Amber Read online

  The announcer was giving the news headlines for the day: “…earlier this week, the bodies of seven people were found at the swank Beverly Hills mansion of famous stylist Jay Sebring. One of the deceased was identified as actress Sharon Tate. The massacre has been attributed to a madman by the name of Charles Manson, who along with his cult of followers invaded the Sebring residence and—”

  Jimmy turned off the radio. “I’m in no mood for bad news. This weekend is going to be about finding peace, rock music, and new friends.

  “Too bad about Sharon Tate, though.” I said. “She was a hot chick.”

  Jimmy only nodded his reply.

  With the sound of the wind whipping past my ears, I found it easy to relax, lean back in my chair, and enjoy the rumble of the Mustang’s high-powered V-8 engine.

  When we reached Oklahoma City, the blazing hot August sun hung slightly westward of high-center. It was 1:30 pm and time for more gas. Jimmy spotted a Love’s Travel Stop, country store and filling station combination.

  Getting out of the car was excruciating. It felt like my legs had forgotten how to walk. I stretched and reached for my toes. Even Jimmy stood twisting his torso, hoping to pop his back. Roger shook one leg, then the other, and complained about the pain. After re-awaking our limbs, we casually walked into the convenience store. Only to be stopped by the attendant’s raucous yell, “Hey, dipshit. Can’t you read?”

  “What?” Startled, I stepped back. There on the door hung a sign: No shirt, no shoes, no service.

  I looked up at Jimmy and said, “I’ll go back to the car and wait for you guys. I don’t have one.”

  Jimmy went to the trunk of his car and pulled a wrinkled, western shirt with pearl snaps for buttons from a gym bag. “Here, put this on. It doesn’t smell the best in the world, but it’s a shirt.”

  He was right. It smelled like dirty socks, and of course, it swallowed me. Jimmy must have worn an extra-large, and my swimmer’s shoulders did well to fill out a medium. “Thanks, Jimmy,” was all I could come up with. I left the front unsnapped and let the breeze blow it like a cape with sleeves.

  I strutted into the store with the stench of unwashed gym clothes hovering around me like an unseen fog. The attendant looked up and complained, “Your chest is still showing—”

  Before he could finish his statement, I retorted, “The sign says I have to have a shirt on. It doesn’t say how I have to wear it.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “Okay, just make it quick and get out.”

  I defiantly swaggered right by the register’s counter on my way to the junk food aisle.

  He glanced at me and then glanced again. He yelled louder than necessary, “Hey kid, what’s wrong with your eyes? You wearing contacts or something?”

  I huffed in his direction and didn’t answer him.

  After perusing the shelves full of junk food, we bought hot dogs, chips, a US map, and a case of bottled Cokes. We hadn’t mentioned food since we left, and all three of us were hungry. The cashier rang up our purchases and remarked to Jimmy, “How d’you get stuck babysitting?”

  We glared at the clerk. Jimmy casually remarked, “Somebody’s gotta do it,” and we headed to the car.

  I fumed, “What an asshole.” As I talked, my stride transformed into stomping.

  “He’s a shithead,” Roger exclaimed. “Ignore him.”

  “Don’t get mad at him. It’s my fault he said that,” Jimmy exclaimed.

  Roger put his hand out and stopped Jimmy in his tracks. “What do you mean, it’s your fault?” He turned and waved his middle finger at the store windows. “The guy is a jerk and none of it’s your fault.”

  “No,” Jimmy shook his head and focused on his shoelaces. “It’s because I look like this. I didn’t choose to look like a grown-up at thirteen. You have no idea what kind of problems it causes.”

  “Man, if I could look like you, my life would be so much better.” My hidden jealousy finally revealed.

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Jimmy bit his lower lip before continuing. “People expect me to be smarter because I look older,” he sighed. “I get told all the time, I should know better, about things I don’t understand. Even my old man does it to me.”

  Words stuck in my throat, not knowing what to say. All I could think of to reply to his self-effacing outburst was, “I never thought about it, but I can see how it would be a problem.”

