Charles Davis - Drifting South

“Where you heading?” he asked, after a few moments and a dozen more train cars passed by.

“Home.”

“By your accent I’d guess that’s down South somewhere.”

I nodded, looking all around us again to see if we had any bad company. I wouldn’t feel safe until I was a long way from that prison. At least I knew the driver wasn’t a threat. He had the knife but not the eyes to use it.

“So where you heading?”

“Why?”

“What you say?”

“What’s it to you where I’m heading?” I said.

“Just talking…”

“You talk too much.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment and then said, “Always had a friendly nature, I guess. No harm meant.”

I leaned back in my seat, remembering how I used to have the same easy friendly nature and used to enjoy conversation. I didn’t just enjoy it, I was good at it. Ma used to tell me that talking was my one true gift of many. I was the only person she’d ever known who could “outtalk a mockingbird,” she’d say on many an occasion with an ending to that always of “Let’s hush now, child.”

Anyway, after a while I finally said to the driver, “Gonna stay with my ma for a while. She lives in Virginia.”

His head was still and then he nodded and nodded like we’d made up and he peeped at me again in his mirror. “I used to take my family to Virginia Beach until the kids got older and my wife passed. She passed last year. Emphysema took her last breath. That’s when I started eating all the time and got fat. I smoked more than she did and she made me swear off of them before she died. Almost killed me quitting them. Probably eating will kill me now. Get rid of one bad thing, you just pick up another. You quit bad things but the hole the bad thing was filling never goes away is what it amounts to. Just end up filling it with something else no good.”

I blew out a deep breath, wore-out with his stories already, and I looked as far down the tracks as I could. That had to be the longest train I’d ever seen.

“Heard the place is all built-up now.”

“What is?”

“Virginia Beach. Probably wouldn’t even know it if I saw it.”

I didn’t say anything, but just hoped he’d still himself or I was gonna have to tell him to. I’d never seen a beach and I didn’t care to comment about it or his wife passing. I didn’t want to get ugly with him being as mangled up as he was and he seemed like an all right feller, so I figured me not saying nothing back would work to let him know finally that I wasn’t definitely in the mood for talk. But it didn’t.

“What you gonna do with yourself once you get settled in back home? Got you a girl to go see?”

“Had one a long time ago. How far’s the bus station from here?”

“Few miles. I say, what you gonna do once you get back home and settled in? Gonna go see that girl?”

I wasn’t going to talk about the only girl I’d ever had that I would ever call “my girl.” I wished I hadn’t brought the thought of her into that van. She wasn’t the kind of girl to be spoken of in such ways in such conversations in such places. But I knew he didn’t mean no harm even though it bothered me in a dark way and I said, “Have quite a few things to do,” louder and faster than was necessary.

“Like what?”

By that point, I figured he was one of those folks who couldn’t help himself to shut up even if he really tried. If he wanted to know what I was gonna do after I got home, I’d tell him a few things for him to ponder on, because I’d been pondering on them a long time.

“First thing I’m gonna do once I get settled home is find out why a man tried to kill me when I was seventeen years old for no reason I can figure.”

The driver’s voice dropped. “I see. You gonna go looking for him?”

“He’s dead. I got some other people I need to find and have some serious business about it. Gonna go see a preacher, too.”

The driver set his sack of apples to the side careful. “The preacher help you through your trials and tribulations?” His voice had gotten shakier.

“Not quite like that. He helped get me into my trials and tribulations. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna kill him over it. Been leaning that way heavy for a long time. Gonna go see a sheriff after that. I owe him a visit, too, just like that preacher. He might survive my coming. I haven’t made my mind up about him.”

The driver dropped his knife on the floor and reached down to get it back in a hurry, just before he turned around to where he could barely get a wide eyeball on me. Then he turned around quick and we both sat in the stillness for a good five more minutes until the train passed. After ten more minutes, he dropped me off at the bus station, pulling right up front.

He didn’t wish me good luck or offer me any more of his apples or nothing else, but he nodded after I thanked him for the ride. Both of us knew I was dead serious about the business I’d spoken of. It was the same business I’d figured that assistant warden didn’t have any business knowing a few hours before when he’d asked what my plans were when I got out. Assistant Warden Theodore Donald O’Neil the Third had seen it in my eyes though, sure enough.

Her head turned sideways and then almost upside down, which made a big mop of red curls fall over her face. She was leaning so far out of her bus seat that when she took one hand to move her hair, she fell into the aisle. Her mother and baby brother didn’t notice the commotion, or her holler, as they kept sleeping while she climbed back up, situating herself for more room. It worked and she got a little bit. Her ma put an arm around her again, I guess out of instinct the way she looked sound asleep when doing it. The little girl soon moved it again without much notice.

Looking out the bus window, I kept feeling a strange peacefulness trying to come on me as I stared at a landscape that went on in all directions to the sky and that had no fences, or at least they were ones a man could jump over without effort. I hoped the busy little girl would soon find something else interesting to help pass the miles…besides me. We were the only two people awake on the bus. I kept seeing her out of the corner of my eye leaning toward me, even after I cleared my throat loud to wake her momma.

She’d been studying on me for some time. Something about my hands had caught her attention not long after the last stop, and even after I moved them to where she might study on something else, she kept trying to get a good look at them.

I finally closed my eyes, and my mind was still drifting south to thoughts of home when I felt the bus seat move a little and felt a small finger touch my left hand. I pulled it away.

“You get on back to your seat now,” I said.

She looked up at me and smiled. “What’s that on the back of your hand?” she said.

“None of your business,” I said. “Now go on back with your momma.”

“My name is Grace.”

I turned to look out my window.

“What’s yours?”

I tried to give her a hard look and then said, “It don’t matter none is what my name is.”

“‘It don’t matter none’ isn’t a name, silly goose.” She started to laugh at her joke but stopped. “My dad used to have an ink drawing on the back of his hand.”

“Grace, leave me be like I’m telling you.”

“Momma likes men with tattoos. Frank doesn’t have one on his hand like Daddy did, but he has one on his arm.” She grabbed one sleeve and pulled it up to her elbow and pointed at the place Frank has a tattoo. “He’s meeting us at the bus station. We’re moving in with him. He’s got a house and a car but it doesn’t run right now.”

“Hopefully he’ll get it running soon. Go on, now. I need some sleep.”