Greyhound

Well folks... I'm off to New Orleans. 

I was sitting in a greyhound station and the storm had made the bus late... and now I'm going to reveal one of my deepest, darkest, secrets...

I'm a hopeless eavesdropping.  Not on anyone I know... I don't wanna take the chance of hearing anything about me, but strangers who are talking in public are fair game. 

Turns out the three gentlemen I'm waiting with are all from the halfway house. 

I had suspected as much already. 

One had a backpack which had busted its zipper an was tied together with a belt.   The second had all his possessions in a box that had origionally contained a television.  The third had tripple  bagged everything in garbage bags.

They were all scrubbed clean... which gave the halfway house away.   The. "transitional facilities" do keep their guys clean. 

Their tatoos were interesting.

One of them, the cardboard box guy, has an elaborate skull on one kneecap that seems  to open and close it's mouth whenever he bends his leg.  For some reason I found this fascinating.

There were no teardrop tats under their eyes, so if they'd ever killed anyone, they weren't advertising it.  That's a blessing.  I''ve never understood the urge to advertise one's sins, but to each his own.

As it became obvious that we were going to be more and more behind schedule, they began chatting.  I can't go into the conversation here, my ability to type is seriously impeeded on an android, but as they began digging into possessions and trading jeans, shoes and such it became evident that there's each been given a voucher for goodwill and having been unable to find something that would actually fit them, they all just grabbed the best stuff they could acquire, in hopes of trading it off for something useful later.

One of them even offered to trade his reeboks to me... but they were too small. 

But I'm happy to report that cardboard box with kneecap tat was able to score a really great t-shirt bearing the legend, "WORK YOUR BASS OFF" And also sporting a wonderfully rendered image of the fish in question.

He was very proud of it. 

It would appear that he's been waiting for a very long time to go fishing with his dad. 

I hope he catches a whopper. 

Now I'm in Dallas, waiting for my next connecting bus to Shreveport,  and the Dallas terminal isn't half as interesting.  Actually, the Dallas terminal is a little bit seedy. 

Ex cons would be a relief.