  I actually didn’t understand what he was talking about, but it obviously had been an ongoing difficulty he dealt with, so I agreed with him and went on. I tied the shirt to the radio antenna in hopes it would air-out some of the odor. We sat on the car gulping down the dogs and chips in the parking lot where Jimmy’s Mustang and a 1963 Impala shared company. When Jimmy and I were ready to go, we couldn’t find Roger.

  “You don’t think he got homesick and is running back home to mama do ya?” Jimmy asked.

  “He seemed to be all gung-ho to get to Woodstock. I have no clue where he went.”

  Without warning, Roger’s voice startled us from behind, “What the hell are you guys waiting for? Get in the car.” He was holding something under his shirt and running from the direction of the Impala.

  We looked puzzled but didn’t question Roger’s orders. We hopped in the car and again took Route 66, heading northeast. Jimmy drove, and I navigated. Twisting in my seat, I faced Roger, who reached under his shirt and pulled out a set of Oklahoma license plates.

  “You stole the plates off of shithead’s car,” I barked. “How?”

  Roger held up his multi-bladed Boy Scout knife. “Never be unprepared,” he tapped Jimmy on the shoulder. “Pull over and let’s get these on the Mustang.”

  “Why?” Jimmy sounded less than thrilled about putting stolen plates on his car.

  “If our parents send the cops after us, they’ll be looking for a Mustang with your plates.”

  Jimmy looked over at me for approval. “It’s true, they will.” I agreed.

  “Okay, but hurry,” Jimmy grumbled. “We’re wasting daylight.”

  Switching out the plates was no problem for Roger. Stealing them with only a multi-bladed pocketknife showed a slick and speedy dexterity I didn’t know he possessed. With Oklahoma license plates installed, we pushed on toward Tulsa.

  Navigating was easy as long as we stayed on Route 66, but sometime around 5:00 pm, Dugan snatched the map from me and gave it to Roger.

  “You better get some sleep,” Jimmy told me. “You have to drive after dark. I don’t want to wreck into a tree because you fell asleep at the wheel.”

  I shivered. I wasn’t sure I could fake this one, but our chances of survival would be far better if I did what I was told. Without complaint, I laid the bucket seat as far back as it would go and tried to rest. I managed about an hour of sleep until—I had to pee. Jimmy drove on relentlessly, not stopping when I begged him to. He said if he stopped at every town and every fence post, we wouldn’t get there in time. When I told him I was going to pee on the floorboard, he handed me a coke bottle. I was desperate. So, without hesitation, I filled it and flung it out of the window beyond the gravel shoulder beside the road.

  “Hey, you have a good arm.” Jimmy’s compliment sounded sincere. “You need to try out for the football team. I bet you could qualify for one of the quarterbacks.”

  I grinned, and for the first time in my life, I seriously considered signing up for competitive athletics. “Maybe.” Smugness tinged my curled lip. “Maybe I will.”

  In a whiny voice from the backseat, Roger spoke up. “I suppose it’s useless to ask you to stop.”

  Jimmy gave him his infamous JD glare and handed him an empty bottle.

  “Okay, I did it.” Roger grimaced and shoved the yellow tinted bottle at me.

  “I’m not touching your damned bottle,” I declared. “You’ll have to throw it out yourself.”

  “I can’t reach that far.” Roger complained, “You do it.”

  “Not in this lifetime. Do your own dirty w
ork.” I leaned forward, and he got his right arm out the window. He awkwardly flung it, piss spewing everywhere.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Roger wailed. “Now I have a piss hand.”

  Jimmy and I almost died laughing. “Hold it out the window till it dries,” Jimmy advised.

  “Shit, it’ll still stink,” Roger complained. “It’s Arland’s fault—I could wipe it on his back.”

  “You do and you’ll regret it,” I warned. “You can’t blame this on me. I didn’t spill piss on your hand.”

  Jimmy grinned and glanced back at him. “You can’t tell me that was the first time you ever got piss on your hand.” In a gentle growl, he added, “Shut up and get over it.” It was the same tone he used when he bullied us at school.

  Roger started to say something else before he glimpsed Jimmy’s stare bearing down on him in the rearview mirror. He bit his lip, ducked his head, and obeyed.

