This took place south of Memphis back when stray dogs were so common people didn't think twice about hitting them with their car. Many still don't—think twice, that is— but contemporary indifference is fashionable. It lacks the sobriety of animals recognizing each other as such. If they hit a dog now, the meanness is always after the fact.
The man wasn't from the area, but since childhood he identified with it in the far off way one does when they haven't considered a thing might not be what it appears to be. It is a habit of innocence, methodically broken with proper parenting, incidentally by poor— and rarely clean.
The woman worked the greyhound counter. There weren't many alternatives for a woman. Had their town been seated closer to the city such that more travelers passed through, it likely would not have been tolerated.
But it was, and she arrived each morning and waited till noon when she was relieved of duty. It was an uneventful 8 hours of monotony, broken on occasion by drivers stopping to let passengers use the depot's toilet before leaving her alone once more.
When the man arrived, he wore dark clothes and dark boots. His hair was stiff from product, and he smelled of cigarettes and dust. The bus stayed a while (there were only so many toilets), but when it left, she saw him standing at the edge of the lot. He had one boot pressed against the chain wire strung between the posts marking the limits of the property. She wondered if someone was coming for him.
An hour passed before he walked back to the depot window and asked her the name of the town. When she answered, the name meant nothing to him.
"It's still Memphis, right?" he asked, chin up and eyes peering through the glass between them. "I felt it passing through. Bus kept rolling, but the feeling never left."
"I suppose," she replied. There were no other cities between where they were at present and Memphis, so it was reasonable enough that the taste would linger on a tourist's tongue. They didn't know any better. It was Memphis unless a sign said otherwise.
He told her he was a jazz pianist come to see what they knew about jazz in the deep south. When she asked him what he meant by deep south, he shrugged.
"New Orleans," he said, turning from her and toward the road. "Jackson, maybe. Tupelo."
"Oh, Tupelo is lovely," she said, thinking he might look her way again. "Will you send for your piano?"
"I don't have one," he replied. Something in the grass beyond the fence posts had his attention.
If weeds grew to a certain height in the lot, they were cut down or pulled. But beyond the posts, nature grew as it could. Long stalks shook with things hidden. Buzzing insects hovered, and little animals concealed themselves.
"Say," he gestured in the direction of the grass. "You don't worry about snakes and things?"
She smiled. "Scared of garters?"
He cleared his throat. "Well, what about mosquitoes? Ticks?"
"How do you mean?"
"Exactly that," the man said. "Pests and parasites. Nibbling at you. Making you itch. Being so close to the grass, you must be overrun."
"Not particularly," the woman said. "Possum and field mice eat ticks. Dragonflies get the mosquitoes. Can't avoid every bite, but all God's creatures get it honest."
"Honest?"
"That's right," she smiled. "Animal puts its life on the line for every meal. Can't stay cooped up. It'll starve. We all walk through the valley of death."
Like everyone in town, she was religious. There was a library, but it was small and more an archive of legal texts and civil ordinances. Literary reference rarely reached beyond the bible.
"I don't know about all that," the man said, slapping at something imagined and dragging the nails of one hand across the back of the other. She was going to offer him a cup of water from the dispenser in the corner, but before opportunity presented itself he gave a vicious cough and spat a chunk of something from his throat with such force the impact made a soft thump in the dirt.
"Pardon," he said. "It's the pollen. I won't belabor it. Not your responsibility, I reckon."
"The pollen?" She laughed. "No, I reckon that's business of bees and the like."
"The trees," the man said. He was still smiling, but the levity was gone. In its place was now intensity, a solid gaze. "Business of bees and the trees. It's poetry when you say it like that."
"I suppose it does rhyme…" She hadn't asked his name, and now, with the lull of his saying nothing but staring as if he'd said enough, it was as good a time as any. But she didn't. She laughed. "Has to be more to poetry than rhyming."
"Sure as there's more to life than living," he replied, face softer, edges of the mouth relaxing. "Tell me: the bus moved fast, but did I see a place selling soda up the road?"
She said yes. Naturally, he would ask her to accompany him. It was how men usually approached women when there was little immediately in common— a change of context, a new frame for their interaction. She knew the corner store he referred to was one owned by the Mayor's younger brother, and she knew it to be usually empty until the later hours of the day when folks made their way through town on their way home.
"When do you get off?" he asked.
"Without help? Never," she replied. "Someone else takes second shift. Usually around noon, but things happen. Later more often than sooner. Why?"
"Figured I'd follow you home," he teased. "Bowl of water on the porch. Chicken giblets on a plate."
She smirked. "And your allergies? Suddenly at peace with the ticks and fleas?"
"Bit of pawing at the door usually gets me inside," he replied. "Or thereabouts."
"Or thereabouts?" She smiled, but shook her head. "Was it ever about the soda?"
"That's the thing," he whispered, leaning toward the glass. "Musicians can do two things at once. Hands work the instrument at multiple points, often rapidly, sometimes slowly, never without intention. When the fingers move below, the mouth above may very well occupy itself with its own gesticulations—lips contorted, the voice pushed to unusual lengths of pitch and timbre. It's spinning plates. I've wanted that soda for a minute, now."
"You weren't even sure you saw it," she said.
"Glimpse' enough to know the sun." He was visibly impressed by this statement as it left his mouth. She saw the same intensity across his face as when he called upon the symmetry of trees and bees, but this time fleeting.
He looked away until he could smile again, then went on. "I won't keep you. Find me at the soda shop. If not, that's fine as well."