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guy scutellaro Oct 2019
The rain ****** through a darkening sky.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles. Softly, he whispers, " Man, you're the biggest, whitest, what hell are you anyway?"

The pup sits up and Jack Delleto caresses her neck, but much to the mutt's chagrin the man stands up and walks away.

Jack has his hand on the door about to go into the bar. The pup issues an interrogatory, "Woof?"

The rain turns to snow.

The man's eyes grow bright and he smiles, "My grandma used to say that when it snows the angels are sweeping heaven. I'll be back for you, Snowflake."

Jack shivers. His smile fading, the night jumps back into his eyes.

Snowflake chuffs once, twice.

The man is gone.



The room would have been a cold, dark place except the bodies who sit on the barstools or stand on the ***** linoleum floor produce heat. The cigarette smoke burns his eyes. Jack Delleto looks down the length of the bar to the boarded shut fire place and although the faces are shadows, he knows them all.

The old man who always sits at the second barstool from the dart board is sitting at the second bar stool. His fist clenched tightly around the beer mug, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror.

The aging barmaid, who often weeps from her apartment window on a hot summer night or a cold winter evening, is coming on to a man half her age. She is going to slip her arm around his bicep at any moment.

"Yeah," Jack smiles, "there she goes."

Jack Delleto knows where the regulars sit night after night clutching the bar with desperation, the wood rail is worn smooth.

In the mirror that runs the length of the bar Jack Delleto sees himself with clarity. Brown hair and brown eyes. Just an ordinary 29 year old man.

"Old Fred is right," he thinks to himself, "If you stare at shadows long enough, they stare back." Jack smiles and the red head returns his smile crossing her long legs that protrude beneath a too short skirt.

The bartender recognizes the man smiling at the redhead.

"Well,  Jack Delleto, Dell, I heard you were dead. " The six foot, two hundred pound bartender tells him as Dell is walking over to the bar.

"Who told you that?"

"Crazy George, while he was swinging from the wagon wheel lamp." Bob O'Malley says as he points to the wagon wheel lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"George, I heard, HE was dead."

The bartender reaches over the bar resting the palms of his big hands on the edge of the bar and flashes a smile of white, uneven teeth. Bob extends his hand. "Where the hell have you been?"

They shake hands.

Dell looks up at the Irishman. "I ve been at Harry's Bar in Venice drinking ****** Marys with Elvis and Ernest."

Bob O'Malley grins, puts two shot glasses on the bar, and reaches under the bar to grab a bottle of bourbon. After filling the glasses with Wild Turkey, he hands one glass to Dell. They touch glasses and throw down the shots.

"Gobble, gobble," O Malley smiles.


The front door of the bar swings open and a cold wind drifts through the bar. Paul Keater takes off his Giants baseball cap and with the back of his hand wipes the snow off of his face.

"Keater," Bob O'Malley calls to the Blackman standing in the doorway.

Keater freezes, his eyes moving side to side in short, quick movements. He points a long slim finger at O'Malley, "I don't owe you any money," Paul Keater shouts.

The people sitting the barstools do not turn to look.

"You're always pulling that **** on me." Keater rushes to the bar, "I PPPAID YOU."

As Delleto watches Keater arguing with O'Malley, the anger grows into the loathing Dell feels for Keater. The suave, sophisticated Paul Keater living in a room above the bar. The man is disgusting. His belly hangs pregnant over his belt. His jeans have fallen exposing the crack of his ***, and Keater just doesn't give a ****. And that ragged, faded, baseball cap, ****, he never takes it off.

When Keater glances down, he realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto. Usually, Paul Keater would have at least considered punching Delleto in his face. "The **** wasn't any good," Paul feining anger tells O'Malley. "Everybody said it was, ****."

The bartender finishes rinsing a glass in the soapy sink water and then places it on a towel. "*******."

Keater slides the Giant baseball cap back and forth across his flat forehead. "**** it," he turns and storms out of the bar.

"Can I get a beer?" Dell asks but O"Malley is already reaching into the beer box. Twisting the cap off, he puts it on the bar. "It's not that Keater owes me a few bucks, "he tells Dell, "if I didn't cut him off he'd do the stuff until he died." Bob grabs a towel and dries his hands.

"But the smartest rats always get out of the maze first," Jack tells Bob.


Cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and losing lottery tickets litter the linoleum floor. Jack Delleto grabs the bottle of beer off the bar and crosses the specter of unfulfilled wishes.

In the adjacent room he sits at a table next to the pinball machine to watch a disfigured man with an anorexic women shoot pool. Sometimes he listens to them talk, whisper, laugh. Sometimes he just stares at the wall.

"We have a winner, "the pinball machine announces, "come ride the Ferris wheel."



"I'm part Indian. "

Jack looks up from his beer. The Indian has straight black hair that hangs a few inches above her shoulders, a thin face, a cigarette dangling from her too red lips.

"My Mom was one third Souix, " the drunken women tells Jack Delleto.

The Indian exhales smoke from her petite nose waiting for a come on from the man with the sad face. And he just stares, stares at the wall.

Her bushy eyebrows come together forming a delicate frown.

Jack turns to watch a brunette shoot pool. The woman leans over the pool table about to shoot the nine ball into the side pocket. It is an easy shot.

The brunette looks across the pool table at Jack Delleto, "What the **** are you starin at?" She jams the pool stick and miscues. The cue ball runs along the rail and taps the eight ball into the corner pocket. "AH ****," she says.

And Jack smiles.

The Indian thinks Jack is smiling at her, so she sits down.

"In the shadows I couldn't see your eyes," he tells her, "but when you leaned forward to light that cigarette, you have the prettiest green eyes."

She smiles.

" I'm Kathleen," her eyes sparkling like broken glass in an alley.

Delleto tries to speak.

"I don't want to know your name," she tells Jack Delleto, the smile disappearing from her face. "I just want to talk for a few minutes like we're friends," she takes a drag off the cigarette, exhales the smoke across the room.

Jack recognizes the look on her face. Bad dreams.

"I'll be your friend," he tells her.

"We're not going to have ***." The Indian slowly grinds out the cigarette into the ashtray, looks up at the man with the sad face.

"Do you have family?"

"Family?" Delleto gives her a sad smile.

She didn't want an answer and then she gets right into it.

"I met my older sister in Baltimore yesterday." She tells the man with sad eyes.' Hadn't seen her since I was nine, since Mom died. I wanted to know why Dad put me in foster homes. Why?

"She called me Little Sister. I felt nothin. I had so many questions and you know what? I didn't ask one."

Jack is finishing his beer.

"If you knew the reasons, now, what would it matter, anyway."

The man with the black eye just doesn't get it. She lived with them long enough. Long enough to love them.

She stands up, stares at Jack Delleto.

And walks away.


It's the fat blondes turn to shoot pool. She leans her great body ever so gently across the green felt of the pool table, shoots and misses. When she tries to raise herself up off the pool table, the tip of the pool cue hits the Miller Lite sign above the pool table sending the lamb rocking violently back and forth. In flashes of light like the frames from and old Chaplin movie the sad and grotesque appear and disappear.

"What the **** are you starin at?" The skinny brunette asks.

Jack pretends to think for a moment. "An unhappy childhood."

Suddenly, she stands up, looking like death wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt.

"Dove sta amore?" Jack Delleto wonders.

Death is angry, steps closer.

"Must be that time of the month, huh," Jack grins.

With her two tiny fists clenched tightly at her side, the brunette stares down into Delleto's eyes. Suddenly, she punches Jack in the eye.

Jack stands up bringing his forearm up to protect his face. At the same time Death steps closer. His forearm catches her under the chin. The bony ***** goes down.

Women rush from the shadows. They pull Jack to the ***** floor, punch and kick him.

In the blinking of the Miller Light Jack Delleto exclaims," I'm being smother by fat lesbians in soft satin pants."  But then someone is pulling the women off of him.

The Miller Lite gently rocks and then it stops.

Jack stands up, shakes his head and smiles.

"Nice punch, Dell," Bob O' Malley says, "I saw from the bar."

Jack hits the dust off of his pants, grabs the beer bottle off of the table, takes a swallow. Smiling, he says, "I box a little."

"I can tell by your black eye." O'Malley puts his hand on his friends shoulder. "Come on I'll buy you a shot. What caused this spontaneous expression of love?"

"They thought I was a ******."


2 a.m.

Jack Delleto walks out the door of the bar into the wind swept gloom. The gray desolation of boarded shut downtown is gone.

The rain has finally turn to snow.

His eyes follow the blue rope from the parking meter pole to its frayed end buried in the plowed hill of snow at the corner of Cookman Avenue.

The dog, Snowflake, dead, Jack thinks.


The snow covers everything. It covers the abandon cars and the abandon buildings, the sidewalk and its cracks. The city, Delleto imagines, is an adjectiveless word, a book of white pages. He steps off the curb into the gutter and the street is empty for as far as he can see. He starts walking.

Jack disappears into empty pages.


Chapter 2


Paul Keater has a room above Wagon Wheel Bar where the loud rock music shakes the rats in the walls til 2a.m. The vibrations travel through the concrete floor, up the bed posts, and into the matress.

Slowly Paul's eyes open. Who the hell is he fooling. Even without the loud music, he would not be able to sleep, anyway.

Soft red neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks into his room.

Paul Keater sits up, sighs, resigns himself to another sleepless night, swings his legs off the bed. His x-wife. He thinks about her frequently. He went to a phycologist because he loved her.

Dump the *****, the doctor said.

"I paid him eighty bucks and all he had to say was dump the *****." He laughs, shakes his head.

Paul thinks about *******, looks around the tiny room, and spots a clear plastic case containing the baseball cards he had collected when he was a boy.

He walks to the dresser and puts on his Giant's baseball cap. Paul sits down on the wooden chair by the sink. Turns on the lamp. The card on top is ***** Mays. Holding it in his hand, it is perfect. The edges are not worn like the other cards.

It was his tenth birthday and his dad had taken him to his first baseball game and his father had bought the card from a dealer.

Oblivious to the loud rock music filtering into his room, he stares at the card.

Fondly, he remembers.

Dad.


                                     *     

It arrives unobtrusively. His heart begins to race faster.
Jack Delleto rolls away from the cracked wall. He sits up and drops his legs off the bed.

Jack Delleto thinks about mountains.

When he cannot sleep he thinks about climbing up through the fog that makes the day obscure, passing where the stunted spruce and fir tees are twisted by the wind, into cold brilliant light. Once as he climbed through the fog he saw his shadow stretching a half a mile across a cloud and the world was small. Far down to the east laid cliffs and gullies, glaciated mountains and to the west were the plains and cities of everyday life.

The army coat is draped over the back of the chair. In the pocket is his notebook. Jack stands and takes the notebook from the pocket. When he sits in the wooden chair he opens the book and slides the pen from the binder.

When he finishes his story he makes the end into the beginning.



                                           Chapter 3


"I want a captain in a truck." The 10 year old boy with the brown hair tells his mom. "I want it NOW."

His blonde haired mom wearing the gold diamond bracelet nods her head at Jack Delleto. Jack looks up at the clock on the wall. It is only 9a.m. After four years of college Jack has a part time job at K.B. Toy store. "We're all out of them," he tells her for the second time.

"Honey," Blondie tells her boy, "they're all out of them."

"YOU PROMISED."

"How about a sargeant in a jeep?

"OK, but I want a missile firing truck , too."

Delleto turns to the display case behind the counter. Briefly, he studies his black eye in the display case mirror and then begins searching the four shelves and twenty rows of 3 inch plastic toys. He finds the truck. His head is aching. He finds the truck and puts it on the counter in front of the boy.

"Sorry, we're all out of the sargeant," Jack tells the pretty lady. The aching in his head just won't go away.

"Mommy, mommy, I want an ATTACK HELIOCOPTER, MOMMMEEE, I WANTAH TTTAAANNNK..."

Jack Delleto leans over the counter resting his elbows on the glass top. The boy is staring at the man with the black eye, at his bruised, unshaven face.

"Well, we haven't got any, GODDAMED TANKS. How about a , KICKINTHE ***."

Finally the boy and his mother are quiet.

"My husband will have you fired."

She grabs the boy by the hand. Turns to rush out of the store.

Jack mutters something.

"MMOOOMEEE,  what does..."

"Oh, shut the hell up," the pretty lady tells her son


                              
     

The assistant manager takes a deep drag on her cigarette, exhales, and crosses her arms to hold the cigarette in front of her. Susan looks down at Jack sitting on the stool behind the counter. He stands up. "Did you tell some lady to blow you?" She crushes the cigarette out in the ashtray on the shelf below the counter. "Maybe you don't need this job but I do."

"Sue, there's no smoking in the mall."

"Jack, you look tired," the cubby teenager tells him, "and your eye. Another black eye."

"I was attacked by five women."

'Oh, I see, in your dreams maybe. I see, it's one of those male fantasies I'm always reading about in Cosmo. You're not boxing again, are you Dell?" Sue likes to call him Dell.

"I go down to the gym to work out. Felix says I've got something."

"Yeah, a black eye." Susan laughs, opens the big vanilla envelope, and hands Jack his check.

She turns and takes a pair of sunglasses from the display stand. "You 're scaring the children, Dell ." Susan steps closer looks into Dell's brown eyes and the slips the sunglasses on his face. "Why don't you go to lunch."

                                        
     

It's noon and the mall is crowded at the food court area. Jack gets a 20oz cup of coffee, finds a table and sits down.

"Go over and talk to him. " Susan says. Jack turns his head , looks back, sees the Indian walking towards his table.

"Hello, Kathrine," says Jack Delleto.

"My names not Kathrine, it's Kathleen."

Jack pulls the chair away from the table, "Have a seat Kate."

Her eyebrows form that delicate frown. "My names Kathleen." As soon as she sits down she takes a cigarette from the pack sticking out of her pocketbook. "I had to leave. I told the baby sitter I'd only be gone an hour. Anyway you weren't much help."

"So why did you come over to talk to me?"

"You were alone, the bar full of people and you're alone. Why?"

"I like it that way. You've seen me there before?"

"Yeah, sitting by the pin ball machine staring at the wall, and sometimes, you'd take out your blue note pad and write in it.
What do you write about?  Are you goin to write about me..."

"Maybe. How many kids do you have?"

"Just one. A boy, and believe me one is enough. He'll be four in June," Kathleen smiles but then she remembers and abruptly the smile disappears from her face. "Sometimes I see Anthony's father in the mall and I ask him if he'd like to meet his son, but he doesn't.

Kathleen draws the cigarette smoke deep into her lungs, tilts her head back, and blows the smoke towards the skylight. Suddenly caught in the sunlight the smoke becomes a gray cloud. " I didn't want to marry him anyway, I don't know why he thought that."

She hears the scars as Delleto talks, something sad about the man, something like old newspapers blowing across a deserted street. She hears the scars and knows never, never ask where the scars came from.


                              
     

As Jack walks towards the bank to cash his check, he glances out the front entrance to the mall. It is a bright, cold day and the snowplows are finishing up the parking lot plowing the snow into big white hills. That is the fate of the big white pup plowed to the corner of Cookman and Main buried deep in ***** snow. At that street corner when the school is over the children will play on the hill never realizing what lay beneath there feet.

The snow must melt; spring is inevitable.

His pup will be back.



                                           Chapter 4


The 19 year old light heavyweight leans his muscular body forward to rest his gloved hands on the tope rope of the ring. He bows his head waiting to regain his breath as his lungs fight to force air deep into his chest. Bill Wain has finished boxing 4 rounds with Red.

Harry the trainer, gently pulls the untied boxing gloves from Red's hands. "Good fight, he says, patting Red on the back as the fighter climbs through the ropes and heads to the showers. Harry hands the sweat soaked gloves to Felix who puts one glove under his arm while he loosens the laces on the other 12ounce glove. He makes the sleeve wider.

"Do you want the head gear?" Felix asks.

Jack Delleto shakes his head and pushes his taped hand deep into the glove.

The old man takes the other glove from under his arm, pulls the laces out, and holds it open. Without turning his head to look at him, Felix tells Harry, "Make sure Bill doesn't cool down. Tell him to shadow box. Harry walks over to Bill and Bill starts shadow boxing.

Jack pushes his hand into the glove. "Make a fist." Jack does. Felix pulls the laces and ties it into a bow.

Felix looks intently into Delleto's eyes. "How does that feel?"

"About right."

"You look tired."

"I am a little."

"Are you sick or is it a woman."

"I'm not sick."

A big smile forms across the face of the former welterweight champion of Nevada. The face of the 68 year old Blackman is lined and cracked like the old boxing gloves that Jack is wearing but his tall body is youthful and athletic in appearance. Above Felix's eyebrows Jack sees the effect of 20 years as a professional fighter. He sees the thick scar tissue and the thin white lines where the old man's skin has been stitched and re-stitched many times. As he gives instructions to Jack, Felix's brown eyes seem to be staring at something distant and Jack wonders if Felix has chased around the ring one time too often his dream.

"And get off first. Don't stop punching until he goes down. You've got it kid and not every fighter does."

Jack and Felix start walking over to the ring.

"What is it I've got?" Jack Deletto wonders.

Felix puts his foot on the fourth strand of the rings rope and with his hand pulls up the top strand and as Jack steps into the ring, "You've got, HEART."

In the opposite corner Bill Wain waits.

"Will he be alright?" Harry asks.

"Bill's tired, " Felix replies, then he tries to explain. "It's not about money. I'm almost 70 and I want to go out a winner." Felix pauses and the offers, he can hit hard with either hand."

"Yeah, but at best he's a small middleweight and he only moves in one direction, straight ahead."

"Harry, I love the guy," Felix puts his hand on Harry's shoulder, he's like Tyson at the end of his career. He'd fight you to the death but he's not fighting to win anymore."

Harry puts his hands in his pocket and stares at the floor. "Do you want me to tell him to go easy." Harry looks up at Felix waiting for an answer.

"I'm tired of sweeping dirt from behind the boxes of wax beans and tuna fish. I'm sick of collecting shopping carts in the rain. A half way decent white heavyweight can make a lot of money. It's stupid for a fighter to practice holding back. Bill's a winner. Jack'll be alright."

Felix hands the pocket watch to Harry so he can time the rounds.

Bill Wain comes out of his corner circling left.

Jack rushes straight ahead.

Felix winks at Jack Delleto and whispers, "The Jack of hearts."



                                           Chapter 5


The front door of the Wagon Wheel bar explodes open to Ziggy Pop's, "YOU'VE GOT A LUST FOR LIFE." Jack Delleto steps over the curb and vanishes into the dark doorway.

"HEY, JACK, JACK DELLETO," The lanky bartender shouts over the din.

Delleto makes his way through the crowd over to bar. How the hell have you been Snake?" Jack asks.

"Just great," says Snake. "You're lookin pretty ****** good for a dead man."

"Who told you that? Crazy George?"

The bartender points across the room to where a man in a pin stripe suit is swinging to and fro from a wagon wheel lamp attached to the ceiling.

"Yeah, I thought so. Haven't seen Crazy George in a year and he's been telling everyone I'm dead. I'm gonna have to have a long talk with that man."

Snake hands Jack a shot of tequila. The men touch glasses and throw down the shots.

How's the other George? Dell asks.

"AA."

"How's Tommy? You see him anymore?"

"Rehab."

"What about Robbie?"

Snake refills the glasses. "He's livin in a nudist colony in Florida, he has two wives and 6 children."


Jack looks across the room and sees Bob O'Malley trying to adjust the rose in the lapel of his tuxedo. Satisfied it won't fall out O'Malley looks up at the man swinging from the lamp. "Quick, name man's three greatest inventions."

"Alcohol, tobacco, and the wheel," Crazy George shoots back.

O'Malley smiles and then jumps up on the top of the bar and although he is over six feet and weighs two hundred pounds, he has the dexterity and grace of a ballerina as he pirouttes around and jumps over the shot glasses and beer bottles that litter the bar.

Wedding guests lean back in their chairs as strangers fearful of his gyrations ****** their drinks off the bar. Bob fakes a slip as he prances along but he is always in control and never falters. Forty three year old Bob O'Malley is Jim Brown who dodges danger to score the winning touch down.

