Page 8 of Possibly Texas

“I guess I’ve eaten a lot.”

Jack wrote one more note.

Need help with your bags?

“Nah,” I said once I’d read the block letters. “I dragged them all the way from the highway and into town. I can carry them up a few flights of stairs. Is there food?”

Jack didn’t lift his notepad or write anything. He waited for me to grab my bags and turn to the stairs again, then he gave me a nod. He motioned to the top of the house and my bags, then gestured that I should come back downstairs. Apparently, once I got my bags up to my old room—and by “old,” I mean a room I didn’t even really remember ever sleeping in—Jack meant for me to come downstairs for lunch.

As I ascended the steps into the house, Jack stepped to the side and reached out to hold the screen open for me. I squeezed past him into the cool darkness of the house. Air conditioning immediately hit my sweat dappled skin and I felt cooler immediately, as though icicles were prickling along all of my exposed skin. Jack closed the screen and latched it, then the door, while I waited just inside the house in the dark living room.

“Keep most of the lights off to save electricity?” I was only teasing a little.

Jack turned away from the door to give me a shrug. The kitchen light was on—obviously so he could see well enough to make lunch—and a single lamp was lit on an end table at the end of the sofa in the living room.

Jack’s house wasn’t extravagant, but it had a middle-American charm to it. Plain tile in the kitchen to the left, tan carpet in the living room. Plaid couch, recliner, flatscreen T.V. that was probably a little too big for the room. Unassuming and functional drapes to block out the hot Texas summer sun. A kitchen table that looked like it had been bought from a diner that was going out of business—with chairs to match. Dark woods that would have looked better in a different decade.

The house was three stories altogether, from what I could remember. First story—the one we were on—was the living room, kitchen, half-bath, and screened in porch off of the back of the house. The second story was two bedrooms and a full bathroom. Then there was the third floor—where my old bedroom was, nestled into what was almost an attic, with an attached three-quarter bathroom. Toilet, pedestal sink, cubicle shower. Just enough for a teenage guy to get by.

Everything was impeccably clean, though, which said a lot for a virtually single man living on his own in a rural town like Possibly. Jack was dressed and groomed well, his house looked clean enough to eat off of the floor, and he had air conditioning. The guy seemed to have his life together for the most part. From the smell coming from the kitchen off to the left, it seemed he knew how to cook well enough to get by as well. Maybe staying with him for a while wouldn’t be so bad?

Jack reached out and tapped me on the shoulder. I had been too busy looking around, refamiliarizing myself with the house to even remember he was there. He gestured upwards when I turned to look at him, repeating his instructions to put my bags up before lunch.

“All right,” I said. “Uh, third floor, right?”

Jack nodded.

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll be right back. Uh, the food smells good.”

Another nod from Jack and then he was heading into the kitchen. I made my way to the stairs at the back of the living room, and headed upstairs, my two suitcases bouncing on the stairs behind me with each step up. I could hear Jack banging around in the kitchen when I got to the second floor. Though I wasn’t sure where the memory came from, I felt that the second-floor hallway smelled the same as I remembered. Something like Pine Sol and…wood? I stood at the landing to the second floor for a moment, breathing deeply and looking around.

At the end of the hall was where my mom’s and Jack’s bedroom was. The bathroom was just outside of the door and to the right. Carpet lined the hallway and it looked to have been vacuumed recently. Curtains had been drawn in the second floor as well to help keep out some of the heat so that the air conditioner would be more efficient. Though it wasn’t quite as cool on the second floor of the house, it was still much nicer than it had been outside. My sweat was already drying up and I felt a lot less lightheaded as I looked around the house.

As I ascended the stairs up to the third floor, I could immediately tell that I wouldn’t want to spend time in my room during hot days if I could avoid it. Though it wasn’t oppressive, it was still much warmer on the top floor than it had been on the first and second stories of the house. When I pushed through the door at the top of the stairs, I realized that Jack had not come into the bedroom to close the drapes in the room. I let my bags stand by the door and stripped off my backpack, letting it rest atop the suitcases.

