“They call her Sweetie,” said the little boy.

“I know that,” said the Man of Music. “And when I see her, I’m gon’ tell her I rode the bus with you. I’m gon’ tell her how you helped me write this song about true love. I’m gon’ tell her we sat here and ate a ham sandwich together. I’m gon’ tell her you are a nice little boy. What else you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her I said hey.”

We all just sat for a while, eating funeral food, thinking about true love and death and music and blood and hearts and mayhaw jelly, and watching the end of that bright afternoon. The little lady opened up her book of advice for living. “‘Fear nothing,’” I read over her shoulder. “‘Live without regrets.’” But soon it was too dark to read, and by the time we got to the outskirts of Pensacola, it was night. There was a lot of traffic, changing lanes and merging, and the bus driver had to concentrate on his driving. Even the Man of Music sat still, with his seat reared back, and the old man across from us had his eyes closed.

There was some confusion after the bus stopped at the big Greyhound station in Pensacola—bright lights suddenly came on inside the bus, and the bus driver sang out over the loudspeaker, “Pensacola, Florida!” The old man jerked awake in his seat and stared around with wild, startled eyes. The little lady started trying to give us all plastic bags of food, and the Man of Music got his guitar case wedged between the seats. A mean-faced woman with a grim, narrow mouth came bustling onto the bus, grabbed the little boy up by the forearm, and marched him down the aisle with her eyes downcast, saying impatiently, “Excuse me, excuse me,” as we stepped out of her way.

“Grandma, see him?” The little boy turned back and pointed. “Grandma, see? He’s a man of music. I helped him write a song about—”

But the woman snatched him down the steps, saying, “Now, I do not have time…”

A put-upon-looking young woman wearing tight blue jeans with her feet mashed into clear-plastic, high-heeled shoes came to meet my little lady. “You may be wondering—” the little lady started saying.

But the young woman was staring with horror at the boxes of jelly jars being unloaded from the luggage compartment of the bus, two teetering stacks of white boxes on the sidewalk, and more to come. She smacked her lips and flopped her arms at the little lady in a fit of irritation. “What in the world—I do not have room…”