When Bob reaches the end of the bar he jumps to the floor, pulls two aluminum lids from the beer box, and with one in each hand he smacks them together like cymbals.

Some guests clap. The bemused just stare.

In the back of the room sitting at the wedding table the father of the bride leans over, whispers into the ear of his crying wife, "If I had a gun I'd shoot Bob."

The bride raises a glass of champagne into the smoke filled air and Bob takes a bow but then heads towards the kitchen at the other end of the room.

" Hey, Bob," Jack Delleto shouts to the groom.

O'Malley stops under the wagon wheel lamp and turns as Delleto steps into the  circle of light cast onto the floor.

"Congratulations, I know Theresa and you are goin to be happy. I mean that." Delleto offers his hand and they shake hands.

"Thanks, Mr. Cool."

Jack takes off the sunglasses.

"TWO black eyes. Your nose is bleeding. What happened?"

Dell takes the handkerchief from his back pocket, wipes the blood dripping down his face. "It's broken."

"What happened?" O'Malley asks again.

"Bill Wain."

"He turned pro."

"Yeah, but he's nothing special. Hell, he couldn't even knock me down."

O'Malley shakes his head. "Dell, why do you do it? You always lose."

"If you don't fight you've already lost."

"Put the sunglasses back on, you look like a friggin raccoon."

Dell smiles. The blood running down his lips."Thersa's beautiful, Bob, you're a lucky guy."

"Thanks Dell." O'Malley puts his hand on Dell's shoulder and squeezes affectionately. Bob looks across the room at Theresa. "Yeah, she is beautiful." Theresa's mother has stopped crying. Her father drinks whiskey and stares at the wall.

O'Malley looks away from his bride and passed the archway that divides the poolroom from the bar and into the corner. With the lamp light above his head gleaming in his eyes Bob seems to see a ghost fleeting in the far distant, dark corner. Slowly, a peculiar half smile forms uneven, white, tombstone teeth.  A pensive smile.

Curious, Dell turns his head to look into the darkness of the poolroom, too.

At night in July the moths were everywhere. When Dell was a boy he would sit on his porch and try to count them. The moths appeared as faint splashes of whiteness scattered throughout the nighttime sky, odd circles of white that moved haphazardly, forward and then sideways, sometimes up and then down.

Sometimes the patches of moths flew higher and higher and Dell imagined the lights those creatures were seeking were the stars themselves; Orion, the Big Dipper, and even the milky hue of the Milkyway.

One night as the moths pursued starlight he saw shadows dropping one by one from the branches at the tops of the trees. The swallows were soundless and when he caught a glimpse of sudden darkness, blacker than the night, he knew the shadows had erased the dreamer and its dream.

His imagination gave definition to form. There was a sound to the shadows of the swallows in his thoughts, the melody and the song played over and over. Wings of shadow furled and unfurled. Perhaps he saw his reflection in the night. Perhaps there are shadows where nothing exists to cast them.

"Do you hear them, Bob?"

"Hear what?" Bob asks.

"All of them."

"All of what?"

"Shadows," Delleto candidly tells his friend, then, "Ah, Nothin."

O'Malley doesn't understand but it does not matter. The two men have shared the same corner of darkness.

Bob calls to Paul Keater. Keater smiles broadly, slides the brim of his Giant baseball cap to the side of his forehead. The two men disappear through the swinging kitchen door.


                                          Chapter 6


"Hello Kate." Jack Delleto says and sits down. She has a blue bow in her hair and make up on.

"My names Kathleen."

She fondles the whiskey glass in her slim fingers. "Hello, Dell, Sue thinks Dell is such a **** name. Kathleen takes a last drag on her cigarette, rubs it out in the ashtray, looks up at him, "What should I call you?"

"How about, Darlin?"

"Hello, Jack, DARLIN," her soft, deep voice whispers. Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh between the blue ***** hose and the hem of her dress. Kate is drunk and Dell does not care. He leans closer, "Do you wanna dance?"

"But no one else is dancing."

"Well, we can go down to the beach, take a walk along the sand."

"It's twenty degrees out there."

"I'll keep you warm."

"All right, lets dance."

Jack stands up takes her by the hand. As Kathleen rises Jack draws her close to him. Her ******* flatten against his chest. He feels her heart thumping.

The Elvis impersonator that almost played Las Vegas; the hairdresser that wanted to be a race car driver; the insurance salesman with a Porche and a wife.  Her men talked about what they owned or what they could do well.

And Kathleen was impressed.

But Dell wasn't like them. Dell never talked about himself. Did he have a dream? Was there something he wanted more than anything?

Kathleen had never meant anyone quite like Dell.

She rests her head on his shoulder. "What do you what more than anything? What do you dream about at night?"

"Nothing."

"Come on," she says," what do you want more than anything? Tell me your dreams."

Jack smiles, "Just to make it through another day."  He smiles that sad smile that she saw the first time they met. "Tell me what you want."

Kate lifts her head off of his shoulder and looks into his eyes. "I don't want to be on welfare the rest of my life and I want to be able to send my son to college." She rests her cheek against his, "I've lived in foster homes all my life and every time I knew that one day I'd have to leave, what I want most is a home. Do you know the difference between a house and a home?"

"No. not at all"

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear, "LOVE."

The song comes to an end and they leave the circle of light and sit down. Kate takes a cigarette from the pack.

Dell strikes a match. The flame flickering in her eyes. "Maybe someday you'll have your home."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah."

Kate blows out the match.


                                  
     


"Can you take me home?" Kate asks slurring her words.

Kathleen and Jack walk over to where the bride and groom are standing near the big glass refrigerator door with Paul Keater. When Paul realizes he is standing next to Jack Delleto he rocks back and forth on the heals of his worn shoes, slides his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead and walks away.

O'Malley bends down and kisses Kathleen on the cheek and turns to shake hands with Dell. "Good luck," says Dell. Kathleen embraces the bride.

Outside the bar the sun is setting behind the boarded shut Delleto store.

"That was my Dad's store, " Jack tells Kate and then Jack whispers to to himself as he reads the graffiti spray painted on the front wall.
"TELL YOUR DREAMS TO ME, TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, IF YOU LOVE ME, TELL ALL YOUR DREAMS TO ME."


                                         Chapter 7


An old man comes shuffling down the street, "Hello Mr. Martin, " Jack says, "How are you?"

"I'm an old man Jack, how could I be," and then he smiles, "ah, I can't complain. How are you?"

"Still alive and well."

"Who is this pretty young lady?"

"This is Kate."

Joesph Martin takes Kathleen by the arm and gently squeezes, "Hello Kate, such a pretty women, ah, if I was only sixty," and the old man smiles.

Kathleen forces a smile.

The thick eyeglasses that Mr. Martin wears magnifies his eyes as he looks from Kathleen to Jack, "Have fun now, because when you're dead, you're going to be dead a long, long time." And Martin smiles.

"How long?  Delleto inquires.

The old man smirks and waves as he continues up the street to the door leading to the rooms above the bar. He turns to face the door. The small window is broken and the shards of glass catch the twilight.

Joesph Martin turns back looking at the man and young woman who are about to get into the car. He is not certain what he wants to say to them. Perhaps he wants to tell them that it ***** being an old man and the upstairs hallway always smells of ****.

Joesph Martin wants to tell someone that although Anna died seven years ago his love endures and he misses her everyday. Joesph recalls that Plato in Tamaeus believed that the soul is a stranger to the Earth and has fallen into matter because of sin.

A faint smile appears on the wrinkled face of the old man as he heeds the resignation he hears in his own thoughts.

Jack waves to Mr. Martin.  Joesph waves back. The mustang drives off.

Earth, O island Earth.


                                               Chapter 8


Joseph pushes open the door and goes into the hallway. The fragments of glass scattered across the foyer crunch and clink under his shoes. The cold wind blowing through the broken window touches his warm neck. He shivers and walks up the stairs. There is only enough light to see the wall and his own warm breathing. There is just enough light like when he has awaken from a  bad dream, enough to remember who he is and to separate the horror of what is real from the horror of what is dreamt.

The old man continues climbing the stairs following the familiar shadow of the wall cast onto the stairs. If he crosses the vague line of shadow and light he will disappear like a brown trout in the deepest hole in a creek.

By the time he reaches the second floor he is out of breath. Joseph pauses and with the handkerchief he has taken from his back pocket he wipes the fog from the lenses of his eyeglasses and the sweat from his forehead.

A couple of doors are standing open and the old man looks cautiously into each room as he hurries passed. One forty watt bulb hangs from a frayed wire in the center of the hallway. The wiring is old and the bulb in the white porcelain socket flickers like the blinking of an eye or the fearful beating of the heart of an old man.

When he opens the door to his room it sags on ruined hinges.

Joesph searches with his hand for the light switch.  Several seconds linger. Can't find it.

Finds it and quickly pushes the door shut. He sits down on the bed, doesn't take his coat off, reaches for the radio. It is gone.

Joseph looks around the room. A small dresser, the sink with a mirror above it. He takes off his coat and above the mirror hangs the coat on the nail he has put there.

Hard soled boots echo hollowly off the hallway walls. The echoes are overlapping and he cannot determine if the footsteps are leaving or approaching.

The crowbar is under his pillow.

He grabs it. Holds it until there is silence.

He lays back on the bed. Another night without sleep. Joseph rolls onto his side and faces the wall.

Earth, O island Earth.



                                           Chapter 9


Tangled in the tree tops a rising moon hangs above the roofs of identical Cape Cod houses.

Jack pulls the red mustang behind a station wagon. Kathleen is looking at Dell. His face is a faint shadow on the other side of the car. "Do you want to come up?" she asks.

Kathleen steps out of the car, breathes the cold air deep into her lungs. It is fresh and sweet. Jack comes around the side of the car just as she knew he would. He takes her into his arms. She can feel his lips on hers and his warm breath as the kiss ends.

They walk beneath the old oak tree and the roots have raised and crack the sidewalk and in the spring tiny blue flowers will bloom. The flowers remind Jack of the columbines that bloom in high mountain meadows above tree line heralding a brief season of sun and warmth.

"Did you win?" Kathleen asks as she fits the key into the upstairs apartment door. The door swings open into the brightly lit kitchen.

Dell, leaning in the doorway, two black eyes, looking like the Jack of Hearts. "It doesn't matter."

"You lost?"

"Yeah."

Crossing the room she takes off her coat and places it on the back of the kitchen chair. When Kate leans across the kitchen table to turn on the radio the mini dress rides up her thigh, tugs tightly around her buttocks.

The radio plays softly.

Jack stands and as Kathleen turns he slips his arms around her waist and she is staring into his eyes like a cat into a fire. His body gently presses against the table and when he lifts her onto the table her legs wrap around his waist.

Kathleen sighs.

Jack kisses her. Her lips are cold like the rain. His hand reaches. There is a faint click. The room slips into darkness. It is Eddie Money on the radio, now, with Ronnie Specter singing the back up vocals. Eddie belts out, "TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT, I WON"T LET YOU LEAVE TIL..."

When Jack withdraws from the kiss her eyes are shining like diamonds in moonlight.

The buttons of her dress are unfastened.  Her arms circle his neck and pull him to her *******. "Don't Jack. You mustn't. I just want a friend."

His hands slide up her thighs. "I'll be your friend, " says Jack.

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear. "*** always ruins everything," He pulls her to the edge of the table as Ronnie sings, "O DARLIN, O MY DARLIN, WON'T YOU BE MY LITTLE BAABBBY NOOWWW."


They are sitting on a couch in the room that at one time had been a sun porch.

Now that they have gotten *** out of the way, maybe they can talk. Sliding her hands around his face she pulls him closer.

"Jack, what do you dream about? You know what I mean, tell your dreams to me."

"How did you get those round scars on your arm?" Dell wonders.

"Don't ask. I don't talk about it. Do you have family?"

"Yeah. A brother. Tell me about those scars."

My ****** foster dad. He burned me with his cigarette. That's how I got these ****** scars.

And when I knew he was coming home, I'd get sick to my stomach, and when I heard his key in the door, I'd *** myself. And I got a beating.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

When they didn't beat me or burn me, they ignored me, like I didn't exist, like I wasn't even there. And you know what, I didn't hate him. I hated my father who put in all those foster homes."



                                             Chapter 10



Spring. All the windows in the apartment are open. The cool breeze flows through her brown hair. "You're getting too serious, Jack, and I don't want to need you."

"That's because I care for you."

The rain pounds the roof.

Jack Delleto sits down on the bed, caresses her shoulder. "I hate the rain. Come on, give me a smile. "Kathleen pulls away and faces the wall.

"Well, I don't need anyone."

"People need people."

"Yeah, but I don't need you." There is silence, then, "I only care about my son and Father Anthony."

"What is it with you and the priest?" You named your son Anthony is that because he's the father."

"You're an *******. Get out of here. I don't love you." And then, "I've been hurt by people and you'll get over it."

Then silence. Jack gets up from the bed, stares at her dark form facing the wall. "Isn't this how it always ends for you?"

The room is quiet and grows hot. When the silence numbs his racing heart, he goes into the kitchen, opens the front door and walks down the steps into the cold rain.


"Anthony," Kathleen calls to her son to come to her from the other bedroom and he climbs into the bed, and she holds him close. The ghost of relationships past haunt her and although they are all sad, she clings to them.


On the sidewalk below the apartment window Jack stops. He thinks he hears his name being called but whatever he has heard is carried off by the wind. He continues up the dark street to his Harley.

High in reach less branches of the old oak tree a mockingbird is singing. The leaves twist in the wind and the singing goes on and on.



                                            
     



The ringing phone. The clock on the dresser says 5 a.m.

"Who the hell is this?"

"Jack, I'm scared."

"Kate? Is that you?"

"Someone broke into my apartment."

"Is he still there?"

"No, he ran out the door when I screamed. It was hot and I had the window open. He slit the screen."

"I'll be right over."



                                         Chapter11


"How hot is it?" Kathleen asks.

The bar is empty except for O'Malley, Keater, a man and a woman.

"98.6," says Jack. The sweat rolls down his cheeks.

"Let's go to the boardwalk."

"When it's hot like this, it's hot all over."

"We could go on the rides."

"I've got the next pool game, then we'll go."

"It's my birthday."

"I bought you flowers."

"Yeah, carnations."

Laughing, Paul Keater slides the brim of his baseball cap back and forth across his forehead.

Jack eyes narrow. He starts for Keater, Katheen steps in front of Jack, puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks into his eyes.

"Who are you Jack Delletto? What is it with you two? But as always you'll say nothing, nothing." As Jack tries to speak she walks over to the bar and sits on the barstool.

"It's my birthday," she tells O'Malley.

When Bob turns from the horse races on the T.V., he notices her long legs and the short skirt. "Hey, happy birthday, Kate, Jack Daniels?"

"Fine."

Filling the glasses O'Malley hands one to Kathleen, "You look great," he tells her.

"Jack doesn't think so. Thanks, at least someone thinks so."

"Hope Jack won't mind," and he leans over the bar and kisses her.

Kathleen looks over her shoulder at Delleto. Jack is playing pool with a woman wearing a black tight halter top. The woman comes over to Jack, stands too close, smiles, and Jack smiles back.

The boyfriend stares angrily at Jack.

When Kathleen turns back O'Malley is filling her shot glass.

Jack wins that game, too.



                                                 Chapter 12



"Daddy," the little girl with her hands folded in her lap is looking up at her father. "When will the ride stop? I want to go on."

"Soon, Darling, "her father assures her.

"I don't think it will ever stop."

"The ride always stops, Sweetie." Daddy takes her by the hand, gently squeezes.


When the carousel begins to slow down but has not quite stopped Kathleen steps onto the platform, grabs the brass support pole. The momentum of the machine grabs her with a **** onto the ride, into a white horse with big blue eyes. Dropping her cigarette she takes hold of the pole that goes through the center of the horse. She struggles to put her foot in the stirrup, finds it, and throws her leg over the horse. The carousel music begins to play. With a tremble and a jolt, the ride starts.

Sitting on the pony has made her skirt ride well up her legs. The ticket man is staring at her but she is too drunk to care. She hands him the ticket, gives him the finger.

The ticket man goes over to the little girl and her father who are sitting in a golden chariot pulled by to black horses.

"Ooooh, Daddy, I love this."

"So do I," The father smiles and strokes his daughter's hair.

The heat makes the dizziness grow and as the ride picks up speed she sees two of everything. There are two rows of pin ball machines, eight flashing signs, six prize machines. All the red, blue and green lights from the ride blend together like when a car drives at night down a rain-soaked street.

Kathleen feels the impulse to *****.

"Can we go on again?" The little girl asks.

"But the ride isn't over, yet."


Kathleen concentrates on the rain-soaked street and the dizziness and nausea lessens. She perceives the images as a montage like the elements that make up a painting or a life. She has become accustom to the machine and its movement. The circling ride creates a cooling breeze that becomes a tranquil, flowing waterfall.

The ponies in front are always becoming the ponies in the back and the ponies in back are becoming the ponies in the front. Around and around. All the ponies galloping. Settling back into the saddle she rides the pony into the ever-present receding waterfall.

You can lose all sense of the clock staring into the waterfall of blue, red and green. Kathleen leans forward to embrace the ride for a long as it lasts.

Just as suddenly as it started, the ride is slowly stopping, the music stops playing.

Coming down off the pony she does not wait for the ride to stop, stumbles off the platform and out the Casino amusement park door. "****, *******," she yells careening into the railing almost falling into Wesley Lake.

She staggers a few steps, sits down on the grass by the curb, hears the carousel music playing and knows the ride is beginning again, and all of her dreams crawls into her like a dying animal from its hidden hole.

And it all comes up from her throat taking her breath away. A distant yet familiar wind so she lies down on the grass facing the street of broken buildings filled with broken people. From the emptying lot of scattering thoughts the mockingbird is singing and the images shoot off into a darkening landscape, exploding, illuminating for a brief moment, only to grow dimmer, light and warmth fading into cold and darkness.




                                      
     

"Your girlfriend is flirting with me," Jack Delleto tells the man. "It's my game."

The man stands up, takes a pool stick from the rack, as he comes towards Jack Delleto the man turns the pool stick around holding the heavy part with two hands.

There is an explosion of light inside his head, Delleto sees two spinning lizards playing trumpets, 3 dwarfs with purple hair running to and fro, intuitively he knows he has to get up off the floor, and when he does he catches the bigger man with a left hook, throws the overhand right. The man stumbles back.

His girlfriend in the tight black halter top is jumping up and down, screaming at, screaming at Jack Delleto to stop, but Jack, does not. Stepping forward, a left hook to the midsection, hook to the head, spins right, throws the overhand right.

The man goes down. Jack looks at him.

"You lose, I win," and Delleto's smile is a sad, knowing one.



                                                  CHAPTER­ 13

"It's too much," and Jack looks up from the two lines of white powder at Bob O'Malley. "I'll never be able to fall asleep and I hate not being able to sleep."

" Here," Bob takes a big white pill from his shirt pocket.

Jack drops the pill into his shirt pocket and says, "No more." He hands the rolled-up dollar bill to Bob who bends over the powder.

"Tom sold the house so you're upstairs? O Malley asks, and like a magician the two lines of white powder disappear.

"Till i find another place," Jack whispers.

Straightening up, O'Malley looks at Dell, "I know you 're hurting Dell, I'm sorry, I'm sad about Kate, too."

"Kate had a kid. A boy, four years old."

Jack becomes quiet, walks through the darkened room over to the bar. Leaning over the bar he grabs two shot glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, walks back into the poolroom. He puts the shot glasses on top of the pin ball machine. "We have a winner, " the pin ball machine announces. Dell fills the glasses.

"Felix came in the other day, he's taken it hard," Bob tells him.
Bill Wain knock down four times in the sixth round, he lost consciousness in the dressing room, and died at the hospital."

"I heard. What's the longest you went without sleep? Jack asks.

