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"AHOSKIE!!!"
The bus driver bellows. Shit, my back is still hurting me. I look out the window. We have just entered the city limits. If memory serves me well, the bus stop is supposed to be clear across town to the other border. That's where my parents will be waiting...not here. I reach for my cell phone and dial my parents house, but nothing happens. I look at the phone only to see that I have no signal. No bars. I get up with my bag and move to the front of the bus. The driver heads for the steps down out of the bus, I open my mouth but I am too late to stop him from disembarking, so I slip out behind him. Excuse me, sir, I begin. I want to get off at the Ahoskie bus stop across town.
He turns and looks at me. "What are you talking about? This IS the Ahoskie bus stop." I look around. It's a gas station with a store attached to it. All hand painted by the name of "Green Apple". What the fuck? I turn to the driver. There is another stop on the other side of town, isn't it? I ask him. He laughs. "I told you, this is IT. You're lucky you get this! The way Greyhound is getting rid of routes, the next time you come down here, the only stop for you will be in Suffolk!" He slips his hands in his pockets, and squints towards the rising sun. "Who in the Hell would want to come out to this fucking town anyways is beyond me."
Gee thanks. I go to the side of the bus to find my bag tossed out like day old trash. Why is Greyhound so mean to my bag? It looks perfectly normal to me. That's why I have my laptop, my baby, in her bag on my back. NOBODY is throwing her around like a piece of shit. I lift my bag off the ground. More passengers are pouring out of the bus to smoke cigarettes or shop in the small store. I look around the building for a phone booth and not finding any, head inside of the store, looking for one in there. I find none.
A line cues for the bathroom and the cash register. I get on the cash register line and when I reach the Muslim man, that looks like he could be Greek - bald headed and all - I ask if he has a public phone booth anywhere. "Let me take care of my customers first," he tells me. I step to the side. He does just that. Then he takes a phone from behind the counter and asks for my number. I call it out to him and he dials it, then passes the phone over to me. I pick it up, listening to the rings. Finally my mother comes on. "Are you at the bus stop?" Yeah, mom, but NOT the bus stop that you might remember on the other side of town. I'm at a Green Apple gas station just inside the Ahoskie border.
"You're where?" She asks. "Green what?" Geezus, how many Green Apple gas stations do they have in Ahoskie anyway? There is a gas station just up route 13 North, just south of the Ahoskie sign. The owner of the store speaks up. "Tell her it's North of Mugabooga Chicken, on the left hand side of the road." I look at him, blink, then carefully say into the phone that the Green Apple Gas station is North of Moobooga Chicken.... I must have said something wrong because the owner shouted at me in a heavy Middle Eastern accent. "MugaMugaBooga Chicken!!!" I look at him...a chicken store, I tell my mother...somewhere North of you. Tell Pop to make a left upon leaving the house.
"I think I know where you're at," She hangs up the phone. I hope so. I get my shit from the floor and walk out of the store, heading past the pumps to the sign up on poles high in the air that have nothing on it. The sign is next to the road, giving me the bird's eye view of the entire lay of Ahoskie in the distance. Presently a car slowly slides up, signals left, waiting for traffic, then pulls into the station, hesitates for an instant, then comes rolling my way. No doubt my parents finally focusing on me in the distance. I grab my bags and cross the open space to them and come up to the driver's side door. My mother rolls down the window.
Howdy, I say. We're on the road back to their home and my mother points out the window, now to the right. A BOJANGLES fast food chicken restaurant slides by. "That's the Chicken place on 13 that you were trying to say." THAT'S IT?!!! My eyes almost fall out of my head. This fucking clown is yelling at me....MOOGABOOGA Chicken and you're telling me it was BOJANGLES? She nods. "It's the ONLY chicken place on 13."
Well, son of a bitch. I sit back in my seat, relaxing. My side is still hurting me. My testicle not so much. My week in Ahoskie is just about to begin.
Hobobob
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