Tag: Mountain Laurel

Mountain Laurel – Segment 6

Published on by Jan Sikes23 Comments

As we closed out our segment last week, Andy Roberts had a vision and a visit from his father telling him to get his ass back in the fancy car and go make some music. But, he’s also leaving the cabin with a priceless bit of information about his brother, Timmy. Let’s see what he does next.

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I pulled into a truck stop not far down the road.

truck stop

With a steaming cup of coffee in hand, I fished the yellowed paper out of my pocket, located a pay phone and dialed the number on the letterhead.

Pay Phone

“It’s a great morning here at the Blackmon Children’s Home,” a cheerful voice greeted me.

After I finished explaining who I was, I heard excitement on the other end of the line. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you called. We thought Timmy’s family was dead. He’s just about to turn eighteen, you know. He had an obsessive fascination with the banjo when he first came to stay with us, so we taught him to play. You should hear him. He’s nothing short of genius.”

I choked back tears and promised to be there within two hours. I told the kind lady I would be taking my brother home with me as soon as paperwork could be processed.

Just before I turned onto the highway, I rolled down the window, hung my head out and shouted, “I love you, Papa. Keep watching because I’m going to get this right!”

I thought about the fragrant blooming tree in front of the cabin and how Mama’s eyes shone the day Papa planted it. I began to write.

She is like a Mountain Laurel

A breath of pure fresh air

Her hair the scent of floral

Her eyes so bright and fair…

   THE END

I do hope you’ve enjoyed this short story. It won first place in a short story contest sponsored by the Texas Associaton of Authors in 2016.

It is part of a printed and eBook, “Short Stories By Texas Authors Vol 2.”

Tx_Shorts_Vol_2

If you’d like more information about The Texas Association of Authors visit the WEBSITE.

For more on this short story contest for 2019, click HERE 

Mountain Laurel – Segment 5

Published on by Jan Sikes22 Comments

As this story has progressed, we met Andy Roberts, who has made it big in the country music world of Nashville, but is tortured by demons and memories that won’t leave him alone. We first met him in a bar where a reporter was trying his best to get a feature story out of him and we left him last week at the remains of the cabin where he grew up and where so many memories, both good and bad still linger.

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The porch and most of the walls still stood, and the Mountain Laurel tree Papa had planted for Mama at the corner of the porch gave off a sweet tantalizing fragrance. It seemed to be the only thing left alive.

mountain laurel

 

Inside, I found decaying ruins inhabited by varmints. I took in the familiar rough-hewn board walls and kicked at a tin can that rolled across the dirt covered floor. A mouse streaked across the floor and into a hole.abandoned_Cabin

I sank down on my haunches and put my head in my hands. Somehow, I had to find a way to get past the guilt that gnawed at my insides like a rabid animal. Papa would be sorely disappointed. I’d been handed an opportunity that few people ever get in a lifetime. And yet, I was dead inside.

 

 

Papa’s flashing eyes and wide smile were in front of me. I could almost feel his breath on my face and hear him say, “Son, get my banjo. Let’s pick a little.”

banjo man

After some time, I got to my feet and poked around the house in the fading sunlight. A yellowed envelope tucked carefully away in Mama’s top dresser drawer caught my attention. The address showed Blackmon Children’s Home in Bowling Green, Ky. I carefully slipped the letter out of the envelope and my heart jolted. I never knew where they’d taken Timmy until now. I folded the letter and slid it into my pocket.

In the back corner of the kitchen pantry, I found Papa’s banjo covered with a thick layer of dust. I picked it up and wiped it off with the tail of my expensive silk shirt.

It wasn’t until minutes later I realized tears coursed down my cheeks. I tuned the rusty strings, picked out Papa’s favorite song and talked to him. I felt like a real person for the first time in many years. A man needs roots no matter if they’re only in his mind.

“I’m sorry, Papa. I let you down. I let Mama die and I let the welfare lady take Timmy”…the words poured out of me like water from a spigot. The louder I played, the louder my voice got until I was fairly shouting.

The room began to spin. My knees buckled and I went down with a thud.

When I opened my eyes, the room was pitch black. Where was I? I groaned and rolled over. I was going to be sick. I stumbled out onto the porch and let the whiskey spew from me. When had I eaten last? With knees like Jello and only pale moonlight to guide me, I made my way down the rickety porch steps to the Jag. With any luck, I’d find a package of crackers in the glove box.

 

I returned to sit on the porch with half a bottle of water and two crackers in hand. I knew I had to rid myself of this demon. I needed a sign, something to tell me Papa forgave me. I reached inside my pocket and felt the letter. It was too late for Mama, but maybe not too late to do something for Timmy.

I lost track of time as I sat cloaked in the darkness. A flash from the sky got my attention. A shooting star streaked across above me, followed by another and another.

shooting stars

I felt a familiar hand squeeze my shoulder. Was it really Papa’s voice, or did I imagine it? Then I heard his easy-rolling laughter when he told me to get my ass back in that fancy car and go make some music.

I stood, brushed the dirt off my clothes, retrieved Papa’s banjo, threw it in the back seat and turned the car around just as the sun peeked over the horizon.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mountain Laurel – Segment 4

Published on by Jan Sikes21 Comments

Last week when we left Andy Roberts and Lewis Washington in a Nashville bar, a voluptuous brunette had caught Andy’s eye and, we were just starting to hear the story of how Andy got to Nashville. I have a feeling this is going to be juicy. Of course, Andy is lost in his thoughts and sharing very little of this with the insistent reporter.