"Oooohhh, five, six days, who knows, after awhile you lose all track of time."

They take the shots and throw them down.

"I wonder if animals dream," Jack wants to know. "I wonder if dogs dream."

"Sure, they do, " O'Malley assures him, nodding his head up and down, "dogs, cats, squirrels, birds."

"Probably not insects."

"Why not? June bugs, fleas, even moths, it's all biochemical, dreams are biochemical, mix the right combination of certain chemicals, electric impulses, and you'll produce love and dreams."

                                          
     

Jack Delleto goes into his room above the bar, studies it. The light from the unshaded lamp on the nightstand casts a huge shadow of him onto the adjacent wall. Not much to the room, a sink with a mirror above it next to a dresser, a bed against the wall, a wooden chair in front of a narrow window.

The rain pounds the roof.

The apprehension grows. The panic turns into anger. Jack rushes the white wall, meets his shadow, explodes with a left hook. He throws the right uppercut, the overhand right, three left hooks. He punches the wall and his knuckles bleed. He punches and kicks the blood-stained wall.

At last exhausted, he collapses into the chair in front of the open window. Fist sized holes in the plaster revel the bones of the building. The room has been punched and kicked without mercy.

The austere room has won.

The yellow note pad, he needs the yellow note pad, finds it, takes the pencil from the binder but no words will come so he writes, "insomnia, the absence of dream." He reaches for the lamp on the nightstand, finds it, and turns off the light. Red and blue, blue and red, the neon from the Wagon Wheel Bar sign blinks soft neon into his room. The sign seems to pulsate to the cadence of the rock music coming from the bar.

Taking the big white pill from his shirt pocket, he swallows it, leans back into the chair watching the shadows of rain bleed down the wall. The darkness intensifies. Jack slides into the night.



                                           Chapter 14


The rain turns to snow.

With each step he takes the pain throbs in his arm and shoulder socket. His raw throat aches from the drafts of cold air he is ******* through his gaping mouth and although his legs ache he does not turn to look back. Jack must keep punching holes with his ice axe, probing the snow to avoid a fall into an abyss.

The pole of the ice axe falls effortlessly into the snow, "**** it, another one."

Moonlight coats the glacier in an irridecent glow and the mountain looms over him. It is four in the mourning and Jack knows he needs to be high on the mountain before the mourning sun softens the snow. He moves carefully, quietly, humbly to avoid a fall into a crevasse. When he reaches the top of the couloir the wind begins to howl.

"DA DA DUN, DA DA DUN, HEY PURPLE HAZE ALL AROUND MY BRAIN..."

Jack thinks the song is in his head but the electric guitar notes float down through the huge blocks of ice that litter the glacier and there standing on the arête is Jimi, his long dexterous fingers flying over the guitar strings at 741 mph.

"Wait a minute, " Jack wonders, stopping dead in his tracks. The sun is hitting the distant, wind-blown peaks. "Ah, what the hell," and Jack jumps in strumming his ice axe like an air guitar, singing, shouting, "LATELY THINGS DON'T SEEM THE SAME, IS THIS A DREAM, WHATEVER IT IS THAT GIRL PUT A SPELL ON MEEEE, PURRPPLLE HAZZEEE."


                                        
     


Slowly the door moans open.

"Jack, are you awake?" her voice startles him.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"What's the matter, can't sleep?"

Jack sifts position on the chair. "Oh, I can sleep all right." He recognizes the voice of the shadow. "I want to climb to a high mountain through ice and snow and never be found."

"A heart that's empty hurts, I miss you, Jack Delleto."

"I'm glad someone does, I miss you, too, Kate."

There is silence for several minutes and the voice comes out of the darkness again.

"Jack, you forgot something that night."

"What?" The dark shape moves towards him. When it is in front of him, Jack stands, slips his arms around her waist.

"You didn't kiss me goodbye."

Her lips are soft and warm. Her arms tighten around his neck and the warmth of her body comes to him through the cold night.

"Jack, what's the matter?" She raises her head to look at him, "Why, you're crying."

"Yeah, I'm crying."

"Don't cry Darlin," her lips are soft against his ear. "I can't bear to see you unhappy, if you love me, tell me you love me."

"I love you, I do," he whispers softly.

"Hold me, Jack, hold me tighter."

"I'll never let you go." He tries to hug the shadow.


                                          
      *


The dread grows into an explosion of consciousness. Suddenly, he sits up ******* in the cold drafts of air coming into the room from the open window. Jack Delleto gets up off the chair and walks over to the sink. He turns on the cold water and bending forward splashes water onto his face. Water dripping, he leans against the sink, staring into the mirror, into his eyes that lately seem alien to him.



                                            Chapter 15


Someone approaches, Jacks turns, looks out the open door, sees Joesph Martin go shuffling by wearing a faded bathrobe and one red slipper. Jack hears Martin 's door slam shut and for thirty seconds the old man screams, "AAHHH, AAAHHH, AAAHH."
Then the building is silent and Jack listens to his own labored breathing.

A glance at the clock. It is a few minutes to 7 a.m. Jack hurries from his room into the hallway.  They pass each other on the stairs. The big man is coming up the stairs and Jack is going down to see O'Malley.

Jack has committed a trespass.

When the big man reaches the top of the stairs, the red exit light flickers like a votive candle above his head. The man slides the brim of his Giants baseball cap back and forth across his forehead, he turns and looks down, "Hello, Jack, brother. Dad loved you, too, you know." An instant later the sound of a door closing echoes down the hallway steps.


Jack Delleto is standing in the doorway at the bottom of the steps looking out onto the wet, bright street.

"Hey, Jack, man it's good to see you, glad to see you're still alive."

Jack turns, looks over his shoulder, "Felix, how the hell are you?"
The two men shake hands, then embrace momentarily.

"Ah, things don't get any better and they don't get any worse," shrugs the old man and then he smiles but his brown eyes are dull, and Jack can smell the cheap wine on the breath of the old boxer. "When are comin back? Man, you've got something, Kid, and we're going places."

"Yeah, Felix, I'll be coming back."  Jack extends his hand. The old fighter smiles and they shake hands. Suddenly, Felix takes off down Main Street towards Foodtown as if he has some important place to go.

Jack is curious. He sees the rope when he starts walking towards the Wagon Wheel Bar. One end of the rope is tied around the parking meter pole. The rest of the rope extends across the sidewalk disappearing into the entrance to the bar. The rattling of a chain catches his attention and when the huge white head of the dog pops out of the doorway Jack is startled. He stops dead in his tracks and as he spins around to run, he slips falling to the wet pavement.

The big, white mutt is curious, growls, woofs once and comes charging down the sidewalk at him. The rope is quickly growing shorter, stretches till it meets it end, tightens, and then snaps. Now, unimpeded by the tension of the rope the mutt comes charging down the sidewalk at Delleto. Jack's body grows tense anticipating the attack. He tries to stand up, makes it to his knees just as the dog bowls into him knocking him to the cement. The huge mutt has him pinned down, goes for his face.

And begins licking him.

Jack Delleto struggles to his knees, hugs her tightly to him. Looking over her shoulder, across Main Street to the graffiti painted on the boarded shut Delleto Market...

                               FANTASY WILL SET YOU FREE

                                                 The End

To Tommy, Crazy George and Snake, we all enjoyed a little madness for a while.


"Conversations With a Dead Dog..."
Chapter One

He sat there looking over the edge alone and couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He thought it had been a very long time.

The drive from Oakland had taken the best part of a day, and although having traveled across some of the most scenic parts of the western United States, his mind was blank, he couldn’t remember anything.  He only knew what he had come here to do, and before the sun would set over his left shoulder, he strengthened his resolve to do it.

He thought about leaving a note, but then who would read it.  He was sure whoever did find it wouldn’t care. He couldn’t remember why he had picked the ‘Canyon’ as the place to end it all. He just knew he was drawn to the place, and in some strange way the Canyon understood.  He wasn’t sure what most men thought about knowing it was their last day on earth.  At this point he was having trouble thinking about anything at all.

He forced himself to try and think about his three failed marriages and his two sons from his first marriage.  One, his oldest son Robert, had recently died of a drug overdose. His younger son Hank was an Army Ranger who had recently been killed while serving a second deployment in Afghanistan.  Neither boy had spoken to him since he had deserted their mother when they were both very young (5 & 7).

He had been discharged from the Army in 1969 at Fort ***** New Jersey after serving 14 months in Vietnam.  He then spent three months hitchhiking across the country, from New Jersey to California, trying to get his head back on straight as he worked his way back home.

He would like to blame all of his bad luck on something that had happened to him over there, but he knew in his heart that he couldn’t.  He had been a supply sergeant at a large depot in downtown Saigon. His only experience with combat was listening to the stories from the grunts recently returned from the bush as they self-medicated themselves inside the many bars and clubs that overran the downtown streets and alleyways.  He often basked in the aftermath of their stories secretly wishing he were one of them. He had had a chance to volunteer for combat artillery but had turned it down.

He took his sunglasses off because it was almost time. He had forgotten to check-out of the Yavapi Motor Lodge before walking the half-mile to the rim where he now sat. The sun was dropping low in the Western sky as he stood up to move closer to the edge. It was just then that he heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes to his left that he had not heard before.  

Chapter Two

The motorcycle ride across the plains and high desert through the Dakota’s and Wyoming had been as idyllic as he ever imagined. He had spent almost a week in Yellowstone, having to force himself to leave on the seventh day. He was headed South, but he had one more great sight to see before working his way back East toward New Mexico.

He had promised himself before dedicating the rest of his life to the Dominicans that he would go and visit the Grand Canyon this one last time.  In many ways his life had been like the Canyon, overwhelming in its purpose and majestic in its beauty. His life had taken on a timeless quality that always left him feeling like everything he had done would somehow last forever.

He had lost his beloved wife Sarah last April after a long and debilitating illness.  They had been married for forty-one years and had traveled the world together. After all of the travel, Sarah’s two favorite spots on earth were Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  He always felt that she loved the Canyon the most, and he was saving it for last.  She had been his best friend and partner and had supported him in everything he had done, both at his work, but even more important to him, at his leisure.

He had been born with a restless adventurous spirit inside of him, and it was one of the things Sarah loved most about him and had always given him plenty of rope to roam.  He loved her all the more for it.  He now felt that the only way he could go on without her was to devote himself to a cause she had always been passionate about, the Dominican Mission in Pastura New Mexico.  The mission had been founded almost two hundred years ago to help and educate the many Native Tribes that lived in the area.

He needed to dedicate the remainder of his life to something bigger that just himself.  Because of all the good work his wife had done on their behalf, the Dominicans had accepted him into their order, and they were expecting him before the week was out.

He had recently sold his business for over 100 million dollars, and after securing his grandchildren’s education was going to use the bulk of the money to build a hospital in rural New Mexico to treat the poor and disenfranchised.  He wanted the hospital to specialize in treating diabetes and juvenile diabetes since so many of the Native Americans in the Southwest (and all over the U.S.) were suffering from this terrible disease.  It had been the disease that had finally claimed his beloved wife Sarah.

He was riding a vintage/antique BMW motorcycle that he had spent the last 20 years restoring.  Although it was over 50 years old, there was no part of this bike that you couldn’t eat off of.  Like everything else in his life, it was a reflection of him and the ‘midas’ effect he seemed to have on everything he touched. Everything in his life just seemed to ‘WORK’ !

After checking into his motel at the South Rim of the Canyon, he decided there was still time to get to his wife’s favorite spot along the rim to Watch the sun go completely down.  As he walked through the Pinyon Trees toward the rim, he thought he saw a figure standing close to the edge.  Whoever it was had heard him coming through the brush and was now looking his way.

“Hello,” he called out.  “Aren’t you standing a little too close to the rim?”  “What do you want,” he heard back in response, “I thought I was here alone.” “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but like you, I just wanted to take one look over before the day ended. It’s nice to find someone else here to be able to share this magnificent view with.”
  
“I didn’t come here to share anything with anybody,” he heard back again, “And like I said before, I thought I was alone.”  As the man spoke, he walked slowly backwards and seated himself on the large rock where he had laid his sunglasses before. He put his sunglasses back on before speaking again.

“You know it’s unbelievable, no matter how many times I’ve seen the view from this rim, it’s always like seeing it for the first time again.  This was my wife’s favorite spot on earth.  It’s almost impossible to describe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, it’s my first time here, he heard the seated man say.  “Wow, first time huh.  I can still remember my first time, but then every time is like that first time to me, and that was over 35 years ago.”  “It may be special to you,” the man sitting down said, now without looking his way, “To me it’s just a big hole in the ground.”
As he emerged from the Pinyon Pines and approached the rim, he noticed something strange and out of place.  There was a large black handgun sitting with its barrel pointed out toward the canyon, in between the seated man’s two legs.  

He slowly walked off to his left and moved very cautiously toward the rim, being careful not to make any sudden moves.  He tried to act nonchalant and make it seem like he hadn’t noticed the gun.  The man on the rock knew that he had seen it as he tried to close both legs over the gun and hide it from further sight.

“Have you been here long,” he asked the seated man? “I don’t know --- I don’t know, it seems like long.”  ‘Well, it’s a great place to sit and reflect about life and think about where life’s journey goes next.”
“I know all about where my life has been and where it‘s going,”  

At this point the man stopped speaking and there was a very uncomfortable moment of silence — a silence that seemed to fill the surrounding canyon with a new emptiness that rivaled even its great depths.  “You look like you’re upset sitting there all alone, might I ask the reasons why.”  The seated man then finally turned his head his way and said, ‘Why would you care if I’m upset or not.”

“I can’t explain why I care, but I do, and if you’d like to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”  “Why in the world would you want to listen to someone else’s problems when you seem not to have a care in the world.  Especially coming from someone that you don’t know and who you’ve just met at a spot like this that you so obviously love and have great affection for?” 
 
“Maybe for that very reason, because it is a beautiful day today and this is one of the world’s most magical spots.  I am having a hard time accepting how someone could seem so depressed and dejected in a place like this.  You may not believe me, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Why did you come to the Grand Canyon in a state like this. Were you hoping that the majesty of the canyon would lift your spirits and cheer you up?”

“I know that some like you have said that this is the most powerful place on earth.  I thought it would be a most appropriate place, or certainly as good as any,” as his voice trailed off again and silence intervened.

“As good as any to do what,” the standing man asked as he moved slightly closer.  The seated man didn’t answer as he stared out over the rim into the huge expanse of rock and sky.  Finally, he said, “Really, why would you even care, I’m nothing to you, and it’s really none of your business.”  “About that, you’re right, and if I’m intruding then I apologize, but I’m getting the strongest feeling that meeting you here today in this spot was no accident.  Do you think about things like that?”

The man stood up but did not answer.  ‘What are your plans today after the sun sets? I just checked into the motel a short ways down the road, the Yavapai Motor Lodge, ever heard of it.”  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, maybe you should be heading back there before it starts to get dark.”  “Why don’t we walk back together, I’d enjoy the company.”
“Look, I don’t have any plans that go beyond this evening, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave, as I’d like to be alone to finish what I started.”  “I’d really like to hear all about that if you’d be willing to tell me. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The man now standing with his sunglasses back on in the approaching darkness was frozen by the words –'Nothing but time.’  He had made the decision earlier that for him, time was up and today would be the end.  Now he had some do-gooding stranger who had invaded his privacy unannounced and wouldn’t seem to back off.  

“Look, for the last time, you don’t want to hear my sad story, no one ever has, and no-one ever will.”  “Well, why don’t you just try me.  If I turn out to be like everyone else in your life after you’ve told me, you can always just get up and walk away --- end of story!”
“You look like someone whose life has turned out very well and never had a bad day in your life.”  

“Honestly, you’re making me feel guilty because when I look at my life in total, you’re pretty much correct.  I have had that kind of a life and feel very blessed because of it.  I’m going to assume that you have not.”

His honesty at admitting to having had a charmed life seemed to make an impression on the man as he answered back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life has worked out, from my failed marriages, to my children who are now gone, and to all the nothing job’s. Everything has been a failure.  My life has been one great disappointment after another, and I can’t see the point in going on.”
The reality of the situation now became crystal clear.

“So, you were going to end it all here today at the South Rim of this Canyon?  It seems too beautiful a place for something so drastic.”
“I was, and I am going to end it all today in spite of everything you’ve said.”  “What is the gun for, if I might ask?”  The gun is just in case I don’t have guts enough to jump.  Guts is something I’ve always struggled with too.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything at all, that might make you change your mind, at least for a little while?”

“Nothing,” the man said.  “You don’t know me, and I’m sure there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”  “If I could come up with one reason, just one, for you not to jump, would that make any difference at all?”  “Why would you even care to try when my mind is made up?”

“I’m glad you used the word ‘care’ when asking me that question.  Who is the last person in your life that you thought truly ‘cared’ for you?’  “I can’t remember, and I’m not sure anyone ever did.  My Parents split up when I was three and I was raised in one foster home after another before joining the army because I didn’t have guts enough to run away.  I’m not sure that word has any real meaning for me.”

“What if I was to tell you that I care about you, --- very much, and I don’t want to see you do what you’re getting ready to do in this most sacred of spots or anywhere for that matter.”“You just stumbled upon me by chance in my sorry state, and now feel pity for me and your conscience won’t let you leave well enough alone.”  

In a very strange way, he didn’t feel sorry for the man but felt guilty for the blessed life he had lived.  It all needed to make sense, or he couldn’t go back.  Why tonight, and why at this spot that he was looking so forward to.

He struggled for his next words before speaking again to the troubled man who had now gotten precariously close to the edge. The scene started to remind him of the movies he had seen where a man would be standing out on a building’s ledge, high above the street.  In the movies there was always a heroic detective or passerby who was able to talk the man down.  He knew he was running out of time, and he also knew this man he had just met could smell insincerity from a 100-miles away.

“I’d like to help you get through this in any way that I can.”  “There’s no getting through it. If you really want to do me a favor, just walk back to where you came from and let me finish what I came here to do.”

“I can’t explain this to you, but I know now that I was brought here today for a reason — a reason beyond a one last goodbye to this place.  I could have, and actually thought about, stopping at many of the rims my wife and I loved, but I picked this one because this was her favorite.  I know now that it had a higher purpose.  You may not want to hear this, but you came to this place today to end it all because of what has always been missing in your life only to find exactly that when I came walking through the trees.  In fact, to prove what I’m saying, I’d like to make you an offer.

“Suppose someone, in this case me, were to say that they would trade positions with you and that they would do what you are thinking about doing if you would do something very important for them.”  What do you mean,” the man said looking back from the edge.

‘What if I were to tell you that I would be willing to step off the edge of this canyon to show you how much I really care.  Would you be willing to fulfill a dream of mine in turn for my doing that.  You will then see that a total stranger is willing to give it all up for you if you will be willing to commit to something that is equally important to them.”

“You’re either crazy or you think that I am.  Nobody’s going to give up their life to prove to me that they care about saving my worthless life.  Your life seems to have a value beyond what I can describe.”
“You’re right about that, and my life has had a value beyond what even I can describe, but what I am telling you is that the deal I am making you is real. After hearing my terms and agreeing to what you will have to do, I will jump off this Canyon wall so you can find the happiness, peace, and contentment you deserve.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, all of this is crazy, sheer lunacy.  I think I’ve been joined on this cliff by a man who’s completely lost his own mind.”“All right then, let’s do this.  Would you agree to sleep on it overnight.  If you feel the same way in the morning, then I will carry out your plan if you will fulfill mine.  Are you staying at that same motel as I am.”  “Yeah, I checked in yesterday and forgot to check out, so I guess I still have a room.”  Maybe it was for a reason he thought to himself, as he stood there shaking his head in the darkness.

“Don’t shake your head, just tell me you’ll think about it.
If I don’t hear from you, and I’m in room #888, I’ll assume that our deal is set, and I’ll fulfill my part of our agreement.”  “OK, one more night,” the man said as he picked up his gun and tucked it into the small of his back.  “One more night, but I don’t really think anything is going to change.”

