At sunset they were back sitting on the trailer's screened-in porch when they saw the convertible's headlights cutting through the haze of dust. Spriggs didn't bother to get out of the car. He rolled the window down and yelled up at the porch, "Could you get in, please?"

"I reckon he means you," Winndrow said to Miss Smithers.

When she got in, this time on the passenger's side, Spriggs stomped the accelerator and threw clods of driveway dirt all over the trailer's casual lawn.

"That one's got a nasty little temper," Winndrow said out loud to himself as he turned off the porch light and went inside to switch on the Saturday night Opry.

While the music played, he went to the trailer's back bedroom and slowly went through a collection of assorted items on the floor of the bedroom’s tiny closet. When he emerged from the bedroom, he was carrying a good-sized army surplus duffel bag which he had stuffed with some dirt-covered, tattered clothing and an old satchel. He turned off the radio, stepped out of the trailer, and, after throwing the duffel bag up into the seat, climbed behind the wheel of his truck. After starting it, he sat for a moment in the darkness and let the old truck idle in the dirt driveway while he lit a Camel that he pulled from behind his ear. Then he cut the engine, climbed down out of the truck, extracted the bag through the open window, and began walking down the long driveway through the warm summer night. The driveway sloped down the hill and ended at the county road, and once he reached that point, he paused at his rusty mailbox and felt around in the dark for bills and magazines. Finding the box empty, he adjusted the duffel bag over his shoulder and headed south on foot down the county road toward Dover. Through the trees he could see the town square's flickering lights in the distance. Behind him was the thick blackness of the field leading up to his trailer, which was sharply silhouetted against the bright evening sky.


The old man squinted at the couple standing on the the other side of the padlocked chain-link gate. He glanced quickly up at the south Georgia sun and then at his pocketwatch before returning his gaze on the man and the woman. "It's gonna be a hot 'un," he said, "and we don't even open for another fifteen minutes. They're still feeding the gators. I'll tell you what, though. If you buy your admission tickets now, before people start crowding in, I'll knock a dollar off 'em. Then when we open up, you can just sail on through the gate."

"Can you break a hundred?" Winndrow asked.

"Listen to you," the old man said. "Not today. Not yet, anyway."

"Okay, we'll be back in a little bit...I guess paying retail," Winndrow said. "Didn't I see a little place back up the highway a mile or so? Do they sell coffee?"

"Yessir, that would be the 41 Diner. They got good coffee."

"Well, I guess we'll just go and get us some," Winndrow said.

Although they had driven all night, neither one felt the least bit tired. They had ridden with the top down and her hair still smelled like the fresh southern night air. He had parked the convertible beside the brightly-colored sign in the parking lot so they could get some snapshots to send to her friends. As they climbed back into the car she said, "I wonder what they feed those alligators?"

"Yankees and catfish," Winndrow replied.

"Ha ha," said Miss Smithers.
©Copyright 2002 David Ray Skinner/SouthernReader. All rights reserved.