Excerpt: Bardic Inspirations

Downstairs in his office, Jeffrey paced back and forth a bit, trying to decide what he could reasonably expect from the phone call to his father. Robert Ellison may be someone who has a fluid, shifting, easy going response to life, but his son decidedly did not. Jeffrey Ellison was far more likely to fret and worry and lay awake at night thinking of possibilities and chances than he was to just roll with the punches. Hearing Roslyn say that Robert sounded stressed when he called set Jeffrey to worrying again. And par for the course, Jeffrey felt it necessary to work out in his mind what he would say to his father – and that meant coming up with a slate of possible situations he could be walking into to have responses for.

“This is stupid. I just need to pick up the phone and call him.” Jeffrey stopped pacing abruptly and looked at the phone on his desk. “It is probably something that can be easily dealt with, anyway.” Jeffrey rounded the corner of his desk and sat down, grabbing the receiver and dialing before he had a chance to change his mind.

“Hello, Ellison residence.” A strange male voice answered the phone.

“Uh, I was looking for my father – Robert.” Jeffrey blinked a few times and hoped he did not sound as shocked as he felt.

“Oh, sure. Just a moment Jeffrey, I will get him for you.” The strange voice sounded pleasant enough.

How does this guy know my name? Jeffrey thought to himself, now becoming confused as well as shocked.

“Hey Jeff, I see Roslyn gave you my message.” Robert’s voice came on the line, sounding genial as ever.

“Yeah Dad, she did. Who was that who answered the phone?” Jeffrey blurted out the question before he could stop himself.

“Oh, that was Tyler – Tyler Hadley. I do not think the two of you have met yet, if I am not mistaken. Tyler is part of a group of people I hang out with sometimes.” Robert’s voice stayed relaxed, but Jeffrey had known his father too long not to spot the underlying tension in the words.

“He knew my name, though…” Jeffrey trailed off, realizing mid sentence that he sounded rather petulant.

“Sure sure, he is over here often, and it is not like I do not have pictures of you on my walls, after all. He has asked about you before, and I of course have told him all about you.” Robert’s voice became teasing. “What father does not take any opportunity to brag about their children?”

“Ha ha, okay, point taken.” Jeffrey tried not to sound too sarcastic in his reply, though he only half succeeded. “Anyway Dad, Roslyn said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah, though I really would rather it be in person than over the phone – can you come over here tonight?” Robert’s voice took on the underlying tension again as he spoke.

“We just finished dinner here, and I think Roslyn is going to be working in the garden for awhile. I cannot stay late, but I guess I could come over for a little while, sure.” Jeffrey mentally tallied up the time it would take to drive there and back, and the time he needed to be home in order to be up for work on time in the morning. “I should be over in about forty five minutes, but I will need to leave no later than nine thirty tonight. Will that work?”

“That will be great, thanks son.” Robert’s voice relaxed a little bit. “I will see you soon.”

Jeffrey sat down at his computer and mechanically clicked through his syndicated news feeds page, not really seeing anything on the page, but needing to do something so that he was not entirely focused on the worry that threatened to consume him. He just needed a few minutes to collect himself before telling Roslyn he was driving over to his father’s house to find out whatever it was that had his father so stressed that it was obvious to Roslyn. Stories about the upcoming election cycle, the latest economic news, and some world business reports flashed by on the screen, one or two of them catching Jeffrey’s eye enough to mark them for later reading. It seemed like a long time in his mind, but after just three or four minutes, Jeffrey stood up and headed for the stairs up from the office.

“Roslyn?” Jeffrey called out as he stopped to pull his boots on again. “Honey?”

“Did you call me, Jeff?” Roslyn’s voice was muffled but clearly coming from the back deck.

Jeffrey moved toward the door before calling out again, “Yes. I am going to drive over to my father’s for a little while. I called him back, but he said he would rather talk to me in person about whatever it is.”

“Oh, what do you think is going on, Jeff? This is pretty strange, even for Robert.” Roslyn’s brow creased with concern.

“I know it is, and I have no idea what could be going on. I do not think I remember my father acting this way, ever, so I have no frame of reference to base a hypothesis on, really.” Jeffrey sighed and shook his head. “I suppose I will know soon enough though, right?”