They walked back to the Yavapai Motor Lodge in silence together.  Both men felt at this point that they had known each other for a very long time — maybe an eternity.  Nighttime in the Canyon echoes a silence louder than anything that can be made with sound.
As they entered the lobby, they both went in different directions without saying goodnight.

The man who had come by motorcycle wondered: ‘Was I challenged by God before ever reaching the Dominicans? Will I ever see those peaceful hallways and gardens that my wife loved so much ever again?”


Chapter Three

Jack hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over fifteen years.  His tortured mind and soul just seemed to never rest.  He woke to the sounds of birds and bright sunshine outside his window.  Last night he had truly slept for the first time in his adult life. He never needed an alarm, but it had sounded to him like one had been going off.  

All at once he realized what it was --- it was a siren.  Multiple sirens were going off and he wondered if the Motel was on fire.  Still slightly disoriented from the past two days, and the effects of so much sleep, he threw his pants and shoes on and headed down the hall toward the lobby.

He then remembered the strange conversation he had had with that man in the Canyon last night.  Cold sweat started to flow as he then remembered their agreement. “If I don’t hear differently by first thing tomorrow morning, I will go ahead with my part of our agreement.”  Jack tried to compose himself as he thought, “No way, no way anyone would be crazy enough to do what he said he would do last night.  If this place isn’t on fire, maybe he’s having breakfast in the coffee shop off the lobby.”

As he hustled through the lobby, the desk clerk shouted to him but he didn’t stop.  He saw fire engines and ambulances outside, and he wanted to see what was going on.  He was immediately relieved when he saw Fred’s motorcycle parked in the same spot as last night.
Something else didn’t look right though.  There were at least three fire engines and two ambulances outside but nothing was on fire and there was no car accident to be seen.  Obviously, something was afoot, but everyone seemed too busy to talk to him. He walked back into the Motel and through the lobby…

This time the desk clerk came out from behind the desk and said, “Hey, I was shouting to you as you ran out the door.  There’s an envelope for you here from the guy who jumped.  The police are looking to talk to you as they have no clues as to why or what drove him to step off the edge.  We get a couple of jumpers every year, but this guy seemed totally different.  He was one of the most upbeat people to come in here in a long time.”

JUMP!  It seemed impossible.  Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around it as he opened the envelope.  In a very neat handwriting, it said --- ‘I’ve left something for you under the seat of my motorcycle.” As he started back outside the desk clerk asked, “Did you know him very well?”  “No, not really, I just met him late yesterday afternoon for the first time.” 
 
Jack's knees weakened as the desk clerk went on.  “It’s really weird.  He was actually whistling when he walked through the lobby this morning at about 7:15.”  “Who, Jack asked.”  “Why the Jumper, the guy who jumped.  He was smiling and commenting on what a beautiful day it was, and how he hoped we all were going to have a great day.  I guess it just goes to show --- you never know.
At 7:42, the police got a call from the Havasupai Indians that live along the bottom saying that a full set of clothes had fallen to the floor of the canyon, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole deal.  Everything, but a body.  The police are having the hardest time making any sense of it at all.”

The words ‘you never know’ kept repeating in Jack’s ears as he walked outside. As he unlatched the seat and lifted it up on the old BMW, he found a two-page note folded over and neatly placed between the frame. It went on to say …

Dear Jack
I don’t know and can hardly imagine what your life must have been like up until now.  I wish I had the power to go back and change the bad things that happened to you, but I don’t.

The only power that I have, the one that all of us have, is to change what happens now.  I hope you will believe me now when I say I really do care about you more than you know, and I am happy and willing to live up to my promise.  I am now counting on you to live up to yours.

The only thing extra I ask, and I’ve put this in writing to the head Abbott, is for you to be allowed to ride the motorcycle back to this spot once every year.  Once here, I would like you to say a Rosary for the souls of my family and for all the faithful departed.  If you put in a good word for me that would be all the better. If you do this, I know your new life will be joyous and take on a deeper meaning, and more than make up for any troubles that you’ve experienced up until now.
If you choose not to keep your promise and go through with ending your life, then I forgive you and still love you, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.

May God Bless and keep you.

Fred

Underneath the note there was a folded-up roadmap with a line drawn in magic marker pointing the way to the monastery in New Mexico. Jack sat down on the curb in front of the motorcycle in disbelief.  There was one more slip of paper folded up in the map.  It was the title to the old BMW.  It had been signed over to Jack.

“He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have, he just wouldn’t have,” Jack kept saying over and over to himself.  Just then a large Park Policeman tapped Jack on the shoulder and asked him if he would mind answering a few questions.  Jack agreed but then told the officer that after speaking with him he just might be even more confused.  The officer went on to tell Jack that none of their suspicions panned out.  This man hadn’t jumped for insurance money (he was very wealthy), or out of a history of depression, he just jumped.
And none of the usual reasons seemed to apply.

After thirty-five minutes of polite questioning the police officer walked away scratching his head.  On the margin of the map was a scribbled note, “Don’t delay out of any concern for me, get to the monastery as quickly as you can.”  Jack had told the police officer about Fred wanting him to have the bike and showed him the title that had been left for him.  He did not show the police officer the letter Fred had left and was in fact surprised that they hadn’t checked the bike.  Then it all started to make sense.  If Jack hadn’t read the note Fred left with the desk clerk, he would never have known the seat to the motorcycle opened up.  He was sure the police didn’t know that either.  He was glad no-one was looking when he opened up the seat and took out the letter.  In all the commotion, everyone else was just looking the other way.

Jack wanted to go back to the spot where Fred jumped and where they first had met, but the police had it roped off. He decided to leave for New Mexico right away because that’s what Fred would have wanted.  The news stations were now calling it a ‘Mystery In The Canyon’ because only clothes, and no body was found.

Jack had never ridden a motorcycle before but had often fantasized about it.  Like most things in his life he had always come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t ride, while secretly envying those who did.  He took to the old bike immediately, and with every hour that passed on Rt #40 he enjoyed the ride more and more. A new type of guilt started to set in because he was actually enjoying his new life with every new twist of the throttle and turn of the handlebars.

Chapter Four

Jack pulled up in front of the Old Dominican Monastery with its Spanish Adobe Walls at 2:30 the following afternoon.  He had spent the previous night in Gallup and had actually been able to volunteer at the Dominican Soup Kitchen that was housed in the old Post Office in the center of downtown.  

Gallup was very depressed and except for a flourishing Indian Jewelry Industry had very little in the way of jobs and opportunity.  The Friar who ran the soup kitchen listened to Jacks story and then put his arm around him and led him inside.  Jack was astonished that the story seemed to make perfect sense to this selfless Padre.

Jack spent the night on a cot behind the soup kitchen and after having an early breakfast with Padre Nick, headed on his way east toward the Monastery in the New Mexico desert.   It reminded Jack of the pictures he had seen of an oasis in the middle of the Arabian desert.  There were palm trees and many varieties of flowers surrounded by what looked like an eternity of sand.  Jack loved the sparseness of his new surroundings, but he still didn’t know why.
The Monastery sat atop a sandy hill at the end of a long unpaved road.  He parked the bike outside the two large, padlocked, doors and began to knock.  

Before he could make contact with the old wooden door on the right a smaller door within it began to open. He stepped through the door as a monk whose hood was completely covering his head lead him inside.  The monastery had a quiet about it that would rival that of the Canyon.  There were three old Spanish Buildings side by side, and the main door to the one in the middle was already open.

He asked the monk where they were going and heard back nothing in return. The hooded monk led Jack down a long hallway to another open door on the left.  He knocked on the door three times as he led jack through and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two chairs in front of the large stone fireplace.  I wonder where they get stone in a desert like this Jack wondered to himself.

Jack looked up slightly and saw the image of two large and heavily tanned feet in sandals walking toward him at a lively pace.  As he looked even higher, he saw a stocky and athletically built man who looked to be in his mid-sixties with a smile that could have come from an angelic two-year old child.

My name is Abbott Estefan, and I have been expecting you all day.  Early this morning I got a letter from our beloved Fred, telling the details of your meeting.  Before we do anything else, we must pray together to him that your mission here will be successful.  I am certain in my heart that Fred now sits with the Saints in heaven and is at this very moment looking down on us both --- with love !

I read Fred’s words, and I am still in partial disbelief.  Would you like to tell me in your words what happened yesterday, Jack?  Soon Abbott, but not right now, I hope you can understand.”  “I do totally my son. Let’s get you settled and then you can start to feel like one of us.  I know that is what Fred would have wanted.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten,” Abbott Estefan asked.  “This morning, in Gallup with Padre Nick,” Jack answered.  “Ah, Padre Nick, one of our very finest.  Half Pueblo and half Navajo but all Dominican.  Once you walk through those front doors, all ‘divisions’ of ethnicity and nationality fade away like the shifting sands.”
“First the body, then the mind.  It’s time to get something into your stomach.  We are only humble servants of the poor around here Jack, but we eat like Roman Emperors.  It’s one of the perks of our particular order.”  “Sounds great to me Abbot, when it comes to food, I’m not picky.”

They laughed together at Jacks comment as they walked down another long hallway around a corner and into the biggest kitchen Jack had even seen.  Padre Francisco was the head cook, and he started to ladle out an array of Mexican food onto a plate the likes of which Jack had never seen.  He decided to eat every drop so as not to disappoint the good Padre.  Once finished ,Abbott Estefan led Jack to his new room on the second floor.

It was very well lit and like all of the Monk’s rooms it faced East to meet the rising sun.  “Get some rest now Jack, morning prayers are at 5a.m. and breakfast is at 6.  I’ll have someone put your motorcycle in one of the stables. You do intend to keep your promise, don’t you Jack, Abbott Estefan asked as he closed the door.”  YES, Jack said to himself as he sat down in the bed.  But then he knew the Abbott already knew his answer.

Jack had never heard anyone laugh with the gusto of Abbott Estefan.  He liked it here already as he could feel his old life peeling away like layers coming off an old onion. Two days later, Jack and Abbott Estefan took a walk around the grounds as Jack told the Abbott the whole story about Fred and their chance meeting at the Grand Canyon.  “Ah yes, the police have contacted us because they found out through Fred’s family that he was coming to be one of us.  I pray that they will someday know more about his passing than they do today. In his letter, Fred asked us not to say anything.  

Two Havasupai elders who were meditating at dawn that morning high among the rocks said they both saw an eagle swoop through the bottom of the canyon just before Fred’s clothing hit the ground.  They then looked up and saw two hands reaching out of the clouds which grabbed the eagle right out of the sky.

WE ARE BUILDING A GROTTO TO FRED IN THIS VERY SPOT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW!

The Monastery was almost totally cloistered, and voices were only used when absolutely necessary.  Over the next several months Jack would come to find out how overrated ‘talking’ really is.

Chapter Five

The next few months were an adjustment for Jack as he settled into a life of contemplation and prayer.  Slowly, yet surely, a fundamental change was taking place inside of him.  It was a change unlike anything he had ever felt before.  The empty places inside of him, some of them over fifty years old, he could feel being filled.  Things that he couldn’t explain and things that he had never felt before were rapidly becoming things he could no longer live without.

Almost a year had gone by when Abbott Estefan knocked on his door one quiet afternoon.  Jack was deep in contemplative prayer, having just finished his daily Rosary and he didn’t hear the first knocks, so the good Abbott knocked harder.  He always prayed to Fred at the end of every Rosary, who the Monks were now referring to with extreme reverence as Patron.  Fred was pronounced the same in Spanish as it was in English, only with a slightly different inflection.  The Grotto in Fred’s honor had only recently been finished.

Jack had a direct view of the Grotto from the window in his room.
Jack opened the door to that wide-eyed smile he had come to love.  ‘May I come in Gato,” the Abbott asked. “Absolutely,” Jack said.  He always loved it when any of the Monks referred to the Spanish pronunciation of his name.  “How can I be of service Father Estefan? It is always an honor when you choose to visit my humble room.”

“In one week’s time it will be the one year anniversary since you decided to become one of us.  It will also be the one-year anniversary of our dear Fred’s passing and his ascension into heaven.  No one else dared refer to Fred’s passing in that way, but the Abbott was heard on more than one occasion to say that Fred had been welcomed into heaven by none other than Jesus, the Son of God Himself.  It was his hands that the two Havasupai Elders saw reaching out of the clouds that day. 
 
Abbott Estefan was sure of that in his heart. He told Jack that it was much easier to live with what you knew in your heart, rather than what you could prove.  The Church still required proof for Sainthood, but the Abbott told Jack that he was living proof and the only proof his order would ever need that Fred was sitting next to Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

“Are you planning on keeping your promise Gato?” the Abbott asked him no longer smiling.  “I hope that you are, and if so, I would like you to start making plans right away.  I will have my personal secretary call that Motel and make you a reservation for two nights.  You need to spend the first night at the canyon isolated and by yourself in prayer.  The second day and night are a celebration to Fred, and you need to keep an open mind, and open heart, to anything that might happen.”

The Abbott thought he saw a small tinge of uncertainty in Jack’s eyes.  “You must not hesitate or be doubtful my son.  Remember only that the man who gave his life up for you, a stranger, will be with you in the canyon.  Our Native American Brothers like to refer to this experience as a Vision Quest.  You should fast and sleep little while you are there. And with enough time, the Patrons message will take over you and show you the way.”

After speaking, Abbott Estefan turned and quietly started to walk down the hall.  After only three steps, he turned, looked at Jack one more time and said:  “My dear Gato, please ask the Patron to smile down on this poor Dominican Monk who thinks of him daily.  Ask him to watch over our Mission and all of the poor and suffering souls that we try and help.

Jack hadn’t looked at the BMW for almost a year.  In fact, he had thought about it very little.  The Monk who acted as head groundskeeper had stored it in a stable near the very back of the mission.  He had it wheeled up to the front of the Main Building on the day Jack was getting ready to leave.  It started on the very first kick.

Jack was taking very little with him as he headed to Arizona.  Just the old civilian clothes he had been wearing when arriving a year ago, a road map of the Southwest, and the Rosary Beads he had found draped across the handlebars when he went to get on the bike.
The bikes gas tank was full, and Jack marveled at how clean and well maintained it looked.  ‘Unbelievable, he thought to himself.  “I know if I was to ask, the Monks would tell me it was all a result of the power of prayer — prayer, and a siphon to remove fuel from the Abbots old School Bus.” 

 Jack wondered if anyone not directly connected to all that had happened would ever believe him if he told them his story.  The Abbott had told him it was of no consequence, --- as the truth needed no audience!

Jack rode all day and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon just after six in the evening.  He checked into the same Motel —The Yavapai Motor Lodge — and parked the Motorcycle in exactly the same spot that it had been in on exactly this day a year ago.  The same desk clerk was working in the lobby who had been there last year.  
“How are you doing?  I NEVER expected to see you back here again.  That was really something that happened last year.  None of us can believe an entire year has gone by already.

“Yes, it was really something,” said Jack.  I made a promise to come back and honor his memory, so I’ll be staying with you for the next two days.  It would mean a lot to me, and to him, if you keep my being here quiet.  I don’t want any publicity, especially from the press.  This is a very private matter and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“No problem, mums the word as far as I’m concerned.  It’s good to see you and that you’re doing well.  Just one thing though before I go home for the evening.”  “What’s that,” Jack said.  “Did they ever figure out why he did it? I never read anything in the papers about why he jumped.”

“No, I don’t think they ever did.  Some things, maybe the most important things in life, tend to remain a mystery from all but the few who are directly involved.  I think in Fred’s case, that mystery will remain intact.”  “That’s right his name was Fred, I haven’t heard anyone use his name in almost a year.  Around here he’s just referred to as the ‘Naked Jumper.”’ Jack smiled to himself at the terminology.  He knew that somewhere high above, Fred was looking down and smiling too.

‘One more thing though,” the desk clerk said as Jack was turning to go to his room.  “What’s that, I’m kind of in a hurry, I want to get into the restaurant before it closes and then over to the canyon before the sun is completely down.”  “Well, it’s like this.  Every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. the phone rings at the front desk and it’s someone asking for the number of Jack’s room.  When we tell the caller that we are not allowed to give out any information regarding our guests, they immediately hang up and the call ends.  The very next morning they call back again and ask once more for the number of Jack’s room. This has happened now every day for a year.  Your name’s Jack, isn’t it?”

‘Yep, must be a co-incidence. Didn’t they ask for Jack by his last name.”  “No, only Jack, just plain old Jack every time they called.”
Jack knew that Fred had never asked him about his last name, and he was sure that he had never offered the information.  “It’s really funny,” the desk clerk went on, “the caller never stays on long enough for the police to trace the call.  After the tenth or eleventh time we were called we forwarded the information about the calls to the Park Police who tapped into our line and tried to put a trace on the calls.  

Our receptionist, Daphne, who almost always takes the call, has tried to keep the caller on the line, but when she doesn’t give the caller the information they request, the line always goes dead.” Jack said goodnight to the desk clerk, whose name he now knew was Roy, and checked into his room.  It was the same room, #888, that he had been in a year ago.  He picked up the phone and dialed 0 for the Front Desk.

“Roy, this is Jack in Room #888.  Did someone request this specific room for me when making the reservation?”  “Let me check …. Nope, just says Non-Smoking King, on the reservation slip.  Why is something wrong with Room #888?”  “No, everything’s fine, good night, Roy.”

Jack quickly said a Rosary before ordering takeout from the restaurant. He then hurried across and down the road to the Rim where he had met Fred on that fateful day a year ago.  As he sat there quietly eating and staring out over the rim, he felt a peacefulness descend and overtake him both in body and spirit.  As the sun went completely down, he prayed for over three hours for the saving deliverance of Fred’s soul.

Suicide, a word no-one except the police and newspapers had used in his presence, was still a grievous sin in the Catholic Church.  Publicly, the church would admit to no justification that would allow one to take their own life. Jack thought silently about Jesus, --- and wasn’t that exactly what he had done by offering himself up as a sacrifice so all could be saved.  Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary that afternoon, just as Fred knew what was going to happen if he didn’t receive a phone call from Jack that morning saying that he had changed his mind.

When the stars had finally filled the sky, Jack got up and walked back to the Motel. As he walked past the front desk he asked Roy, “What time does that call come in in the morning asking for a Jack?”  “At exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning.”

Jack thanked Roy and walked back to his room.  He set his alarm for 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was in the lobby standing at the front desk at ten minutes before seven waiting, waiting to see if the caller would call again.


Chapter Six

“Nothing,” said Daphne.  “Every morning for a year a call has come in at exactly 7:00 a.m. asking for Jack.  Are you sure it hasn’t been you that’s been making those phone calls?”  “What, call and ask for myself,” Jack said. “What would be the reasoning behind that?”
‘It’s really unbelievable. We’re open 365 days a year and the only property inside the park that is.  This caller has called every day for a solid year and hasn’t missed a holiday, weekend, nothing.  Every morning, and I mean EVERY morning that phone rings --- but not today!”

Jack spent the next day in quiet contemplation on the edge of the rim.  He thought about Sarah and how she had loved this place and said a prayer to Fred to please watch over his beloved wife until he could be with her again.  That night he slept like he had never slept before.

There was a night owl just outside his window and it spoke to him in a language he felt but could not understand.  He could feel it saying to him, --- UNTIL NEXT YEAR, UNTIL NEXT YEAR !!!

Jack got up early the next morning and was in the lobby again before seven.  Once again, no phone call asking for Jack.  After having breakfast and visiting the rim one more time, he rode non-stop back to the monastery, carrying a new part of the Great Mystery.
The Abbott had always been very respectful, and not in a condescending way, of the terms the Indians used to refer to God and Revelation. Jack had heard the Abbott use the term ‘The Great Mystery’ when referring to their religious beliefs many times.  He couldn’t come up with a better term for what he felt had happened back at the Canyon.

For twenty-four more years Jack repeated this same yearly ritual to the South Rim.  The Motel was eventually sold and torn down, and a new Holiday Inn express was built where the old Yavapai Motor Lodge used to stand.  Jack always stayed at the Holiday Inn Express with a room facing East like the one he had at the old Motel.  He was now in his early seventies and each year the trip took longer to get to the Canyon.  

