Page 41 of Possibly Texas

“Good. Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come over?” he asked. “I wanted to show you the barn. Then maybe we could go to Starbuck’s or something?”

I looked around my room, wondering if I had clean clothes, then sniffed at myself, trying to decide if I needed a shower. The question wasn’t whether or not I’d go to the big red barn—it was how quickly I could get there. I wasn’t going to turn down a chance to see what was going on inside of the place after watching it through the window for so many nights.

“Definitely,” I said, jolting upright in bed, suddenly wide awake. “I need to shower and stuff. Twenty minutes, okay?”

“Excellent,” Auggie said.

Then the call ended.

He hadn’t even said, “goodbye.” You know, like a normal person.

I stared at the blank screen for a minute, yawned, scratched my head, then laid my phone back on my bedside table. My legs got flung over the side of the bed and I took a few moments to stretch and yawn, become fully awake. My feet hit the floorboards, which were just a little chilly on my bare soles, and I felt myself energized, ready to solve another Possibly mystery. I’d finally get to check out the inside of the big red barn.

Once out of bed, I proceeded to do what one of my “uncles” called “The Three S’s” way back when I was a little kid: shit, shower, and shave. Well, except I didn’t have to shave. For the last year I’d been able to grow precisely three hairs on my chin, and as far as I was concerned, they could all stay around for a while. If I shaved them off, who knew when I’d grow more? Probably not until I was closer to eighteen and that was still a year-and-a-half-away.

Out of the shower and with a towel tied around my waist, my hair matted wetly to my skull, I dug in my suitcase until I found a clean pair of underwear, a t-shirt, and a fresh pair of basketball shorts. It would be the perfect outfit to fight the summer sun. When I was dry and dressed, I ran the towel through my hair again and dragged my fingers through it. My hair wasn’t nearly long enough to need a brushing after a shower, so my fingers worked just fine to get it into place. Two minutes later, my teeth had been brushed, my deodorant had been applied, and I had practically skied into a pair of flip-flops.

Downstairs, I jogged out of the back door to find Jack working on his table project again. I shouted a quick “I’m going to Auggie’s!” at Jack without missing a step. I glanced over my shoulder to see him waving an arm lazily in the air to let me know he had heard. Jogging down the road that ran along the north side of Possibly, I passed the Bend of the Road Graveyard. Malia was decked out in her cloak, mourning at another headstone. The sight nearly made me trip over my own feet until I remembered what Auggie had told me about her “performance art.”

Instead of stumbling, I waved at Malia as I passed, though she made no indication that she saw me running along the road. I shrugged to myself, unconcerned with Malia and her strange behavior, and continued along the road towards the barn. Within a minute, I was standing outside of the large green barn doors. They were cracked open just enough to display the giant gloomy room inside, but I didn’t see Auggie waiting to let me in, so I knocked on the wooden frame, announcing my arrival.

Seconds later, the barn door swung open a few feet and Auggie appeared. He was smiling from ear to ear; stripes and flecks of black paint decorated his face. His appearance made me take a step back, confused by the fact that he looked like someone had used his face as a canvas. The rest of him looked normal—well, normal for Auggie. He had on khaki shorts, his tank top, and a black tutu cinched around his waist. Instead of his standard flip-flops, his feet were bare. Space Oddity by David Bowie was playing softly from inside the barn.

“One minute early!” Auggie announced.

“You were timing me?” I managed to ask, though I was still in shock at his appearance.

“Not really,” he said. “I have no idea if you’re on time or not. But it’s nicer to pretend that you are, right?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “What’s with the, uh, war paint?”

Auggie looked confused for a minute, his head leaning to the side as he considered what I had just asked him. So, I reached out and touched one of the black streaks on his cheek. I pulled my fingertip away, now blackened by paint, and held it for him to see.

“Oh!” Auggie laughed. “I was painting this morning.”

“This morning?” I asked. “It’s just past the butt crack of dawn and you’ve been…painting?”

“When inspiration strikes, it strikes,” he said.

“Sure.” I nodded. “That explains everything.”

He laughed and turned to push the door wide. Sunlight flooded into the barn interior, golden and warm, spotlighting the flecks of dust that hung in the air like the world’s tiniest and laziest insects. With the door having been nearly closed, I wondered how he had managed to paint anything without light to guide him. However, when I looked around the large open space, my eyes trailing upwards, I finally realized that the roof was open—an open skylight.

So, that’s why I can see lights over here at night?

My eyes flitted about the room, expecting to see hay bales—or even paint easels—but what I found just didn’t make sense. Large tubes of industrial air conditioning ducts were everywhere, tracing to and fro on the floor like a giant snake slithering around the room. They all seemed to wind and curl around a giant cylinder in the center of the room, which appeared to be open at the top, yet had no discernible entrance or exit.

Every inch of floor space in the barn seemed to be covered by the tubing, save the space directly in front of the door and the narrow spaces between the duct work. I’d been told by everyone—including Auggie—that he lived at the barn. Where were the beds? The couch? The bathrooms and kitchen? All I could see was what looked like an old barn that was filled with junk. There was no way that anyone could live amongst the piles of crap. Did they bathe in the creek or something?

What in the crap?

“Come in,” Auggie said.

“Um, okay.”

Auggie held the door wide for me and I inched inside, being careful so as to not bump into the duct work that lay just a few feet inside the doorway. Once I had cleared the opening, Auggie put his weight behind the door and slid it shut again. With the giant skylight above us, the door darkened the room enough that the dust motes in the air were no longer visible, but we could still see everything just fine. At least well enough to walk around without stumbling over the tubes.

“Welcome,” Auggie said.