Just Beyond the Curve (2 page)

Nearly a month after John buried his mother beside
his father; Paul called him into his office and gave him the bad
news. He was going to have to let John go. Business was slow and he
just couldn’t afford to keep John on the payroll any longer. John
never questioned it. He thanked Paul for the job he had had, then
pulled his ball cap down low on his ears, stuffed his wages in his
pocket, then turned and walked from the store and onto the street.
He stood silently and looked left and right. With his fingers
stuffed in his pockets, he walked across town to highway 80 east,
then walked another five miles to the cemetery and stood over his
mother’s and father’s grave. He read the headstones over and over,
not knowing what else to do or say.

JOHN EDWARD TRAVIS

1-23-1965 10-23-1985

He Just Missed Being a Star

DONNA SUE TRAVIS

5-24-1965 10-21-2005

She Loved John ‘Til Death

Rejoined Them

After reading the headstone until tears slid down his
cheeks, he knelt between them and laid a hand on each of them. His
father’s grave was long level, whereas his mother’s was still
mounded with red soil and plastic flowers and wilted wreaths that
someone had sent.

“Momma, Daddy,” John said sadly with his chin on his
chest and his blue HOLMSTED’S GROCERY ball cap wadded in his fists,
“I lost my job today. Paul said business was slow. Seemed the same
as always to me. But I guess he would know better than me. So, I
don’t know what I’m gonna’ do. You know I ain’t too smart. But
somehow I’m gonna make ya proud o’ me. I promise. I gotta go home
now. I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do. I love ya and miss ya.
Daddy, I wish I could have knowed ya some. I’m sure ya was a good
man; for momma to have love ya so. I wish I could have.”

John sat there on his knees and heels for a few long
seconds, as if listening to an answer. Then he stood, pulled his
cap down on his head snugly and walked away from the graves. As he
walked hesitantly away, he looked back over his shoulder
periodically, wiped his eyes and nose on his hand, then on his
pants leg. He shoved his fingers into his pockets to the last
knuckles and hunched his shoulders as he walked. Finally, he turned
and waved, then walked on to the highway.

At the highway he stuck his thumb in the air and
walked backwards so people could see him and know he wasn’t a
threat to them. He was just a young man, going home from visiting
his folk’s graves.

CHAPTER TWO

A few hours after John left the cemetery a late model
pickup slowed to a stop on a secondary road in the desert like
emptiness southwest of Wimberley. The passenger door opened and
John climbed out of the cab. He waved and thanked the man for the
ride. As the pickup sped off John, stuck his fingers in the tops of
his pockets and started walking down an all but abandoned strip of
weed-grown asphalt.

John walked silently, his eyes on the ground. As he
came around a slight turn that dipped down into a shallow valley
his house came into view. It was nothing special, just a native
stone house with a front porch and a shake shingle roof. Near the
center was the chimney for the fireplace. Off to one side was a
small storage shed that was all but overgrown by weeds, prickly
pear and vines. John knew the little shack was bone empty and
wondered how long it would take for it to finally give up and cave
in.

He stepped up on the porch and pushed the front door
open. He went through the sparsely furnished living room and into
the kitchen. He looked in the refrigerator. It was, for the most
part, bare. He removed a carton of milk, opened it, smelled it,
then drained it. He threw the carton in the trash and walked back
through the house, down the hallway and stopped outside a closed
door.

He stood with his hand resting on it and his head
lowered. His other hand rested on the imitation cut glass knob. As
far as he knew, in his twenty years of life, he had never set foot
in this room. It was his mother’s room and private. She had spent
nearly ninety percent of her time in this room and had never, that
he could remember, invited him inside. Now, he had to know what was
so special about it. It was now his. The house, the land and
everything on it was now his. The Will had been very clear, John
Travis Jr. inherited everything.

“Forgive me Momma,” he whispered, turning the knob.
“I have to know,” he added, pushing the door open slowly.

As it opened fully it squeaked on its hinges, sending
shivers up his spine.