The bike was still properly maintained and running well, but the effort it took to ride it all the way tired Jack out, and every year it seemed like the Canyon got further and further away. Abbott Estefan had died several years ago and Father Jack, or Abbott Gato, as he was now called, was in charge of the Monastery.  Jack had been ordained in a very private ceremony almost fifteen years before. Fred’s children and grandchildren had proudly attended the event in their Father’s honor, each of them placing a wreath at the base of their fathers statue, the Patron, in the garden around back.

As he promised he would every year, Jack checked into the hotel at the South Rim.  It had recently changed its name again to a Best Western.  Including the first time he had stayed here, the time he met Fred, this was the 25th Anniversary of his visiting the Canyon in Fred’s honor. He said “Hi Tammy,” to the pretty young girl working at the front desk.  “So, you’re still riding that old motorcycle all the way from New Mexico?”  “I am, and God willing, I’ll get back there to resume my duties in a couple of days.’  “Well, my dad said to remind you again that you have a standing offer for the Motorcycle if ever, and whenever you decide to sell.”

“Sorry Tammy, but like I told your Dad last year, this motorcycle is going to take me all the way thru the pearly gates.” “Oh Father, you’re such a kidder, but if you do change your mind, my Dad will drive over to the Monastery and pick it up.”  “Thanks Tammy, and thank your Dad again for the kind offer. Are those phone calls still coming in every morning?”

“Every morning at seven a.m. like clockwork Father, except on the mornings you’re here.  It’s old hat around here now and part of the DNA of this place.  I don’t know what we’d do if they ever stopped.”  “I don’t think you need to worry about that Tammy, tell that caller that I said Hi every time he calls.”  “I will Father, he seems to get a real kick out of that.  Two days ago, we weren’t sure what was going on because at exactly seven a.m the phone rang and in the same voice as always, the caller asked for Gato.  When we acted confused, he immediately corrected himself and said ‘Jack,’ could you please tell me the room number of ‘Jack.’

“We’ve got you in #888 as always Father, and it always amuses me that we don’t have any other rooms that start with the number eight.  Do you know why we have one room in this hotel out of sequence with all the others, that is numbered #888, when all the other rooms start with a letter followed by three numbers.
The rooms on this floor go from A100 to A165.”

“No, I really don’t know why that is Tammy, I just know that I’ve always been in Room #888 and I like it that way.  Nothing like tradition right …”

Jack went back to his room and as was his habit said the Rosary before getting into bed.  The next morning, he was outside the restaurant when it opened for breakfast at six.  He liked talking to all the vacationers coming to the Grand Canyon, especially those visiting for the first time.  “God’s greatest creation on earth he would tell all those he met.  He had also become something of a local celebrity, and several local orders of both priests and nuns would come by the south rim during his yearly visit and ask for his blessing.

No-one ever asked him specifically why he was there, but everyone knew, and it was now local legend, that it had something to do with that ‘Jumper’ that had gone over the edge so many years ago. Today was the actual 25th Anniversary of Fred’s taking his place and stepping off into the Canyon.

After breakfast Jack walked the short distance down the canyon road to the rim behind the Pinyon Trees that he had visited so many times before.  He sat on the same rock that he was sitting on twenty-five years before when Fred came walking through the trees.  He began to pray.

He looked down into the loose dirt at the base of the rock and thought that he could still see the impression that his handgun had made in the soft canyon silt. He wondered at his advanced age if his mind not be starting to play tricks on him.  Two of his closest friends at the monastery had been stricken with Alzheimers this year and as he watched them slowly drift away, he prayed more than anything, that it would never happen to him. 
 
Every memory he had had of and in this place seemed to come rushing back at once.  Everything seemed so real.  Not surreal, but really real! He closed his eyes again and prayed.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been praying but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was now dark.  “Could an entire day have slipped away that fast he wondered, or maybe I really am losing my mind.”

He looked into the sky for any trace of the sun. It was all the way back over his left shoulder, in the direction of California, the land he had come from, the place where everything that happened to him had been so bad.

As he got up to leave, he heard a rustling in the bushes.  He thought maybe it was a black bear, or perhaps a couple of honeymooners coming to the rim to profess undying love.  He called out to the noise in the bushes, but nothing answered back.  He walked deeper in the direction that the sound had come from but it was now so dark that his aging eyes were failing him. 

 It was then that he remembered that he had forgotten his Rosary Beads and had left them back on the rock. As Jack turned around to go back and get his Rosary his eyes went completely blind.  There was a light that he had never seen before coming from the Canyon’s edge and it seemed to be shining only on him.  To the right and the left he could still see darkness, but the brilliant beam of light that he couldn’t understand was following him as he walked blindly back toward the rock.

As bright as the light was it did not hurt his eyes, and it seemed to be drawing him closer and into its light.  As he got near the edge, he could feel the light totally envelop him, both body and soul.  As he got to the Canyon’s edge, he could see the light take shape as it drifted level with his view.  In the middle of the flashing brilliance was the face of Fred who was now smiling at him in the way he had remembered from so long ago.  Fred’s arms were now opening wide as he said through the light …

“Father Jack, you have kept your promise when all I had to give you that day was love.  You have returned that love to me twenty-five fold.  I now release you from your promise so you may go back and live peacefully the rest of your days.  What we did here together will forever be understood, by those willing to give freely and totally of themselves.”

With that the light was gone, and Jack’s body was filled with a new warmth of understanding and love.  It was if someone or something had climbed inside him, someone who needed to reassure him one last time that he would never, ever, be alone again.

On the very next day a message appeared heavily inscribed on the rock.  It read — "He who sacrifices himself in my name shall never die, and my name is love"

Kurt Philip Behm
April, 2012
howard brace Feb 2012
Inconspicuous, his presence noted only by the obscurity and the ever growing number of spent cigarette stubs that littered the ground.  It had been a long day and the rain, relentless in its tenacity had little intention of stopping, baleful clouds still  hung heavy, dominating the lateness of the afternoon sky, a rain laden skyline broken only by smoke filled chimney pots and the tangled snarl of corroded television aerials.

     The once busy street was fast emptying now, the lure of shop windows no longer enticed the casual browser as local traders closed their premises to the oncoming night, solitary lampposts curved hazily into the distance, casting little more than insipid pools mirrored in the gutter below, only the occasional stranger scurrying home on a bleak, rain swept afternoon, the hurried slap of wet leather soles on the pavement, the sightless umbrellas, the infrequent rumble of a half filled bus, hell-bent on its way to oblivion.

     In the near distance as the working day ended, a sudden emergence of factory workers told Beamish it was 5-o'clock, most would be hurrying home to a hot meal, while others, for a quick drink perhaps before making the same old sorry excuse... for Jack, the greasy spoon would be closing about now, denying him the comfort of a badly needed cuppa' and stale cheese sandwich.  A subtle legacy of lunchtime fish and chips still lingered in the air, Jack's stomach rumbled, there was little chance of a fish supper for Beamish tonight, it protested again... louder.

     From beneath the eaves of the building opposite several pigeons broke cover, startled by the rattle as a shopkeeper struggled to close the canvas awning above his shop window.  Narrowly missing Beamish they flew anxiously over the rooftops, memories of the blitz sprang to mind as Jack stepped smartly to one side, he stamped his feet... it dashed a little of the weather from his raincoat, just as the rain dashed a little of the pigeons' anxiety from the pavement... the day couldn't get much worse if it tried.  Shielding his face, Jack struck the Ronson one more time and cupped the freshly lit cigarette between his hands, it was the only source of heat to be had that day... and still it rained.

     'By Appointment to Certain Personages...' the letter heading rang out loudly... 'Jack Beamish ~ Private Investigator...' a throat choking mouthful by any stretch of the imagination, thought Jack and shot every vestige of credulity plummeting straight through the office window and amidst a fanfare of trumpet voluntary, nominate itself for a prodigious award in the New Year Honours list.   Having formally served in a professional capacity for a well known purveyor of pickled condiments, who  incidentally, brandished the same patronage emblazoned upon their extensive range of relish as the one Jack had more recently purloined from them... a paid commission no less, which by Jack's certain understanding had made him, albeit fleeting in nature, a professional consultant of said company... and consequently, if they could flaunt the auspicious emblem, then according to Jack's infallible logic, so could Jack.  

     The recently appropriated letterhead possessed certain distinction... in much the same way, Jack reasoned, that a blank piece of paper did not... and whereas correspondence bearing the heading 'By Appointment' may not exactly strike terror into the hearts of man... unlike a really strong pickled onion, it nevertheless made people think twice before playing him for the fool, which sadly, Jack had to concede, they still invariably did... and he would often catch them wagging an accusing finger or two in his direction with such platitudes as... "watch where you put your foot", they'd whisper, "that Jack's a right Shamus...", and when you'd misplaced your footing as many times as Jack had, then he reasoned, that by default the celebrated Shamus must have landed himself in more piles of indiscretion than he would readily care to admit, but that wouldn't be quite accurate either, in Jack's line of work it was the malefactor that actually dropped him in them more often than not.

     A cold shiver suddenly ran down his spine, another quickly followed as a spurt of icy water from a broken rain spout spattered across the back of his neck, he grimaced... Jack's expression spoke volumes as he took one final pull from his half soaked cigarette and flicked it, amid an eruption of sparks against the adjacent brick wall.  Sinking further into the shadow he tipped his fedora against the oncoming rain, then, digging both hands deep within his pockets, he huddled behind the upturned collar of his gabardine... watching.

     It was times such as these when Jack's mind would slip back, in much the same way you might slip back on a discarded banana peel, when a matter of some consequence, or in particular this case the pavement, would suddenly leap up from behind and give the back of Jack's head a resoundingly good slapping and tell him to "stop loafing around in office hours... or else", then drag him, albeit kicking and screaming back into the 20th century.  This intellectual assault and battery re-focused Jack's mind wonderfully as he whiled away the long weary hours until his next cigarette; cup of tea, or the last bus home, his capacity to endure such mind boggling tedium called for nothing less than sheer ******-mindedness and very little else... Beamish had long suspected that he possessed all the necessary qualifications.  

     Jack had come a long way since the early days, it had been a long haul but he'd finally arrived there in the end... and managed to pick up quite a few ***** looks along the way.  Whilst he was with the Police Constabulary... and it was only fair to stress the word 'with', as opposed to the word 'in'... although the more Jack considered, he had been 'with' the arresting officer, held 'in' the local Bridewell... detained at Her Majesties pleasure while assisting the boys in blue with their enquiries over a minor infringement of some local by-law that currently had quite slipped his mind at that moment.  Throughout this enforced leisure period he'd managed to read the entire abridged editions of Kilroy and other expansive works of graffiti exhibited in what passed locally as the next best thing to the Tate Gallery, whereupon it hadn't taken Jack very long to realise that it was always a good place to start if you wanted free breakfast, in fact the weeks bill of fare was tastefully displayed in vivid, polychromatic colour on the wall opposite... you just had to be au-fait with braille.
                            
     No matter how industrious Beamish laboured to rake the dirt there always appeared to be a dire shortage of gullible clients for Jack to squeeze, what would roughly translate as an honest crust out of, and although his financial retainer was highly competitive he understood that potential clients found it bewildering when grappling with the unplumbed depths of his monthly expense account, which would tend to fluctuate with the same unpredictability as the British weather, the rest of Jack's agenda revolved around a little shady moonlighting... in fact he'd happily consider anything to offset the remotest possibility of financial delinquency... short of extortion... which by the strangest twist was the very word prospective clients would cry while Jack beavered around the office with dust-pan and brush sweeping any concerns they may have had frantically under the carpet regarding all culpability of his extra-curricular monthly stipend... and they should remain assured at all times... as they dug deep and fished for their cheque books, and simply look upon it as kneading dough, which eerily enough was exactly the thick wedge of buttered granary that Jack had every intention of carving.

     Were there ever the slightest possibility that a day could be so utterly wretched, then today was that day, Jack felt a certain empathy as he merged with his surroundings... at one with nature as it were.  The rain, a timpani on the metal dustbin lids, by the side of which Beamish had taken up vigil, also taking up vigil and in search of a morsel was the stray mongrel, this was the third time now that he'd returned, the same apprehensive wag, yet still the same hopeful look of expectation in his eyes, a brief but friendly companion who paid more attention to Jack's left trouser leg than anything that could be had from nosing around the dustbins that day... some days you're the dog, scowled Beamish as he shook his trouser leg... and some days the lamppost, Jack's foot swung out playfully, keeping his new friend's incontinence at a safe distance, feigning indignance  the scruffy mongrel shook himself defiantly from nose to tail, a distinct odour of wet dog filled the air as an abundance of spent rainwater flew in all directions.   Pricking one ear he looked accusingly at Jack before turning and snuffled off, his nose resolutely to the pavement and diligently, picking out the few diluted scents still remaining, the poor little stalwart renewed its search for scraps, or making his way perhaps to some dry seclusion known only to itself.
  
     Two hours later and... SPLOSH, a puddle poured itself through the front door of the nearest Public House... SPLOSH, the puddle squelched over to the payphone... SPLOSH, then, fumbling for small change dialled and pressed button 'A'..., then button 'B'... then started all over again amid a flurry of precipitation... SPLASH.  The puddle floundered to the bar and ordered itself a drink, then ebbed back to the payphone again... the local taxi company doggedly refused to answer... finally, wallowing over to the window the puddle drifted up against a warm radiator amidst a cloud of humidity and came to rest... flotsam, cast upon the shore of contentment, the puddle sighed contentedly... the Landlady watched this anomaly... suspiciously.

     The puddle's finely tuned perception soon got to grips with the unhurried banter and muffled gossip drifting along the bar, having little else to loose, other than what could still be wrung from his clothing... Beamish, working on the principle that a little eavesdropping was his stock-in-trade engaged instinct into overdrive and casually rippled in their general direction...  They were clearly regulars by the way one of them belched in a well rehearsed, taken-a-back sort of way as Jack took stock of the situation and was now at some pains to ingratiate himself into their exclusive midst and attempt several friendly, yet relevant questions pertinent to his enquiries... all of which were skillfully deflected with more than friendly, yet totally irrelevant answers pertinent to theirs'... and would Jack care for a game of dominoes', they enquired... if so, would he be good enough to pay the refundable deposit, as by common consent it just so happened to be his turn...  Jack graciously declined this generous offer, as the obliging Landlady, just as graciously, cancelled the one shilling returnable deposit from the cash register, such was the flow of light conversation that evening... they didn't call him Lucky Jack for nothing... discouraged, Beamish turned back to the bar and reached for his glass... to which one of his recent companions, and yet again just as graciously, had taken the trouble to drink for him... the Landlady gave Jack a knowing look, Beamish returned the heartfelt sentiment and ordered one more pint.

     From the licenced premises opposite, a myriad of jostling customers plied through the door, business was picking up... the sudden influx of punters rapidly persuaded Beamish to retire from the bar and find a vacant table.  Sitting, he removed several discarded crisp packets from the centre of the table only to discover a freshly vacated ashtray below... by sleight of hand Jack's Ronson appeared... as he lit the cigarette the fragile smoke curled blue as it rose... influenced by subtle caprice, it joined others and formed a horizontal curtain dividing the room, a delicate, undulating layer held between two conflicting forces.

     The possibility of a free drink soon attracted the attention of a local bar fly, who, hovering in the near vicinity promptly landed in Jack's beer, Beamish declined this generous offer as being far too nutritious and with the corner of yesterdays beer mat, flipped the offending organism from the top of his glass, carefully inspecting his drink for debris as he did so.

     A sudden draught and clip of stiletto heels as the side door opened caused Beamish to turn as a double shadow slipped discreetly into the friendly Snug... a little adulterous intimacy on an otherwise cheerless evening.  The faceless man, concealed beneath a fedora and the upturned collar of his overcoat, the surreptitious lady friend, decked out in damp cony, cheap perfume and a surfeit of bling proclaimed a not too infrequent assignation, he'd seen it all before... the over attentive manner and the band of white, Sun-starved skin recently hidden behind a now absent wedding token, ordinarily it was the sort of assignment Jack didn't much care for... the discreet tail, the candid snapshot through half drawn curtains... and the all too familiar steak tartare... for the all too familiar black eye.

     To the untrained eye, the prospect of Jack's long anticipated supper was rapidly dwindling, when it suddenly focused with renewed vigour upon the contents of a pickled egg jar he'd observed earlier that evening, lurking on the back counter, his enthusiasm swiftly diminished however as the belching customer procured the final two specimens from the jar and proceeded to demolish them.  Who, Jack reflected, after being stood out in the rain all day, had egg all over his face now... and who, he reflected deeper, still had an empty stomach.  Disillusioned, Jack tipped back his glass and considered a further sortie with the taxicab company.

     "FIVE-BOB"!!! Jack screamed... you could have shredded the air with a cheese grater... hurtling into the kerb like a fairground attraction came flying past the chequered flag at a record breaking 99 in Jack's top 100 most not wanted list of things to do that day... and that the cabby should think himself fortunate they weren't both stretched flat on a marble slab, "exploding tyres" Jack spluttered, dribbling down his chin, were enough to give anyone a coronary... further broadsides of neurotic ambiance filled the cab as the driver, miffed at the prospect of missing snooker night out with the lads, considered charging extra for the additional space Jack's profanity was taking...

     And what part of 'Drive-Carefully', fumed Beamish, did the cabby simply not understand, that pavements were there to be bypassed, 'Nay Circumvented', preferably on the left... and not veered into, wildly on the front axle... an eerie premonition of 'jemais-vu' perched and ready to strike like a disembodied Jiminy Cricket on Jack's left shoulder, looking to stick its own two-penny worth in at the 'Standing-Room-Only' arrangements in the overcrowded cab... and at what further point, Jack shrieked, eyes leaping from his head as he lurched forward, shaking his fist through the sliding glass partition, had the cabbie failed to grasp the importance of the word 'Steering-Wheel...' someone wanted horse whipping, and as far as Beamish was concerned the sole contender was the cab driver...

     In having a somewhat sedate and unruffled disposition it had fallen to Beamish... as befalls all great leaders in times of adversity, to single handedly take the bull by the horns, so to speak and at great personal cost, alert the unwary passing motorist...  Waving his arms about like a man possessed whilst performing acrobatic evolutions in the centre of the road as the cabby changed the wheel came whizzing around the corner at a back breaking 98 on Jack's ever growing list... and why, Jack puzzled, why had they all lowered their side windows and gestured back at him in semaphore..?  Rallying to its aid, Jack's head and shoulders now joined his shaking fist through the sliding glass partition and into the cabby's face, "Who" Beamish screeched with renewed vigour ,"Who Was The Man", Jack wanted to know... *"a
Fantail feathers, of a hazy, 'yellow-orangish-moon'…

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Skeleton-scythes, thorny-stars, swaying in the swoon,

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Fire-pits and witches brew and cauldron’s smoking tricks?

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Little dwarves and wolves and serpents crawling; leftover people bits,

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Trumpets hailing arrival, of Pale Rider, can you hear his tune?
Fantail feathers strain the sight of harvest-yellow moon,
Skeletons, fire-pits, witches, cauldrons and Old Nix,
Animals of evil’s calling, tricker-treaters; Hallow’s Eve and ****** grit!

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern

Pray to Sáeta, Satá, Saturn…

Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Jack-O’ Lantern
Children's poem. "Sa/Sae," was the root word in Sumerian for black. Saturn in fact is, "Sah,"-Sumerian "Tournos," -Greek which means the, " turning/rotating black." Anything found in the night time sky became associated with the god of this blackness; The Black God. Constellations became part of his narrative each one being an aspect of his nature or part of his attire or weaponry or something he first created. Even the eyes of/in his wings. Jack O Lanterns are used to ward off his legion of evil spirits.
Chapter 1:  Jack Thought It Was Laughter

Jack thought it was laughter.  The wind blew so hard it actually forced his soul outside where his body would follow. It was at the clearing by the creek where he first saw it. It looked like blood as the wind laughed at the absence of his reflection in the snow.  He didn’t know how to feel and for the first time in this most familiar place, he was really lost.  Fear blanketed the trees and he was alone inside himself.  He was now forced to deal with the result of years of living with only one eye open. He had blinded himself to something he had always denied and was confined to a place where men often become the victims of their greatest undoing.

