MARTA morning

Tom Jabowski slid from behind the wheel of his Lexus, adjusted his tie, and checked his phone one more time before slipping it into the jacket pocket of his plaza taupe Versace suit and approaching the bus depot. Yesterday was slim pickings, but he had a good feeling today, almost as good as that day back in Manhattan before 9/11 in his twin towers office before those fuckers at the SEC got him disbarred. Now, he was scrambling for cash with a bunch of hicks in Atlanta fucking Georgia who thought the SEC was the strongest conference in NCAA football instead of the Securities and Exchange Commission. So here he was in this shitty life he'd been forced into. He shot a quick text to his wife to see where she was spending her day. Great--at the jewelry store, then lunch with her mom. The coast should be clear until midafternoon.

The usual drunks and junkies were splayed out on the benches, and it reeked of diesel, french fries, and piss. Beneath the dim fluorescent lighting, he strolled through the drunks and junkies to the escalator. Maybe there would be something for him upstairs in the daylight.

And there she was, in a Hilton maid uniform that had to be special ordered to cover her magnificently ample body. Dark skin and natural hair. Tom's mind and pants got excited just at the sight of her. She appeared to be in the middle of a phone call, but he was dying to find out what she smelled like. There was a specific kind of woman he was looking for to star in his indie porno film. He liked them big, and he liked them poor, that way he barely had to pay them for fucking them on camera under the guise of a film that would make money, and he wanted this one badly.

Oh God, he could smell the chemical odor of the hotel cleaning products over the musk of her body, and it was a powerful aphrodisiac. He adjusted himself and buttoned his jacket to hide his boner, which wasn't anywhere near as big as he thought it was. Okay, time to get into character--he needed this.

Deep breath, approach the bench. Sit down like you didn't see her, right up against her hip and thigh, graze her breast with your elbow while talking into your phone. He recited his predator pattern of approach to himself as he executed it, flawlessly at that.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there." Reverse psychology. If you want to bag a woman who takes up a lot of space, tell her you didn't see her. Like that's possible.

"Whatcha mean you didn't see me? Are you blind, pretty boy? Or maybe just too into yourself to see anyone?" Louise didn't care for arrogant white men, like there was any other kind. She'd squash this one like a bug.

"My apologies, and you're right." In his excitement he had overplayed his opening move and had to back up a bit. Time for self-deprecation. "I'm just so preoccupied with work right now. I'm waiting to see if my project gets funded."

"You don't look like you live in the projects. What you do, build them?"

Shit. He was going to have to really work to get her back to his house in Norcross. Laugh? No, she might think he's laughing at her. Time to lay down a coat of primer. "No, my project is a film I want to make, about a beautiful woman working herself to death cleaning hotel rooms during the day and singing in nightclubs by night. But it'll probably never get made. No one want to tell the stories of the Black woman's struggle, even though the world needs to bear witness to their strength and resilience."

"If you some bigtime Hollywood movie maker, what you doing in the Atlanta bus station?" To call her look skeptical would be a litote.

"No, I'm a nobody, just Tom Jabowski from Long Island trying to break into the industry."

"Seems like California would be a better place for that."

Okay, now Tom had something he could work with. He waited until the noise of the air brakes of the bus pulling up subsided and the doors whooshed open to continue. "That's what I thought, too, and I went out there, but everyone there is chasing the same dream. Maybe I should just film it myself on my phone and show them instead of telling them."

"See, now you're thinking. Can you really make a movie on your phone?" Louise didn't give him a smile, but her frown relaxed a bit. "I'm Louise from Conyers, Mr. Tom Jabowski nobody from Long Island with a tan line on your ring finger."

It was easy from there. Tom sat there with Louise on the bench while the buses came and went, farting diesel exhaust all the while. He’d have to take his suit to the cleaners to get the smell out of the merino. And who knew how much breakfast would cost. Tom was definitely taking Louise to breakfast, where, hopefully, the idea of her being in his movie would come out of her mouth between bites of sausage and hash browns.

“Louise, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Would you join me for breakfast?”

Louise wasn’t sure what this white boy who thought he was a man wanted, but she’d take a free meal, didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes and smelled expensive. Maybe she could sweet talk some cash out of him. If he had white man’s guilt, it’d be easy.

But damn, those leather seats that warmed up like a heating pad sure felt better than the bus.

“Where do you like to have breakfast, Louise?” Tom turned his head to face her and gave her his eyes, innocent and green.

“I eat breakfast at home unless somebody else buying, but Roscoe’s suits me fine. Chicken and waffles sure would hit the spot, and maybe an Arnold Palmer, unless you buying mimosas, too.

Tom was definitely buying mimosas, ordered the pineapple pitcher and a cup of coffee. When Louise ordered her chicken and waffles with a side of grits and two eggs, fried hard, Tom simply said he’d have the same when the server turned to him.

“I don’t believe you, Mister Tom Jabowski nobody from Long Island. Yankees don’t like grits, and don’t you think for a second that I’m gon’ let you ruin Roscoe’s good stone ground grits putting milk and sugar in ‘em. Salt, pepper, butter, cheese, bacon, and sausage. Them the only things go in grits.”

The challenge on Louise’s face was the one Tom had been watching and waiting for. “What about shrimp and grits?”

“Shrimp and grits ain’t breakfast food. Who in they right mind eat shrimp for breakfast?”

“White folks and yankees?” Tom saw his in and got to work.