Just Beyond the Curve Read Free Page 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.