There were no bear or wolf signs to match the lingering bad intent that was now spread all over the trail.  He looked around and the colors called out to him but there was no rainbow only a prism trapping his unborn redemption inside a false red image. He moved forward slowly unsure of his direction but unable to do anything else.

Fighting this enemy would be much harder now, as fear burrowed deeper and deeper inside. The harder he fought, the harder the fight became. Inside himself, he could feel the object of his intended destruction growing stronger.  In the distance a lone wolf howled — at least it sounded like a wolf. Its cry loomed high above as a mocking echo to his silence calling him in its direction as it then changed into something Jack had never heard before.

Why do men have to go on journeys such as this Jack wondered?  All he saw was darkness as the tunnel bored ever deeply inside him forcing him through the whiteout to the uncertainty beyond.  He wasn’t sure of anything as it howled again encircling him with its cry in the darkness. It was imploring him in his darkest places to finally do something. The far off cry was daring him to finally stop this killer, the one who was hunting in the corners of his affirmation, slaying with its fury all his hopes and dreams.

                                        Suddenly It Stopped

If it was an animal, it had left no tracks to where the wind had been laughing in the dark. It was laughing at a joke Jack still had not heard while creating another memory of something he still had not become. Do men only hunt for something that in the end makes them less of themselves?

Jack grabbed his quiver and bow, secured his pack, and continued North up the trail.


  The Red Stains In The Moonlight Beckoning Him To Follow



Chapter 2:   Jack Crouched In The Darkness

Jack crouched in the darkness.  The tracks looked almost human, but the only heartbeat he could hear was the one now beating inside his own chest.  He’d been following these tracks for the last thirteen hours.  The blood trail had now stopped, but the animal creating it hadn’t.  Jack estimated the loss of blood at over four pints.

What mammal could continue in this cold after losing so much blood?  Jack crested the next hill and saw something moving in the thicket seventy-five yards ahead.  Instinctively, he took an arrow from his quiver and laid it loosely inside his bow.  Would this finally be the moment that he would blow away the myth about the Hairy Man?  Would this be the time that Jack would finally come face to face with his own manhood or would it just be a turkey or a deer hiding behind the thicket now less than thirty yards ahead?

Jack now switched from tracking to stalking mode.  He lowered his body position at least two feet and tried to regulate his breathing.  The movement inside the bushes had stopped, but the tracks leading to them were fresher than ever.  It had snowed during the night and the tracks a mile or so back were rounded and contoured around their edges.  These tracks were sharp and defined with loose snow falling down their sides as if freshly made.  

The bushes moved again, and it was just then that Jack noticed it.  The top of his bowstring had come undone and slid six or seven inches down from the top of the bow.  Panic started to set in as Jack searched for a patch of hard snow to brace the bow against to reset the string.  From the corner of his eye he now saw it.  A large dark figure was stooped and hunched down in the shadows to the left of the thicket as if positioning itself and getting ready to strike.  

Jack pushed and pushed on the bow trying to get it to bend.  Every time he did, the bottom of the bow would slip on the wet snow and ice and the string would once again slide back down and go lax in his hand.  Again and again he tried always with the same result.  There was a tree just twenty feet to his right. The hard bark surface would give Jack the pressure he needed to bend the bow and force the string back up inside the notch.  

The only problem with this new strategy is that Jack would have to turn his back on the thicket bush.  If he were to survive this encounter, he would have to rely on just sounds, feeling, and instinct, as his vision was now turned away from the threat up ahead.  Just as the bowstring snapped into place, Jack felt something large, very large, collide at high speed with his left shoulder.  In a daze he was spun around and thrown face down in the snow and knocked momentarily unconscious.  

When his head finally cleared, he saw the same tracks that he had been following all morning on both sides of his fallen body. They were now heading straight back in the direction from which they had come.  Blood no longer accompanied these tracks, and Jack had to face the fact that maybe, just maybe, what he had been following all day would now be hunting him.

           … And That There May Be More Than Just One



Chapter 3:  Back Down The Trail

When Jack was able to once again walk, he headed off in the direction of the southbound tracks.  He went no more than two miles down the trail when he saw a large deadfall off to his right.  The logs and branches were all disturbed as if something or someone had walked right over them.  Jack followed cautiously.  With one arrow in his mouth, and one on his bowstring, he stepped carefully over the tracks that led around back.

It was around back that he saw the blood trail resume.  It had been over two hours since he had seen any blood, and this worried him for reasons he did not yet understand.   Behind the deadfall, and totally hidden from the trail he had been on, was a clear set of tracks. Something or someone was traveling or being carried or dragged behind these tracks. The blood was evident in the snow, right in the middle of the wide swath it made, at intervals of every ten feet.  The blood was heavier than before. The trail had turned and now headed due West up the 15 degree incline toward the tall mountains not two miles in the distance.  

What kind of animal, other than human, drags away its dying or its dead?  What other animal would put itself at such risk for something in such bad shape?  Wolves and bears will stand and fight to the death to defend their young, but there have never been stories or tales of them carrying off their dead and wounded.  Only humans do this. But the tracks he was now following were too big to have been made by any man.  There was now less than twenty minutes of daylight left and soon Jack would be alone in the dark.  Being in the dark, and in search of what he didn’t know and now feared, was something that was beyond his control but not beyond his haunting imagination.  

One question had been lingering in his mind and bothering Jack all day since his encounter with whatever it was that ran over him and knocked him unconscious. Why had the animal only knocked him down and not then stopped and finished the job?  Jack was unconscious and totally defenseless.  Why was he left alone in the woods just dazed but not seriously hurt?  Why was he left alive to now ask these questions?

Jack had to decide whether to continue following the blood trail or to camp for the night.  He had both a visceral and foreboding feeling that he was not only tracking the animal, or animals, ahead, but that something or someone was also following him and watching his every move.   Being caught out in the dark and alone at night and trapped between what were now at least two monsters was more than Jack could stand.  He decided to stop and wait two hours and watch and listen before going any further.  

With loaded bow in hand, Jack started to climb a seventy-foot -high Douglas Fir that sat about ten yards off the trail.  The tree offered both easy climbing and good cover once Jack was fifteen or twenty feet above the ground.  He had not eaten in over twenty-four hours and now that he had stopped, his ravenous hunger started to set in.  He had been eating snow all day to maintain hydration, but there was no visible food source that Jack could see in the snow. The only food he had brought with him was in the pack that was knocked from his back when the animal charged.  It was nowhere to be found when Jack regained consciousness.  The animal must have carried it off as it headed South and back down the trail.    

The wind blew through the lowlands as it headed toward the mountains and carried with it Jack’s fear — although he knew he couldn’t turn back.  Turning back was now for lesser men, one’s that would then lead lesser lives, separated once again from themselves.  Before the two hours had passed, Jack again heard what he was not able to see. At least two large animals passed below him on the trail and not fifty feet from where he sat high in the tree.  They were also headed West straight for the mountains that were barely visible in the quarter moon’s light. Jack could tell there were two because he could discern the differences in their breathing.  In the deafening silence, their breaths were first high and then muffled then high and then muffled again.  They made no other sounds, passed quickly, and were then gone. Jack decided to spend the rest of the night perched and hidden high up in the tree.

Abandoning all attempts at denial, Jack now reasoned that it was possible he had at least three and possibly four of these monsters headed in the direction that he was committed to follow. He wondered again … Had they seen, smelled, heard, or felt him up in the tree as they passed closely and quietly below?  Did they know he was there and have no fear of him at all. Had their understanding ******* his in what had just happened? Jack felt a strong Deja-vu overtake the prescience of the moment and a drive stronger than ever from inside him told him that he had to go on. He felt he was being lead but by who and for what purpose he did not know.

Daylight finally broke, and Jack dropped to the ground and headed slowly West following the now wider trail as it climbed higher into the trees.  There were now large tracks on top of other large tracks but one thing had not changed.  Massive amounts of blood were everywhere and the blood was still wet.  It took Jack until late afternoon, with dusk setting in, to climb the now steep trail to the mountain’s base.

Just beyond the tree line and in a secluded depression of the mountain to the northwest, the tracks ended.  Hidden in the recess of the mountain’s crease appeared to be the entrance to a large cavern or cave.  Jack walked to within a hundred yards of the cave’s entrance, crouched down, and watched for any movement or noise that might be heard.  In thirty minutes, no sound or motion came from the entrance.  The only thing out of the ordinary at all was the now almost totally red trail — created by the blood leading inside the cave.  

Now was the real moment of decision or indecision.  Now was the moment that all Jack’s life had been preparing for.  Now was the time between myth and reality where the price of the discovery could be the discoverer himself.  Now, it was Jack’s moment.

                                          It Was His Time

With one life-affirming step, Jack moved towards the cave realizing that no matter what, he could not turn back.  He dropped to one knee as he stepped inside the cave trying again to control his breathing as his heart tried to beat through his chest.  With just small rays of moonlight coming over his shoulder from the east to guide him, Jack now crawled into the darkness his bow still in hand.  He traveled not more than fifteen feet when he felt a sharp object underneath his right knee.  As he looked down and let his eyes slowly adjust to the very dim light, he saw that someone or something had made a circle out of rocks about twenty-four inches in diameter — a cooking circle.  He put his hand in the center but the ashes were no longer warm.

With his left knee he stepped on something hard and flat.  When he reached down to pick it up he saw it was a club or a crude hammer.  It had a rock attached to a shortened tree branch with vines and some mud.  It was a rudimentary tool or weapon, and whoever or whatever had made it was not a bear or a wolf or anything Jack had encountered in the wild up until now.

As he continued forward his head bumped into something hard.  He reached up into the darkness and realized he could now stand up, and as he did, he felt an enormous stone structure in front of him.  As he felt in the dark, he could tell it was a giant boulder blocking his way over six feet wide and at least eight feet tall.  Something or someone had dragged, pushed, or pulled the boulder in front of the narrowing passageway blocking further entrance to anyone who might follow.  Was this done by those on the other side of this huge rock or by someone or something that was still hiding on this side?  Jack pushed and pulled and shoved with all his might, but no matter what angle he chose or how hard he tried, the boulder would not move.  

He could sit there and wait, but wait for what?  Surely Jack thought: “Those creatures must have another entrance or exit available to them.  What if they did the same thing to the cave’s outer opening?”  Jack would then be trapped inside a prisoner of no known reality and unable to finish the journey that his life had set him upon. He now questioned what chance he would have had with his one small bow against creatures so endowed.  He realized then that he hadn’t questioned before because the question didn’t exist.  With just his bow, hunting knife, or only his bare hands, it made no difference.  Jack’s spirit was powering this hunt, and in its completion, his soul would hang forever as a trophy he could truly own.

It was at this moment that Jack’s epiphany happened.  What chance would he want to have against these creatures?  They had outran, outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outthought Jack every step of the way.  Why should he think any further pursuit would be different?  With a silent prayer he backed away from the boulder with a reverence only known by those no longer in fear of death.  As he walked back through the entrance of the cave and into the moonlight he stopped.  He removed the arrow from the bowstring, and as he did, he heard a primordial cry calling out from the wilderness.  In his thirty-seven years in the back woods he had never heard such a sound before.  

                             And It Was Calling His Name …

Jack had counted coup on his greatest adversary, and his spirit was now free. He realized that he had finally been absorbed into the great mystery. The one that must stay the way it was — the day before — and the day before that.  It was a new sense of himself that Jack would carry with him to the grave and beyond.  In failing to confront the Hairy Man, Jack found himself while alone inside that dark cave surrounded by his fear and passion for something more.  As he headed back down the mountain, he realized for the first time that it was not about what could be killed in the night but about what was promised with the dawn of a new rebirth … Jack never hunted again.

     The Wild Man Calls From Deep Inside Where Only The                                           Brave Can Hear



Epilogue:

Is the Wild Man only in the thickets and caves or now accepted inside your heart? What did that boulder really have locked behind it?  Who really had the power to make it move?  Is it a boulder we put in front of ourselves feigning entry to who we really are?  These questions and more puzzled and bothered Jack as he stood alone in the dark.  

Who does the Wild Man cry out to and from how far away?

How often have we heard his unanswered screams that we immediately translate into something of our own lesser choosing and something we more than anything want to control.  The Wild Man is the connection to our future, present, and past.  Laying dormant in our denial, he stalks the hidden trails of our hopes and dreams, leaving blood for us to follow on the one’s that we are most afraid to walk.  

Shedding his blood for the misguided, he suffers in our attempt to pretend he isn’t there.  The only part of us that was, is, and always will be, is that which he carries inside.  He dies because it is something he cannot keep.  He lives only by giving us back to ourselves usually at our greatest moments of fear and indecision.  He hides away on a dark mountaintop waiting for us to walk the trail of our own darkness, freeing us during our greatest moments of doubt, then allowing us to turn around and walk back into the light.

Who was it really that was being dragged up that mountain bleeding — and dying of unrecognition?

What Jack had always believed in was the source of his fear.  Tonight, he was at the crossroads of his destiny and all creation. The choice on this night to not believe would have in its undoing — left nothing of Jack.

Before, in always choosing between what to believe and not who, or who to believe and not what, Jack lived his life in the dichotomy of a false existence. Tonight, that dividing line was erased.

The Wild Man lives inside us all!  In exposing the lie that more protection offers us safety, Jack finally found himself.  No longer doomed to search endlessly through the deep snow, he was free to marvel in the connection of all that surrounded him.

I wish the same for you!  

Recognize and release the Wild Man you hide inside.  Refasten the eternal connection between what you fear and who you were meant to be.


Kurt Philip Behm

July 15th, 2010
Oh Jen I want you to be Mine

I don't know Jack it is all so fast

No, dearest not fast just right

We just met Jack, not a day ago

I know Jen but I love You so

How can you Jack you know nothing about me

I do Jen, you fill my heart and make it complete

Oh Jack I want to believe you, but

No buts my love I want you, as you are

Don't hurt me Jack my heart is fragile

Jen how could I hurt the most beautiful angel?

No! You don't mean that, you can't possibly

Yes Jen I mean it now lay with me Lovely

Oh Jack that is it, that is what you want

No dear can't you hear how much I care?

I want to believe you Jack but I can't bare another heartbreak

I promise I won't hurt you Jen, My Jen.

Really Jack?  I am yours?

Yes Mine all Mine, feel what you do to me

(Jack presses his phallus against her thigh as he lays her back)

Ohh Jack I bet you are that way with all the girls

Only you dearest, please make me the happiest man around

(Jack's hand grazes Jen's breast just enough to tease her)
(Jen already hot but resists not wanting to be a number)

Jack please tell me if all you want is *** I beg you

No how could you think such awful things of me

(Meanwhile Jack is about to pop the things He wants to do to this woman would make a well ridden girl blush)
(Jen can be a hellcat in bed but so doesn't want to be lied to before)

Kiss Me Jack tell me how  you really feel

(Jack pulls her into his arms pressing hard against her hips as lips press to hers in a lingering kiss)
(Jen's green eyes smoulder like a banked fire)

I love you Jen please let me make love to you

Yes Jack oh yes please make love to me

(Jack takes Jen to heights of soaring delight, they explore each other teasing and stroking.  The earth shatters and the windows fog.  They lay together for what seems like eternity.  Finishing He has explored and used every oriface, tied, spanked, torturously played and left her a quivering mass of well used flesh.)
(Jen was insatiable, no holding back.  She gave everything of herself out of love.  Trusting him completely.  Opening up her heart and body to the man that loved her for a change.  She let him do unspeakable acts to her body.  After it all she lay there thinking oh my how will I ever look at him again.)

Did you enjoy it my love? asked Jack

Jen's voice quivers oh yes Jack I did

I am glad you did Jen, I have never had a woman so pliant in my hands

Well there will be plenty more times Jack

Oh Jen I am so sorry but I won't be able to see you again

Why not Jack?  I thought you loved me?

I do love you Jen, I do I do

Then what is it Jack what did I do wrong?

Nothing my precious girl it is I that has done wrong

How Jack please? (tears fall freely over her cheeks)

I could not resist that sweet innocence on your face

I had to have you no matter the consequences you would face

Whatever do you mean Jack?

I am a disgrace Jen, You see I love you but but I am married.

YOU ARE WHAT?

Married dearest

You LOVE me but you are MARRIED?

How could You Jack, deceive me like that?

I am sorry Jen I just couldn't hold back

You lied to me Jack, said You loved me

I know and I do

You don't love me you lying ****

Oh don't say that Jen I do love you

You loved me long enough to **** ME!!!

I DARE You to deny it, you are a disgrace, knowing I was hurt

(Jack just stood there letting her rant.  Nothing He could do as her words were so true.  He thought he loved her and perhaps he did but nothing would stray him from his wife's bed)

I am sorry dear Jen

Save it for another Jack, When I am dead it is on your head

(Jack looked like he had been hit by a truck, Never had he thought she would do something like this.)

Get out Jack, You have done enough, Never speak my name again

Jen please we just shared incredible ***, don't let it end it was such bliss

You are just like every other man I have met

All *
YOU ever think of  is *** *** ***

(Jen looked at Jack once more and said why didn't you just tell the truth perhaps then I wouldn't feel like a used ***** *****)
Written by Jennifer Humphrey/Niyahlove All rights reserved
Thanks to my friend Jack for the inspiration.
Cindy Long Jul 2017
Jack and jill
Went up the hill
Looking for a thrill.
Jack got high
And got jill to try
Then jack unzipped his fly.
Jill bit her lip
Placed her hand on his hip
And licked around the tip.
Jill got top
And fell with a plop
And the pleasure did not stop.
Jack groaned loud
Jill was proud
Their heads still in the clouds.
But as they came down
Jill started to frown
And jack headed back towards town.
Jill sat still
Alone on the hill
Wishing for another pill.
Jack didnt care
About what happened there
Jills life began to tear.
Jill cried alone
Jack on his throne
Still not answering his phone.
Jill went to the hill
Hoping for jack still
But he didnt even think about jill
Jack brought another to set free
And was shocked to see
Jill standing beside the tree.
Jack wasnt glad
In fact he was mad
That jill was still so sad.
Said she gave a good ****
But was just a ****
And now shes out of luck.
Jill just stared
As jack glared
His heart flickered and flared.
He didnt know why
So he let out a sigh
And all jill could do was cry.
Jill fell to her knees
And begged jack please
But his words didnt ease.
He shooed her away
So that they could stay
And the other girl he could lay.
Broke jills heart
It fell apart
But a fire in jack did start.
She moved back east.
Jack turned into a beast.
On women he did feast.
But jack never got enough
Noone liked it as rough
As jill; she was tough.
Jack fell down
He hit the ground
When he realized he had given jill his crown.
Jack visited the hill
And felt a little ill
At jills heart he did ****.
Jack hung his head
And wished he was dead
At the thought of someone else in jills bed.
Jack ravaged his brain
He jumped on a train
And headed out towards the plains.
Jill he did find
And she was so kind
How could he be so blinde?
Jack said he was wrong
But jill had moved on
Her heart sang a new song.
Jack died inside
His face couldnt hide
The saddness flowing like a tide.
Jill gave him a pat
And said that was that
Jack went home and sat.
Jack, on his throne.
Messaging every girl in his phone
But knowing he was forever alone.
Jill said all she had to say
And went on with her day
Eager to go home and play
For a king jill did pray
And a king she did lay
And with a king she did stay.
Jill forgot the pain
Learned to love again
And jack was the one going insane.
Many women did jack claim
And many he did tame
But none of them were the same.
Jill had been jacks one
But he was too busy having fun
And now he has to sit and watch the sun.
Jack hates himself still
He rests on the hill
And take a whole bottle of pills.
Jack laid back
Foam he spat
And let everything fade to black.
The lesson is fine
If you take the time
To really understand this rhyme.
Just for fun. Different concept on old rhyme
Alexis Peterson Oct 2013
“You betrayed me, Darling” Jack said quietly. She had seen that look on his face before, it was a shocking sense of...disappointment. “Betrayed you? What are you talking about Jack? I love you, just you, ALWAYS you! You know that, what’s wrong with you, love? What has made you doubt me this way? Who has put this into your mind?”, Samantha was shocked that her husband would be so easily swayed from thinking that she was the perfect woman that he had married.

