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

“Not in this lifetime. Do your own dirty work.” I leaned forward, and he got his right arm out the window. He awkwardly flung it, piss spewing everywhere.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Roger wailed. “Now I have a piss hand.”

Jimmy and I almost died laughing. “Hold it out the window till it dries,” Jimmy advised.

“Shit, it’ll still stink,” Roger complained. “It’s Arland’s fault—I could wipe it on his back.”

“You do and you’ll regret it,” I warned. “You can’t blame this on me. I didn’t spill piss on your hand.”

Jimmy grinned and glanced back at him. “You can’t tell me that was the first time you ever got piss on your hand.” In a gentle growl, he added, “Shut up and get over it.” It was the same tone he used when he bullied us at school.

Roger started to say something else before he glimpsed Jimmy’s stare bearing down on him in the rearview mirror. He bit his lip, ducked his head, and obeyed.

Before I went to sleep, I looked back to see Roger using the map for a towel. I smiled and drifted off into dreamland. I awoke to Jimmy shaking my shoulder. He had pulled into a truck stop a few miles south of Joplin, Missouri. The last rays of evening sunlight illuminated Jimmy’s face. It drew attention to the short scruff he called his five o’clock shadow.

“I’ve already got gas. Roger went inside while the attendant pumped it. He said he was hungry and couldn’t wait on us.” Jimmy shook me again, “You awake?”

“Yeah, I’m awake.”

“You might want to use the facilities and get a bite too.”

I threw open the door and pulled my skinny frame out of the car, stretched, and shook my legs. “I had a crazy dream about my parents. They were talking about me.”

“Arland, you feeling guilty about taking off?”

“No, I wasn’t even in the dream. It was like I watched from somewhere above them, you know how dreams are.” I leaned against the car’s fender and rubbed my face with the palms of my hands.

“Sounds freaky. You have weird dreams very often?” Jimmy lit up a Doral.

“No. I don’t remember ever having a dream I wasn’t in.”

Jimmy sat over the Mustang’s left headlight. “Tell me about it before you forget it. I always forget my dreams minutes after I wake up.”

“You don’t want to hear about my stupid dream.”

“Sure I do. I told you stuff today I’ve never told anybody before. You can tell me.”

“Well, the dream began with my parents sitting in our family dining room. Mom had a Yankee-style pot roast on the table. For a while, they just sat there, staring at their empty plates. Then they accused one another for the emptiness of the extra chair at the table—my chair.

“My dad yelled, ‘You should have known something was wrong.’

“‘How?’ Mom yelled back. ‘I’m not my Aunt Hattie. She’s the one with the gift.’

“Dad got quieter and said, ‘I don’t know why you call it a gift. It never brought her anything but heartache. Drove her to kill herself, that gift of hers. We should have told him about it before now.’

“‘He doesn’t know anything about Hattie’s gift or his.’ Mom was still yelling. ‘He thinks he’s some kind of outsider, like he doesn’t belong—a freak.’

“‘What did you expect?’ Dad started shouting again.

“Then Mom started talking crazy like, ‘There’s never been a boy born with the gift. Not in all my family. When the doctor announced, it was a boy, I felt relieved. Then I saw his eyes.’

“While she forked pot roast onto Dad’s plate, he said, ‘That doesn’t mean he has it.’ Dad calmly began cutting up the meat. ‘After all, it’s like you say, boys don’t inherit the gift. He hasn’t ever acted anything like Aunt Hattie did.’

“It’s when I knew for sure they were talking about me because mom said, ‘If he has the amber eyes then he has the gift. I know he has—he must.’

“Anyway, you woke me up then. I told you it was a crazy dream.”

“Pretty odd, that’s for sure,” Jimmy laughed it off. “You awake now?”

“Yeah, I’m awake.” I started walking toward the truck stop.

“Good, because you’re going to have to drive while I get some sleep.”

My eyes flew open—wide. I swallowed hard and replied, “Sure. No problem.” All the while Roger’s favorite word repeated over and over in my head. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

Chapter Three

The Diner

While we talked in front of the truck stop, I untied the western shirt from the antennae and put it on. This time I fastened a couple of the top pearl snaps. Above us, the colors of amber and rose brilliantly glowed across the sky as the sunset on the horizon. To be honest, the sky appeared to be ablaze, the very heavens on fire. Too quickly, the colors dimmed and a dusky haze overtook the brightness of the day. I felt a sadness watching the golden orb finally rest beyond my view; it was God replacing the radiant day with the heaviness of night.

The neon sign over the glass doors of the truck stop blinked Open…Open…Open. I pulled the door handle and something moved at the edge of my vision. The shadow I called Mr. Dark streaked past me, darting through the door the moment I opened it. A split second of stunned apprehension caused me to release the door handle and step back.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jimmy sneered before inspecting the ground for what caused my reaction. “You didn’t see a snake, did you? I hate snakes!”

“No. I just caught hold of the door wrong and it felt sharp,” I lied.

“They need to fix that. Somebody could get hurt.”

Out of the blue, my nose started itching. I reached