Bound for the Bayou: A Short Story
Backstory
In a longer work of fiction, there is generally a premise, an execution, and a resolution. There is an answer to a question. In a short story, there are often times more questions than answers. This is one of those!
Bound for the Bayou
I decided to make a road trip with one of my sons. We were traveling from Nashville to Houston. I chose to drop down I-65 and then roll around I-10 through Louisiana. I thought it might be scenic and my son and I would have some time together.
The wheels of the car clattered every few seconds as we drove along the concrete causeway above the water. We’d been on I-10 for quite some time, and the Spanish moss and the swamp seemed to go on forever.
Seeing a sign for a gas station on a filament of dry land, I turned the car toward it and hoped for the best. The “love bugs” had been so thick the last few miles that the windshield was caked and I could barely see. This hardly bothered my son in the back seat, as he was totally engrossed in a video game.
I pulled into the gas station and began to clean all the bugs from the windshield. They were very thick and crusted over. I was unsuccessful in getting many of them off.
Going inside, I told the attendant, “I must have hit every bug in Louisiana.”
The attendant smiled and replied, “No, dey got lots of cousins.”
After asking me where we are going, the attendant suggested I take a shortcut to get away from the water along I-10. I readily agreed.
I’m an engineer and I’m checking on some work on a building I assisted on the design outside of Houston. I considered myself a reasonable and logical man. A short cut sounded wonderful, anything to get away from the bugs. I had thought my son and I could have some good conversation, but so far all he’d done was sit in the backseat and play video games.
Once onto the shortcut, all seemed well, but then the car started to clatter. I asked my son to turn down the video game so I could hear more clearly. There was no need to turn on the radio as the sound couldn’t compete with the video noise. Definitely hearing something I decided to pull over to the side of the road and call Triple A. Reaching for the cell phone, I had a weak signal and couldn’t get the call to go through. I was trying to decide how much further I might go before doing significant damage or locking up the motor or transmission. My son was still engrossed in his game. Looking up, I saw we were parked in front of a large colonial plantation house. It was nearly hidden behind a massive clump of old oak trees. I decided to see if I could get some help. I told my son to stay in the car. As I approached the house I saw it was in some need of repair, paint, and attention. Spanish moss hung from the trees and danced about on a light breeze. As I moved through the yard, I suddenly felt as though I was being watched.
Just as I was about to decide that perhaps this wasn’t a good idea, a man appeared beside me. I did not see where he came from. He was middle-aged but appeared slightly younger than me, although there was something about him that seemed quite old. We began to talk.
“Hello,” I said.
He nodded while looking me over.
“Would you happen to have a telephone where I might call for roadside assistance? I can’t get a signal on my cell phone.” I told him.
He looked at me strangely and shook his head.
“We’ll be happy to help, but probably not in the way you think,” he replied.
I noticed the “we” and as I looked around I asked, “We?”
“My family and I,” replied the man. “I’ve been here continuously since 1937.”
I looked at him again and noticed that neither his face nor his clothes looked very old.
“You don’t look old enough,” I answered, “and you have on a pair of Khakis and a polo shirt. Those aren’t old.”
He rubbed his hands over the clothes, “Yeah, I got these back in the 1970s, they haven’t changed much. There was a young fellow passing through and I got them from him. He had a 1970 Charger. It’s over there in the barn,” he pointed toward the back of the house, “along with my 1937 Ford V8 convertible. That was a sweet car, plus all the others.”
Once again something he said made me very nervous, “All the others, and the young man, and the clothes?”
I rubbed my hands across my clothes. “We’re different sizes, so I don’t guess I have any clothes that would fit you,” I stammered and tried to laugh.
The old man looked at me with a deadpan smile, “It doesn’t matter.” He took a step. “Do you want to walk over there to the barn?” he asked.
He was making me really nervous now and scaring me a bit. I stuttered, “Really, I guess I’d better go.”
“How can you?” He replied, “I thought you had car trouble?”
I gulped, grinned, and glanced over to my car. “I’ll take another look. Maybe we can make it a little further down the road.”
As I turned, I noticed the sky had darkened, and I saw heat lightning in the distance. The ground trembled, and I heard what was perhaps the low rumble of thunder. I saw the treetops now writhing about, although the wind didn’t seem to reach the ground. There was a loud crack and at just that moment a large tree branch split off from the old oak beside my car, Spanish moss flying, and crashed down on the engine. It was an enormous branch and the two of us couldn’t possibly move it.
“My son,” I shouted and ran over to the car. The man followed me. We got to the car and the back seat was empty.
The man pointed over in the yard where my son was talking to a younger woman. “He’s over there talking to a woman. Just like a young boy. Besides, you ain’t going nowhere now.” He looked up and grinned, “I ain’t got no chainsaw.”
She was a couple of years older than me. My dad was over talking to that guy and I had been sitting in the backseat gaming. There was a tap on the window and there she stood. At first glance, she seemed several years older than me, but there was something youthful about her and I couldn’t help but find her attractive.
She motioned for me to get out of the car and I put down my gaming console and got out. She smiled and waved for me to follow her. She started toward the front of the house. I found I was really attracted to her. Not necessarily sexually, but in a suggestive or curiosity-like sense. Following her reminded me of being in a video game where you conquer the challenges and move forward thru different levels.
“It’s nice here,” she said, “you’d like it.” She pointed back to my tablet, “we play games,” and she smiled.
“What kind of games?” I asked.
“Fun things, totally interactive,” she replied.
“Tell me more,” I said and followed along after her as she headed for the house.
She stopped at the door, turned, and with her fingers brushed my hair from across my forehead. She smiled at me, leaned close, and blew a soft breath across my face to move the last few strands of hair away.
My eyes brightened. She opened the door, and we stepped inside.
The man and I watched all of that between my son and the woman. I realized he was more flexible than I, also more naïve. He didn’t realize in this game, he’s on level one and they are masters of their universe.
“Come on,” the man said. “I’ll have some of the boys push your car over to the barn. I have a feeling you’re going to be here a long time. A nice shirt you got there!”
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