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The brunette managed to bump into me as she brushed past on her way to the ladies room. “Oh I’m so sorry,” she tittered.

I silently tipped my black Stetson and turned away.

“Pardon my French, Mr. Roberts, but what in the hell does a fifteen-year-old kid do in Nashville?”

A smile crossed my face as I remembered the lady who took me in off the streets. She was a beauty with flaming red hair and fourteen years my senior. But, she could sing. She was already a star, performing on the Grand Ol’ Opry and recording on Columbia Records. She would tell me I was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen and I’d blush.

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I raised my head and stared long and hard at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I never thought of a man as being pretty. My eyes weren’t violet like April’s, they were more of a blue-gray and I had a head of dark wavy hair.

cowboy black hat

I was tall and slender and she loved dressing me in expensive rhinestone suits. She was as fine a lady as had ever been born. She took me with her everywhere she went and introduced me to all of the Nashville players.

And at night, when the curtains fell and we were alone, she took me to her bed. She made me a man…a real man. She taught me how to please, exactly how to touch all the right places and what made a woman lose control. By the time I turned seventeen, I opened shows for her and warmed her bed when her husband was away.

Corinna South was on top of the world. She drank heavy, fought hard, loved harder and sang with all of her heart and soul. Then a car wreck took her from me and from the world. There would never be another Corinna South and I’d never give quite as much of myself to another woman.

Despite the thoughts that flooded my mind, I managed a civil reply to the insistent man. “I was lucky. Corinna South needed an opening act and I auditioned.”

After a long moment, I stood, threw some bills on the bar and headed for the door.

tip money

Lewis shouted after me. “But, I’m not done yet, Mr. Roberts. We’re just getting started.”

I waved at him over my shoulder and dug the keys to the Jaguar out of my pocket. Without a second thought or backward glance, I turned the car onto the highway and gunned it. I didn’t let off the gas until the speedometer hit one-hundred. When it slowed to ninety, I hit the cruise control.

It didn’t matter that I had a show to do twenty-four hours from now, or that a pretty blonde waited for me at my uptown Nashville apartment. I located a half-empty bottle of whiskey under the front seat. A quick twist of the lid and the amber liquid burned its way down my throat.

Jack Daniels Half Full

The sun was starting to slip behind the mountain when I turned down the rutted lane that led to the familiar miner’s shack. My Jag hit bottom as the tires slid into deep ruts. I maneuvered it the best I could and rolled to a stop in front of what was left of our cabin.

TO BE CONTINUED………

Mountain Laurel – Segment 3

Published on by Jan Sikes21 Comments

Andy Roberts is a singing star in Nashville, Tennessee. He is sitting in a bar drinking and wanting only solitude, but an insistent reporter keeps interrupting his thoughts. So far, we know that Andy Roberts isn’t his real name and we know he lost his father to a coal mining accident when he was a young boy. He has a little brother, Timmy, who is mentally disabled and a sister, April, who is beautiful with long dark hair and violet eyes. When his father died, his mother fell into a deep depression and stopped functioning for the family. Let’s check back in and see how things are going. When we left them, Andy was about ready to punch the reporter in the face for insisting that Andy tell him his real name.

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No kid should have to go through life as Norbert Angus. If I lived to be a hundred years old, I’d never understand what possessed Mama and Papa. At least, Papa had shortened it to Bert, but that wasn’t much better in my way of thinking.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted a voluptuous brunette who wiggled through the barroom door. For a split second our eyes met and she tugged at the fringed sequined tank top giving me an unobstructed view of her cleavage.

brunette

I sighed and looked away. It was all the same. The shows, the reporters, the whiskey, the women and worst of all, the memories…the memories that haunt me and won’t let me be.

The day the welfare lady returned to take Timmy was the one time I saw Mama show a spark of who she’d once been. She grabbed the lady’s dress screaming at the top of her lungs, fighting for her child. Timmy’s wails only added to the chaos. But, in the end, the welfare lady won and stuffed Timmy into the back seat of the Ford, spinning rocks and dirt as she took off.

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We never saw him again. Guilt and shame rolled over me in waves as I gripped the whiskey glass, finally setting it down before I shattered it. Here I am, a big Nashville singing star, and never once have I tried to find Timmy.

Not long after that horrible day, April married the first soldier that came along and moved to Toledo, leaving just Mama and me. The memory of Papa placing his hand on my shoulder a few days before he died, and making me promise to take care of Mama, April and Timmy if anything happened to him, stuck in the back of my throat now like a bitter quinine pill. I failed him. I failed myself and I failed Mama.

The awkwardness of those days that followed would be forever branded in my mind. The way Mama stared through dull eyes into nothingness, the way I made clumsy attempts to feed us and the way I longed to escape.

Within a few months, Mama took to the bed sick. She never got up again.

Just before my fourteenth birthday, I was an orphan, facing the world alone.

The reporter’s whine jarred me as he dove into his second beer. “I understand that you came from Kentucky, Mr. Roberts. How did you get all the way to Nashville?”

I pushed the memories aside and faced Lewis. “I walked.”

“Walked?” He scribbled furiously.

“Got a hearing problem, Lewis? After my mama died, I went to Toledo to live with my older sister and her husband. I was almost fifteen when I struck out for Nashville. All I had were the clothes on my back and a beat-up Harmony guitar.”

guitar on back

“That’s a hard walk.” He took a long draw from his mug.

“You have no idea.”

TO BE CONTINUED……….