“What do you mean WHO?” his voice shook with barely controlled rage, his voice raising by the second, “You are that one who made me think this way! You've been withdrawn SWEETHEART, you don’t love me like you used to. The only explanation is that there must be someone else.”, Jack sounded as if he was so sure of himself, he had such conviction in his answer, and he did not expect the incredulous snort that came out of her mouth as her temper finally broke and she began to yell.

“ I've been withdrawn! I've been! What about you, DARLING?”, she spat out the endearment as if it left a sour taste in her mouth, making it sound like an insult, a curse. “ You've been so distant these last few months, Jack! You thought I wouldn't notice! You thought I couldn't tell! I could SEE it, in the planes of your face, in the way that you looked at me. No longer with adoration, but with calculation, or with consent, as if you simply are required to love me! Jesus, Jack! I’m not BLIND!”

Her husband sighed heavily and rested his head in his hands, “Please stop talking, Sam, please. I can’t bear to see you this way. You’re doubting me, even when I've been nothing but faithful to you.” his voice was barely a whisper, throat hoarse and raw from the screaming match they had earlier. She gasped, both at his words and his tone. She tried to keep herself from flinging herself into his arms and apologizing, trying to keep from seeing his side of the story. She knew what she had seen, she was not blind, and he knew it too. He had always been the rational one, always able to talk her out of her anger, and he knew it too.

“**** it Jack! I can smell it on you! Don’t tell me it isn't real!”, she paused to incredulously shake her head, “I can’t believe that you would lie to me”, Jack began to notice that her anger, her passion, her fire had faded. She sounded sad, defeated. like she was...giving up. “What do you SMELL on me, doll ”, when she didn't answer he began to get angry and his voice began to rise. “Hmmmm? What could you possibly smell on me? Be quick to answer”, she shook her head and clenched her jaw. Her answer seemed to be hissed out from between clenched teeth, “I smell whiskey, I smell smoke, you know what I smell most though? Perfume, it came from her, didn't it Jack? Because I’m sure as hell that it didn't come from me.” Jack shook his head and continued to be adamant in his denial of her claims.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Sammi! We’re fighting about nothing”, she began to sob uncontrollably, Jack was heartbroken by her sobs and tried to pull her into his arms, but she wrenched herself away from him, “Nothing, Jack? NOTHING! Be honest with me, how many are there? Three, Five, Twelve? I don’t even know you anymore, you aren't the man I married, you aren't my Jack. My Jack never would have done this to me! Who are you? Why do you want to hurt me? What’s happened to us, Jack? Sneaking behind each other’s backs-”, Jack’s head snapped up as he cut her off, “So you admit! You have been sneaking!” Samantha slowly shook her head and sighed in frustration, “**** it, Jack, that’s not the point! Do you even love me anymore?”, he didn't answer, her anger was blinding and she was so close to crying, “Do you! Is there any part of you that’s still mine?”, He frowned.

“All of it! All of me! I’m yours Sam”, she shook her head as she walked out the door, “No you aren't, Jack. You aren't mine” Jack gently put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him and stopping her from exiting the room, “I am. I’m yours!”, even he was close to tears now, the quiver in his voice was clear. Samantha shook him off her shoulder, “Then why did you cheat, Jack?” Her cold stare focused on his face, he looked at her and he was crushed. He looked heartbroken, but she answered her question with one of his own. “Why did you?” She shook her head and the look on her face changed from determination to disgust.

“I didn't! God, Jack! I loved you faithfully, fully, with no regrets, NONE! Guess it wasn't enough was it?”, He sighed “Give me another chance. I really do love you, Sammi”, He used her old nickname, hoping that it would rekindle a little bit of the old affection between them, no dice. She looked at him freezing him in place again with her cold stare, “Love is a game, games are for kids and whether or not you are one, I am done with this game. I forfeit, you win. Congratulations, you lose everything. Hope you had fun playing. Playing me just like everyone said you would”, Jack looked wounded his eyes filled with sharp pain.

“Please sweetheart, a second chance?” He was crying now, his tears streaming silently down his face. But she didn't turn to look and her response was curt and final, “Second chances are for those who deserve them, and don’t ever call me that again”. As she began to walk away Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him again, “fine, no second chance, aren't you going to tell me that we can still be friends?”, Samantha shook her head in disgust and pulled her arm away from him. “Let’s get something straight Jack, we are not friends, we are not acquaintances, you will not speak to me after this. We don’t even know each other. As far as I’m concerned Jack, we haven’t known each other in quite a long time. Find someone else to ruin Jack, I’m already broken beyond repair. Goodbye Jack.”

As Samantha left, the tears streaming down her face were mirrored on his. However, their relationship, like Samantha, was broken far beyond repair. Even with time it will not heal as most things would. But instead, might fade, leaving both with an empty feeling that they will try to fill in their own way. By indulging in vices or rediscovering themselves, but at least then, there would be no pain. There was no doubt that that this was a good thing for them, because it was the time for it. Samantha remembered reading somewhere that there was a time for everything, and leaning against the closed door with her tears silently streaming down her face, she had not a doubt that this was right. They were not meant for the forever that they had promised each other. So each would have to find a love that was.
Rangzeb Hussain Mar 2010
Said the Prince unto his raven-haired Lady as he rode and galloped away,
He leaned back and this is what he had to say:
“Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.”

Jack O’Lantern prowls and haunts the frosted hills hunting to ****** for fresh meat.
This monster, this dark beast creeps down from upon the heath!
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“Where be the Lord of this warm and happy house?” says Jack O’Lantern with claws tapping.
“Gone to London town,” says the Nurse the coins from Jack receiving.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“Where be the lovely Lady of this house?” smiles Jack O’Lantern mouth full of jagged teeth.
“She’s in her red chamber,” says the Nurse asking for a treat.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“Where be the delightful baby of the house?” says Jack O’Lantern purring like a cat.
“Asleep in the cradle,” says the Nurse accepting Jack’s gold sack.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“We will pinch him, we will ***** him, we will stab him with a long pin!
Nurse, you will hold the basin for the blood all to run in.”
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

So they pinched him and they pricked him, then they stabbed him with a very sharp pin.
The false Nurse did hold the basin for the blood all to run in.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“Lady, come down the stairs, come drink this tasty gin,” says Jack O’Lantern dripping sin.
“How can I see thee in the dark?” says the Lady unto him.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

“I have silver bracelets and rings fashioned out of gold,” says Jack O’Lantern bowing.
“Lady, pray sail down the stairs and come see them glowing.”
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

Down the stairs the radiant Lady gently glided without alarm, thinking there to be no harm.
Black-eyed Jack stood ready to snap her in his arms.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

There is blood in the kitchen and blood on the chamber floor, there is blood also in the hall.
There is blood upon the open door and blood upon the wall.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

There is slippery blood in the parlour and bedroom too where the Lady did slip and fall.
Now Jack will be caught and hanged and punished in hell’s hall.
Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
Be concerned! Lock and bolt the door until I return.

And the false Nurse will be broken and burnt in the fire raging scarlet and black.
Said the Prince unto his Lady dead as he rode back:
“Beware the moor, beware the fog, beware the nightly shadow of Jack O’Lantern!
O why did you unlock the door? My heart will now forever twist and turn!”
Inspired by a traditional Folk song which has been sung and rearranged by many artists over the years.
Its tough to bring up a child on your own



You ser Roalyn joan Parkse was a single mum who every day, struggled
Through life, trying to raise her 3 year old daughter Katie, you see Katie's father
Was a ******, and yes,,Roslyn was ***** into being pregnant, she wanted an abortion
At first,,but then she was thnkimg, she always wanted to be a mum, so she decided to take
The risk and give birth to her daughter, but it's hard because, every day she went out
She kept looking at her daughter,,and then she'll have a horrible thought, that, what if,,she
Met her ****** again,,and she made a pact not to tell Katie who her real father is, mainly
Because, Roslyn wanted to make sure that Katie knows that she loves her.
The day after Roslyn gave birth to Katie, the father was sentenced to 45 years gaol, and
When Roslym heard that, she was relieved, because she can be at peace, and that made her live her life, making sure Katie is protected.
Roslym had her hands full trying to juggle raising her baby, on the little bit of money that the government gives her with the baby bonus, and she was told she wasn't eligible for any type of pension,,but if she, is willing to sit in on an interview with the men at centrelink, she might be able to receive the single mothers pension in 5 months, and Roslyn was a bit hostile about sitting in on an interview because, that's how her life with Katie's father was,
You see, Roslyn's parents hated Katie's father because they knew that he was bad news, and another thing too, they also knew that he was capable of anything.
You see Roslyn, as a child was easily led into any relationship, and also she was easily to be taken advantage of, and even if Katie's father appeared nice to her, he really was a really horrible man.
You see he started to muck with Roslyn, to keep her away from the family, and then when
He did that successfully, he will lure her into his bedroom,,and make sure that Roslyn was unaware of what he was putting her through, when Roslyn started to see sense, he gave her an illegal drug, which he said was a panadol after trying to calm her down, yes,  go felt better, but she was under a stupid dillusion that Katie's father was Mr Wonderful.
But she was drugged when she was showing signs of understanding that she is in the wrong relationship.
Roslyn's parents were frantic, as they were really worried that Roslyn was not calling .
them, and even when Roslyn's father died when she was 25, Roslyn was given another illegal drug to make Roslyn be really spaced out, so she can be too out of it, to attend her father's funeral.
And despite Roslyn's mother worrying why her own daughter wouldn't go to her daddy's funeral, she started to worry, and went on a mission to try and find and rescue her daughter, because, she was thinking that this is stupid, this horrible man, whose name was Jack Robsrts, was trying to force her daughter just to keep away from being a family person.
And when she eventually found Roslyn, of course when she knocked on the door, and Javk answered it, and when he saw Roslyn's mum standing there, he tried to shut the door into her face but as he did that, Roslyn's mum, used what she learnt in self defence class,,and knocked him out with one punch and she went straight up to the top bedroom and there she found Roslyn spaced out on the illegal drugs that Jack gave her, and when she was bringing her down the stairs, Jack got up and then grabbed the nearest knife and decided to hold a little hostage situation, but Jack was unaware that Roslyn's mum called the police, and despite the police sitting outside Jack's house for 2 hours,,they finally rescued Roslyn and her mum, from Jacks evil clutches, and they were put into an ambulance to be checked over, while Jack was arrested and yes as we told you, he was sentenced to 45 years behind bars,,but as Roslyn was being checked out by the doctors, which they saw she was drugged and also she was pregnant, and despite having an argument with her mother about it,,she decided to do what she wants and keep the baby,  because, Roslyn knew as long as Katie was unaware of who her real father was while being young, everything will be alright.
But her life was a complete nightmare, trying to raise Katie, always looking over her shoulder making sure that nobody was following her, and even though Roslym tried to keep a brave face, she was really suffering, looking after her baby, and she started to wish she
Listened to her mum when she said to have an abortion, but she wanted Katie to be unaware of how she really felt.
Each birthday that Katie had, Roslyn tried to make sure that Katie had heaps of friends to play with, and her first birthday Roslyn thought it was cute that Katie was doing baby talk with all her little friends, and she tried to make Katie feel so special, on her first birthday, and since then Roslyn struggled through life, trying to juggle her social chit chat with friends as well as giving her mum babysitting duties,,yes she started to feel good about her decision to keep Katie and at Christmas Roslyn met a man, and because of her track record with men, her mum was concerned even if she had met him and thinks he s charming but so was Jack, but that's in the past and Roslyn's mum told herself to trust her daughters man, and not think about Jack, because it will be good to have a father for Katie, so she kept it under her hat.
And on Katie's second birthday, yes she had a party and yes she made a lot of new friends, and Roslyn was happy because she was fooling around with her new man, whose name was Kenneth Kopland, and Kenneth asked Roslyn for her hand in marriage and Roslyn accepted, and when she told her mum, she tried to keep a brave face, hoping that she wssn't about to make a big mistake.
And 3 days before the wedding in November of that year,,Roslyn heard that Jack had escaped from prison with a couple of inmates and she was so worried she told her mum and despite days of putting it off, she eventually told Kenneth who made Roslyn feel protected by this man, and he told her, Roslyn, just stick with me, and you'll be safe, and after her honeymoon and then Christmas where  Kenneth dressed up as Santa for Katie and on New years eve, Roslyn was pregnant, with her second child but she was still worried that Jack was out to get her, and when Roslyn was out with her girlfriends, Jack noticed her with a little girl who looks like it could be his, but because she wouldn't touch him with a 30 foot pole, he had two arrange a little hostage situation for her,,and mate, if Jack doesn't get what he wants, he will ****.
So the day before Katie's third birthday, Roslyn and Kenneth were getting ready to go
To New York to visit Kenneth's parents but while they were doing that, Jack paid a little visit on Roslyn's mum, where he held her hostage, untill she tells him where Roslyn lives, and after 4 hours of yelling at Jack to leave her be, she told a little white lie, that Roslyn died in hospital that day, and then Jack left, knowing she was lying, but he will plan this little situation for her and then in a couple more weeks when Roslyn returned to her home town,
With Katie and Kenneth, Jack saw Roslyn in the car, and decided to follow her and yes he knew exactly where she lived now,,and it was only,a matter of time for him to make his move.
And the next day, Kenneth left for work, and Roslyn stayed at home and just kept an eye and it wasn't till she decided to go for a little walk,,she noticed Jack, and she suddenly let out a big scream and then had a yelling match, till Jack got out his pistol and shot at Roslyn, hitting her right in her chest and then kidnapped his daughter Katie, but after 3 hours of searching, the police found Jack nursing Katie at a railway station and the arrested Jack and put him back in prison and 3 hours later, Roslyn had passed away and she lost her baby as well and this made Roslyn 's mother and husband very scared as they move in to help raise Katie together because Kenneth didn't want to give her up, and when Katie was,,she was told the truth about her mother and father, and when Roslyn's mum passed away, Katie read the horrific story of how much pain her mum suffered being ***** back then, and after her grandmas funeral, she lived happily ever after with Kenneth and his new woman Josephine.
Its tough to bring up a child on your own



You ser Roalyn joan Parkse was a single mum who every day, struggled
Through life, trying to raise her 3 year old daughter Katie, you see Katie's father
Was a ******, and yes,,Roslyn was ***** into being pregnant, she wanted an abortion
At first,,but then she was thnkimg, she always wanted to be a mum, so she decided to take
The risk and give birth to her daughter, but it's hard because, every day she went out
She kept looking at her daughter,,and then she'll have a horrible thought, that, what if,,she
Met her ****** again,,and she made a pact not to tell Katie who her real father is, mainly
Because, Roslyn wanted to make sure that Katie knows that she loves her.
The day after Roslyn gave birth to Katie, the father was sentenced to 45 years gaol, and
When Roslym heard that, she was relieved, because she can be at peace, and that made her live her life, making sure Katie is protected.
Roslym had her hands full trying to juggle raising her baby, on the little bit of money that the government gives her with the baby bonus, and she was told she wasn't eligible for any type of pension,,but if she, is willing to sit in on an interview with the men at centrelink, she might be able to receive the single mothers pension in 5 months, and Roslyn was a bit hostile about sitting in on an interview because, that's how her life with Katie's father was,
You see, Roslyn's parents hated Katie's father because they knew that he was bad news, and another thing too, they also knew that he was capable of anything.
You see Roslyn, as a child was easily led into any relationship, and also she was easily to be taken advantage of, and even if Katie's father appeared nice to her, he really was a really horrible man.
You see he started to muck with Roslyn, to keep her away from the family, and then when
He did that successfully, he will lure her into his bedroom,,and make sure that Roslyn was unaware of what he was putting her through, when Roslyn started to see sense, he gave her an illegal drug, which he said was a panadol after trying to calm her down, yes,  go felt better, but she was under a stupid dillusion that Katie's father was Mr Wonderful.
But she was drugged when she was showing signs of understanding that she is in the wrong relationship.
Roslyn's parents were frantic, as they were really worried that Roslyn was not calling .
them, and even when Roslyn's father died when she was 25, Roslyn was given another illegal drug to make Roslyn be really spaced out, so she can be too out of it, to attend her father's funeral.
And despite Roslyn's mother worrying why her own daughter wouldn't go to her daddy's funeral, she started to worry, and went on a mission to try and find and rescue her daughter, because, she was thinking that this is stupid, this horrible man, whose name was Jack Robsrts, was trying to force her daughter just to keep away from being a family person.
And when she eventually found Roslyn, of course when she knocked on the door, and Javk answered it, and when he saw Roslyn's mum standing there, he tried to shut the door into her face but as he did that, Roslyn's mum, used what she learnt in self defence class,,and knocked him out with one punch and she went straight up to the top bedroom and there she found Roslyn spaced out on the illegal drugs that Jack gave her, and when she was bringing her down the stairs, Jack got up and then grabbed the nearest knife and decided to hold a little hostage situation, but Jack was unaware that Roslyn's mum called the police, and despite the police sitting outside Jack's house for 2 hours,,they finally rescued Roslyn and her mum, from Jacks evil clutches, and they were put into an ambulance to be checked over, while Jack was arrested and yes as we told you, he was sentenced to 45 years behind bars,,but as Roslyn was being checked out by the doctors, which they saw she was drugged and also she was pregnant, and despite having an argument with her mother about it,,she decided to do what she wants and keep the baby,  because, Roslyn knew as long as Katie was unaware of who her real father was while being young, everything will be alright.
But her life was a complete nightmare, trying to raise Katie, always looking over her shoulder making sure that nobody was following her, and even though Roslym tried to keep a brave face, she was really suffering, looking after her baby, and she started to wish she
Listened to her mum when she said to have an abortion, but she wanted Katie to be unaware of how she really felt.
Each birthday that Katie had, Roslyn tried to make sure that Katie had heaps of friends to play with, and her first birthday Roslyn thought it was cute that Katie was doing baby talk with all her little friends, and she tried to make Katie feel so special, on her first birthday, and since then Roslyn struggled through life, trying to juggle her social chit chat with friends as well as giving her mum babysitting duties,,yes she started to feel good about her decision to keep Katie and at Christmas Roslyn met a man, and because of her track record with men, her mum was concerned even if she had met him and thinks he s charming but so was Jack, but that's in the past and Roslyn's mum told herself to trust her daughters man, and not think about Jack, because it will be good to have a father for Katie, so she kept it under her hat.
And on Katie's second birthday, yes she had a party and yes she made a lot of new friends, and Roslyn was happy because she was fooling around with her new man, whose name was Kenneth Kopland, and Kenneth asked Roslyn for her hand in marriage and Roslyn accepted, and when she told her mum, she tried to keep a brave face, hoping that she wssn't about to make a big mistake.
And 3 days before the wedding in November of that year,,Roslyn heard that Jack had escaped from prison with a couple of inmates and she was so worried she told her mum and despite days of putting it off, she eventually told Kenneth who made Roslyn feel protected by this man, and he told her, Roslyn, just stick with me, and you'll be safe, and after her honeymoon and then Christmas where  Kenneth dressed up as Santa for Katie and on New years eve, Roslyn was pregnant, with her second child but she was still worried that Jack was out to get her, and when Roslyn was out with her girlfriends, Jack noticed her with a little girl who looks like it could be his, but because she wouldn't touch him with a 30 foot pole, he had two arrange a little hostage situation for her,,and mate, if Jack doesn't get what he wants, he will ****.
So the day before Katie's third birthday, Roslyn and Kenneth were getting ready to go
To New York to visit Kenneth's parents but while they were doing that, Jack paid a little visit on Roslyn's mum, where he held her hostage, untill she tells him where Roslyn lives, and after 4 hours of yelling at Jack to leave her be, she told a little white lie, that Roslyn died in hospital that day, and then Jack left, knowing she was lying, but he will plan this little situation for her and then in a couple more weeks when Roslyn returned to her home town,
With Katie and Kenneth, Jack saw Roslyn in the car, and decided to follow her and yes he knew exactly where she lived now,,and it was only,a matter of time for him to make his move.
And the next day, Kenneth left for work, and Roslyn stayed at home and just kept an eye and it wasn't till she decided to go for a little walk,,she noticed Jack, and she suddenly let out a big scream and then had a yelling match, till Jack got out his pistol and shot at Roslyn, hitting her right in her chest and then kidnapped his daughter Katie, but after 3 hours of searching, the police found Jack nursing Katie at a railway station and the arrested Jack and put him back in prison and 3 hours later, Roslyn had passed away and she lost her baby as well and this made Roslyn 's mother and husband very scared as they move in to help raise Katie together because Kenneth didn't want to give her up, and when Katie was,,she was told the truth about her mother and father, and when Roslyn's mum passed away, Katie read the horrific story of how much pain her mum suffered being ***** back then, and after her grandmas funeral, she lived happily ever after with Kenneth and his new woman Josephine.
kirk Oct 2018
Who owns Jack Jones, is he part of your clan?
Does Mr Jones actually exist, is he a real live man
Why does he resemble Boyd, is this part of his plan
Jack is such a manly name, but so is Phil and Stan

