Chapter 8
The washing machine on the screened-in porch had seen better days, but it was still capable of washing my bedding.
Jack was working on some project in the yard as I stuffed the sheets and blanket into the washer and added soap.
After considering how long it might have been since the sheets were washed, I tipped the detergent jug and added a little more.
When I’d woken up as the sun was rising—the open drapes on the dormer window allowed the sun bring me back from the dead early—Jack was already eating breakfast in the kitchen.
Actually, he was eating cereal out of a bowl as he stood at the sink.
He didn’t use his notepad when I had stumbled down the stairs groggily, but he gestured at the shelf containing cereals, waved at the fridge—generally gave me the idea that I should help myself.
Apparently, breakfast was not a “sit at the table and eat together” meal.
By the time I had poured myself a bowl of cereal and found the milk in the fridge, Jack was done with his bowl and had set it in the sink to soak.
He dashed off through the living room and screened porch to the backyard before I had even had a chance to pour my milk.
Was he regretting my presence already?
I sat at the kitchen table and ate slowly, waiting for my body and brain to catch up with the day.
Afterwards, I washed mine and Jack’s bowls and put them in the draining rack, then went back upstairs for a shower.
Fresh clothes, some deodorant, brushed teeth—I finally found myself ready for the day.
A glance at my phone let me know that Mom still hadn’t tried to text me, so I left it on the desk.
I wanted to text or call her and tell her I was okay, and to make sure she was doing fine, too.
But something resolute in my gut refused to let me.
Instead, I stripped the sheets and blanket off of my bed, took the pillowcase off of my pillow, and ventured back downstairs, cradling the bundle carefully as I went down the steps.
Before I bothered using the washing machine, I had hollered at Jack through the screens in the porch, asking if it was okay to use his machine.
He had simply waved a hand in the machine’s direction, so I took that to mean it was okay.
I turned the dial, pushed the start button with my thumb, and the machine came to life with a jolt.
After a few moments, I realized that the machine was going to work—it was just loud as hell.
Hopefully, I had done everything right so that Jack’s machine wasn’t destroyed by my bedding.
When I opened the screen door on the porch and stepped down into the yard, I got a better look at what Jack was doing.
A long oak table, probably long enough to seat twelve or more people for dinner, was set out in the yard on a tarp.
It looked as though it had once been painted—who would do that to such lovely wood?
—but Jack had stripped it and sanded it down to the wood grain once again.
Some type of electric cutting tool was in his hand and he was carving grooves in the wood of the tabletop, his back to me.
So that I wouldn’t startle him, I rounded him in a wide arc, making sure he saw me coming towards him.
He wasn’t deaf—obviously—but if he started up the tool as I was walking up to him, he wouldn’t hear me approach.
Then he might spin around and gouge me with the tool on accident.
You don’t make it to sixteen years old without knowing a little bit about staying out of the way of tools that could accidentally be used as weapons.
Jack’s eyes caught mine and he paused, the bit in the tool against the wood.
“I didn’t see a dryer,” I said.
Jack gestured across the yard.
I turned to find a clothesline on the other side of the yard—metal cords strung between two T-posts that had been painted a sky blue.
Really?
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Uh, what are you doing?”
One of Jack’s eyebrows raised and he glanced down at the table, then back to me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Working on the table. What are you doing to it?”
Jack set his tool down and started to make movements with his hands before remembering that sign language was mostly pointless with me.
“Want me to get your notepad?” I asked.
Jack shook his head in frustration and reached into his pocket. He extracted his phone and held it up so I could see it.
“I don’t have mine on me. It’s upstairs,” I said.
Jack still unlocked his phone and tapped away at the screen.
I waited patiently, wondering if he had heard anything I said.
Did he realize he didn’t even have my phone number?
Even if I had my cell phone on me, I’d never get the text.
When Jack finished tapping away, he held the phone out for me to look at the screen.
I leaned over and read his screen.
I need smokes and the mail.
“Cigarettes?” I asked.
He nodded.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
Jack just stared at me.
“Okay. Fine. Where are they? I’ll go get them. I’ll go out to the mailbox, too.”
