"So I just laid down on the road."

I was driving back home after a long solo bike ride on a stretch of empty, desolate, desert road in the middle of scorching Arizona.  On a turnoff into more empty, desolate, desert road I came across a school bus is stopped in the middle of the road.  No bus lights were flashing.  And there wasn't a kid in sight.  But the car in front of had stopped as well.  We're waiting for the kids to be discharged, etc.  

Nothing is happening.  No kids visible, neither in the bus nor out of the bus.  But the school bus is half on/off the road. 

After 5 minutes the car in front of me slowly drives to the left of the school bus and stops.  I watch as the driver rolls her window down.  A fellow steps out from in front of the school bus and is talking to the driver.  A minute later the driver's window goes up and she drives off leaving the fellow still standing there in the road.

I slowly drive to the left of the school bus and stop.  Same guy in front of the bus.  I roll down the window.  The guy has his shoe in his hand, gestures in 3 - 4 directions, explaining something.  He says something about the police being called.  I assume there is mechanical problem with the bus.  Then the guy asks for ride to Congress (15 more empty miles ahead) where he'll meet police.  

Sure. 

So the shoeless guy gets in the car and continue on to Congress.  He is clearly tense, nervous, hyperverbal - and smelly.  He says he has been `on the road' for a few days.  He "tried" to get a ride at the last intersection but nobody would stop.  He says: "I'm tired, hungry, thirsty and my feet are killing me.".  

Then he said he just got frustrated and decided to just lie down in the middle of the road to "make the bus stop."  

I'm curious.  Alert for danger, etc.  But there didn't seem to be a hint of danger.  

I'm trying to think of some kind of conversation for the next 15 miles to Congress that won't result in an `episode.'

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ME: "So. Um. How was the road? Warm?"

HIM: "Yeah. Not bad. Hard. But o.k."  "I'm going to the Hillside church because I live in Yava." 

ME: "Yava?"  (Yava is a barely a faded bent up road sign next to a cattle guard on another desolate road in a desert canyon).

HIM: "Yeah. Yava."

ME: "Couldn't be more than 3 people in Yava."

HIM: "Twelve of us, actually." 

I get to the gas station at Congress, drop him off, wave goodbye.  

The `West' IS wild.