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"Jack In The Pulpit" (the fifty-fifth ACWclub monthly writing contest) |
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Assignment: Write a story or poem using the following title: "Jack In The Pulpit" 2500 words or less. Deadline: Midnight (EST), March 15, 2006 All entries are the property of the authors and cannot be copied or reprinted without their consent. |
| Jack In The Pulpit By lee10@host365.com (Entry #3) |
| ~Winning Entry~ |
| Betty Martin sobbed throughout her
son’s funeral service. Even when the vicar invited Ian to the pulpit to
read the 23rd Psalm, she snuffled into a thick wad of Kleenex. The church was old. The thick, grey-stone walls and the high vaulting ceiling distorted sound as Ian’s voice boomed, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…” Detective Inspector Stow, sitting at the rear of All Saints, thought he heard the hint of an unusual sibilance in the speaker’s voice. He listened more intently. “….He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness…” There. Was that a hiss, a slight whistle? Or just an echo? An old man started to cough. By the time he’d finished hacking, Ian was leaving the pulpit. Stow slid the brim of his hat round and round in his hands, making it shinier than ever. Things, he was sure, were not what they seemed but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was that troubled him. The service ended and the funeral procession left the church. The grieving mother stumbled on the centuries-worn flagstones in the aisle. Ian grabbed her and prevented her from falling. “Give me your arm, Mum,” he grumbled. “ I don’t know why you won’t wear your glasses, seeing as you’re as blind as a bat without them.” Betty Martin allowed her son to help her and they followed the coffin on its last journey. Stow waited while the church emptied. He didn’t feel it was appropriate to follow the cortege to the graveside. The sexton began to retrieve the scattered hymnbooks. “Something’s wrong,” Stow murmured to his colleague, Detective Sergeant Fowler. “But I can’t pin it down.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll come to me over a pint?” He grinned. “The Bakers Arms’ll be open by now. Fancy a quick half?” * Two weeks before, the smell of frying bacon had disturbed Betty’s sleep. Like the telephone that had rung in the middle of the night, it became another thread in her rambling dreams. But this stimulus was more insistent. The delicious, invidious smell coiled sneakily into her bedroom, inserting into her unconscious mind, images of plates piled high with full English breakfasts; of eggs and bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes, sausages and toast…”and black pudding,” she murmured. “Don’t forget the black pudding.” She woke. Her eyes opened begrudgingly. Her mouth was full of saliva and she swallowed. She’d had no fried food since her doctor had diagnosed her with a high cholesterol count five years ago. She rolled over and struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. Favouring her aching hip, she fumbled her feet into her slippers and her glasses onto her nose. She peered at her radio-alarm. It was 8 o’clock. “What’s Ian doing up at this time of a Sunday?” she asked her reflection as she tugged a comb through her sleep tangled hair. She went downstairs and was just finishing tying the belt of her dressing gown around her plump middle as she entered the kitchen. It was filled with an exquisite scent. Her son turned from the cooker. “Fancy a bacon sarnie, Mum? There’s plenty. And a pot of fresh tea, too.” He waved towards the table. “Help yourself.” He put a bacon sandwich on a plate in front of her. “Enjoy,” he said. “Oh, Ian. You know I shouldn’t,” Betty simpered, pulling the plate closer. “One bacon sandwich every five years isn’t going to kill you. And I’m Jack, by the way.” “Oh!” Betty said through a mouthful of heaven. It no longer bothered her when she mistook one of the boys for the other. Betty picked the final crumb from her plate. “Anyway, what are you doing here so early?” she asked. “Me and Sue had a row last night.” Jack explained. She wanted to go clubbing and I wanted to stay in and watch the big fight on the tele. I told she couldn’t go out.” “And she went?” “Yes. She went anyway,” Jack confirmed. “So I did what any boy would do. I came home to my Mum and as it was late and you were in bed, I slept on the settee in the sitting room. You don’t mind, do you?” Delicately, she wiped her mouth with the back of her index finger. “Of course I don’t mind.” “And I brought the bacon from our fridge. I know how to please one of my girls even if I can’t do right for the other.” Jack looked carefully at his mother. “Did the