Thousand+ Words a Day for Nov. 1, 2025

Phil Moved to Sit Down on One of the Benches Not Far from the Hallway

Phil materialized inside a stall in the second-floor men's room at the Greyhound station in Memphis, Tennessee, at 2:45 am on Wednesday, January 15, 1948, and right away, he knew something was wrong.

It wasn't the smell. They had told him about that. The stall he was in was clean enough, as these things go--it was the acrid bite of the fetid urinal that soured the air in the small bathroom. Phil checked his watch, confirmed the location, and pushed his way out of the stall. He stepped past the stench and pushed against the door to the hallway outside.

Locked.

Dammit, he muttered. He reached into the pocket of his slacks and manipulated a small device located there; the door's lock, a simple latch device, slid open, and Phil pushed his way through the door, around a tight corner, and down a flight of stairs to the station proper. There was a low stretch of rope suspended across the foot of the stairs, apparently intended to keep the public access. Phil stepped over it and then glances back to read the sign that hung on the rope. "No Admittance, Staff Only," the sign said in stern capital letters. Then below, in smaller, more friendly script, were the words"Thank you for your cooperation!"

Although he had never been in this time or place before, the station was set up exactly as it was in the training facility in Norfolk, where he had trained for the mission. There was the familiar poster on the wall directly across from him--"Visit California!" it recommended--and turning right, he saw that after several feet, the hallway fed into the main room. Phil proceeded quietly into the main chamber and moved to sit down on one of the benches not far from the hallway.

He sat quietly for a few moments, observing the room. There were lines of benches, most of them unoccupied at this late, or perhaps early, hour. A large sign on the adjoining wall announced that the bus from Little Rock would arrive at 3:40 am, stop for a few minutes to unload and load, and then continue on to Nashville. On the other side of the room was the ticket window, behind which the overnight clerk lay asleep on a cot. At 3:20 am, his alarm clock would ring and he would rise, step into his trousers, put on his shirt, and get the station ready for the 3:40 am bus--but by that time, Phil expected to be gone: either back in Norfolk or be four hours earlier in Little Rock.

Phil saw the target: male, 31 years old, and presently reclined uncomfortably on one of the benches, his jacket rolled up for an inadequate pillow. Despite the night chill, it was warm in the station --almost uncomfortably so, and Phil chose a spot on the bench across from the target where he could, simultaneously, see the ticket windo on the other side of the room--most critically, the gap between the bottom of the door that led to the clerk's chamber--the clock, which was busy sweeping past 3:07 and 16 seconds, and if course, his target, whose mouth hung open as he slept.

Phil had expected to have a few minutes to collect his thoughts before the clerk's alarm would ring, his light would turn on, and then some minutes after that, the shutters across the ticket window would open and the clerk would start preparing for the arrival of the 3:40 am bus.

Phil had his implant stimulator on, so there was no danger of him falling asleep and at least potentially missing the moment here in the bus station, thus rendering the entire mission moot, but he was tired, and so he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, intentionally relaxing the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders.

Then came to his ears the unmistakable sound of the door opening and closing. Phil opened his eyes to see that the target had heard it too, and that it had roused his consciousness from fitful sleep to a bare and uncertain awareness, enough only to stimulate him to shift uncomfortably away from the intrusion, seeking to return to the sanctuary of slumber–even if the level of comfort was less than ideal.

Phil, however, was fully alert, and once he had determined that the target was unlikely to engage with whomever was entering the station, he turned to see a policeman in the uniform of the era enter the waiting room. He worn a double-breasted dark blue tunic, fully buttoned left and right, over trousers of the same shade and atop his head was a military-style pot cap, black-brimmed, with a golden shield affixed front and center. He carried a nightstick, which he twirled adroitly behind his back as he slowly walked around the waiting room, peering at each sleeping passenger as he passed.

As Phil watched, the policeman approached the target, casually inspected the reclined form as he passed, and then much to Phil’s relief, he moved along.

The policeman continued up and down the rows and eventually he was standing in front of Phil, appraising his sternly. Phil was the only one of the 10 people in the waiting room who was obviously awake and apparently alert. The officer held Phil's taxes for a moment, and then opened his mouth, making a smacking noise as he did so. "You going to Nashville?"

Phil could have answered in several ways--he was trained both in the language of the period and, more critically to maintaining a convincing performance for people of minor authority like this policeman, he was trained in the cultural aspects of the era. in the cultural aspects of the era. He knew, for instance, who "Ike" and "Tricky Dick" were; he knew about the recentl conflict in a place called "Korea"; he knew about soda jerks and sock hops. He could choose to engage pleasantly and cooperatively or bellicose and combativally. He chose the former. "That's right, Officer," he said with a nod. "Should be along shortly."

This appeared to satisfy the policeman, and in a gesture Rigby out of the movies, he brought his nightstick around and used it's distal end in the brim of his cap, adjusting its can't to something more jovial, as he stepped away, moving on down the aisle.

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