“Yeah. Call me and let me know what is up, okay?” Roslyn stretched up to give Jeffrey a quick kiss on the cheek. “And give Robert my love, too.”

“I should not be late, I told Dad I would need to leave by nine thirty, and he seemed to think that would be plenty of time to discuss whatever is going on. But if it is something major, or I am going to be later than expected, I will call and let you know.” Jeffrey returned the kiss his wife had given him and smiled at her. “I love you.”
“I love you too. See you later tonight.” Roslyn smiled back, let go of her husband, and moved back toward the door to the deck.

Jeffrey turned and walked out to the garage, hitting the automatic start button on his keychain fob for his car and the garage door opener as he walked through the door and out of the house. Quickly fastening his seatbelt and switching the radio off of the evening business talk program he normally listened to, Jeffrey backed out of the garage and onto the sleepy side street he and Roslyn had lived on for the last 5 years. The freeway was not more than seven or eight blocks from their house, but it was far enough that the noise was kept at a very low level most of the time, and the proximity made it easy for both of them to travel to and from work, not to mention to see his father and her mother.

Jeffrey punched the preset buttons on the radio, flipping from station to station, looking for something to help calm his mind a little bit. The usual discussion of business and economy and future growth or loss was not the least bit helpful, and the last thing he wanted to do right now was get even more apprehensive before arriving at his father’s house. One of the things that Jeffrey hated the most was walking into a situation blind; if he had to be involved, he wanted to know what to expect before it snuck up behind him, and he wanted to have a solid plan of action to deal with whatever it was. The brief telephone conversation had not yielded much in the way of clues for Jeffrey to go on in this instance, and he felt just as blind as before the call.

Jeffrey finally found some music stations, but they were not playing anything that was going to help him calm down at all. One was playing loud, boisterous rap music, another was playing some morose sounding country song, and the third sounded like adult contemporary at first, but Jeffrey soon realized that it was really a Christian gospel station. With a snort of derision, Jeffrey grabbed a random compact disc from the caddy above the visor and slid it into the player. It took the machine a few seconds to load the first track, but when it started playing something with a medium tempo, lots of flutes and violins and no lyrics, Jeffrey nodded and put his hand back on the wheel, satisfied with the chance choice. The flute may be a passionate instrument that does not lend itself well to maintaining the moral character of those listening to it, but it does wonders for helping Jeffrey to still his mind and quiet the ongoing storm of fretting and dithering about the world around him.

In addition to the music, driving was a great help to Jeffrey. Something about the feel of the car under his guidance, particularly at high speeds or over hills and around curves (not necessarily these two things at one time), brought Jeffrey’s mind to a place of stillness and quiet. Really, there was no room for other thoughts or distractions when he needed to focus so hard on keeping himself alive and his car intact. Roslyn would be most unhappy with him if he let distractions take his focus away from the road for long enough to damage himself, or the car, and so he kept his eyes on the road and his mind close behind them, keeping the worries and distractions fully locked into the backseat for the duration.

It took about thirty five minutes on the freeway, accounting for a small amount of evening traffic, before Jeffrey reached the exit nearest to his father’s house. Once on the surface streets, it was another five to seven minutes of driving the confusing maze of one way streets and dead ends into cul de sacs before Jeffrey found the little house his father had lived in for the past 30 years. Jeffrey frowned a bit, trying to remember the last time he had been over to visit his father, and the frown deepened when he found he could not easily recall when it had been. The area around the house looked different somehow, like his father had done some sort of landscaping or gardening. Roslyn did most of the outside beautification work, and Jeffrey took care of mowing the grass, so while Jeffrey could see that something was different, he could not accurately pick out what it was. On top of the difference in the grounds around the house, there was a bike sitting out front that Jeffrey did not recognize, and he was reasonably sure that his father had not taken up riding a bicycle at his age. Shaking his head against speculating, Jeffrey parked the car along the curb and cut the engine. A few extra deep breaths and Jeffrey felt as ready as he would ever be to face whatever news it was that his father had for him and did not want to tell him over the phone.