phone wake you last night?” he asked, “at one o’clock?” Betty thought for a moment. ”Yes, I did hear it,” she said finally, “but I thought I was dreaming. Who was it?” “A wrong number,” he answered. He began to collect the dishes. “Why don’t you go and get yourself dolled up for the day while I wash the pots?” Betty nodded. “What about Sue? Shouldn’t you go back home?” “She’ll have had too much to drink last night,” Jack reassured her, “and she’ll be asleep and snoring until teatime at least. She’ll be in no fit state for kiss and make up.” The doorbell rang. “I can’t answer the door in my dressing gown,” Betty hissed. “You go. It’s probably Jehovah’s Witnesses. Get rid of them.” Jack’s footsteps echoed down the uncarpeted hall. He snatched open the door, muttering about, “blasted god-botherers.” The man on the doorstep removed his hat. His suit was crumpled and his shirt collar rumpled. He looked as though he’d been up all night. “Ah, Mr.Martin,” the man said. “Detective Inspector Stow,” Jack replied with a lazy smile. “You look a bit the worse for wear.” “We’d like a word with you please,” Stow indicated his companion. “You know Detective Sergeant Fowler. May we come in?” “Can’t it wait?” Jack asked. “We’ve only just got up.” “No it can’t wait.” Stow insisted. Jack turned to his mother. “I suppose we’d best let them in,” he suggested. “Why can’t you people leave us alone? It’s Sunday morning for God’s sake!” They all turned towards the man who stood at the top of the stairs. He was identical in every respect to Jack Martin, even down to the style and colour of his clothing and the way he wore his hair. “My brother, Ian,” Jack explained. “Ah, yes,” Stow murmured. “The respectable one.” Jack ignored him and ushered them into the lounge. Betty offered them tea but Stow refused. Betty sat down, with a dark, unsmiling, unshaven twin standing on either side of her. Stow turned to Jack. “I was hoping we’d find you here,” he began, “as no one’s home at Rochdale Drive.” “What were you doing at my house?” the other man asked. Stow blinked. He’d only taken his eyes off the two of them for a second when they’d entered the lounge but it had been long enough to mix them up. “And where was my wife? She should be home?” Stow looked grim. “I regret to have to inform you, Mr.Martin that your wife is dead. She was murdered at Adriano’s last night.” Betty gasped and clutched at her chest. “No,” she squealed. Ian touched her on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Mum.” “I must ask you to come with me to identify the body,” Stow said gently to Jack as the colour drained from the younger man’s face. Jack sat heavily on the arm of his mother’s chair. “I need,” he stammered, “I-I need some time.” “I understand that, Sir, but I really must insist that you come with us now.” “Why the rush?” demanded Ian. “My brother’s just been told his wife’s been murdered. Why don’t you go out and find the murderer instead of harassing him?” Stow addressed Jack. “We have CCTV pictures of you arguing with your wife at the Club at 1am, 10 minutes before she was found dead in the alley outside. So you really must come with us, Sir, to answer a few questions.” Jack shot to his feet. “But it wasn’t me. I was here, wasn’t I, Mother?” he pleaded. “The phone woke us both up at one o’clock, didn’t it?” “Yes, it did,” Betty nodded. “I heard you answer it.” “Are you sure it was 1 o’clock?” Stow asked her. “Oh, yes. Definitely. It was 1 o’clock.” Stow hesitated. “I think, Mr.Martin, I’ll leave things as they stand for now, while I make a few more enquiries. Shall I let them know at the Infirmary that you’ll be along later to identify Mrs.Martin?” Jack nodded. * Betty dressed slowly. She struggled to fasten her bra, snagged a stocking and put her vest on inside out. She pulled her dress over her head and was doing up the buttons when she heard her sons arguing. “You know damn well I was at the Club last night,” one of them shouted. “You’ve bloody well set me up.” Ian had been in trouble once, when Jack had led him on an escapade that ended with them spending six months in a Young Offenders Centre. Since then, he’d been known to panic when the police were at the door but Jack merely shrugged off his many brushes with the law. The front door slammed. Betty peeped through the bedroom window and saw one of her sons kick the tyre of a car. The tyre appeared to be flat. He turned to the other car on the drive, got in and drove away at high speed. Betty pushed an arm into her cardigan and shrugged. She was used to Jack’s high-speed exit from the drive. Neighbours complained that somebody would be killed one day but what could she do? Betty and Ian were sitting in the kitchen having coffee when the police came again. Detective