Chapter 6 #5
Levi Lee glanced down for a moment, shrugged, and then he was sliding the lime green hood back over his head.
When I made my way around Starbuck’s, and through the cluster of trees, I found the tram tracks.
I stopped for a moment, looking at the wood and iron tracks in front of me.
A glance to the left and then to the right let me know that the tracks were no more than forty yards long.
They started near the end of the street and ended near the creek.
Which was where the tram was sitting. Squinting a bit, I could see what I guessed was a conductor sitting at the front of the tram, reading a book, his legs kicked up.
The tram itself was not much more than a small train that one might find at an amusement park that people rode for a few tickets.
Why does Possibly, Texas need a tram? Especially one that traveled along a single street that was no more than half a football field long?
The sound of metal against stone jerked me to attention once again, pushing all thoughts of the tram from my mind.
My eyes darted around, looking for the source of the noise.
Due to the fact that the street wasn’t that long, I quickly found the person making the sound.
Some guy, dressed in a plaid long-sleeve shirt, bib overalls, work boots, and a straw hat, was taking a pickaxe to the middle of the street.
I nearly shouted out, wanting to ask the man if he was allowed to be tearing up the town’s roads, but then my eyes landed on the police officer, dressed in his uniform blues, leaning against one of the front walls of one of the businesses.
He was watching the man with the pickaxe, not concerned in the slightest.
If he doesn’t care, then I don’t care. I thought to myself.
Upon closer inspection of the man with the pickaxe, I saw that he was tearing up a part of the road that was much different than the far left and far right ends.
Different colored bricks had been placed in the paved road in front of the businesses.
Reds, blues, greens, oranges, yellows, purples, pinks—all the colors of the rainbow.
Is this man installing rainbow-colored bricks in the freaking middle of the street?
As I stood there, my hands still gripping my suitcase handles, the cop’s eyes landed on me from across the road, and he smiled.
He reached up and gave me a friendly wave.
Anxiously, I let go of one of the suitcases’ handles and waved back.
When the officer’s attention went back to the man with the pickaxe, I grabbed the suitcase handle and hurried across the road.
Within moments, I was passing between AMOR and whatever business was to the left of it.
A few seconds later, I was on a street behind the businesses, and there was the graveyard.
Although, it wasn’t much of a graveyard.
One, there wasn’t a church nearby—which is what makes a place of burial a graveyard instead of a cemetery.
Two, there were maybe ten headstones—or less—and two weeping willows.
Additionally, the “graveyard” was just a patch of land between paved roads.
It looked like the town had sprung up around it and the roads laid so that they didn’t interfere with the dead.
At least I found the graveyard. I thought to myself. I have to be close to Jack’s place.
I walked across the road to the graveyard and turned to the left as my mom had instructed.
There was a road on both sides of the graveyard, but both seemed to go left and meet briefly before splitting and winding around another copse of trees.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I should take the road that went to the left of the trees or the right of the trees.
However, I could see a three-story clapboard house, a dingy brownish-yellow with a red roof that a chimney jutted out of, off in the distance.
Even though I was in Possibly, Texas—of all places—I couldn’t help but smile.
That has to be Jack’s place.
I took off at a jog, my suitcase wheels bouncing on the paved road as I made my way towards the house.
Less than a minute later, I was letting my suitcases rest at the base of the steps up to the front door, making sure they didn’t topple over.
Then I ascended the stairs and took a deep breath.
The main door beyond the screen was shut, obviously because of the heat of the day, and the screen door seemed to be closed and locked tightly as well.
Maybe he’s not home?
My feet were killing me to the point that I couldn’t even think about whether or not Jack was home.
I lifted my hand and knocked on the door, tentatively at first, then increasingly louder until I knew I would be heard wherever he was in the house.
I stepped back from the door, just in case Jack decided to swing it open without looking.
I didn’t want to get pushed off of the steps.
Crickets chirped in the grass around the house.
Birds sang in the trees nearby. Tiny Tim sang his melody. A gunshot went off in the distance.
Finally, I heard footsteps coming from inside of the house. When the front door opened, and a face appeared through the screen, I knew that at least I had found the right place.
Jack looked exactly as I had remembered when I drew upon my oldest memories.
Even if it had been a long time.