https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
http://offcourse.org
ISSN 1556-4975
"My Name Is Travis Jackson" by Nels Hanson
Continued from part 3
I saw the tornado of smoke lit red from inside, above the top stories where orange fire shot up from the top tier of windows.
“It looks bad, though.”
He lifted the phone.
There were two yellow hook-and-ladders and fireman high up shooting long arcs of water. A helicopter was circling just beyond the smoke.
“Yeah, we see it, Jake. We’ll have to sidetrack. Right. Just follow me.”
It was like a war, a city after a bombing raid. The town was full of smoke and sirens, police and barricaded streets, big crowds on the sidewalks, but we only saw one ambulance and it didn’t have its lights on.
“They must have got everybody out.”
“I hope so,” I said.
We avoided the main drag, cutting back and forth though the detoured traffic, until Reg came up behind Harrah’s and parked the Ford by a hidden entrance.
Jake pulled Jodie’s Caddie up beside us and got out.
“Some fire, huh?”
“You said it,” Reg said. “I’ll bet we’re flooded.”
“That’s for sure.”
“How’s that?” I asked Reg.
“Tourists from the Grand. They’ll need somewhere to stay.”
“They won’t go home?”
“You’re not a gambler, Mr. Cole?” Jake asked. He was grinning.
“Maybe I am,” I said. “We’ll have to see.”
“You see our new sticker?”
“What’s that?”
“On the Ford,” Reg said. “‘Travis Jackson Lives.’”
We went along a brick wall and I thought how each long brick stacked in the cured mortar would stay the same, no matter what Jodie said or did.
Jake held the unmarked door and I went in and then waited for the two men to lead the way.
At a bare painted wall with a silver panel Jake took out a key and slipped it into a lit button and the door slid open.
Together we rose without speaking in the private elevator.
The door opened and we walked down the empty carpeted hall, past the closed, numbered walnut doors of the big suites, Reg in the lead.
He nodded as we passed two men in suits and dark glasses and I figured they were security, plainclothes.
We stopped at 602.
Jake touched the bell and after a minute the door swung open.
“I heard the sirens and I thought something had happened. The phone was out.”
“No, Mrs. Cole,” Reg said. “Everything turned out fine.”
She stepped back and I walked into the room with the two men in black.
“You all right?”
She was wearing one of those long red brocade Chinese dresses, high at the neck with slits up the tight sides.
Her hair was different.
She’d had it cut short and lightly frosted.
Like always, she was beautiful, green eyes and all.
“I’m okay,” I said.
She stood six feet away, watching me.
Maybe she thought that I’d finally crashed and had another breakdown.
Her hands were clinched at her sides. I wondered if she was afraid of me now.
“I’ve brought you something,” I said.
I reached for my pocket and Jodie took a step back.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Cole. No one’s going to get hurt.”
“I think it’s something you need to hear.”
I took the tape out of my shirt pocket.
Jodie leaned forward, staring, then suddenly turned contrite, an amazed look on her face.
“You were up there writing songs— That’s what you were doing!”
She rushed at me, grabbing at the tape.
I tried to hold it away but she gripped my wrist and snatched it from me.
“Jodie— It’s not what you think—”
She wouldn’t let me finish.
Jodie spun around to the men, waving the cassette.
“He’s a creative genius, an artist, with a capital ‘A.’ Do you know, I owe my success—No, my life! My life!—to this man right here. Just like in the song. Just like in ‘Travis Jackson.’”
“We know it well,” Reg said. “Your whole repertoire, don’t we, Mr. Cole?”
Jodie wasn’t listening. She was nearly dancing with excitement.