Inspector Stow stood on the doorstep. He looked even more dishevelled than on his previous visit. Detective Sergeant Fowler still shadowed him silently. “You don’t have to drag Jack to the morgue,” Ian snarled as he opened the door. “He’s on his way there.” “May I come in?” Betty looked at Stow’s taciturn face. “It’s Jack, isn’t it?” she staggered and clutched Ian’s arm. “Yes, Ma’am. His car was involved in an accident on the motorway. He was pronounced dead at the scene. I’m dreadfully sorry.” Stow stared at his boots. Betty started screaming. “I think you’d better go,” Ian told the officers. He slammed the door behind them. * “Beer OK?” Stow asked. “Grand,” Fowler smiled at his boss. “Ta.” Stow took a long swig, then wiped froth from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I needed that.” He put his elbows on the table. “You know, I can’t get over the feeling that we’re missing something.” “What do you mean?” “It’s all too inconclusive. We thought Jack Martin had killed his wife. We had CCTV to back that idea up. But his mother gives him an alibi for the time of the murder. So, suspicion falls on the brother. We know Ian was at the Club and it must have been him we saw arguing with Jack’s wife on the CCTV. But his mates give him an alibi. They said he never left the bar until they all left together at 3 am. Then Jack Martin goes out in his souped-up motor, which he drives straight into the back of a lorry on the motorway at 90 miles an hour. Sounds like a confession. The Chief thinks that what it is. He thinks Jack had his wife killed and set his brother up to divert suspicion from himself but then couldn’t live with the guilt and killed himself. Case closed.” “I suppose,” Fowler mused, “if we could have broken Jack Martin’s alibi, we could have shown that he might have followed his wife to the Club. But his mother confirms he answered a telephone call at her house at the time his wife was killed.” “Hmm,” Stow replied and finished his beer. They stood up to leave the pub. Stow picked up his hat and ran it through his fingers. Then he heard again the words, “I don’t know why you won’t wear your glasses seeing as you’re as blind as a bat without them.” “Bloody hell!” he shouted. “Sir?” “Mrs.Martin confirmed she’d heard the phone ringing at one o’clock, but she’s as blind as a bat without her glasses. And I doubt she was wearing them in bed! What if Jack Martin murdered his wife, drove to his mother’s house, then called her phone using his mobile? She’s such a simple soul, he could easily have planted the idea in her mind that she’d heard the phone at one o’clock.” Stow snapped his fingers. “And I’ve just remembered something else. When the twins were in Borstal that time, their social worker told me there was only one way to tell the two apart. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten that, even though it was ten years ago. Apparently, the younger of the two, Jack, had a slight short-tongue and on occasion, he had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘s’.” Stow slapped his hat on his head. “That was Jack in the pulpit!” He strode from the pub leaving Fowler scrambling to catch up. “Don’t you see?” he told his puzzled colleague. “Jack set his brother up. It’s just like playing that game with three identical cups and a ball underneath one. If you take your eye off the game for a second, you’ve lost.” They stopped at their car. “And I’ll bet the flat tyre on the car belonging to Ian Martin was no coincidence either.” Stow unlocked the car. “Get in. Get in,” he urged. “Ian drives a five-year old Fiesta. He most likely wouldn’t be able to control Jack’s sports car at high speed.” He started the engine. “Especially if Jack had already nobbled his own car. Jack didn’t die in the car wreck. Ian did. He panicked and ran away, and if anyone found evidence of sabotage, Jack, as Ian, would claim one of Jack’s drug-dealing buddies had done it.” Stow shook his head at the ingenuity of the scheme, which would allow Jack Martin to start again, as Ian Martin, with a fresh, much cleaner sheet. “Dammit,” Stow grinned as he drove into the Police Station forecourt. “I knew something wasn’t right. Ian died in the car accident and that was Jack in the pulpit.” |
| Jack In The Pulpit By Cam cam_nine@yahoo.com (Entry #7) |
| ~Runner Up~ |
| Something had to be done, that's all