  Before I went to sleep, I looked back to see Roger using the map for a towel. I smiled and drifted off into dreamland. I awoke to Jimmy shaking my shoulder. He had pulled into a truck stop a few miles south of Joplin, Missouri. The last rays of evening sunlight illuminated Jimmy’s face. It drew attention to the short scruff he called his five o’clock shadow.

  “I’ve already got gas. Roger went inside while the attendant pumped it. He said he was hungry and couldn’t wait on us.” Jimmy shook me again, “You awake?”

  “Yeah, I’m awake.”

  “You might want to use the facilities and get a bite too.”

  I threw open the door and pulled my skinny frame out of the car, stretched, and shook my legs. “I had a crazy dream about my parents. They were talking about me.”

  “Arland, you feeling guilty about taking off?”

  “No, I wasn’t even in the dream. It was like I watched from somewhere above them, you know how dreams are.” I leaned against the car’s fender and rubbed my face with the palms of my hands.

  “Sounds freaky. You have weird dreams very often?” Jimmy lit up a Doral.

  “No. I don’t remember ever having a dream I wasn’t in.”

  Jimmy sat over the Mustang’s left headlight. “Tell me about it before you forget it. I always forget my dreams minutes after I wake up.”

  “You don’t want to hear about my stupid dream.”

  “Sure I do. I told you stuff today I’ve never told anybody before. You can tell me.”

  “Well, the dream began with my parents sitting in our family dining room. Mom had a Yankee-style pot roast on the table. For a while, they just sat there, staring at their empty plates. Then they accused one another for the emptiness of the extra chair at the table—my chair.

  “My dad yelled, ‘You should have known something was wrong.’

  “‘How?’ Mom yelled back. ‘I’m not my Aunt Hattie. She’s the one with the gift.’

  “Dad got quieter and said, ‘I don’t know why you call it a gift. It never brought her anything but heartache. Drove her to kill herself, that gift of hers. We should have told him about it before now.’

  “‘He doesn’t know anything about Hattie’s gift or his.’ Mom was still yelling. ‘He thinks he’s some kind of outsider, like he doesn’t belong—a freak.’

  “‘What did you expect?’ Dad started shouting again.

  “Then Mom started talking crazy like, ‘There’s never been a boy born with the gift. Not in all my family. When the doctor announced, it was a boy, I felt relieved. Then I saw his eyes.’

  “While she forked pot roast onto Dad’s plate, he said, ‘That doesn’t mean he has it.’ Dad calmly began cutting up the meat. ‘After all, it’s like you say, boys don’t inherit the gift. He hasn’t ever acted anything like Aunt Hattie did.’

  “It’s when I knew for sure they were talking about me because mom said, ‘If he has the amber eyes then he has the gift. I know he has—he must.’

  “Anyway, you woke me up then. I told you it was a crazy dream.”

  “Pretty odd, that’s for sure,” Jimmy laughed it off. “You awake now?”

  “Yeah, I’m awake.” I started walking toward the truck stop.

  “Good, because you’re going to have to drive while I get some sleep.”

  My eyes flew open—wide. I swallowed hard and replied, “Sure. No problem.” All the while Roger’s favorite word repeated over and over in my head. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

  Chapter Three

  The Diner

  While we talked in front of the truck stop, I untied the western shirt from the antennae and put it on. This time I fastened a couple of the top pearl snaps. Above us, the colors of amber and rose brilliantly glowed across the sky as the sunset on the horizon. To be honest, the sky appeared to be ablaze, the very heavens on fire. Too quickly, the colors dimmed and a dusky haze overtook the brightness of the day. I felt a sadness watching the golden orb finally rest beyond my view; it was God replacing the radiant day with the heaviness of night.

  The neon sign over the glass doors of the truck stop blinked Open…Open…Open. I pulled the door handle and something moved at the edge of my vision. The shadow I called Mr. Dark streaked past me, darting through the door the moment I opened it. A split second of stunned apprehension caused me to release the door handle and step back.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jimmy sneered before inspecting the ground for what caused my reaction. “You didn’t see a snake, did you? I hate snakes!”

