone before the promoter can change their mind. This would be amazing. I would be headlining a comedy club! Three nights at $150 a pop! That money for telling jokes! Getting off the phone I immediately start looking up flights from Toronto to Edmonton. The cheapest thing I can find is $900.

When you agree to 60 hours on a bus you don’t really know what you’re signing up for. Conceptually it’s a little under three days’ travel time. It’s like 20 episodes of the Joe Rogan podcast. Fifty-four episodes of WTF. I figured that I’d sleep for half the ride and the other half would be kind of romantic, like the Littlest Hobo or a Tom Waits song. When I booked the bus ride on my girl’s credit card I felt proud that I’d be taking the trip. Like a real working comedian! I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. In my life I’ve spent two days in prison, and let me tell you, given the option between going back to prison or 60 more hours on a bus I’m taking prison every time.

The first two hours on the bus are like a magic trick. You get out from under the big city buildings above you and gradually things become more and more rural. As I look out the window and listen to Rogan go off on the scientific benefits of float tank isolation chambers, I think to myself that this is going to be a great way to really experience my country. I'll finally embrace what it's like to feel Canadian by seeing the sights! All out the bus window!

Then I realize that it's only been 40 minutes since we left Toronto and that whole idea goes to shit. I also realize that the bus I'm sitting on doesn't have any power outlets. Quickly I'm running out of juice for my phone. By the time we hit our first stop (Thunder Bay!) my phone is dead, I have a bedsore on my left ass cheek, and the right side of my body is completely numb. Two things keep me going: the thought of headlining a gig in Edmonton and the fact that there is literally not a another option than continuing the trip. That's when Serg gets on and takes the seat beside me.

Serg is physically bigger than any human is supposed to be. Not fat. Just large. His torso takes up more than his whole bus seat and his hands look like catchers mitts. My traveling buddy introduces himself in a thick Eastern European accent then gives me the once over. Staying on brand he pulls a warm bottle of vodka from his bag. Serg asks if I drink. I do drink, of course I drink, but at this point of the ride I’m not desperate enough to down warm spirits with an oversized stranger. I politely decline, but this doesn’t stop Serg from downing half the bottle and starting to party. Fourteen stops later Serg is pissed drunk and running up and down the isle of the bus playing Twisted Sister from the speaker of his phone. When Serg refuses to stop partying, he’s not going to take it, our bus driver pulls over in an emergency stop, calls the police, and has Serg arrested. There are another 28 stops to go.

Things go on like that for days. Boredom is only undercut by some new sketch bag for a couple of stops. While initially I had tried to avoid getting into any trouble, eventually I give that up and start embracing anyone who will offer me anything. I smoke pot with strangers, I shoplift and shotgun beers with a dude in Manitoba, which eventually leads me to the heroin incident with Sketch. I listen to people tell me about their get rich quick schemes, or their plan to start a rap group, and for a second I feel sorry for them—what kind of person on a longhaul bus is ever going to grow up to be rich or famous—until I remember that the only reason I’m on a bus so I can go live out my stand up comedy dream.

Follow Faisal and Graham on Twitter.