Don't use "Boy" within your name, you'll impose an adult ban
Boyish names are not much good, there not like John or Dan
You wouldn't call grandfathers boys, or say girl to your nan
Stop abusing ol' Jack Jones, and avoid Boyd if you can

Boyd is easy to avoid, its easier than we thought
An alteration has took place, but that's what Boyd has sought
Elusiveness is not too smart, because already you've been caught
We've worked out who Jack Jones is, and it accounts to nought

Your lacking iron clad alibis, nothing is set in wrought
It's criminal to own Jack Jones, so please would you abort
No rights to use another name, your being a bad sport
Is Boyd considered as a name, or is it "boy" for short

Intellect is not too strong, that's only what you think
Using an alias is unwise, if you show a photo link
Why bother changing to Jack Jones, how low you gonna sink
Your mother's been kept in the dark, about releasing your white ink

Is Jack Jones the one, who's been sinking in the pink?
Wasn't it Boyd's low ***** count, that went inside the mink?
You are skating on thin ice, when there's cracks in the rink
Just who owns Jack Jones, when Boyd's back from the brink

Identities are broken, just what did you think you'd gain
Your just a ******* imbecile, to think you'd relieve the strain
You can't hide yourself away, you must be quite insane
It's not as though your mother lives, in germany or Spain

Everyone knows who you are, it's in your face and plain
It is just pathetic to make Jack Jones the main
Jack Jones is just too common, you should try a name like shane
Just don't **** about with names, or Jack Jones will be jocks Jane

Your ashamed of what you've done, you try to skulk and hide
You didn't mind the ******, or having your fun ride
Be a man and not a "Boyd", it's time to turn the tide
Come on Boyd you did not avoid, legs that were astride

Morality is in pursuit, but you have no sense of pride
Who's Jack Jones supposed to be, now  sperms slid down the slide
Other aliases may exist, do you have bits on the side
Or are you only interested, when things are open wide

Is Jack Jones the father, or is he born from rubber clones
Boyd is the spitting image, he's been seen on mobile phones
Hostile namesake takeovers, do you have *** slaves and drones
There's no sense in your deception, because this isn't Game of Thrones

We don't want identities stolen, you borrow names like loans
Jack's already being used, it's a name that someone owns
Maybe names can hurt you, as well as sticks and stones
So cease in your activities , you don't know who owns Jack Jones
This poem is dedicated to Mandy who influenced its writing
David W Clare Dec 2014
Aka
The Hang mans Rap     Ghost Town Version and Mix    

By, David John Clare

Take off this noose, Im on the loose, like a double deuce spruce-goose
Your gallows is to shallow for me, its only for your own in home abuse
Dont crush my hand, cuz you cant understand the plan
She and me need to be free, Mr. Law man
Shes not your daughter, dont doubt her, Ill dote her, Miss Senorina, with my *** gun
Give us water and feed, we're the Wild West creed, of a new century seed
So concede and give heed, were gone like a tumble-****, off to breed
Like a slow-blizzard-breeze, get on yours knees please, you cant seize these mysteries
Hangmans Rap, (its the hangmans rap)
Hangman Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack
Hangman Rap, (the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack yall
Im hanging out at the beech, far from your long arm reach, Ill be back cuz Im planning my attack, like a One Eyed Jack, Marlon Brando cant be catched, no deputy dog can claim my ******, so watch out when you fall thru own hatch
Ma Baker and sons, like the undertaker, are the new setting sun, movers and shakers
Annie get your gun, were on the run, get on your high horse, were born to run, break every law like a saloon-brawl, here come the Sheriff after us all y'all...
Hangmans Rap, (the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack
Hangmans Rap, (the hangmans rap)
Hangman Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack yall
(Marlin Brando cant be catched)
Loving like we cant be dead in a Western ghost-town, its all your head, give us this day our daily butter and bread, its like I said move slick or live in club Fed...

Gun powder blast, shattered glass, Im riding the range like a social-outcast, were on the run, having fun, you tub o-guts, Ill grab my scatter gun....  so hide the girls, Im heading for the hills, no thanks doc, I aint taking no pills, what you want from me? my whole life history? Or, a bottle of wine of Dubonnet on this Valentines Day, dont act stupid, go ask cupid to shoot you with his arrow in the court room with a Clarence Darrow, stay on the straight and narrow, its a harrowing call, to be a Too Tall Jones, outlaw yall
Hangmans Rap, (yeah, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangman rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack
(Marlin Brando cant be catched)
Hangmans Rap, (the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, it's  hangman rap, like a One-Eyed Jack yall

Heed to the call, the-call-of-the-wild, Im the blazing-trail child on the way to my home on the range, some think Im strange, no matter at all, Im the lonesome-ranger, trying to avoid all kindsa danger, thats all
Hangmans Rap, (tiss, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangman rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack                                                             ­                                           
Hangman Rap, (oh, the hangmans rap)
Hangman Rap, its hangmans rap, like some **** One-Eyed Jack yall

So, get back from me, Im on a quest and where I go you cant plainly see I aint no toy, try to catch a glimpse of the real vision in me, ok cowboy?
Hangmans Rap, (yes, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack

Hangman Rap, (just, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, ****! a One-Eyed Jack yall

Im hanging out at the beach, far from your long arm reach, Ill be back cuz Im planning my attack, like a One Eyed Jack, Marlon Brando cant be catched
Hangmans Rap, (do the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack
Hangmans Rap, (****, that hangmans rap)
Hangman Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack yall

Take off this noose, Im on the loose, like a double deuce spruce-goose
dem gallows is to shallow for me, its only for your own in home use
Hangman Rap, (wo, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangman rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack
Hangman Rap, (yeow, the hangmans rap)
Hangmans Rap, its hangmans rap, likes a One-Eyed Jack yall
There he go

D. Clare   Clairvoyant Music/BMI     copyright in Perpetuity      all rights reserved
For Marlon Brando
Everett street, Wooveburra


One day in the Mython town of Wooveburra, there was a working class street in the suburb of Kensworth, called Everett Street, where their lived former Mython prime minister, Jack Norridge, who was the most right wing politian around, and he only is living in the street because his rich wife took her and his money to make a better life for herself and her children in Sydney Australia and Jack was left penniless and had to apply for the age pension, and mind you he had nothing in common with any of the folk anywhere on this street, you see in one house is a family who can barely feed themselves nevertheless the luxuries they give to their kids, like paying for school camps, and Jack told them, on his day he had his second job at her and her husbands age, and yes, they tore strips of him, but them, they were doing better, which suited them fine, and there were no way they will help him through what he's going through, and in another house is Fred Gordon who was the librarian, and when he came face to face with Jack, and bare in mind when Jack was prime minister, he needed to fund his new freeway, so he nearly had the library shut, and now he's got nothing, he was in no way showing any sympathy for the man,,telling him endlessly, things like welcome to my world ****, and your not so big now, Jacky, you will be killed within 3 months, mate.
There was a young couple, what about 16 and 17 who have 2 kids and when he walked passed,,the young couple always wanted to chat to him, and they chatted about why the **** did they cut their grandmas pension, she had to stop giving us gifts, and then they called Jack a two faced slimey old cow, and Jack said, sometimes we have to cut back, then he said have a look at me, and then the couple said to him, your problems are ******* self-inflicted, our problems are just us finding a mojo that you ***** won't let us have, and then Jack was getting very nervous, and went into the pub and when he got in, it looked good, and people Said hello and when Jack asked for gin and tonic,everyone looked at him, and also one ,man said to Jack, hey are you former prime minister Jack Nortodge, and when he said yes, he laughed and he laughed at him and then punched him square on the gut,
And Jack said, I will get my lawyer onto you all partiers, in my day we all did an honest days work, none of this few drinker happy hours like you guys get, and then one drinker said, well in your day when everyone did a honest days work, does that make you different to the world, cause you haven't done an honest days work ever, so ******* right wing fascioust, and Jack left to go home seeing people throwing thier fists at him, as well as sticking their fingers at him, and then Jack said, I am going nowhere, so get used to me Everett Street, I am here to stay, and every resident yelled out, but our towns heritage won't be, you'll turn this street into Las Vegas, if we give you half the ****** chance, and then Jack went inside and all the residents went to the pub and tell of all things that Jack has done wrong for the country of Myth, and everyone hated him with a passion,,and that's what happened on Everett street this week, I hope you enjoyed it.


Sent from my iPhone
C J Baxter Feb 2015
There was a young boy who feared that his beard would never grow long and wise, like that of his old mans and his old mans. He could see the hair on the upper lips and chins of his school pals beginning to form, and so he would walk around with his own chin pointing toward the sun, hoping that something in its warm rays would spurt the growth of his first wee whisker. But nothing. From then on every time he got his haircut he would ask the barber not to sweep up all of his hair, so that he could take some of it home; His Mother often shook her head at this, having no idea what purpose it was for, and instead sighed with a " Yer some boy Jack”. Each time he brought home more hair, he would weave it together with the rest of his old curly locks.  You see, although he had a smooth wee baby face, he had the most stunningly dark and wild curls.

Jack turned 18, and into something like a man, but still there wasn't single whisker on his chin or upon his top lip.  He had grown tall and strong, a man by almost every physical determinant, and this only frustrated him more.  He was teased by the other guys in his work, they would all call him        " Talcom Powder", or " Big Baby Baw Face"  - Not the most intelligent bunch- and Jack would laugh along, while cursing his God inside himself.  Still, every Hair cut and **** trimming, Jack got or gave would be weaved together with every haircut he had since he was 12- he had almost two foot of dark curly strands now, as intricately woven as silk.  Sometimes he would put it on, and talk to himself in the mirror.  

However, like all dark things that are hidden, when they come to light things rarely carry on carrying on. One day Jacks Mother walked in on him doing his best ZZ top impersonation and caught one glimpse of his wooly masterpiece, and it blew the top of her head clean off. “ You filthy boy! What have you done… Oh god, is that why you? It better, all of it, be yours…”.  she rambled while pacing in circles, unable to look at her son and his two foot clip on beard.  “ Mum” said Jack, “ I know this is a shock, but I just want to have a beard, everyone else has one: All my pals at work, all those model guys, all those guys with gorgeous girls, All those guys with creative jobs”. “ They are all ****”, she barked in reply, “ Why would any son of mine want to be like any of those low life cretins?”.  Jack was taken a back by just how upset his mum really was by his masterpiece, and shyly asked “ What about Dads? And Granddads? Theirs are the biggest beards I’ve ever seen, and I’m a ZZ top fan”, “ Thats different”, she said, “ Theirs are REAL working mens beards”.

Weeks went on with Jack and his Mother avoiding each others gaze; the only time they ever spoke was when they were arguing about the beard. Eventually it all got too much for everyone, the house had became inhospitable and Jack finally said the words he’d come to regret, “ If the beard goes, I go”. With cold hands, his Mother packed his bags and began cooking the last meal Jack would enjoy in that house; He and his Mother sat there in silence, while the food cooled on the table, waiting on his Father and Grandfather to return home from their labours. Jack shifted with every second ticking by on the clock above his head, still refusing to look at his Mother. Then he heard the gate swinging open, a few shifts later, the keys turning in the locks, then the door flew open, and Jacks mouth did too; For as he looked to see his Father and Grandfather coming through the frame of the door, they looked hard worked and clean shaven ( Well a bit of Five O'clock shadow).I t was the first time he’d ever seen the chins of the most important men in his life.

  After an excruciating feast of eye contact avoidance and the swallowing of feelings, Jack hugged his Mother Goodbye, Shook his Granddads hand and was walked outside of the house by his Father who said he had a few things he wanted to say man to man; This shook Jack inside himself a little; unsure of whether to feel like a toddler on a naughty step or a man about to share his first whiskey with his old man, he nodded and followed behind his Father out the door. As soon as  he’d closed the door behind him, his Father said “ Listen here boy. I know you just wanted to make me and your mum proud, I was the same as you when I was your age, always wanting to be older. Trust me that changes quickly.  But if there’s one thing I can tell you, its this”, his Dad paused and sighed in a soft way, “ You don’t need to go around faking it. If you leave this house and start wearing the beard day after day, you’ll find it gets boring fast. Trust me… Just enjoy yourself and try and remember who and what you are”. Jack nodded to his Father, and hugged him for the first time in his teenage life.

As Jack walked down the garden path, he got to the gate when he heard his Father saying,            “ Remember! No beard *******” just before closing the door.  But like all good sons and bad sons alike, within a two minutes of a walking out of his family hom Jack had ignored his Fathers advice, and rummaged through his bag to put on his masterpiece proudly.

His beard never did grow, and now his masterpiece is so long his feet often trip over it.  Ahh well, ‘Live and refuse to learn’.


The End
Hinata May 2014
jack loves people,
he participated in the most successful of chapels.
jack loves a crowd,
he was always happy and seems to float on a cloud.
jack loves the population,
he always loved them and was interested in their associations.
jack loves the world,
he loved every man, woman, boy, and girl.
jack loves everyone,
especially the tasty ones.
jack loves the look on their faces,
he loved the way they pray for forgiveness for their disgraces.
jack loves their blood,
he always giggled as they tried to crawl away in the mud.
jack loves their eyes,
he always laughed at their obvious fright.
jack loves their screams,
he always loved hearing them in his dreams.
jack loves the muscles,
he would sing as he severed the body parts of a couple.
jack loves the rings on their fingers,
he would always keep those fingers together.
jack loves the way they taste,
the blood and meat always made his heart race.
jack loves people, that fact forever remains true,
now the question is, do you love people too?
thought i take a break from romance a bit, experiment with stuff, you can tell its kinda hard due to the mention of couples, anyways, please tell me what you guys think, i hope you enjoy ^^
JMG Nov 2010
I once met a man named Knapsack Jack
He never took his knapsack off his back
He'd eat with it
He'd sleep with it
I think he was attached

He was a strong man, this Knapsack Jack
Who never took his knapsack off his back
He's a scavenger
He's free to roam
Where he lay's his head
That is his home

He got got, this Knapsack Jack
They took his knapsack from his back
It was gone when he awoke
The deed was done
The bear was poked

Knapsack Jack was a kind ol' fella
But when Jack's eyes get red, people get yella
So off he went
Jack stole him a gun
Knapsack Jack gon' have some sick fun

Knapsack Jack got wild and reckless
He carved a ****** path from Virginia to Texas
Stained and putrid
There he stood
With an empty twelve-gauge
Just steel and wood

In front of him, ten men dressed in blue
This would be his last battle
But 'ol Jack wasn't through
With no shot in the barrel
He got nine out of ten
The last man in blue
Brought Jack to an end

Revered as a hero
For losing his friends
Ruined was the man
Who brought ol' Jack to an end
No longer in blue,
Soaked from tears, dressed in black

Just cause a man
Took a knapsack from Jack
JG, November 2010
Judy Ponceby Nov 2011
I was 'bout a haf mile down Shadow Holler, lookin' for my dog Jack.  I rounded the bend long the river and thar he sat just lookin' up at the moon that was back dropped behind him.  I was so entranced I stood stockstill in the chill evening air.  He raised his head and let out with that beautiful soulful baying only a huntin' dog can make.
Then he took off tearing through the woods like his tail was on fire.

Well, I commenced chasin' ol' Jack down, but I swear evra tree in that holler was out to get me.
My clothes, they was ripped up and my feet were on fire from being torn by briars and such.
I finally, upped and caught up to Jack.  He was pacing the bottom of a Sycamore that was glowing white in the moonlight.  I heard some cacklin' up in that tree and I looked up to see a sight that I nev'r saw afore.  They was a **** up in there just grinnin' down at Jack like he was playing with him.  Now Jack was in a right tizzy over that ****.  He leaped up the side of the tree as high as he could, barking treed as though his life depended on it.  That **** was doing a bit of glowing in the moonlight itself.  I'd never seen a Cinnamon colored **** before, but thar 'e was, bigger 'an life.  And while it was grinnin' it was busy collecting some twigs.  Next thing ya know it was chattering to beat the band and throwin' sticks at ol' Jack.  Well, I can tell you, Jack didn't appreciate the humor in this sitcheation.  He backed up and made a leap so high I thought shore he was gonna take flight, but he got nothin' for his trouble but a whack in the head as he collided with a big ol' twig thrown by that ****.  

Thinkin' that Jack had had about enuf I tried coaxing him home, but he was havin' nothing to do with it.  So, I told Jack I was heading home and he could come if he had a mind to, but I wasn't staying out in the woods all night while he made an *** of himself over a **** that was makin' fun of him.  I started off and then heard a loud yelp.  All of a sudden Jack came blastin' past me, and not far behind was that old Cinnamon **** giving it all he was worth.  Well, as he was headin' towards home I followed along.  Just at the mouth of Shadow Holler, and not to fer from home I found ol' Jack.  He was up a low slung tree whimperin' like a puppy.  That **** was pacing the trunk, back ****** up, teeth bared and laughin' out the side of its mouth.  As I walked up on this pathetic scene, ol' Jack took one look at me and started crying fer help.  Well, I took pity on the poor fella and walked up on that **** with a right big stick.  And right afore my eyes it just faded into nothin'.  Scared the bejeebers outta me!

Took me an hour to coax ol' Jack outta that tree.  And then I couldn't keep up with him once he headed towards our cabin.  At home I told Pa all about our lil adventure, and he bout whooped me fer even goin' into Shadow Holler.  He said, "Son, I tole you to stay outta that holla.  They's ghosts and spooks down in thar.  Old Lady Jalson disappeared never to be seen again until the Smith boys saw her wanderin' a trail down there.  On'y problem is they cud see through 'er.  They's all sorts of stories 'bout shadows roaming free and playin' tricks an' worse on folks."  

Well I never seen my Pa so scairt as when he was tellin' me that, so now I just keep away from that holler.  And, ya know what?  I ain't never seen ol' Jack even turn in that direction since that night.  Musta learned himself somethin'.
This is what comes of visiting my family in very Southern Ohio... :) And I did actually see a taxidermied cinnamon raccoon at a person's house once.  It was kinda eerie.  Did pass a sign to Shadow Holler while I was down there too. :)
I bond well,
With my brother Jack.
He makes me laugh,
My brother Jack.
We mess around,
Me and my brother Jack.
It's hard to explain,
My brother Jack
It's hard to complain,
About my brother Jack.
He is a gentle, caring brother,
Is my brother Jack.
He is sweeter than candy floss,
Is my brother Jack.
And is grumpy in the mornings,
Is my brother Jack.
But still a loving brother,
Is my brother Jack.
He ain't just a brother,
My brother Jack.
You are just like a friend,
My brother Jack.
Copyright. Clara McAdam 2010

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