Just Beyond the Curve (16 page)

"When you were shot I realized we may only get one
chance to do what we love and be famous at the same time. Then,
when you didn’t die I knew it was because your mission here on
earth wasn’t finished. You have thousands, maybe millions of fans
counting on you to brighten their days just a little, so they can
squeeze through today and face tomorrow," Janice said breathlessly,
her eyes large and seriously honest.

"You think so?" John asked, thinking he had never
looked at his singing like that before.

Janice nodded her head vigorously, then said, "I know
so! Me and my daddy were two of those fans. I wanted to be like
you; a beacon to guide the discouraged, but undefeated and
undefeatable people who just need someone to show them the way in
the darkness of uncertainty."

"I guess I’ve never really looked at it like that,
Janice. I’m not real smart anyway," he said with a goofy expression
and a smile.

"You don’t have to be smart to make people happy,
John," she said seriously. "You just have to be there when they
need you to be."

"I believe Momma and Daddy were proud of me, Janice.
That’s really all I set out to do, you know?"

"
America
is proud of you John Travis!" she
said, patting his hand with her own. "So why wouldn’t your parents
be? You’re a beacon in the night; their port in the storm. You are
their Bard!"

"Janice, I believe you’re an angel from Heaven!" he
said. "Maybe my daddy sent you to me, because he knew you could be
my port in this storm I’ve been stuck in. Let’s make your
record…Hell, let’s break some records, too!”

They stood, hugged, exchanged kisses on the cheek and
walked side by side to the recording room.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

At that exact same time nearly three miles away Danny
Floyd sat in the day room staring raptly at the television elevated
seven feet off the floor. He was watching a rerun of the John
Travis concert he had seen several times already. And again he was
glassy eyed, believing the singer would die as did the cop Short;
slowly and painfully. And as did his grubby parents. True he would
die for killing the cop, like he was some deity or something! Hell,
Danny thought gritting his teeth, he was just a man! A weak,
crying, trembling man when he was looking down the barrel of the
.45 in front of Danny.

Danny smiled through his tears remembering how Short
had sank to his knees, pissed his pants, and began to cry, begging
for his life; he had three little girls at home who needed him! His
wife had run off with one of his best friends two years earlier and
he hadn’t heard from her since. His girls would be orphans!

“Even that would be better than having a piece of
shit father like you,
Officer
Short!” Danny had told
him.

Danny had then made him drop his pants and take it up
the ass before he’d shot him is the back of the head while Danny
was unloading inside him. Danny had laughed like a maniac as Short
had slid to the floor and off his still hard penis. “Now for
Travis!” he’d whispered, leaving the dead man in the dark corner of
the parking garage beside his car.

“I can’t believe you would want to kill John Travis!”
an inmate called Cool Freddie said, taking a seat beside him on the
bench and dragging him back from his reverie.

“He took
everything
from me that mattered! I
didn’t have nothin’ to lose; I’d already killed my folks and the
cop. So what was a semi-famous singer?”

“Hell, you had everything to lose!” Cool Freddie
stated. “You had your life, man!”

Danny turned and looked at the tall, slim, golden
skinned, black man from Dallas. He knew that Cool Freddie had
already been given a life sentence in the state prison for dealing
drugs. Now he was about to get another one in Austin. Hell, Danny
thought, you had nothing to lose, ‘crack-head!’ He turned back to
the TV without comment. After a moment he stood and went back to
his cell.

For the next hour he lay on his bunk, staring at the
bottom of the top bunk wondering what death would be like. Wouldn’t
be playing the guitar or singing country music he didn’t imagine.
Probably be
hard-rock
, or ‘
head-banging
’, maybe even
screaming rap, or just for kicks hard rock religious! That would
really suck! Big time!

Since he was pending the death penalty he was housed
in a cell house where the staff could walk all around the cells and
stay safely out of range of any stabbing device and extended arm.
So, when the Sheriff’s deputy came around, inserted a large brass
key into the door lock, turned it with a loud
clang
, jerked
the door open and yelled “Floyd!” at the top of his lungs, Danny
was not surprised or startled. Instead he stood slowly, after all
he was in no hurry, and walked calmly out of his cell and onto the
catwalk between the cells and the dayroom, which was separated by
bars, and yelled right: back at the top of his lungs, “What!”