I knew. I mean, enough was enough. I came here for peace and quiet, not craziness. Not to have some crazy old bat screeching outside my door every five minutes. It was like having a car alarm outside your window: just when you think its stopped and you can finally relax... there it goes again. My nerves were shot. My ears were ringing. And all because of a plant. I hadn't had a moment's peace since they put a - no offense - damned plant next to my door. I guess I must have looked too happy. And when I tried to talk to the staff, when they would mosey in to mop or change the bed or just stand there and watch the television or any of the things they do when they're really taking inventory of whatever you didn't have a chance to nail down yet -- what did I get? Faces and sighs and "It's just a plant, Mr. W, how can it possibly be bothering you?" Or, "You're not Shady Dunes' only resident, William, the plants are here for everyone." Or "You want me to tell Inez to have your daughter bring you ear plugs, Mr. Whortleberry?" Yeah - I got bull. Because what do they care? They're not stuck like prisoners listening to a crazy old bat screeching all day. Big joke to them. They can go home and get away from her. And Brenda. Another big help. "Oh, Papa, not again! You know you can't afford to make waves here -- don't you remember what the sister at Saint Vitriol's Eldercare said when she was stamping your transfer papers? She said Shady Dunes is the last stop before a state nursing facility. You don't want them to put you in a state nursing facility, do you, Papa?" "If they don't want me here, I can always come live with you." You know, I never liked taking family photos - there's just not much to look at on either side of the Whortleberry-Vetiver fence. But if you'd seen Brenda's face when I said that, you'd know why I wished I'd had my old Brownie camera right then. It was like someone smacked her in the kisser with a sack of flour. "Papa, you know you can't live with me. You know Mama's living with me, now. You know she doesn't want to have anything to do with yo...." "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Relax, for chrissakes, I was just joking." Brenda's face washed back to its normal splotchy grey. "Anyway, I think it's kind of cute that your neighbor talks to it." Just like her mother. Taking everyone’s -- anyone's -- side but mine. "What's so cute about a crazy old bat screeching at a big green stick shoved in a pot of dirt?" Brenda popped her huge bug eyes at me like I was another bug she'd just run into under the kitchen sink. An inferior type of bug, of course. Just like her mother used to do. "Papa, it's not a 'big, green stick shoved into a pot of dirt.' "No?" "No." She shifted her ass in her chair and leaned in at me. "It's a 'Jack in the Pulpit,' Papa." "A what?" "A 'Jack in the Pulpit.' A flower that looks like a little man standing in a pulpit." She settled back in her chair, happy as a pig in shit. "And that's what makes it kind of cute that your neighbor talks to it. I’ll bet she thinks she's talking to a real little man." "I see." I started fishing around under me in the chair cushion for the TV clicker. Brenda was talking like an idiot, now, and that reminded me the news was coming on soon. "So the crazy old bat is screeching at a plant because she thinks there's a little man in it, and this is cute? And not loony-toons? You should only live with that going on outside your door all day, every day. You'd change your idea of what's 'cute' pretty quick." Brenda smirked and tilted her head toward the door. "Yeah, well, I don't know, Papa, she seems pretty quiet to me." "Ah, that's because she's not in there right now, she's downstairs doing Arts and Crafts." I scooched to the edge of my chair, closer to her. "And GUESS how I know that, Brenda? Because I had to hear all about what time and who's coming and will there be cookies and, if so, what kind. At the top of her crazy, screechy lungs to that little 'man' out there. All day yesterday." Brenda's face was a mask of bug-eyed disbelief. "Okay, you don't believe me about her? Go, stick your head out the door and take a listen. It's a whole flight down, but I'll bet you can still hear her screeching. Go ahead, Brenda, go stick your head out the door and hear for yourself. Go, go on, do it, go." "Stop it, Papa, quit poking at me, you're being annoying, I'm not going to DO that, so just leave me alone already, would you?" She was annoyed? Good. Now she knew how it felt. And at least she got to go home and get the hell away from what was annoying her. I should only have that luxury. I should only have a home to go to. We sat there for a couple of minutes, looking at everything but each other, then: "Look, Papa, how about... have you talked to her?" "Of COURSE I've talked to her. Every time she's out there screeching about spiders as big as Buicks in the bathtub or who stole her bottom teeth -- I stick my head out and tell her 'shut the hell up, you crazy old bat.' But she just shows me her gums and starts screeching about bowel movements. So what's the use?" Brenda grinned. "Well, that sounds like she likes