Last Hurrahs

After my last post, I dropped my backpack with the (exceedingly, enormously) kindly folks at the campground, and went in search of breakfast and beach.

I got knocked over by a wave or two, counted 36 mosquito bites on my legs alone, and headed back to Savannah. The taxi was waiting when I got back to the campground, so I left still in my sundress and bathing suit. The woman at the campground told me to be safe, which made me nervous. The taxi driver pointed out features of interest, and talked about his hitchhiking days. In the Greyhound station I bought my ticket and changed out of my beachwear. There's something profoundly seedy about changing in a Greyhound bathroom.

The bus to New York was packed again. In Fayetteville, N.C. a man and a woman got into a fight about who should be first in line. She kept saying "Talk to the hand, talk to the hand." I couldn't hear what he was saying, but she explained that she was 65 and he might be right but she was getting on that bus. It was dying down, when one of my fellow passengers, a large woman with a rattail, started telling the man that he was disrespecting the woman. The woman with the rattail said that the other woman might look seedy and indigent but that she was still somebody's child. The woman with the rattail told the other woman that the guy was being threatening and that she might call the police. She started ranting about how menacing men were to women they thought were vulnerable. I thought she was being excessive. All the passengers were buzzing about it; nobody could let it go.

When the other woman got off the bus, a stop later, the woman with the rattail insisted on hugging her. And talking about it more.

In Richmond, Va. I got off the bus to smoke. The woman with the rattail came up very close to me and asked me for a cigarette. I gave her one. Then she asked me for a light. I gave her one. I resented her enormously. She said, "I'm sorry, but times are hard." The Richmond stop was opposite the stadium for the Richmond Braves, my favorite Triple A franchise. The stadium features (on the outside) a seeming giant peering over the supports. There were rats running around. It was a little strange for 3 a.m.

At another stop, a guy asked my name and then said, "I have some weed. Do you want some?" I said no.

I'm at my mother's for the night. Tomorrow I head for Maine. That will be the last bit of this trip, and I feel, as usual, that sense of wasted opportunities, mixed with immense sentimentality about the whole thing so far. Right.