Amber by Dan-Dwayne Spencer (e book reader .TXT) 📕

“Come with me.” She turned away from the group she had been talking with. The man with the gray ponytail reached out and touched her arm.

“Tabitha, did I hear right?” he asked. “Flower is taking this fellow to Eudora?”

She took my arm and turned me to face him. “Yes, Paul, you heard correctly.” He scrutinized me from toe-to-crown and stopped at my face. “Oh yes, I see. What he’s wearing will never do. Find him something appropriate.”

As far as I was concerned, I looked fine. I liked my swim trunks and had spent almost the entire summer in them. If they didn’t like what I wore, it was too bad. Then again, I had no idea what to expect. What if it was a fancy dress-up thing? Me wearing skin by the yard, I would be a spectacle. Chuckling at the thought of deciding which bowtie would look best with my Frankie Avalon square-cut swimsuit, I decided to tag along behind her. Making her way past rows of trailers and huts to a small cinderblock building on the edge of the inhabited area, she opened the door and stepped inside. I hesitated.

Her head leaned out of the doorway, she asked, “Do you need everything?”

Everything? I looked down at my swimsuit and my eyebrows raised. “Yes. I suppose I do.”

It only took her a moment to pop back out of the doorway with a stack of clothes. Bellbottom jeans, neatly folded, and a faded T-shirt with a print of Bruce-Lee stamped on it. On top was a pair of tire-tread sandals sitting on white socks and whitey-tighty, Fruit of the Loom, undies. I guessed I wouldn’t get a bowtie to go with this ensemble.

“You wear a size 8 shoe? Most boy’s your size do.”

“Uh…no. I need a size 9 if you’ve got it.”

She took the sandals off the top, handed me the stack, and stepped back inside the cinderblock structure. Almost instantly she bounded out of the doorway and stood beside me, size 9 sandals in hand.

“Thank you,” If I knew what I was about to step into, I would have sounded more grateful. “My friends had a chance to eat earlier, but I didn’t. Do you think it would be okay if I got something from the kitchen?”

“Clothes are my job, not the kitchen. Kelly Carter would be mad if I messed up his perfectly clean playpen.”

I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. “Please.”

“Oh…okay. Why not? I bet he’s about ready to serve breakfast, anyway.”

Holding my stack in front of me, I trailed behind, as we made our way back to the Roundhouse. To my surprise, the people had not dispersed as I thought they would, but were standing in line in front of a table with a large pan of eggs; another one containing stacks of sausage patties; and the last one had a mountain of biscuits in it.

Miss Tabitha went straight to the head of the line and butted in. “Emergency here. This fellow is our guest, and he needs to get a bite before he heads off to….” She stopped before she said the word Eudora. “He has commune business to attend to.”

A man’s voice called out, “Yeah, right. If this kid has commune business, then I’m Abe Lincoln.” Hearty laughter from the crowd followed his comment.

She spun around and glared at him. “Azariah, do you doubt my word?”

“No, Miss Tabitha, I meant no disrespect.” The man’s tone was more serious. “If you say it, then it is so.”

On a tray, she piled a heaping scoop of eggs on top of a biscuit and three sausage patties. She shoved the tray on top of my stack and ordered me to sit.

I felt awkward being treated so special when everyone else was waiting in line. Flower swooshed by my table and said, “Good, you’re getting something in your stomach. It’s a three-hour drive to Eudora and we won’t be stopping. It’s after 8:00 AM now. I’ll give you fifteen minutes and I expect you to be ready.” She scanned the room. “Where did Rose, Jimmy, and Roger go? Did they leave?”

“No, they are waiting for us at Jimmy’s Mustang.”

Oh, was her only reply before she barreled out toward the arched signboard where Jimmy had left the car. A man in a chef’s hat brought me a cup of coffee and watched me gulp down the breakfast.

“I’m Kelly Carter, the cook here at Happy Hollow. You’re new aren’t you?”

I stuck out my right hand in his direction and shoved sausage in my mouth with the other. “Arland,” I informed him. Suddenly, it dawned on me, these hippies were vegetarians and they were all munching on eggs and sausage.

“What’s the deal here? Is sausage considered a fruit or a vegetable on a vegetarian diet?”

“I make this sausage with a vegetable.”

“Yeah, right,” I couldn’t resist the sarcasm.

“No kidding.” His serious expression completely displaced my wit.

“You’re shitting me.”

“It’s tofu flavored and textured to taste like sausage.”

I held it up and examined it, smelled it, and took another bite. The patty sure looked like the real thing. “What the hell is tofu?”

“Processed soybeans.” He shrugged. “When I worked for a restaurant, I made a turkey bacon too, but these guys wouldn’t eat any real meat. So, I created my vegan sausages.”

“Really?” I took another bite. “Best beans I’ve ever eaten.” I swallowed the rest in a gulp before shoveling spoon after spoon of eggs into my mouth. I swallowed in time to say, “And the eggs? I guess you’re going to tell me it’s made of corn or something.”

“Wow. You barely chewed,” he remarked and laughed. “The eggs aren’t real eggs either.”

I looked them over. Fluffy, yellow, and they tasted like eggs. “I’ll be damned,” was all I came up with.

“Would you like some