The terminal housed busses and the occasional passenger train that still chugged along the line. It was hard to escape the fact that it was a relic of the days when our withered burg had been a transportation hub of the mid-South before the highway had been cut fifteen minutes east.

In the men’s room before my bus arrived, I noticed that someone had scrawled a racial epithet. That sort of thing always irks me, not least because such things reinforce the Hollywood stereotype of the South as a land of relentless bigots. It made me feel a bit better, though, that other people had apparently been as disturbed as I and scribbled their own ripostes.

My personal favorite: “One day, we will all be asked to account for our actions on this earth. Do you really want to explain your men’s room graffiti to your lord and savior?”