He was from Atlanta and was taking the Greyhound to get home. He made sure everyone at the coffee shop knew these basic facts about him by repeating them with enough volume to reach the back pews. The fact that he stood in a room that could hold a maximum of ten people before everyone had to share armpit space made no difference.
“I’m not from around here. I’m from Altlanta. I got caught up here in this here ice blizzard.” A few inches of snow had fallen and paralyzed the southeastern states. “I gotta take the Greyhound just to get home. I been on the road a week just trying to get back to Atlanta.”
The regulars nodded and tsked over their Styrofoam cups of bitter coffee. Marisa groaned behind the counter as he hadn’t shut up since he walked through the door an hour ago.
“That bus better be on time. I tried to rent a car. They wouldn’t take my credit card! I offered to give the man a thousand dollars in cash for the security deposit and he wouldn’t take it. I should have just rented on of those U-haul vans for twenty dollars a day. That’s what I should have done. Hey darling is the bus going to be on time? Does it pull up right here? Do they run on time up here?” As he said this he walked out of the door and out into the quiet darkness of the morning without waiting for an answer.
Marisa groaned again and shook her fist in the air. “How am I supposed to know these things?” she asked the regulars. “How am I supposed to know if Greyhound is on time? That man is going to be getting on my last nerve until that bus comes. He’s been in and out that door twenty times in an hour, letting in a big old blast of cold air everytime. I don’t need this shit, I’ve go to get me another job.”
He walked back in accompanied by yet another blast of cold air. “Man I tell you what I don’t understand kids these days. No respect. Saggy pants showing off their drawers. Ain’t nobody want to see your drawers. Won’t work, just wanna play video games all day and go rob people at night who do work. I used to pick cotton for two dollars a day. Two dollars a day! And that’s hard work. That ain’t making tacos at Taco Bell.”
“That’s sharecrop wages,” one of the regulars offers.
“I wasn’t no sharecropper! Shoot. I’m old but I ain’t that old. No sir. No company store for me. Two dollars a day. And you can bet my pants was pulled up, too; nobody was peeking at my drawers.”
“Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground,” someone else said.
The man from Altlanta nodded with vigor. “You said it man. You said it all right there. That’s what I’m talking about. Now darling, is that bus gonna be on time this morning? I gotta get back to my wife. It took her eight hours just to get home through all that ice. And me I can’t even home.” He walked back outside.
Marisa groaned and the regulars laughed. She scowled. “Sure, laugh. Y’all don’t have to be stuck with him. When your train comes you won’t even think about me being stuck here with him. That damn Greyhound best be on time today that’s all I’m saying.
He breezed back in. “Y’all are crazy for living up here. It’s too damn cold. I don’t know how y’all can take it. I can’t wait to get back to Atlanta.”
“It’s just as cold down there,” someone pointed out.
“Maybe so, maybe so,” he said, but then a big grin spread across his face. “But it’s ATLANTA, man! Greatest city in the southeast! You can not fail if you’re in the A-T-L!”
“Train!” someone said and the regulars barged toward the door. On their way out they took turns saying things to Marisa like “Have a great day! Enjoy your company! Hope that bus ain’t running late!”
Her head sunk down onto the counter. “I hate you all,” she muttered.
“Hey darling–that bus is going to be on time today, right?”
Sebastian Gregory: On the Written Path 