Across the room from the door was a double bed, nestled perfectly in an alcove—the wall on either side making the headboard and footboard of the bed—with a dormer window above it. Summer light was pouring through the glass, turning the room into a greenhouse. I found the light switch by the door and flipped it on, then went over and quickly pulled the drapes shut across the window. I had to crawl up onto the bed and perch on my knees to reach the drapes, but I finally got them shut, effectively blocking out the sun. Even with the overhead light on in the room—all bare board walls and wooden rafters with wooden slat floorboards—the room was dark without the natural light.

I scootched around on my knees on the bed and plopped down on the edge, glad to let my feet have a rest finally. A quick glance around let me know that other than needing a good dusting and sweeping, the room had been kept fairly clean. The bedding might need to be laundered, since I wasn’t sure how often Jack cleaned the sheets in an unused attic room, but it looked good enough for my first night’s sleep in the house.

Along the wall to my left was the old desk Jack had dragged up to the room for me when I was a small child. If the memories suddenly flooding my brain were, in fact, true. Something I could use to play with my action figures or use to draw and color. On the other side of the room was a squat bookshelf which still contained books for a kid much younger than sixteen years old. In the corner next to the bookcase was a chair that maybe one of my buttcheeks would fit into if I tried.

I’ll have to see if I can bring a different chair up here.

I bounced off of the bed and kicked my shoes off, leaving them in the middle of the floor. My socks felt wet when the cooler, inside air hit them. Of course, I had probably sweated a gallon—a lot of it from my feet—so that was probably the reason. I padded across the wooden floorboards to the backpack atop my suitcases and unzipped the front pocket. The cell phone I extracted was nothing new or fancy, but it worked. Well, it worked when it was charged. One glance and a tap of the screen let me know it had died sometime between leaving the motel that morning and arriving at Jack’s house.

I dug around in my backpack for the charger, and with the phone and cord in my hand, I searched the walls for an outlet. Finally finding a socket beside the desk, I plugged in the charger and connected my phone, then laid the device on the desktop. It would have plenty of time to juice up while I had some lunch. Maybe by the time my belly was full and I had cooled down, I would be able to text Mom and let her know I got to Jack’s okay—and that he had actually let me in the house even though she hadn’t called him in advance like she said.

All thoughts of what had or hadn’t been done got pushed out of my head when I felt my stomach grumble again. Even two floors away, my nose picked up the scent of the food Jack had been cooking when I arrived.

Leaving all of my belongings behind—which I never did on the road, but I felt safe to do at Jack’s house—I ventured out of my room once again, slapping the light switch off as I went. The smell of the food seemed to be searching me out, filling my nose and beckoning me downstairs with each step I took on the stairs. The banging around I heard on my way upstairs was gone and I could hear Jack shuffling around in the kitchen, finishing up lunch. When I got downstairs and made my way through the living room into the kitchen, I found Jack getting a couple of bowls out of the kitchen cabinet. A large serving bowl full of…something…was sitting on the table.

When Jack closed the cabinet and turned, his eyes landed on me and he nodded. He pointed at the kitchen table and then at the living room. Then he shrugged.

“Uh,” I said, “we can eat wherever you want. I’m used to eating in the passenger seat of Mom’s car or on a motel bed most of the time, so either choice will be downright fancy.”

Jack grinned and his face contorted like he had tried to laugh. I just smiled. Finally, he motioned at the table and indicated I should have a seat. So, I slid into the closest chair and waited. While Jack began ladling something out of a pot on the stove into the bowls, I leaned over and peered into the serving bowl on the table. Sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, and purple onions with some type of vinegary dressing. It looked refreshing. And healthier than anything else I’d eaten in a long time.

Jack finished filling the bowls with the ladle and made his way over to the table. He set a bowl in the spot across from me and then put one in front of me. He padded back over to the cabinets and retrieved the paper towel roll and a couple of spoons, then grabbed his notepad and pen. When he finally slid into the seat across from me, I looked down and confirmed that chili was what he had cooked for lunch. However, it looked homemade. Lots of kidney beans, black beans, tomatoes, and peppers. Big hunks of meat. My stomach grumbled again.