Rick Carter's First Big Adventure (Pete's Barbecue Book 1) (2 page)

      The boy grabbed the door handle, pushed the heavy door open and bolted out of the back seat.   No, no, no, Rick thought as his hand instinctively reached for the cold plastic handle of the air pistol he kept tucked by his driver’s seat.  His other hand pushed the power window button while his right firmly gripped the pistol and brought it up.  He could see the young man running for all he was worth, but Rick’s reflexes and his temper were faster.  He aimed and pulled the trigger in one motion.  The metal BB hit its mark on the young man’s right butt cheek, and he squealed in pain, reaching back and twisting as he ran.  The sudden reaction threw him off balance, and he fell forward into a light post smacking it with a solid thud and rebounding onto his wounded rear-end. He sat there on the broken sidewalk dazed for a moment looking back at Rick, who was still pointing the pistol out of the window.  Then he quickly jumped up, holding onto his butt cheek and hobbled off into the night.  Another fare jumper had dared to pull their craft on one of the only taxi drivers in Tampa armed with a Model 234 Smithson Super-action BB pistol with faux pearl grips and hair trigger, courtesy the local Wal-Mart for $49.56.   This wasn’t Rick’s first rodeo.

       He pulled away from the 24-hour store with a feeling of dejection mixed with anger and frustration. His depleted funds were no nearer replenishment then before, and the feeling of exhilaration he had when he first heard the fare’s destination was replaced with a sinking feeling of time ill spent.  Now, it was back to square one and hoping that dispatch would give him something worthwhile to make up for it.   Fortunately, his hopes were rewarded with the electronic ping of his radio that indicated another fare was available.  He looked at the address on the readout and decided to put in his bid.   It wasn’t a grand fare, maybe $15-$20, but it was better than nothing.  Maybe his night would start to look up.  Maybe the fares would get better.  Ahh, he thought, there was that old optimism slowly starting to creep back.  It was like a little turtle once frightened into its shell but ever so gently recovering and poking its head back out into the world…right before a large gator pops up and snaps its little head right off in one bite.

     Rick drove the short distance to the address, a small strip bar where the business types and the suits spent their hard earned dollars knocking back rum and colas or tequila shots while the ladies plied their dancing skills.  Rick was familiar with the bouncers that stood guard over the front door like giant golems protecting the gates of Hades.  They knew him by name and for every customer he brought their way he got a $15 kickback.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t a customer on his way to the bar but one who had already drunk his fill and was on his way to his hotel room to sleep it off.   It wasn’t the type of fare Rick enjoyed because it usually meant a lot of baby sitting and patience as the wildly inebriated fumbled with wallets and words and tried not to throw up in his back seat or pass out.  But, it was a large part of his nightly business, and that meant bread and butter.   When the thirty-something man with the well-tailored suit popped into his back seat, Rick was pleased to see that he wasn’t falling down drunk.  He was well on his way to tipsy but not sloppy and baked.   And even better, this one was talkative.  He looked back by his rearview mirror.

      “Okay, bud, where to?”  He said cheerily, giving no hint of his recent shooting spree with a BB air pistol.

      The man looked at him with a slightly skewed smile on his face.  “Beaumont Circle, the Hilton- Martrice, please,”   He said as he fell back into the vinyl seat.

      Rick drove off, pleased at this new turn of events.   He decided to take advantage of the new fare to do what he enjoyed the most with the job: talk.  “So, you in town on business?”

     The man looked unsteadily at the back of Rick’s head.  “Yeah.  Here for Paul Blaylock’s PR&G group.  I do their media work.”

     “PR&G?  I’m not familiar with that.”  Rick stepped fully into the small talk arena.

      “It’s a paranormal research and guidance group.” He stumbled slightly on the‘s’s.  “I just do their public relations stuff.”  He looked back out the window where the street was going by.

      Rick was amused.  “Paranormal Research?  Seriously?”

      “Yeah.”  The man lightly chuckled.  “I know.  I know.”  He said.

      “Well, sounds interesting.”  Rick tried to keep the talk going.

      “Just a bunch of nut balls and kooks but really rich nut balls and kooks and they pay well.”  The man affirmed his smile wavering and then returning.  “You ever hear of Paul Blaylock?”

       “Isn’t he that guy on channel 168?  The one always going on about some conspiracy?”  Rick realized he knew more about this then he thought or might have wanted.

       “Yeah!”  The man’s waning attention snapped back.  “That’s the guy.  He’s the owner of the company.  They do all sorts of studies on paranormal stuff.”  He exaggerated the pronunciation of the last words in a mocking tone.  “They’re alright for the most part, although some of them are like Roswell out there.   He has teams of researcher all over the globe tracking down crazy junk.  Man, they sure do come up with some wild crap.  Most of it I wouldn’t give you two cents for, but there is this one guy, name’s Marcus or Mel or Major or something.  I can’t remember.  But, anyway, the stuff he comes back with sometimes has some legs to it.  I just got back from this one trip to LA where we were wrapping up some contracts with studio execs and I got to sit in on some of the dailies the production boys were piecing together for his show, and it was all about this guy and his theory about trans-reality something or the other and traveling through pockets in space.  He’s even got the science to back it up and claims to have pictures and documents.  I don’t know.  He’s about the only one of the crazies with anything interesting.”  The man lapsed into an awkward silence, and Rick checked the mirror again to see if he was okay.  He was just lazily staring out the window rocking to the gentle swaying of the big Crown Vic.

      “So, um are you from around Florida?”  He asked in an attempt to keep the failing conversation alive.

      The man looked forward again.  “Nah, I’m from Mississippi.  How about you?”

      Rick looked surprised.  “Funny you should mention it, but I’m from there too.  Well, that’s where I grew up anyways.”  He said lightly, pleased that they had found a common point of interest to discuss.

     “Really?”  The man once again produced his unsteady smile.  “Where from?”

     “A little ole place named William’s Landing, cotton capital of the world,”  Rick added with amusement.

     “I’ve heard of it.  I’m from the coast, near Gulfport.  Say, you been here in Florida long?”  The man’s interest kept his compromised attention span on the subject.

      “I’ve been here about twenty years now.  I moved down after my dad died.”  Rick volunteered.

        “Wow, you like it that much huh?  You been driving the cab that long?”  He asked. 

       It was Rick’s turn to lightly chuckle. “No, I can’t say I like it all that much.  I’ve been driving for about fifteen years, though.”

       “For someone who doesn’t like it all that much you sure been here a while.  You like driving the cab?”  The man steadied himself and hiccupped.

       “It pays the bills, you know?  I work for myself.  I contract the cab, and I set my own hours.  And I get to meet some interesting people.”  Rick’s mind flashed with a dozen images of past regrets in his cab but he tucked them back and pretended they didn’t exist.

      “Sounds like you got some freedom, guy.  I like that.  This corporate stuff has its moments but you’re always on their clock, you 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 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.