A Living Magazine - Day 143 - When a Plan Comes Together

The plan was to walk to Greyhound, get breakfast, ride to Nashville, publish a post and find a sleeping spot. As you know, the plan hardly ever works as it should, but nothing would work without a plan.

I woke, disassembled the tent, packed up, and headed to the Greyhound station. As I walked across the field to Brooks, I saw three police cars race by, headed east. Along the way, the reason became obvious...

A semi had tried to make this right turn, but was cut off by a car at the last minute,

causing the entire truck to tip over on its side. I talked to the officers who said no one was hurt.

It was just over four kilometers to Greyhound. When I had left the campsite, I'd put my winter coat on. But along the walk I had starting sweating. So, the coat was wet on the inside and I hung it up on a tree outside the station and taking a couple shots...

My bus wasn't in yet.

The station was right across from the Memphis Airport, specifically the FedEx section,

with a whole runway devoted just to the carrier. In fifteen minutes, four FedEx planes landed.

Facing the sun, and turned inside out, the coat dried quickly and I walked over and into the station. I still had a bit of cash as was pretty hungry, so I got a breakfast platter. Prices in Tennessee are very good. The platter was $4.96 after tax. The same food would have easily been more like $8.00 in California, Washington or Minnesota...

Happy face homefry!

Two scrambled eggs, two sausage patties and home fries--not a bad deal, even though the

home fries were a tad on the dry and hard side, but for Pete sake, it's Greyhound! Ha!

The station was a big step up from the Indianapolis station, but fell short of the Milwaukee one. I didn't even try to get online. I just needed a break and assumed that the bus would have Wi-fi. Stepping outside to pace - as is my habit - two young twenty something guys came up and asked me if I had rolling papers. It told them I didn't use them. They went around from person to person until they found a paper, then invited me to join them in a little toke over to the side of the building.

Now, in the West I would have had no problem doing that, but this was not a state to screw around. I pointed at the dome camera and told them to be very careful. The kid with the black hair and barely sprouting beard, said "Ah, they're nothing! Eyes in the sky, don't worry about it!"

I declined, with the not-much-of-an-excuse that I wasn't going to 201 in Tennessee. "Two-oh-one" - as Mike had told me the night before - is Memphis' jail.

It's Johnny B. Goode, with his guitar in a gunnysack!

I went back in, having lost track of time. My bus was there, but they had not announced it. I asked the security guy where to go and he ushered me over to the "B Gate" and out to my bus. I stood there waiting for the driver to come out and open it up. Everyone else had already boarded. And, I thought it looked packed from the ground level. Boy, oh boy, was I right...

Every single seat was filled. Although I need them, I am not the president of Greyhound's fan

club lately. The texting, the shitty new website, and the over-booking of buses--not cool.

We traveled about one and a half hours, and stopped in Nothingburg, Tennessee for a break...

Old school station.

Not sure why I took this, since I had no idea where we were, but anyway.

85637--the number of the beast.

We were back on the road. and the guy next to me kept asking me about time zones. He was going to Knoxville--in the Eastern Time Zone, we were traveling through the Central Time Zone. It was obvious by looking at this guy that he was a little slow. He was from Detroit, white, about twenty years old, with a bony thick-browed forehead and an unsmiling demeanor.

I told him I was from Maine. He kind-of nodded a bit, and asked if I'd been to Alaska. I told him I hadn't. He asked why, since Maine was "...right next to Alaska, right?" I explained that Maine was approximately 4,000 miles southeast of Alaska, on the Atlantic coast, and that Alaska was on the Pacific coast. He nodded, with a furrowed brow.

He asked if Alaska was near Canada. I said that Alaska isn't attached to the lower forty eight states, and was attached to, but pretty much above Canada; with Russia close to its west. He nodded, but I could tell he was trying to work it out in his mind. I told him that Alaska is humongous; nearly half the size of the entire lower forty eight.

In a stroke of fortune, he moved back a seat, when a few passengers got off, and I was able to take the backpack from the floor between my legs and get it up on to the seat next to me.

It really wasn't such a long ride. Compared to some of the doozies I'd been on, it was more like a short commute. We made the corkscrew circuit around the outside of the city, seeing it from all angles as we worked our way toward the center.

After pulling in, I deboarded and walked outside. There was a black dude, shorter than me, with long dreads waiting to greet and play new arrivals. He said, "Welcome to Nashville," then walked up to me and said, "You know, this town runs on marijuana." I said I wasn't surprised. He asked if I liked it. I told him I did. Then he pulled out the corner part of a plastic baggy about a half inch wide, and said, "$15.00 man!"

