Page 130 of The Fed Sex Man

I looked up and smiled. “Turn it up!” I said, reciting the phrase I’d said every time it was hot in the car.

My father tilted his hat back with the brush of his hand. “It doesn’t go any higher, Kidd-o.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll know when we get there,” Jarod whispered.

“You’ll know when we get there,” my half-deaf father repeated.

I paid little attention to anything, other than the car-related memories that came rushing to the forefront of my mind.

My father exited the highway, drove along a frontage road for what seemed like forever, and eventually took a side street into a residential neighborhood.

“Are we going to dinner?” I asked.

“Just out for a little Sunday drive,” he responded. “Sit back and enjoy the luxury.”

My mother glanced over her shoulder and smiled. I smiled in return.

After driving deep into a neighborhood that I didn’t recognize, we turned around and began driving right back out of it. My father’s fascination with all things Texas wasn’t satisfied with historical sites like the Alamo or the Moody Mansion.

It seemed he got more satisfaction from driving around looking at everyone else’s homes. We did it often when I was a child, and I always wondered if one day he was simply going to buy one of the homes he was driving by ogling.

I later learned that the drives were nothing but a way for him to relax.

I now wondered if it was him dreaming a what if things were different?

I leaned toward Tyson. “He used to do this all the time. We’d drive for hours, just looking at other people’s houses.”

Tyson smiled. “I’m enjoying it.”

The car slowed to a roll. I looked up. The neighborhood looked familiar, but not so much that I could determine where we were. The Dallas metro area was just too damned big.

Outside my father’s window, amidst the older homes, a newly constructed white brick home sat atop a lushly landscaped hill. A wrap-around porch surrounded the home, inviting the occupants to spend their evenings enjoying the beautiful Autumn Texas evenings outdoors with a glass of sweet tea.

A For Sale sign sat askew beside the driveway. “Daddy, stop!” I looked at Tyson. “That house is just like mine, only bigger!”

His focus was in the opposite direction. “What house?”

I pointed toward Jarod’s open window. “That one. It’s…” I swallowed my excitement. “For sale.”

“Well,” my father said. “Let me park this SOB and we can take a look.”

The neighborhood was eerily familiar, but all Texas neighborhoods looked the same once a person was inside one of them.

After my father parked the car across the street from the home, we all got out. Half the distance to the home, a chill ran along my spine. There was something about the home’s front door that was all too familiar.

I glanced up and down the block.

I looked at my father, and then at Tyson. “This isn’t.” I swallowed heavily. “You didn’t…”

“It is.” Tyson smiled. “And, I did.”

I took another look at the home. My hands began to shake. “It’s…it’s impossible.”

“Without the help of a few loved ones,” Tyson said. “It would have been.”

The newly constructed home was sitting on Tyson’s lot. At minimum, his home had received an extensive remodel, including the addition of a second story, a wrap-around porch, brick façade, and what looked to be an extra bedroom or two.