you, Papa, if she's smiling at you." Then -- "So, how about, instead of letting her get to you like this you make friends with her,? Maybe if you get to know her, you won't notice how loud she is. At worst you might be able to talk to her about getting a hearing aid or something. After all, more flies get caught with honey, Papa." "More flies get caught with shit, you mean." "Papa!" "Well, that's what we used to say at work." "But, still, Papa...." "'But still, Papa. But still, Papa.'" I'd had enough. "'But still, Papa,' what you want is me to kiss that crazy old bat's ass for being a pain in mine. Look, Brenda, I didn't spend all those years shoveling shit out at the landfill to put food on the table... and shoveling shit to your mother to keep her happy in her little hearts and flowers fantasy world until I couldn't take it any more... just so I could spend my last few years alone and shoveling shit to some crazy old bat in hopes that, maybe -- maybe -- I might be able to take a shit once in a while without being startled right off the bowl by her crazy screeching out of nowhere!" "Okay, Papa, okay! Calm down! Talk about being loud! Hush!" "Oh, Hush yourself, damn it. I'm calm." She sat back in her chair, her mouth a tight little line, her hands folded in her lap, and just watched me. Again with her mother's big, bug eyes. Ah, to hell with both of them. Both of them and their four big bug eyes -- always watching, never seeing -- could kiss my ass. Through the door I heard Maria's pills cart rattling somewhere. Dinner soon. There was a faint smell of laundry in the air, so it could be either stuffed cabbage or meatloaf. I always hope it’s stuffed cabbage. At least you can tell a cabbage leaf when you see one. Maria and laundry also means the news is coming on and I still had the TV clicker in my hand, so I pointed it at the television and started pushing buttons until the television made a sound and the screen started brightening. The minute it did, so did Brenda. "Okay, so, Papa... you want me to get you some ear plugs?" "What I want is for you to get rid of that plant. Before I throw it down the damned stairs." "Well, I can't do that, Papa. It's not mine to get rid of. And it's not yours, either, so lay off." "Then tell them to get it away from my door." "I'm not going to do that, Papa. We can't afford to make waves here. I told you that." "Ah, then do what you want." I got up and turned my chair to face the television. "Isn't tonight the night you give your mother a high colonic or something? You'd better hurry, you wouldn't want her to feel abandoned." "I rub liniment into her bunions, Papa, you know that. As for the other thing you said, I don't even know what you're talking about." She started rifling through her bags, stacking mail, newspapers, shaving cream, all the crap I'd asked for last time she came. And one thing I hadn't asked for. I picked up the zip-top bag holding a small bamboo platter, sand, a bunch of small rocks, and a little wooden rake. "Hey, my Zen garden!" My miniature Zen garden. I'd gotten that for Brenda's mother the time she’d tried meditating. Before she got tired of "ohm-ing" over bird eggs and leaves and went back to glomming all over Budweisers and Marlboros. So it became mine. Brenda pulled her nose out of her bag. "Oh, yeah, that. Mama was Spring cleaning and I remembered how you always seemed to really like setting it up and looking at it, so I sneaked it out of the trash before she noticed." Despite that, I was actually pleased she'd brought it. It always helped me think. There were solutions in it. Finished stacking, Brenda stood and put on her coat. "Well, it was nice to see you again, Brenda. Maybe next time, with those ear plugs, also a couple of jelly doughnuts? All we get here are stale little sinkers. So hard, we have a joke that if you don't want to break your teeth on them, you'd better take your teeth out, first. Ha ha! "Also... if you think of it, say hello to your mother for me." She was stooping to give me her usual top-of-the-head peck when I said that. She almost gave herself whiplash pulling back. "Now, Papa, you know I can't do that." "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I just said that to get your goat." "Well, you got it. Very funny, Papa." She finished slobbering on me and scurried back to Queens and back up her mother's ass. Good riddance. As soon as she was out the door, I opened the zip-top bag and set up my Zen garden. In fact I actually got so involved in it I missed dinner. Which turned out to be the meatloaf, so no big deal, I ate some doughnuts I'd sneaked in from Lunch with the can of Coke Brenda had brought me. And once my garden was set up right, I sat and looked at it till, finally, I knew what I'd have to