I wouldn't have bought it anyway, since - as I said above - I'm not willing to risk getting busted in this state doing something like that out in public. And, looking at it, I had to tell him that it was worth about $5.00 at the most. I told about what things are like in the "free states" out West, and that a gram of medical grade 18% THC stuff (his was probably about 8%) was legal to buy. You just walk into a dispensary and buy it. A whole gram (three times as much as he showed me) in Washington for example, is only $12.00. He said, "You're fuckin' with me!" I told him I was not. Realizing I was a lost cause, he turned and tried to sell it to another guy who laughed at him. "Shii...!" he said, as he shrugged and walked over to the convenience store to wait for the next bus.

With this scene no longer amusing me, I took off for the downtown area. I hadn't studied the city very carefully, but my instincts for finding hotspots were pretty honed by that time, and I headed for the center of the city to find one...

Broadway--the equivalent of Memphis' Beale.

I turned onto 2nd Street, which really reminded me of Exchange Street in Portland, Maine...

Indeed, there was a Starbucks right on Church Street. I went in and bought a popcorn for $1.65 (good stuff--caramel almond!), and the very nice and pretty girl asked me if I wanted a free coffee. Almost falling over from the shock of Starbucks offering something for free, I centered myself and - though I'd already had a coffee and knew this would make me jittery as hell - accepted her kind offer. When I asked why it was free, she said "Veteran's Day!" Sounded good to me. Honestly though, I was more interested in extending my conversation with her.

But other customers beckoned, and I was washed aside in the tiny space of the store, finding my way to the window bar, where I set up my little office and got my post up and published after about four hours. I felt a now-familiar frustration with being behind, while watching the whole sunny day pass by while I worked. But it was what it was, and at least I would not be three posts behind the next day.

While I had been processing pictures for that post, I studied the areas closest to where I was, using Google Earth, and looking for green patches that weren't parks (parks are one of the last places I would choose, because they are used by other homeless folks--I refuse to camp  with other people; probably the secret of my success). And I found my spot, past the Calvary Cemetery, eastward up 1st Street, which is also Routes 70 and 24, to its larger neighbor, Mount Olivet Cemetery. I wasn't aiming for the graves area, but instead, the woodsy hill on its edge. I also make a point of clicking the Street View on Google to make sure there is no fence where I want to enter...

Turning back to see the city.

After I'd passed beyond the long walkway with the blue lights you see above--and being chided by a bicyclist for walking in his lane, I happened to meet up with a guy who was going in the same direction; a white guy named, Rusty.

We had some good laughs as we talked about what it's like living outside. He told me all kinds of stories about the area. Apparently the police were not sympathetic to the homeless camping. He had been at a place that had no problems at all, for 14 months. Then, suddenly, local and state police showed up, surrounded the area, and sent in a helicopter to make sure no one could escape. Then they pushed their way into the camp and threatened to arrest everyone if they didn't promise to leave within twenty four hours.

Rusty asked them why all of this was happening, and they said that the neighborhood close by was complaining about crime, violence, and drug use in the camp. Rusty told them that in over a year he hadn't seen anything like that. Naturally the word of a homeless person living on the margins of society is completely discounted in favor of the taxpaying, NIBY landowners. Most people left the camp before the time was up. Then when the hour came the next day, the cops swooped in and confiscated everyone's stuff, destroyed what they could not take, and arrested whomever wouldn't leave. NOT Love in Action.

We walked along talking, and he pointed out possible places for me. I told him I had a place in mind further on down the road. He thought for a moment and then said, "I know where you're going; the cemetery." I nodded. He told me he'd grown up around there and it was a good spot. Eventually he turned off to the right and I kept going.

It wasn't far. The road along the vast cemetery passed by a very large mortuary, and that was my landmark to head into the darkness. I walked through about an acre of neatly cut wet grass, then up the side of a hill through thick woods, finding one very level trench-like spot, almost exactly the size of the tent, but still on the side of the hill. It was a definite score.

The tent went up, the Alex went in--along with Saggy. I spread the winter coat on the floor, then the sleeping bag (whose name has become "Snaggy", because the zipper eats the side of the fabric every time I zip or unzip it). Then I laid back and took some pictures...  

A place to hang my hat.

I remembered I had a red light from my friend Jeff.

I uncurled it and hung it as a non-intrusive source of light.

The leaf bed under me was thick and soft. I was truly comfortable. The hill was very private with a three acre warning system installed called "the dry leaf system"; allowing any creature to be heard, down to the size of a mouse. Clouds were rolling across the stars above, and I took out the tarp/fly in case rain was going to fall.

Memphis Mike had told me it would rain there on this day and Memphis' weather often came from the east. He was right, but not yet. The day had its little snags but, I was impressed by how effectively my plan had come together. Sleep came easily.

Nashville Sleeping Place.