  “No. I just caught hold of the door wrong and it felt sharp,” I lied.

  “They need to fix that. Somebody could get hurt.”

  Out of the blue, my nose started itching. I reached up and gave it a good rubbing. “Do you smell roses? I smell roses.”

  “Man, look around, this is a parking lot. There’s not a rose bush anywhere around here. Your smeller’s broken,” he laughed. “I’ll be happy to knock the shit out of it and make it work better. You know, like a stuck vending machine.”

  “No…no, but thanks for the offer—I think.” It was one of those times when a guy had to lie to save face. Literally, save his face from being pounded by Dugan’s massive fists. “I don’t smell it anymore. My mom bought some crap lotion and I must still have some on my hands.”

  “Okay, but the offer is good anytime you need it.” A gregarious grin grew across his face. “I mean, what are friends for—right?”

  I opened the glass door, and he stepped past me. We headed straight toward the sign above a petitioned doorway marked Trucker’s Pit Stop, a fancy name for the restrooms. On one side it had a stick figure of a woman and on the other, a man. We were in the right place; it was time to do the kind of business we couldn’t fit into coke bottles.

  I exited the restroom before Jimmy and loitered by the door waiting on him. Finally, he came out wringing his hands and smelling them. “Nice smelling soap,” he commented.

  I leaned close and whispered, “Jimmy, never leave a restroom smelling of your hands.”

  “Why the hell not? Here you smell. It’s some flowery stuff, lavender, I think.”

  I retorted, “Hell no, I’m not smelling your hands.” He put his hand on my face. Dugan was just being Dugan, and there was nothing I could do about it. I pushed his monstrous mitt away. “Never mind. Let’s find Roger.”

  With that, we headed for the truck stop café. We walked through an arch with a sign: The Watering Hole. I scanned down the row of booths—no Roger. Across from the booths stood a long bar and beneath it, stools affixed to the floor. A large number of truckers occupied the row of stools. A hand popped up halfway down the line and Roger leaned back so we could see him.

  Only one seat was available by the redheaded Roger. Consulting no one, I bravely plopped down on the padded stool. Jimmy stood behind me, one of his massive hands weighed heavy on my shoulder to remind me I hadn’t first offered him the spot.

  I swung my feet under the bar and took a menu from the clip attached to a napkin dispenser. The diner had all the charm of a well-worn 1940s era hot spot. The
bar’s long stretch of depression-green linoleum was dotted with worn scars, one in front of each stool; memorable marks made by servers sliding plate after plate across the scuffed surface. The thought hit me. Places like this had history and its share of ghosts. In the middle of August, surrounded by sweaty truckers, I shivered. Holding the menu and staring, I tried to focus, but deep inside a sadness distracted me.

  “The hamburgers are great,” Roger enunciated through a mouth full of burger. “The waitress will be back in a minute.” He sucked a gulp of soda from his straw and swallowed. “Rose said for you guys to decide what you want. She took a takeout order to the parking lot. A regular customer is out there waiting for his supper.”

  “Rose? Who’s Rose?” Jimmy asked. I could feel his stare on the back of my neck.

  “She’s the waitress, and real choice too.” He put his hand under his shirt and thumped his chest, making it appear as if his heart was beating through his shirt. “Guys, I think I’m in love.”

  A teenage girl in a broomstick skirt and a peasant blouse pulled low across her shoulders stepped behind the counter and headed our way. Little flowers decorated her winding braids, and a dozen beaded necklaces dangled around her neck. On her nose sat round wire-framed glasses with quarter-sized pink lenses. I knew when Roger said she was choice, he meant she was a looker, and he was right. She had something innocently attractive about how her tiny ceramic beads hung half in and out of the top of her blouse.

  Roger informed us, “That’s Rose.” He suddenly stopped chewing and his eyes fell half-shut—zombified by hormones.

  I recognized his hormone-fueled expression, and I had no intention of watching Roger make a fool of himself by boyishly flirting and telling her juvenile jokes. I swung around and looked up at Jimmy. “Let’s get the booth behind us. There’s not enough room up here.”