Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) Read Free Page A

know? It’s always their dime.  Take this Blaylock character.  Nicest guy you wanna meet, and loaded to the gills with green but you cross him or make him mad and its pink slip no questions asked.  Man needs freedom.”  His words trailed off as he slipped into thought.
          The silence allowed Rick’s mind to wander as the conversation seemed to die away.   Both of them entertained an almost hypnotic train of unspoken thoughts, the kind that often floods the mind in a stream of conscience kind of way when no one is sure what to say next.  Rick finally broke the spell.
           “So you in town long then?”  He said, his voice startling the man out of his daydream.
            “Wazzat?”  He responded.
            “Town?  You in town long?”  Rick repeated.
            “Nah, just another day then it’s back to LA.  I hate LA.  Say, did you tell me you were from Mississippi?”  The man recalled, unsure if he had thought it or Rick had said it.
           “Yeah.  William’s Landing, remember?”  Rick reminded him.
           “Oh, yeah.  How come you came down here?  This place’s not like home.”  The man coughed.
           “I left there after my dad died,” Rick told him again, not sure how much detail he wanted to get into on the subject, especially since the man was half drunk and probably didn’t care all that much. 
            “How old was he?”  The man asked with a little more clarity.
            “He was in his 80’s.  It was just me and him and after he died, I came down here.  Seemed like the thing to do at the time.  Been here ever since.”  Rick explained.
           “You didn’t have anybody else?  No relatives or friends?”  He lapsed back into a slurred speech.
           “I had some friends, childhood buddies.  But, things change you know?  People get older, and you lose touch.”  He left it at that.  “Oh, here we are, you’re hotel.”  He pulled the big Crown Vic. into the check-in spot and parked.  “That’ll be $5,” He said. 
           The man fished in his wallet and located a ten.  He handed it to Rick across the seat.  “Keep the change buddy.  Thanks for the ride.”  And he steadied himself as he opened the door and left.    Rick was left alone with the ten in his hand and not even enough time to say thank you.  Such was the life of a cab driver.  Most of the conversations went that way when a conversation could be had.  They come, and they go, and they remember no more.  He put the car in drive and headed back out into the night.
          The mention of his father and his friends opened a strange door in Rick’s memories that he didn’t often allow unlatched.   These were memories he kept sealed behind that door for good reason.  They had no place in his ever-day life amid the noise and clatter of the mundane, the boring and the pointless.  There was only one of these moments in his past that he allowed to occasionally escape, and that was his father.  He loved his dad, still loved him, and for so long there was only the two of them.  His dad was too much a part of his life to be buried completely away.  He wasn’t Rick’s biological father.  But, that didn’t stop him from being the father Rick needed.
         Rick was adopted when he was a baby. He never knew his real parents, and never felt a need to. The mom and dad he knew were mom and dad enough.  But, his adopted mother died when he was very young of lung cancer, leaving a dad who was already growing old to look after a young boy.  Perhaps that’s why he was so fond of his dad.  Through all those tortuous years of growth, it was just the two of them and the old man stood his ground amid the worst of it.  They grew very close.  That’s why those memories had permission to pop out of the closet ever so often and rattle around in his mind.  But, the other memories didn’t have