Idle banter the American way

On his way across the US Vitali Vitaliev found that long journeys are made even longer by idle discourse and fleeting observations

One of the biggest perils of travelling by bus across America is to be caught sitting in front of a loquacious elderly couple. And although the ancient couple seated behind me on the bus to Santa Fe, New Mexico, were not very garrulous (after 50 odd years of marriage they must have exhausted all subjects for conversation), they stubbornly took turns to read aloud every single sign along the way.

"MacDonald's!" he croaked. "Route Sixty Six!" echoed she. "Official Use Only Crossing!" "Vasectomy Reversed. Money Back Guarantee!"

I was about to turn around and tell them politely that I regretted the fact that none of their fathers had undergone vasectomy at a pubescant age, but thought better of it; you never know what sort of a penalty a gesture like that could invoke on you in New Mexico, with its antediluvian state laws, which, among other things, make it illegal for partners of opposite sexes to cohabit for more than a month without being married.

Meanwhile, the bus entered the outskirts of Santa Fe, and the horrible couple's verbal exchanges immediately became much more enticing. I felt I was able to take in the city's reality, unveiling through the window, from their words only, and closed my eyes.

"Protect Mother Earth!" – this placard was probably held by a group of long-haired and genderless types standing at the curb.

"Jesus LCalvan – General Dentistry." "Einstein Beauty Supplies!"

My favourite Russians satirists, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, who criss-crossed the United States in 1935, warned of another big danger of travelling in America. They urged their readers to beware of a bunch of eccentric local characters "in rocking chairs with newspapers in their hands" idling in the lobbies of small-town American hotels.

"In their eyes glows the unquenchable desire to talk to someone, to chatter, to while the time away. For the most part they are gentlemen who are no longer young, in decorous suits of a colour peculiar to doctors. Seesawing in their hotel rockers, they eagerly lie in wait for their prey. God forbid that you hook such a man with a careless question! In the loud voice of the American optimist he will tell you everything he knows, and in every phrase there will be 'Sure', which means 'Of course', and 'Surely', which means 'Of course', and 'Of course', which also means 'Of course'."

Needless to say, the moment I sat down to a solitary lunch of chicken tortilla at Santa Fe's brand new Corneto Hotel, built in the style of an Indian pueblo, I was accosted by one such type, a podgy elderly man called Chuck.

"Can I join you?" he asked, and without waiting for a reply plopped himself onto a chair next to me. He was wearing shorts and a coloured T-shirt with some Indian petroglyphs on it. A retired banker, he was visiting Santa Fe from Nevada.

"This place is kinda weird," he announced. "I know all about it. Are you aware that 50 per cent of babies in Santa Fe are still delivered by midwives?" I shook my head. Chuck had an annoying habit of slowly and painstakingly spelling every single personal name he used in his speech: it took him half-a-minute to say "S-a-n-t-a F-e".

After lunch, Chuck volunteered to show me around the city. It soon turned out that he didn't know a single thing about the place (except for its spelling, that is). Puffing like an early steam-engine and armed with a cane – which he never used, but simply carried under his arm-pit – he walked even slower than he spoke. Every two minutes, he would stop and, fondling a torn city map, would harrass passers-by for directions. Since it took ages for him to spell the name of a place he was looking for, he never got any: the pedestrians would shoot off without waiting for him to finish his protracted enquiries.

When we finally stumbled upon Loreto Chapel (we were looking for St. Francis Cathedral, by the way), containing one of America's best-known architectural enigmas – a graceful winding staircase, magically hanging in the air without any visible supports, Chuck commented: "It's kinnda simple. There used to be a Catholic school for Indian girls here. The monks must have built such a staircase to have an unobstructed view under the girls' skirts – ha-ha!"

I was only tolerating him because he reminded me of Ilf and Petrov's "rockers". Inside St. Fransis Cathedral, boasting of "USA's first representation of Madonna" and overhung with portraits of sad-faced guitar-playing Spanish saints. Chuck suddenly looked at his watch and announced that he had to go.

"Sure!" I mumbled matter-of-factly trying to conceal my joy. In this case, "Sure" clearly meant not just "Of course", but also "Thank God!".