(NYTimes.com) – Mr. James, the infamous mayor of Newark turned federal felon, had been reduced to a common denominator of the American travel experience: he was, improbably, a passenger on a northbound Greyhound bus.

Released on Tuesday morning after 18 months in prison, Mr. James, 74, was bound for a halfway house in Newark. He carried with him three cardboard boxes labeled Inmate No. 28791050. He was, as always, impeccably dressed, in white-tab collars and a Hilton suit. And when the bus was more than an hour late pulling into Richmond, he agitated on behalf of his fellow passengers, ever the politician.

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