‘Opelika. If you’re going on to Atlanta, we’ll be departing at nine.’ The crackly overhead announcement sounded like a worn 45.
Bill looked out the bus window and yawned. Opelika, Alabama. That was a city he never thought he’d visit. A gas station, a Piggly Wiggly, a Soapy Suds, more than a couple bars and liquor stores, some local restaurants, and, of course, a sizeable Baptist church. That was downtown. A playground, baseball field, a school, horse farms, modest, dilapidated houses spaced a quarter-mile or more apart, and acres of crop fields made up the rest. Most of the places he’d ridden through today looked exactly like Opelika. Small, cracker towns filled with simple, tired-looking people who eyed you with suspicion if they didn’t know you. Because in towns like Opelika, if they didn’t know you or weren’t somehow related to you, then you were a stranger, and it thus followed that you were not to be trusted.
Bill stretched and turned away from the window. Good guess.
In towns like Opelika, surly strangers stuck out. Bill smiled at the old lady in the aisle across from him as she stuffed her shopping bag full of all the knitting crap she’d been working on for the past three hundred miles. She didn’t smile back.
‘Let me help you with that,’ he said, quickly rising from his seat as the old woman’s granddaughter moved to grab her rucksack and other bags from the overhead rack. ‘They look heavy.’
‘Thank you,’ Grandma said and nodded an okay at her grandchild, who Bill guessed was probably still in high school. Maybe college. Although her height made you think she was older. Thanks in part to short-shorts, her long, tan legs went on for ever.
‘No problem,’ replied Bill as he reached for the bag, brushing up against the young girl’s back as he did so. Her hair smelled of strawberries. ‘You remind me a lot of my daughter,’ he said as he handed her her bags. ‘Same age, I’m thinking. College, right? What are you, about twenty?’
The girl grinned and blushed.
‘Not quite,’ said the old lady. ‘Don’t go rushing her, now. You getting off yourself here?’
Interesting choice of words, Grandma. ‘Atlanta,’ Bill replied.
‘Well then, Marcy and I have it. Her daddy’s waiting right outside. Thank you ’gain, sir. Have a nice trip, now.’
Bill nodded and sat back in his seat. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and ran a hand over his now smooth scalp, watching as Marcy helped her grandma off the bus in her cutoffs and tight hoodie.
He wondered when they’d start to miss him back in Miami. If they had already. When that hurricane pulled out of town and the good people of Miami rebuilt themselves a courthouse and put all their inmates back into the right cages, and poor ‘Bantling, Willie R.’ was wrapped up tight in shackles and chains and sent off to court only to find out he was now facing the death penalty — well, the screaming would begin. Poor Willie R., who was probably guilty of not much more than a burglary or robbery or beating the shit out of his wife, was gonna pitch a fit. Then the prosecutors, the jailors, the judge — everyone would be looking around to see if this was some sort of a joke. ‘Where is Bantling?’ someone would shout. A grungy green uniform would nervously reply, ‘This is Bantling.’ And then would come the panic. ‘This is not Bantling. William Rupert Bantling? Date of birth January seventh, 1961. Who the hell is this guy?’ Then everyone would collectively start screaming and the finger-pointing would begin. Heads would roll. The look on that chief prosecutor’s face would be priceless. Hopefully someone in the courtroom would have a camera and take a shot so maybe he could catch it on the news, because it would, without a doubt, make the news. Cupid’s escaped! Man the torpedoes! Batten the hatches! Save the women and children!
Then again, perhaps not. Bill had a feeling that sly prosecutor had a thing or two up his sleeve. Bill suspected Mr Chief Assistant Collier was gonna keep the deal he’d made with the devil on the down-low until it came time to call a big news conference to announce that his office had rounded up a dozen members of a snuff club. So maybe there wouldn’t be anything on the news after all. Even better. Bill didn’t need to see his name all over the papers.
Bill stuck his hand in his pocket and found his folded drawing. He gazed out the window as Marcy and her grandma slowly made their way through the station and over to a waiting car. An older man — presumably Daddy, in a wife-beater T-shirt and jeans — got out of the car and threw their suitcases in the trunk. He scratched his belly and kissed his momma. All the while, young Marcy leaned against the side of the car, one long, tanned leg tucked up behind her, and texted on her cell, oblivious to what was going on around her, her long white-blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. Bill pulled out the drawing and put it on his lap. He was hard. He had been since young Marcy had stood up in her short-shorts. He looked down at the pitiful, beautiful face laying atop his thighs, her scared eyes staring up at him. He moved his thumb over her. The pencil smudged.
Then he stood up, grabbed his bag from the overhead rack and hopped off the bus just as everyone who was heading to Atlanta was getting on.