Jackson, MS: Day One

Oh, it started out OK. We were in a hostel just around the corner from the Greyhound station so we were there bright and early for the bus, and we were pleased that the bus originated in Memphis so we had plenty of seats to choose from given our place at the head of the queue. We set off on time from Memphis and headed South, straddling the Tennessee/Arkansas state line, and soon I fell asleep. In order to save space in my bag I had gone completely ‘country’ by dressing in the clothes that took up the most room. Attired in jeans, brown shoes, white shirt, leather belt and my hat (don’t worry – I’m aware that I looked about as American as Richard Hammond did in the Top Gear road trip – as May would say I probably looked like a gay cowboy and a clot) I perhaps blended in a bit too well, as I found out when I awoke as we passed through rural Mississippi.

A couple of hours later the bus pulled into a small gas station that looked like the kind of place where the Greyhound bus is the only evidence of an outside world, and the driver said that we had a few quick minutes in order to smoke if we wished but we had to be very quick. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since Denny’s the morning before thanks to the lack of options in Memphis and the presence of a baseball game when we would normally eat. I’d munched on bread and peanut butter in the time between, but when I came out of my deep sleep at this town in WTF-ville, Mississippi, my stomach was yelling at me that it was starving. I therefore jumped down and headed into the store next to the gas station and got some Doritos and a banana. While the guy behind the counter was taking forever inspecting my “foreign-lookin'” credit card (the only means I had of paying) a guy came in and said,
“Awl y’all gittin’ ther Greyhound bitter git back on thuh bus, ‘cording tuh thuh dravver.”
“Mmmmmhmmmmm, thanks man,” came the reply from a spherical woman behind me, leading me to believe that with her armful of honey buns and vanilla coke she was one of my fellow passengers. The fact that she didn’t move and was happy to wait for the checkout teller led me to think I could certainly do the same. My credit card went through after a couple more minutes, and I took my receipt, turned and addressed the globe of a woman.
“Don’t worry; I’ll keep the bus for you!” I said in a jovial English way, enjoying the silhouette of my hat in the shadows by the store entrance.
“Ah ain’t gittin’ no bus, man!” came the reply. The woman hadn’t had the patience to pay for her honey buns before ripping one open and cramming it into her face whole. “Ah thowt yo wuz frum roun’ here. Yo’ one o’ the Smiths, right?”

I didn’t have time to ask or find out who the Smiths were that I apparently fitted in with, and as an elongated “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...” ran through my mind and I turned and burst out of the store. Sure enough, the Greyhound bus door was closed and the hiss of the handbrake escaped from the hydraulics indicating the impeding movement of the bus. I waved my arms frantically as I dodged cars on the forecourt scrambling towards the bus, finally banging on the tinted windows of the door. The driver opened the door and said to me “I always scare stragglers like that – tends to teach 'em to hurry up.”
As I sat in my seat, waited for my heart to stop racing and frantically stuffed Doritos into my mouth in a way the woman in the store would have been proud of, I looked at the desolation of where I could have been left if I’d had the audacity to take avail myself of the lavatory as well as purchase some food. I reconciled from thereon in that my arse was to remain glued to my seat until I’m at my final destination - every time.

We’d booked the hotel room in Jackson over the net in Nashville. We’d not taken care of this bit of the trip as there were no hostels in Jackson (most travellers seemingly wanting to do the full ten-hour blast from Memphis to New Orleans) and we thought it would be easy to find a room once we got into town, in the jovial way travel writers do. The one asset these writers have, however, is a car. Greyhound stations are invariably located in industrial areas of downtowns and when we had realised this a few days before, we booked ourselves into a room at a Super 8 Motel that came to $20 each for the night and appeared on the deceptive scale of Google Maps to be ‘only’ a couple of miles from the centre of town. We’d walked 1.5 miles to the hostel in Nashville and this seemed easy, but as we entered Jackson on the bus we found that Jackson was a small city nestled within a spaghetti-network of Interstate highways with no facilities for the endangered species of pedestrians.
Knowing we’d need a cab we headed out into downtown Jackson and the city struck me as a very attractive place. (Sam, being from a somewhat questionable area of London, had been sceptical of any area not patrolled by a battalion of police officers and headed down streets in most cities it seemed with a nervous complexion.) What was most noticeable, however, was the incessant heat. It was easily 95F (35C) but the air was thick – you could taste the humidity – you could almost drink the air. We walked down Capital Boulevard under shady trees and in an office building I saw a sign marked ‘Visitor Information.’ While Sam looked around nervously, Deborah sat on a bench and craned her neck towards the sun while I popped inside.
After enjoying the sensation of having an inch of sweat freeze-dried onto my face by the air conditioning, I asked the kindly girl behind the desk in the cavernous lobby for the location of nearby ATMs and for the number of a cab firm. Armed with both I went outside and we walked towards the banks down the street. I got $20 but knowing I’d need change for a cab I went into the bank itself. As the woman opened the cash drawer I realised I’d been meaning to go into a bank in Chapel Hill to get hold of an all-too-rare $2 bill. The lady graciously gave me ten of them.



Déborah lent us her phone (she being the only one with credit) and we called the first number on the list I’d got from the Tourist Information Centre. An African-accented man answered and I arranged that he would pick us up in ten minutes and the fare would be less than twenty bucks.
The cab was right on time and the driver got out and introduced himself as Joe. A fifty-something man with a huge frame and a big smile, Joe weaved us out of Jackson and told us he was a Nigerian immigrant and was delighted to hear about Europe, but not so delighted to hear about Chelsea’s triumphs in the Premier League – he was a Manchester United fan. I liked Joe.
The motel really was on the edge of town, far too far from anywhere, and the word ‘creepy’ fails to capture the atmosphere of the place. Still, it was our home for the night, there were no bullet holes in the walls and other than the attic-like smell of the room that was quick to adjust to, for $20 a night we seemed to have got just about what we paid for. If this had been just a place to sleep it would have been fine, but given that short of spending $40 on another two cabs to get back into Jackson and back we were stuck there from 2pm until the next morning, we began to twiddle our thumbs.



Sam did what Sam does best and fell asleep, and I eventually did the same while Déborah read her Harlan Coben novel. My blog writing and photo-sorting had kept me up until 3am for the past few days so I was in need of sleep, especially before our arrival in New Orleans the next day. After a few hours we headed across the road to Wendy’s and armed ourselves to the teeth with burgers, fries, shakes and chicken and made camp in the room for a calorie-filled night of NBA-playoff action on ESPN. (For those that are interested – perhaps LeBron’s last game for Cleveland?) It was frustrating to be in the room, but it only became apparent to me the next morning just how frustrating spending an afternoon like that had been.

Good night and good luck.