Greyhound to Memphis

 I don’t usually catch busses, but I caught the Greyhound from Nashville to Memphis. 

Mainly it was to do with convenience as much as the only way to travel across the heartland. 

We’d spent the Fourth of July in Nashville.  Noone was on the streets until the sun began to set. We’d spent two days shadow-jumping to beat the fierceness of the heat.

Somehow it rained. Wet streets and small packs of underaged girls in short denim shorts with candy and soda.  Backdropped under neon signs to bars and boot shops, they leaned into open windows where old time country music foreplayed the fire cracking across the night sky. 

On the bus to Memphis I got the call.  I should have known it then.  But I didn’t.  I’m autistic with hope.  It’s the only thing that sees me through. 

I told you this girl didn’t travel on busses.  

Everyone gets the story wrong.