I’ve never been much of a prose writer. This was written a long, long time ago. Enjoy.

Jesus Christ I was nervous. I got a little shaky like when I haven’t had a cigarette in a while. I had some other things though, rattlin’ around in my brain ⎯my poor ignorant small town brain. You know, after a while you sorta start believing the prejudice. These city folk all feel the same about me.

Where I grew up, the only thing you’d need to get across town were your own two dusty feet. At most alls you’d need was a smile. So when I stepped on that city bus with that god damned bus driver staring back at me, I knew where I was. I knew where I’d come from. This here was a place where a smile didn’t mean much, and the word hospitality was mistaken for hospital more often than not. That’s when the driver barked at me, “Two dollars! Peak hours! Hurry your ass up or get off the bus!”

Where I’m from, I’d be plenty nice to this person. I’d invite him into the house for some pot roast beef, mashed potatoes, and sweet tea. Maybe we’d eat some banana pudding after the meal. This hospitality doesn’t mean I’d have any problems with stabbing that man in the back and burying his body in the old sinkhole. Such is the duality of the southern thing.

I threw my quarters into the till and the transfer slip spat at me. “Take your ticket!” the man squelched.

Jesus Christ I was nervous.

Now, the reality of the big time life hit me like the disgruntled employee stomping the gas pedals before I had a chance to sit down. With every jerk of the pedals I was further from home. I felt like I didn’t belong here, ‘cause like I said, after a while you start believing the stereotype.

The bus lurched as I took my seat in a hurry.

The grizzly man next to my left on this crowded bus reeked of booze, cigarettes, and vomit. Plaid mixed with dirt and tangled his beard. He wore the same clothes for so long that they seemed a part of him, like flies on a piece of sticky tape. After a while you don’t know who’s clinging to who. Nothing was to my right ‘cept for a gold tinted window showing all the ignorant city folk lined up outside waiting in the cold.

The man next to me moaned with each press of the driver’s pedal. Just as I missed home, this broken shell of a man missed something too. He’d fit right in where I was from. Now, I hadn’t learned about fight or flight until I vacationed for a while at this city’s university for a semester, but I was feeling like flight that night. In my hometown I coulda tamed a bull, but this drunk was too much for me at this very moment, shaking nervous on a city bus. Such is the duality of the southern thing. God I was nervous.

There was gum pretty near under every seat. I felt like I’d somehow touched it all. I began to miss the dust of my hometown. It was a pretty little thought compared to all the slime on the metal surfaces and the cough of strangers. “Broom Street!” the driver yelled into the broken intercom.

The driver had awakened the drunk next to me. In his sickness he mumbled about punk kids and how this country’s going to hell because of folks like myself.

Broom Street came, and the bus emptied out a bit. That bull next to me stumbled away from the bus, harassing the good-looking folks waiting on another bus. “He’s just gum under a seat,” I thought to myself.

This is something those goddamned university folks woulda come up with. What a strange vacation that was. A few new folks jumped on the bus. They all got the same hospitality that I did –a bark and a yell.

With the last stop, the bus emptied out a bit. I could now see the man in the back corner. He just gagged and coughed. Only his cough was a little bit different from the rest. It was wet. It was like there was some substance to it. It was like he was trying to get rid of some sort of devil. It was more than just some little cough.

That’s when I saw her.

As he shook with his demons, I noticed the little cutie that sat next to him. She looked as nervous as I was. I noticed what the university kids like to refer to as the personification of beauty. I flat out knew right then that I would have to meet this pretty little thing.
That’s when my small town heart began to pump for the first time. “This couldn’t be that bad,” I say with a southern hospitable smile.

“I think she noticed me,” I sorta plead in the back of my mind as I pull the cord for my exit at Huff St.

The young girl moves away from this man. She has that same nervous look I’m sure I have. She’s shaking like she needs a smoke. And I’m shaking too, only I know I made it. I know I survived this god damned fiery bus ride. Now, nothing from this world would have prepared me for her. No bulls or southern devils will be tamed tonight. This personification of beauty, as they’d say, has got me shaking for a new reason. This personification of fear has got me shaking even more.

As Huff St. approaches, she sits down right next to me on my lonely left. These two blocks feel about as long as the first night in that prison where the air moved like jello and the moon boiled our skin. Yet something makes me stay on this bus. There goes my exit at Huff St.

There goes the small town life. There goes the devil as a southern man, jumping off a city bus. And I wait for a bit. I’m sure she’s noticed that I’ve missed my stop. I’m sure she can tell I’m as nervous as she is when she leans over and half-whispers “Hello.”

And so is how I met my wife.