He stepped slowly into what amounted to a shrine to
his father. Publicity pictures, concert announcements, three gold
records on the wall, an acoustic guitar stood in a stand at the
foot of the bed and against the wall. In another stand was the
Fender Stratocaster. A microphone was in a mic stand and on a small
upright piano was a file folder of music.

John looked around, touching things slowly, tenderly.
He kept glancing at the photographs. He was nearly an identical
twin to his late father. He brushed his fingers across one of the
life-size cutouts of the famous star and realized tears slid from
his face and dripped to the floor.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” he moaned miserably.
“Maybe she thought I knew all along; that someone told me all about
him. No one ever did. They must have thought she told me. She never
did.” He shook his head slightly, then picked the acoustic guitar
up from the stand and sat on the edge of the bed. He held the
guitar awkwardly and strummed the far out of tune strings. He
grimaced and looked down at the guitar. It was a Martin D-10.
Whatever that is, he thought.

“I can learn,” he whispered, looking up at the
photographs of his father. “I will learn! Someone will teach
me!”

He sat the guitar back on the stand and looked around
slowly once again. He touched things gently, reverently, inspecting
everything, memorizing every nook and cranny of the shrine-like
room.

“I’ll do it for you, Momma,” he promised seriously.
“And you too, daddy. I’ll become a star, just like you were. But,
not for me. Just you. I’ll bring you back to life through your
music.”

John opened a closet door and looked inside. He found
the two guitar cases and lay them open on the bed. He laid both
guitars in their respective case reverently, then closed the tops
and latched them. He got a backpack from his own room and put the
file folders of music and songs in it. He took his money from his
pocket and counted it carefully, then stuffed it back deep.

The next morning as the sun was coming up he walked
back to the highway. He had a guitar case in each hand and his back
pack on.

He was walking determinedly down the road when an old
pickup pulled up beside him and stopped. He looked at the white
haired man and smiled. He laid the cases in the bed of the pickup
with his backpack and climbed in the cab.

Cotton Stubbs thought he might be seeing a ghost as
he looked at this young man. He knew it was John Travis Jr. “Come
on John,” he said with a friendly smile. “Get in here boy. Yore
lettin alla my air-conditionin’ out!”

John laughed as he closed the door, noting that both
the driver’s window and the passenger window were wide open.

“Boy, sure is hot already, huh?” John said tipping
his hat to the old man. “How’d you know my name?” he added as an
afterthought.

“Hell son, yore tha spittin image of your pa!” Cotton
exclaimed seriously. “I’d be a damn fool not ta re-cog-nize you!
Didn’t know you was a guitar man, though.”

“Guitar man?” John asked, then realized what the old
man meant. “Oh, no sir,” he said. “I just got two of ‘em. They were
my daddy’s.”

“That a fact?” Cotton asked suspiciously. “You play
‘em? Or sing?”

“No sir,” John replied. “I’m gonna find someone to
show me. I promised Momma and Daddy I’d get famous and make them
proud of me. They’re both together in Heaven now. My daddy died
when I was a baby. Momma passed last month.”

“I knowed your folks,” Cotton said. “Tended both of
their funerals. Knowed ‘em way back when. Your pa was a hell of a
guitar player. Sing too! Never seen, nor heard nothin like ‘im
before, or since. Sounded like five guitars being played at once.
Used all his fingers at once! Musta had ten on each hand!”

“He musta been good, then!” John said.

“I quit playing before I ever found anyone as good,”
Cotton said. “Damn hard row to hoe, son. Takes years of practice to
play one of them damned things. Flusteratin all ta be damned, too!
But, yore young yet.”

John stared out the window at the highway and scenery
as they came into San Marcos. He realized they had fallen into
silence, lost in their own thoughts.

“I’ll carry ya over ta I-thirty five. You’ll be
needin’ ta go ta Austin. Lot of fine understandin folks in
Austin.”

“Well, sir,” John said, “I appreciate the ride and
the advice.”

“Good luck son,” Cotton said, pulling to a stop near
the service road. “You’ll need it. It’s rough out there.”

John nodded his head and opened the door. He slipped
into his back pack, then grabbed the handles of the two guitar
cases and lifted them out of the bed. As the pickup drove off he
walked across the service road, under the highway, then up the
on-ramp on the other side.

