Fifty Coats of Grey
The crunching of the gravel
under her tires was muffled by the sounds of the trailer skirting flopping in
the wind. Ana was looking for the exquisite bed & breakfast in the Smoky
Mountains of East Tennessee called Abode & Beyond. She was to meet
Christian Grey for a romantic weekend.
Instead, she was lost. The
moisture on her lip was not from thoughts of some sexual seduction, but from
the sweltering heat and heavy air that hung in that holler. She drove there by
mistake. She was lost. The road narrowed as she approached the trailer owned by
the local small town drunk.
There was no place to turn
around on that graveled pathway. Instead, she was forced to negotiate the
Mercedes past weeds that lapped against her windows and over rotted limbs that
lay in the lane. She wondered if Christian would be upset if she scratched or
dented the new car he bought for her a couple weeks prior.
She was reminded of the Burma Shave signs that once dotted
America’s highways when she was about one hundred yards away from the grey
trailer. One read, “Yankees and strangers
will be shot on site.” Another hand-written posting was painted in red. “Killer dogs bees up ahead.” Ana wiped
her lip and came to a complete stop to read a sign that was broken and hung
sideways. She tilted her head sharply to the left and downward to read it. “Get yer ass out a cheer now.”
The fighting roosters
screamed from their cages and the snarling pit bull dogs slobbered on the car’s
fenders when they circled the vehicle. The dogs weren’t phased a bit stalking
over the thousands of empty Bush beer cans that littered the drive. They were
waiting for a leg to touch the ground so an attack could begin.
The rapid whopping sound from the loose skirting disappeared when the gun
blast was fired. Ka-boom! It was a twelve-gage shotgun that he fired from the
rotted, wooden porch landing.
Uncle Bubba Bobby held the
weapon propped against his right hip and kept it pointed upward. He reached
into the left pocket on his bibbed overalls and grabbed a half-empty beer.
After chugging the remaining contents he let out a loud belch that made the
rooters jump with fright.
One of the pit bull dogs
yelped when it was hit in the head by an empty and crushed beer can thrown from
the lopsided landing above. Bubba Bobby belched again. “Just who the hell are
you? Why are you on my property? Are youins from the county again?”
Ana had to stretch upward to
reach the partially opened car window. Through the two-inch opening she yelled
out, ”Excuse me. I’m lost. I’m looking for Abode & Beyond. Can you help
me?”
Lowering his weapon toward
the ground Uncle Bubba Bobby stepped down off the wobbly porch. He tried to
kick one dog in the side to make a path away from the car’s front door. He
leaned forward toward the narrow opening of the window and smiled through the
gaps that once contained teeth. “What’s
an abode? I ain’t never heard of no such.
It was a bad ideal for youin to drive up here in that purdy car. Lucky fer you
that y’all didn’t stir up a waspers nest in the ground.”
Ana felt uncomfortable with
Bubba Bobby’s eyes glaring at her cleavage seen through the opening of her
blouse. Some fifteen-minutes earlier she had unbuttoned the top button in
anticipation of seeing Christian. Her motive was to tease him when they first
embraced. Now, she was being ogled by an old, shirtless codger who had globs of
fat hanging out the sides of his overalls.
“Um, um the place I’m looking
for is a bed and breakfast. The name of it is Abode & Beyond. It’s
somewhere off Tuckaleechee Road. Do you know of it?”
Bubba slapped his left thigh
and gave out with a cackle. “Why, heck,
purdy lady, I’ll fix y’all some breakfast
and you can sleep rat cheer fer the weekend if youins want to. Now, now don’t
get scared, I’s justa joshing with ya.”
He wiped his nose with his
left forearm and opened another beer. “Did
ya see Troutfish Terry’s business out on the highway? It bees called, “Used
Tires & Jesus Sayings Carved On Wood.” Tuckaleechee is that thar road next
to Troutfish’s store.
Ana touched the electric
window switch and lowered the glass just far enough that she no longer had to
strain to talk through the opening. “Well, my friend Christian flew in
yesterday in his helicopter. He said if I got lost I could call him and meet
him where he landed. Do you know where he might have landed? Maybe I could find
that easier.”
“Why, hell fire, lady there ain’t no cell phone
service back in these here parts. I heared a chopper yesterday. I figered
somebody was a being hunted for pot plants or some hiker needed saved. Speaking
of saved, are youins saved? Have y’all found Jesus,” He asked and pointed to a sign at the front of his
trailer.
Ana peered through the
windshield and squinted. There was a three-foot wide by five-foot long sign
with the Ten Commandments printed on it. A few feet away was a sign that read,
“Jesus Is Lord.”
Her stare was interrupted
when Bubba Bobby spoke. “I gots me a regular phone inside and you bees welcome to
come in and call your friend if ya wants to.” He crushed the empty can and
winged it at one of the dogs that darted to the left and missed getting hit.
The can lay unattended with the others. “Hey,
what do ya think about my paint job on the ole homestead? It must be about the fiftieth
time I painted it. I always use grey. It’s purdy, ain’t it?”
Ana pondered Bubba Bobby’s
offer to use the phone. She place her hand on the car door handle and… (To be
continued)
Questions to consider:
· Will Ana fall in love with Bubba Bobby?
· Will Christian rescue her and buy the property in
order to convert it into an aluminum recycling plant?
· Will Ana be saved and find Jesus at the “Second
Baptist Church of Hell Fire and Condemnation?”
Stay tuned for
the continuing saga.
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