“You Floyd?” the jailer asked in a smart-ass tone of
voice.

“Hell no,” Danny replied just as saucily, “I’m his
fuckin ghost!”

“Smart-ass,” the jailer stated angrily. “Come on
out!”

“What for, gonna get your licks in, too?”

“You got a lawyer visit,” the jailer said. “Be better
to plead for life,” he added.

“How would you know?” Danny asked seriously. “You
been dead before?”

“Hey, life is alive death is dead. Get the
picture?”

Danny looked at him stupidly and said, “Really? Damn,
I musta missed that in Biology class.”

“Alright, turn around and cuff up,” the jailer said
producing a set of wrist manacles from a black leather pouch on his
belt.

“I know,” Danny said. “Jailhouse rules!”

“Damn right it is!” the jailer replied with a smirk
on his lips, as if he had said something incredibly profound.

Danny turned his back to the bars and stuck one wrist
through. When the cuff was secured he pulled his wrist back and
stuck the other through the same bars and the other was affixed to
his wrist. Only then did the deputy unlock the outer door and allow
him to step out.

“Face against the wall, Floyd!” he said, slamming
Danny up against the wall and kicking his legs wide apart. He then
did an aggressive ‘
pat-down
’ search with one hand then the
other.

“Heard you went ‘
up in
’ Officer Short before
you shot him in the back of the head,” the deputy stated. “What’d
ya use,
this
?” he added, slamming his right wrist up into
Danny’s groin with a grunt.

Danny gasped with the intense pain, then folded over
and puked down the wall and onto floor. He sank slowly to his knees
and moaned with his mouth wide open.

“Oh yeah, your lawyer, he called and said he’d be
here at three o’clock so we have several hours to play, Floyd.
Officer Short was my brother, in case you didn’t catch the
resemblance. I’m not a cop or a deputy. I own, operate and
participate in a ‘
rough trade
’ night club a few miles from
here. In case you don’t know what that is, I really get off doing
to young men, like you, what you done to my brother. But, the
difference is, I’m gonna leave you alive to live with what happened
to you until you die by lethal injection. So, you little
bitch
, your life just took a turn for the worse. If you can
believe that! Oh, and you can call me Big Ralph.”

“Fuck you,” Danny gasped breathlessly, his heart
beginning to pound in his temples with fear and dread. Ralph was a
big sucker, everywhere, Danny noticed.

“Well, Sweetie, let’s get the show on the road. I’m
anxious to see if you can take it like you can dish it out.”

Ralph easily dragged Danny down the metal, windowless
hall way and to a storage room that he unlocked with a large brass
key. He swung the heavy steel door open, dragged Danny inside and
closed the door behind them. He locked it back with the big brass
key and said, “Honnneeey, we’re home!” He laughed like a maniac,
and began stripping out of his clothing.

Danny lay terrified on the floor staring up at the
monster Ralph had become. His physique was like that of a
professional body builder and every slab of muscle bulged and
writhed under his golden skin.

“Damn, you look like a
creature
!” Danny said
breathlessly, gauging Big Ralph’s intentions carefully. He watched
the man like a mongoose watches a cobra.

Ralph took his time slipping out of his uniform pants
and when he was naked he was
very
erect and ready. “Now,
it’s your turn little rabbit,” he teased, stepping forward and
reaching over for Danny’s coverall clad corpse.

As Ralph stepped forward and leaned over, Danny’s leg
slammed upwards between the big man’s legs. His ankle connected
solidly and Ralph crumpled to the floor in a fetal pile. In the
same move Danny stood, jumped through the cuffs and slid around
fluidly, grabbed the ring of heavy keys and slammed them, with all
his strength, into the side of Ralph’s face. Ralph’s eyeball
exploded in a spray of gelatin that splattered the wall and made
the brass keys glisten. Ralph screamed with the intense pain.