He stood on 1-35 north with his thumb in the air and
watched the traffic zoom past him as if he had leprosy. The sun was
blistering hot and soon he was drenched in sweat. Finally,
exasperated, as the sun was dropping into the west, he picked up
the guitar cases and started walking north toward Austin; thirty
miles away.

As he walked he thought about what he was going to
do. He only had about two hundred dollars cash and no immediate
prospects for getting more. He knew absolutely no one in Austin and
really didn’t have a clue what he was going to do. It was a mad
mission with little chance of actually working. But he would give
it his best shot and if he failed, well, no one could say he hadn’t
even tried.

He knew it was silly to depend on blind faith, the
luck of the draw, chance! But, what else did he have? Nothing. Two
guitars he couldn’t play and a stack of music he couldn’t read.

Well, he finally decided, as he walked along the
highway in the dark, his only light from the passing cars that
swooshed past as if being chased by demons, I have nothing to lose.
Plus, I promised Momma and Daddy that I would make then proud of
me! I at least gotta try, or hang my head in defeat. I will never
do that, without trying first!

The highway seemed to stretch on forever into the
night and the traffic zipped past him endlessly. He was soon
exhausted and walking in a trance like state. He hadn’t slept well
and had gotten up early and set out on this, what he now
considered,
foolhardy
, mission. But, he had given his word,
made his promises, and now he would live by them, regardless of his
chances of success or own personal comfort. Some little something
inside him seemed to whisper in his ear that he was
going
to
make it. Somehow.

He realized he was staring into the dawn and seeing
the fading street lights of Austin in the distance. He was
exhausted, no doubt, but still he seemed to step a little lighter
and his store of youthful energy seemed to return. He felt a slight
rush of excitement in his chest and his heart seemed to beat a
little harder and a little faster as his destiny neared from out of
the early morning mist. But still even with that his arms ached
miserably, an ache as he had never felt before. He hadn’t realized
how heavy the two guitars would become over a period of hours.

He walked down an exit and at the traffic light
turned to the left and downtown Austin. The traffic grew steadily
heavier and faster. But still it seemed to not move quite as fast
as it had the night before. He figured people were not quite as
anxious to get to work as they were to
leave
work. He
smiled, knowing he had often felt that way. He had also learned
that once he got to work he forgot about not wanting to be there
and enjoyed his time there.

He walked down the sidewalk several blocks, passing
several storefronts before seeing a large sign that read HALL’S
MUSIC EMPORIUM, in bright red letters on a white background. Then
he saw a smaller sign that read INSTRUMENTS and ALL YOUR MUSICAL
NEEDS. He crossed the street and as he neared the door he saw a
wide collection of musical instruments in the showroom. He figured
if anyone could teach him how to play the guitar it would be the
man who owned this wide array of instruments. Wouldn’t he have to
know how to play them all? Wouldn’t he have to be able to in order
to demonstrate each instrument to potential customers?

He was about to sit the Strat case down and pull the
door open when he saw the black lettered “CLOSED” sign. Underneath
was a store hours schedule. It would not open until 9:00 A.M. He
sat down to wait.

He had a guitar case on each side of him and his arms
crossed on his knees. He rested his head on his crossed arms and
was soon drifting into sleep. He was exhausted.

The rattling of the keys in the door lock woke him
up. He startled and looked at the door, seeing no one. He stood and
stepped over to it, pulled it and it opened. He realized it had
been unlocked from the inside. He picked his cases up, struggled to
open the door, then stepped inside the coolness and dimness of the
big clean smelling store.

“Mornin’ son,” a man’s pleasant voice said off to one
side. “You’re almighty anxious for something. Maybe I can help
you?”

“Maybe,” John replied sitting the cases down. “Can
you show me how to play these?”

“Fraid not,” the kindly man said. “I’m a brass and
piano man myself.”

John studied the tall, elderly, white haired man as
if he had heard his answer wrong. Deciding he had heard right, he
took the backpack off and removed one of the files of music from
it. “Can you read this?” he asked, handing the man the thick
folder.