Since entering Alabama, everyone seems to be looking at me differently. Usually, people make eye contact, approach me, then ask the usual questions. Recently, however, when I walked into the Hytop grocery store, all conversation stopped as people turned to look at me, then averted their eyes. When I entered the store in Skyline I got similar sidelong glances, the shoppers looking at me out of the corner of their eye. At first, I thought it was my imagination, but my suspicions were confirmed when I started looking for a place to pitch my tent.

It was getting dark, and I considered continuing riding since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon was full, but I didn’t have any lights on my bike and decided against it. When I came to the next town, I saw a guy working in his front yard. He was in his thirties and slender, wearing khakis with dirt on his knees from the flowerbed he’d been working in. I put on my most disarming smile and asked,

“Hi… I was just wondering if it would be okay if I pitched my tent in the corner of your yard.”

“Well…” He scratched his butt. “I don’t know….”

“If you’re hesitant at all, then…..”

“Well, I don’t know…” he repeated. Then, “There’s an antique shop down the road here.”

“Yeah, okay…  thanks.” I rode away.

I know I shouldn’t have, but I felt pretty irritated. It WAS his yard, after all, and he reserved the right to allow or disallow anyone entrance. Still, since I started my trip, this was the first time I’ve ever been denied a 6 foot by 8 foot patch of ground on which to pitch a tent and rest my weary head. Hmph. 

I started coasting downhill, then started pedaling downhill, then started pedaling really hard downhill, all in an attempt to burn off a little of that irritation.

I was going pretty fast when I entered the next town and sluiced past an older couple sitting on their porch. When I turned around to ask them about pitching my tent I noticed his neighbor across the street. He was just about to start pedaling out of his driveway on a bicycle with his 4-5 year-old-daughter on the back. This guy looked almost identical to the previous person I had asked, except cleaner. I decided to take a more roundabout route this time, then put on that same ineffective disarming smile and asked,

“Do you know of any place to pitch a tent around here?”

He glanced at his yard, then back at me, and there was a clear hesitancy in his voice.

“Well…” He scratched his head. “Ummm…  there’s a Coon Hunter’s Lodge House just behind my place.”

I followed him around to the back of his house, and about fifty yards beyond it was the backyard of another building. On the way we chatted, and I told him I was riding my bike across the country, having started in Texas.

“Everbody does their own thing." 

I’m starting to get the hint from these Alabamians, and ask,

“Do you think anyone will bother me back here?” I was sure that by now everyone in town knew I was there, and I had visions of rednecks in trucks wanting to manhandle the damn Yankee from Texas, wherever that is, but he said he assured me that no one would disturb me.

The first thing I did was spray insect repellant all over me. It appeared the only thing in this state that wanted any contact with me was mosquitoes. The second thing was to set up my tent. When I was about halfway through, the same guy rode up on his bike and introduced himself as Ronald Porter. 

“What did you have for dinner?”

“I made a sandwich.”

“Oh, okay. Well, if there’s anything I can do for you,” here he pointed over at the house we had passed and said, “Just come knock.” 

“Well, yes, there is… you can let me pitch my tent in your yard.”

Those are the words I wrote in my journal. Did I really say that? Am I that big of an asshole? Or was I just thinking it…. Or, more likely, I was just kidding him… something said with a laugh. That IS something I would do. I’m pretty sure I was just teasing him, and there IS a response from Ron, which leads me to believe I wasn’t just thinking it.

“If I knowed ya, I wouldn’t care, but I don’t. And you could be anybody.”

I did wonder, though, exactly WHAT I could do camped in his yard that I COULDN’T do another thirty yards away? 

“You know, I’d really like to burgle his house, but ooof… it’s SO FAR AWAY that I don’t think I can make it.  I guess I’ll ride my loaded bicycle up that mountain to the next town and rob someone else.”

He then added,

“I feel kinda bad just leavin’ ya here. Can I get you a couple of bologna sandwiches?”

Okay, yeah, I’m an asshole.

We chatted some more and when he found out my circuitous route to Alabama he said,

“So THAT’S why you come the way you did. I went home and told my wife about you and she said why’d he come THAT way if he come from Texas?  Ya see, they’s an escaped convict killer in Northern Alabama."

The pieces suddenly fell into place. The averted eyes, the sidelong glances….  everyone thinks I’m a convicted murderer, escaped from prison, and am now riding to my freedom on a loaded touring bicycle. 

We walked to the trailer house next door to let his neighbor know I’d be there, I’m assuming so he wouldn’t shoot me while I’m urinating on a tree at 3AM, although there are probably some people reading this who would agree that that’s a capital offense.

Lying in my tent that evening I had a couple of thoughts. The first one was that I had to give Ron some credit. In spite of the fact that there was the possibility that I was a crazed murderer on the loose, he came back several times to talk, and even offered me food. That’s not something to be ignored.

The second thought occurred just as I was starting to fall asleep in my tent, alone, in this rural area.…. 

“Wait… What??? There’s a convicted murderer on the loose?”