“Like pain, do ya?” Danny asked breathlessly. “Good,
‘cause I got a
load
for you, bad boy!”

With his words Danny began to beat Ralph with the
heavy keys until Ralph was no longer moving, begging, or breathing.
Danny looked down at himself and realized for the first time that
he was covered with the big man’s blood.

Danny quickly stripped out of the orange coveralls
and into the police uniform. It was much too large for him, but,
maybe it would work anyway. Cops weren’t very smart, from what he
had seen.

He tried the keys in the lock until he found the key
that worked, then stepped out into the hall and locked the door
back. He started down the hallway toward where he knew the
elevators to be. He hadn’t taken more than ten steps when alarms
began to sound all up and down the hallway. The sound was
deafening. He was quickly on the floor with his hands firmly over
his ears and groaning in pain, wanting the intense piercing wail to
stop.

He was so concentrated on the sound and pain that he
didn’t realize when it had stopped until rough hands were jerking
him to his feet, cutting him out of the stolen police uniform and
taking him back to his cage to await the Grim Reaper.

“We don’t know where you got the uniform Floyd, but
we’d better not find a dead body missing one. If we do, you won’t
need to worry about a lawyer, a trial, or a death sentence. We’ll
kill you right here, right now!” the voice in the gas mask stated
coldly in a mechanical voice.

Danny was thrown back into the five man tank as naked
as the day he was born. The other prisoners laughed and jeered him
until he was given another one. Until then he sat on the table in
the day room and watched the rest of the John Travis concert. It
was within moments of going off.

In one of the darkened cells an olive drab U.S. Army
blanket was being sliced into straight three inch strips six feet
long with a brand new razor blade. It was then slowly, tightly and
precisely braided together to form a good strong rope.

*****

John and Janice stood at the filtered microphone.
John was reading the music score and memorizing it and the words in
the process. He had read it ten times and believed he knew every
nuance perfectly. It was about time to find out, he decided. He lay
the music sheets aside and picked up the D-10. He slung the strap
around his neck. When he had it hanging comfortably he turned his
back to the microphone and said, “Toby, can we hear the score,
please?”

“Get ready,” Toby replied, then keyed the
recording.

With his back to the microphone John began to play
the cords and establish the rhythm. He knew it was only a
reasonable facsimile and would change on the final recording, but
it was a place for him to start.

When the song ended he wondered why, or even if the
words of Towns Van Zant should be re-recorded. In John’s opinion,
Towns had done a damn fine job on his own song.

Well, he decided, maybe the late legend would
understand and forgive their fumbling attempt. He hoped so.

“Let’s hope. Towns will understand and forgive us,”
John said seriously. “Let’s make this record, folks.”

*****

In Wimberley Judy paced the floor with Billy Junior
in her arms and cried with him. He screamed as if in unrelenting
torment. As she paced, she looked up at the clock on the wall. It
read 2:30 A.M. She mumbled, “Come on, John!” then continued her
pacing and rocking, crying and bouncing the baby in her arms,
mumbling steadily through her tears.

She thought maybe she was just aggravated because she
was pregnant again and already showing. She believed she had gotten
pregnant shortly after the ban was lifted after lil Billy was born.
So, the next baby wouldn’t even be a year older than lil’
Billy!

As if on demand Big Billy slammed through the front
door as if being chased by demons. He was instantly followed by
John. They both stopped and stared at the emotionally shattered
mother and the equally shattered six month old child in her
arms.

Judy cried a squeaky scream of relief. The baby
instantly went silent, as if struck mute, and reached for his
daddy.

John took the baby and Judy both into his arms and
kissed them. Billy laid his head angelically upon John’s chest and
fell, almost instantly, asleep. “Long day?” John asked Judy.

“You wouldn’t believe it!” she replied. “I was
beginning to wonder if history was going to repeat itself. Where’ve
you been so late?”

“At the studio...”

“I’m starved!” Billy interrupted rudely. “They don’t
believe in eatin’ when they’re recordin’!”

“You could’ve ordered a pizza or somethin’,” John
replied in wonder.