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

that same permission.  The ones about his childhood friends were the ones locked away for good reason.  And now he had just so casually and flippantly allowed them to roll out of their lock down like a four alarm prison riot.  He dismissed them to his half-drunk fare a few minutes earlier as if they were of little consequence. But, that was misleading and grossly understated.  There were some disturbing memories there, and they all revolved around Mel and Roger.  He shook his head and tried to force them back into solitary confinement.
         He turned left onto Belcher Street.  There was very little traffic on the street, and the lights were mostly green so he could cruise a little and try to forget again.  There was a lot of time on the job to forget, sometimes too much.  A 42-year-old unmarried man with a span of years in his past that consisted of things he would rather forget, had no business contemplating anything other then what’s for dinner and how much money he had.  But, that wasn’t the real world and, unfortunately, that wasn’t how Rick’s mind tended to work either, especially once the dogs were out and barked too loud to ignore.  Sometimes these moments took him by surprise.  At least this time, he saw it coming.  Mel and Roger were loose in his memory now, and they weren’t going to go quietly back in their cages.  He could see their faces in his mind with such clarity that he could have described their likeness to a sketch artist to within a fraction of accuracy. The memories were like yesterday, not moldy and distorted by the more than 20 years that had flowed under the bridge of forgetfulness.  At least, that was the last time he saw Roger.  For Mel, it was longer, nearly 26 years since he mysteriously disappeared.  Rick was stunned by the thought that so much time had passed. No, impossible, he thought, has it been that long?  Mel’s been missing for 26 years?   Apparently he was better at forgetting than he thought, at least on most nights.
          The year was 1984.  Roger Parcel, Melvin Thibadeaux, and Rick Carter were all sixteen years old, living in William’s Landing and causing as much havoc and destruction as the law would allow, provided the law knew about it.  They had practically grown up together, since the 2nd grade, and had attended the same grade school and high school together and drove the same teachers mad with frustration and anger together.  By 1984 they were inseparable.  Despite all the bickering, the petty fights, and jealousies, they hung together.  Maybe this was because they were so much alike.  Sure, each one had his personality, and each one was caught up in the throes of being sixteen and knocking on the door of adulthood but that’s how young men are.  Their friendship was solid now, despite the raging hormones and the raging egos.  It had been bonded by countless summers of running through the nearby woods and finding things to experiment on and trying to make gunpowder, among other things it’s just best not to discuss.  They were the non-jocks, the non-geeks, the non-caring.  They had their agenda, and they pursued it happily and ignorantly from the rest of the world.
         Rick lived with his dad, Mel with his aunt and Roger with his two parents and sister all in separate areas of the small town and its tiny suburbs.  Roger was the one who lived the furthest out of town, out in the woods sort-of-speak, on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.  Roger’s house was where they most often gathered and held court.  It afforded them multiple opportunities at mischief and intrigue, and they never failed to disappoint by not getting into very deep trouble doing something they were told not to do.  But it was never serious enough to worry anyone, at least, the stuff the grown-ups knew about. But, all of that changed in 1984, the year Mel went missing. 
           Rick still had no clue how it happened or even what happened.