Jake realized with a start that he was being nudged harder and harder. On the way home, without warning, he had fallen asleep in the creaky old truck's swaying motions on the road. He'd been awake the whole ride home, though, hadn't he? Jake took several seconds, staring blankly in front of him, desperately trying to find out why in the world his memory and mind seemed to be flowing like molasses for no good reason. For the life of him, he couldn't. All that filled his mind was that musty scent at the barber shop. For some reason, now that smell was extremely intoxicating, the stench filling his nose from the strange liquid being spread on his face. Didn't the barber call it his "special sauce?" Why? Suddenly, laughter filled the cabin.
"Ya need a hanky for all that drool, boy?" Max interrupted.
Jake, once again, was startled heavily, an, until then, rare occurrence.
"Come on, we ain't got all damn day!"
Jake's mouth felt dry, unable to speak, even though it was overflowing, which he corrected with a quick, embarrassed wipe with his long sleeve. Geez, wasn't it a bit too hot for that kind of dress-up? His mind was swimming, he felt like he was mentally drowning, and little did he know, why it was happening was just under his nose, literally, and this is just the beginning of its "special" work... Despite himself, his brain screamed for relief from such embarrassment. A slow, unsteady hand unlatched the truck door for him. Jake finally received info from his head. He wanted sleep. now.
Jake clambered inside, noticing that his cousins hadn't waited for him to make his way in. As soon as he got to the spare bedroom's large oak-framed bed with a mattress smelling strongly of sweat and faintly of dirt, his plop onto it showed a plume of dust through the filtered mid-afternoon sunlight coming in through the only break in the sky-blue walls except for a faded pennant saying "Everything's Bigger in Texas": a rickety old window with heavily dusty, half-closed shutters. If he hadn't been slathered in Bud's pungent shaving cream, Jake might have had second thoughts about sleeping in this bedroom for how stereotypically country it was.
With his (mostly) smooth head cradled by the handmade quilts and pillowcases, Jake very quickly drifted off to sleep, his mind filled with stranger dreams than ever, things including trucks and beer to mud and boots. All the while, his usually smart mind was losing a battle against invading testosterone, which would result in a rude awakening in the morning.