Jack shook his head. Then he was looking down at his phone and tapping away at the screen once again. A moment later, he was holding the phone out to me.
Post office doesn’t deliver mail. Can you go get it? You can stop at Grandy’s for cigarettes.
“I mean,” I said, re-reading the screen, “I can go get the mail. I know where the post office is. Not that it’d be hard to find in this town.
But I’m only sixteen, Jack. I can’t buy cigarettes.
Okay, I’ve bought cigarettes before. Lifted some beers once in Memphis.
But…something about this town tells me that it won’t be so easy to lie about my age or steal. ”
Jack frowned disapprovingly. I shrugged.
Another round of tapping and the phone was in my face once more.
Don’t steal. I’ll text Grandy to let him know you’re coming and you’re my stepson. He’ll let you have the cigarettes.
“Okay,” I said.
Jack typed away on the phone again.
Tell Sofia who you are. She’ll give you the mail.
“Who’s Sofia?”
A few moments later: Postmaster.
“All right,” I said. “Uh, I don’t have any money. For the cigarettes?”
Jack laid his phone on the table and reached into his back pocket.
I expected him to yank out a wallet and fish out a few bills.
Instead, his hand simply reappeared with a twenty.
So, Jack kept cash loose in his pocket. We all have our quirks.
Jack eyed me warily as I leaned across the table and took it from his hand, as though I’d get far on twenty bucks.
I slipped the bill into my front hip pocket and Jack picked up his tool once more.
“Uh, I’ll be back soon? Town doesn’t seem that big. From what I saw yesterday, I mean. So…I’ll be back soon?”
Jack didn’t even look up at me as he started working on the table once more. A slight nod of his head was his only response. I had made it to the corner of the house when an idea struck me.
“Hey,” I hollered over my shoulder to Jack.
He looked up at me.
“Mind if I, like, buy a soda?” I asked. “Just a twenty ounce or whatever. Nothing major. Mom didn’t give me any cash when she dumped me.”
A jerky nod of Jack’s head, even though he was already looking away, let me know that I had the all-clear to purchase a drink for my troubles. Jack was a tacit guy—if not by choice—but he wasn’t half bad.
The walk back into town wasn’t as horrible as the day before since it was a bit cooler.
I was still dealing with Texas in summer, but the temperature was bearable.
Of course, it was mid-morning, so by the time noon came around, it was possible I’d be a puddle of sweat.
As I sauntered down the road towards the graveyard, a gunshot rang in the distance.
Instinctively, I jerked and ducked, wanting to avoid gunfire, before I realized that the weird guy who looked like Yosemite Sam was probably being crazy again.
What was his name? Wyatt?
When I hung a right at the graveyard, towards the center of town, and AMOR and the other buildings alongside it came into view, I heard an odd mechanical scraping sound.
At the corner of the street AMOR sat upon, and where I’d seen the guy digging up the concrete, I realized I had missed the street sign on my way out to Jack’s the day before.
Liberty Lane.
Apparently, the radio station sat on a street whose concrete was slowly being dug up and replaced with rainbow-colored bricks, and it was called “Liberty Lane.” Fair enough.
Not important information, but information either way.
When I turned right onto Liberty Lane, headed towards the creek, where I could see the teal clapboard house that was actually a post office, I realized where the mechanical scraping sound was coming from.
The tram was inching along the tracks and the conductor was holding the steering lever, looking ahead officiously as the tram rolled down the tracks towards me.
My feet slowed and I came to stand at the end of Liberty Lane so that I could watch the conductor and his tiny little tram.
It took less than a minute, but finally, the tram reached the other end of the tracks and stopped to my right.
The conductor slid the gear shift into place, turned off the tram, kicked his feet up, then grabbed his book.
A few flicks of his finger, which he moistened with his tongue, and the conductor had found where he’d left off.
He went about reading his book, pretending he hadn’t just seriously driven the tram forty yards before calling it a day.
Of course, the tram only ran the length of Liberty Lane. Unless he wanted to throw the thing in reverse and go the other way, he was out of track.
Why in the world is there a tram that just goes up and down one street that takes less than a minute to walk at a leisurely pace?