Just Beyond the Curve Read Free

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