Chapter 6 #3
My feet carried me along the last stretch of the dirt road towards the bridge as my mother’s words rang in my head.
Jack’s house is to the northwest of the town square.
Look for the graveyard and then head left.
You’ll find it. If you start seeing housing developments, you’ve gone too far.
He’s in Possibly proper. You can’t miss it.
Jack will watch over you. I love you forever!
Bye, Jordy! That was when she started waving out of the car window as she drove away down the highway.
Vegas—and getting there in a timely manner—was more important to her than making sure I got to Possibly.
Okay. So, walking through a small town in Texas in the middle of the day is probably one of the safest things you can do.
As long as you don’t look too liberal or anything.
But I hadn’t been in Possibly since I was a little kid.
I couldn’t even really remember the place—I was just trusting that as fact since my mom had said so.
I didn’t know the layout of the streets, where anything was, or any of the people.
I didn’t even really know Jack. Finding his house—and kind of meeting Jack all over again—was going to be odd.
What was I going to say to the guy? I mean, communicating with him was difficult as it was, but we were virtually strangers.
And I was expected to march up to his front door and say: “Hey, it’s me.
Jordan. Mom said I should come stay with you because I’m cramping her style or something? Got an extra bed?”
The further I walked away from the speaker on the side of the road, the quieter I expected Tiny Tim’s voice to get.
It should have faded off into the distance, yet it seemed to get louder the closer I got to the wooden bridge that spanned the width of the creek.
Initially, I thought I had to be going crazy.
First, the phantom music that I heard along Two-Mile Trail, then the odd speaker-radio-thingie on the pole on the side of the road, then the music was getting louder the further I got away from the speaker.
Possibly, Texas—as my mom had warned me—was…
different. She didn’t really elaborate on what she meant by “different”—I mean, she didn’t mention any people with horns growing out of their heads or who carried around wolverines as pets—but there had been a look in her eye when she had said it.
The music grew louder as I grew closer to the bridge and it finally dawned on me that the town sign was staked into the side of the road a few yards before the creek.
When I approached it, still dragging my suitcases behind me, I realized why the music had not faded away.
Another speaker was attached to the lower third of the pole that held the town sign.
The fact that there might be poles with speakers attached to them all throughout town, playing the local radio station, suddenly dawned on me.
I didn’t know if that was creepy or charming.
I let my eyes move from the speaker up to the sign.
Possibly, Texas. Pop. 712.
So…a small town. Miniscule.
Also, the town name “Possibly” and the state name “Texas” were on two different arrow-shaped, wooden signs.
One was pointing to the left; one was pointed to the right.
Neither pointed towards town. Both looked as though the wood had seen better days, but the names looked like they had been painted recently.
Obviously, sign upkeep was of paramount importance in Possibly.
I found myself imagining that one of the seven-hundred-twelve people in town was on sign duty, going around and making sure the paint was fresh.
That’s how new the paint looked. It was also obvious that the signs had been painted by hand, so I imagined my suspicions about a town sign painter were not that far off from the truth.
Why is one sign pointing one way and one pointing the other?
Just as I began to contemplate the mysteries of sign design in Possibly, movement by the bridge caught my eye.
I turned to find a man—well, maybe a teenager, since he didn’t look much older than me—walking across the bridge from Possibly in my direction.
He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were down as his feet clop-clopped on the wooden boards of the bridge. He looked…forlorn?
Watching as he traveled across the bridge, I wondered if he was going to walk along Two-Mile Trail to the highway.
Maybe his mom was waiting to pick him up?
Mine dropped me off on the highway, so maybe his mom was the type to pick him up on the highway?
However, my thoughts were interrupted by the sight of him stopping halfway across the bridge.
He placed his hands upon the railing along the side, then he hoisted himself, climbing the handrail until he was standing upon it precariously.
The wooden rail was just wide enough for a man to stand upon, but not for long.
No one could keep their balance that well outside of a circus.
I watched in horror as the teenager threw his arms out wide and looked up at the sky. A moan-like scream poured forth from his mouth:
“Emmmmmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiily!”
Then he was falling off of the bridge and into the creek below.
I gasped in horror and ran towards the bridge, the suitcases bumping and jolting on the road behind me.
They weren’t rolling so much as bouncing on the wooden slats.
My feet made their own clop-clop sounds on the wooden planks as I raced across it and to the spot from where the guy had leapt.
I let go of my suitcases’ handles and put my hands on the rail, looking over to the creek below.
He’s probably dead. I thought frantically. There’s no way the water is deep enough. He probably cracked his freaking skull open and is floating on the water, bloody and dead!
Over the side of the bridge, I did find the teenager floating, but he looked fine. He was swirling his arms at his sides, his legs kicking to help tread water. He was simply…floating. He wasn’t dead or hurt. At least not physically.
I watched as the teenager pursed his lips and a plume of water shot out of his mouth like a fountain, sailing in an arc into the air above him, before losing its game with gravity and splattering back onto the guy’s chest. The teenager continued to paddle his arms and legs as he floated there, fully dressed, his eyes closed, as the sun beat down on him lazily.
What the crap is his problem?
“Are you okay?” I braced myself against the handrail so I could lean over and shout down at the teenager, a mere ten feet below.
“Fine.” Came his response.
“Did you hurt yourself?” I shouted again.
“Fine,” he said. “Just need to think.”
For a few moments, I considered asking the teenager what his freaking problem was—why he had flung himself off of a bridge into the creek below.
Did he have any common sense? Did he need help?
Did he need someone to talk to? Should I call an ambulance?
Instead, I found myself deciding to let the teenager have a moment to himself.
Obviously, the dude was going through…something.
“Uh, okay,” I responded. “Uh, hope, uh, you’re okay and stuff?”
“Fine,” he said.
That annoyed me. Tiny Tim was singing about being satisfied with life, my suitcases were laying in a dirty heap on the bridge, my feet ached, the sun was sweltering, and this guy was looney tunes. Like, Bugs Bunny taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque crazy.
I watched for a few more moments as the guy floated on his back, treading water with lazy kicks from his legs and flaps from his arms, fully clothed, and completely insane.
Who the crap is Emily? Isn’t that what he screamed before he jumped off of the bridge like a freak?
Contemplating what would make some weirdo throw himself off a bridge—which I quickly determined was over enough water and not high enough that anyone could really harm themselves—was pointless.
I reminded myself that I was in the panhandle of Texas.
Weird stuff was bound to happen. If I looked up and saw an opossum driving a Big Wheel over the bridge, sipping a bottle of malt liquor, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
Finally, I pried my eyes from the teenager floating in the creek and knelt down to snatch at the handles of my suitcases.
Moments later, my now dusty brown shoes, and the wheels of the suitcases, were clop-clopping over the other half of the bridge.
I found myself already mightily annoyed with Possibly, Texas.
The sound of my shoes and the wheels on the wood slats, the weirdo who leapt off of the bridge and scared the crap out of me, the dirt road that probably ruined my shoes, and Tiny Tim’s high-pitched voice, were giving me a headache.
Of course, some of that was still probably attributable to the heat and the sun beating down on me.
Hopefully, Jack will have indoor plumbing so I can have a glass of water—if that’s not too much to ask for in Possibly.
When I reached the other side of the bridge, finding that the roads in Possibly, though narrow, were actually paved, made me feel a little less grumpy.
At least the wheels of my suitcases could actually perform their job.
Everything else that I found on the other side of the bridge made me feel…
confused. From the other side of the bridge, I was pretty sure I could see most of downtown Possibly, and what I saw was different.