The Games Jackson Played

Here is part of a short story I was working on. I'm not feeling all that topical this morning so....enjoy?

The Games Jackson played

Jackson’s games were only limited by the boundaries of his imagination; if not literally by the boundaries of his parent’s modest size country property. His afternoons were spent dashing about the fields and in between the hedgerows the next door neighbor, Mrs. Dufont, had somehow transplanted from her estate in France after the war. Jackson mostly traipsed across this landscape alone, climbing trees and wading out in the small stream that trickled out along the southern edge of the property. He could lose himself in fantasy and adventure till the fireflies came out. He was happy to have these adventures alone but every once in a while he had to play with the only other child in the area named Willie Snopes.

Willie was kind of a weird jerk. He wasn’t mean but he was callus.  Jackson couldn’t really blame him however. Willie’s dad ran off with some burlesque dancer when Willie was only seven and his mother had taken up with several notoriously crude and rude local men over the years. The last live in boyfriend was an iron worker who never seemed to be at work with iron. He was some kind of Polish Irish German mix of a man, meaning he drank and had one hell of a temper.  Ms. Snopes found something charming under that rough and slovenly façade so he was the man of the house of the moment. He wasn’t outright mean to Willie or anything, but just like Jackson, Willie was ignored.  Ms. Snopes wasn’t a bad woman either. She just didn’t really know how to handle herself without a man around. She certainly wasn’t prepared to take care of Willie all on her own. She was only 19 when Willie was born and was barely a woman as it was.

Jackson and Willie did what most boys do when their parents don’t seem to give much of a damn about them. They had imaginary adventures. Jackson was always the leader of the expeditions and adventures while Willie was given the lesser roles and in most cases was indifferent. Jackson was a patient and rather quite child, while Willie couldn’t give a rat’s fart about anything. Jackson had a sneaking suspicion there was something wrong with Willie but at 11 years old, before girls and other complications of life, there’s no way to really tell or judge. Sometimes it’s just the roles you end up playing in the imaginary stories of young boys. Jackson always imagined himself as the poised and heroic leading man, while Willie somehow always was cast as the Sancho Panza or Igor. Sometimes he was the villain.

Most summer days Jackson was content to play in his large yard, spending nearly all day in the sun or sitting in the shade of the large Maple tree. He’d really only ever go in to the house for meals and bedtime. Not that his mother was worried, she was usually on the phone talking to one of her six sisters or gossiping with Claire Donovan about who’s husband did what at the recent Moose Lodge Dinner Banquet. So Jackson was never really underfoot.

He’d sit and read a lot of the time. His favorite book for the longest time was King Solomon’s Mines by Sir H. Rider Haggard. The scope and scale of that adventure through the deepest and darkest landscape of Africa stirred his soul. At night, tucked under the covers his mind would swirl with the breathtaking action and adrenaline fueled excitement. He’d hardly be able to sleep with the anticipation of heading out in the yard and begin his own African expedition. Jackson pretended he was Allan Quatermain and he convinced Willie to be Allan’s friend, Captain Good. Willie of course shied at the name. He thought it wasn’t all the creative, corny in fact. He got a little jealous about it soon after their imaginary adventure began and he started complaining that Allan Quartermain was such a cool name and Captain Good was just lame and why couldn’t they play robots like he wanted. Luckily Willie had to get home for lunch so Jackson was able to continue his adventure without that complaining nag.

Jackson had a lunch of his own to get to but he pretended it was a trap set out by the evil Kukuanas witch, Gagool. He wouldn’t repeat that to his mother. She wouldn’t know what he was talking about anyway. She rarely ever knew what he was doing. He had asked her hundreds of time to please not to toast his bread on his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because it scratches the roof of his mouth, but almost every day, there was a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich waiting for him at the kitchen table.

There was little Jackson could do of course, being the small, replacement child that he was. So he would sit and crunch and choke down the sandwich quietly at the table while his mother sat across from him, talking on the phone, smoking a cigarette. It was sometimes hard to tell who she was talking to, or if there was anyone on the on the line at all. She never seemed to stop talking or give anyone a chance to respond to what she had said. There were family photos of her on the phone, cigarette in hand, a half moon smile on her face.

He didn’t hate his mother, he loved her very much. He didn’t know there could be something not quite right with his mother. He adored her anyway. She tried in her own way to be a mother.

Jackson finished his lunch and put his plate in the sink and went back to the yard to finish the African adventures of Allan Quartermain.

Years later, when Jackson was a teenager and his adventurous spirit had been broken, the most he looked forward to doing in the yard was getting Cindy Callagan to let him touch her breast again. She let him touch it when they were fifteen and two years later he hadn’t seen it again. To him, Cindy’s breasts were just as elusive as and somehow more important than King Solomon’s Mines.

To be continued….?