do to get back my peace and quiet. And, then I realized the eleven o'clock news idiots were signing off, so I went to bed. The funny thing, though, was that I'd heard the crazy old bat screeching outside my door several times while I was looking at my garden, but she never once bothered me. I guess that was because I knew she wasn't going to be bothering me too much longer. And the rest, as they say, is history. But I don't have to tell you. After all, you were here for most of it. So you saw how, the next day, while everyone was in the Dining Room for Bingo, I took the rocks from my garden into the hall and arranged them on the top step of the stairs. And then waited for the crazy old bat to come scurrying out of her room, late for Bingo because of a phone call she'd had to take from her brother in Peoria. Just like she'd been screeching outside my door all day before. And you know how, after she'd tripped on the rocks and went flying down the stairs, head-first, I'd rushed out to scoop them up and get them back into my room and their garden. What you don’t know, though, was it was only after I'd set them up I realized I was missing one. The largest one. Yeah, that's when you saw ME come flying out of my room and down the stairs. Good thing I've still got my eyesight, or I'd have never seen that rock all tangled up in the crazy old bat's hair. Which brings me to why I'm out here telling you this -- I want to thank you for helping me, there, yesterday. If it wasn't for you, hell, I'd probably be on my way to a state nursing facility right now. Or maybe somewhere else. Honestly, I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn't been here when Inez came out of the office and found the old bat laying there. I was just almost back up on this landing when she started screaming and, then, suddenly everyone was coming OUT and it would have looked really bad for me to be going IN. So I was stuck. And, who could have guessed that on the way down the old bat was going to hit her head on... what was it -- an uncarpeted step edge -- and get blood all over everything? I can just see the looks on the detectives' faces if I was standing there holding the bloody little rock when it was my turn to give a statement. So, yeah, it was very, I dunno’... neighborly... of you to let me stash the rock behind you, there, in your pulpit, while all that was happening. As I said, I'm grateful as hell. I hope you weren't put out too much having it in there with you all night, but the detectives stayed for coffee and doughnuts. Okay, so, anyway, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say. Y’know... thanks. So, let me go wash this off and get it back to its garden, now. And, look -- you ever need anything, no matter what it is, you just let me know, and I'll be right there. Hey, the least I can do, you know? Oh, yeah, by the way - call me William. You? Sure. Good to meet you, Jack. Real good. |
| The
WCA's The Writers' Choice Awards |
| Here's how the members of the
ACWclub voted for their favorite entries: First place: #1 Second place tie: #2, #7 Others receiving votes: #3, #6 |
Here are all the entries, posted in the order they were received.
| Jack In The Pulpit Kathy Lynn Blaylock humanneeds2003@yahoo.com |
#1 of 10 |
| 1411 | |
| “Tell me a story daddy please?” Tom Junior
asked his Father as he tucked him into bed. “Let me see, have I told you the one about famous Jack from Hill Crest Tennessee?” “No daddy, can you tell it to me now?” “You bet I can son. Just snuggle down close your eyes, and do not make a peep. This story is just for us guys, and mom might feel left out.” He whispered pulling the covers snug tucked them under the mattress, taking a seat near the foot of the bed. Clearing his throat, he began the story in a soft easy tone. The young boy yelled as he ran toward the big scary man wearing a six-shooter at his side “Wait Sheriff Benny, I be a needing to talk to you. I reckon you don’t know me from a hill of beans. My name is Johnny B. and I be needing to talk to you bout Hill Crest Baptist Church, and all the shenanigans that went on there.” “Slow down there son, and tell me about this Hill Crest Baptist Church and what happened there.” “Well Sheriff there ain’t much to say bout Hill Crest Baptist Church. It is just an old two-room schoolhouse down in a holler in this here town of Hill Crest Tennessee. The Church got its name cause some old fart named the road going into the holler, Hill Crest. Why anybody would name a holler is beyond me. Day or night a holler is just a holler, named or not. Either way if a feller gets roughed-up down in a holler, well he can holler day and night, ain’t nobody going to hear him if there ain’t nobody round. Anyways like I was saying, Hill Crest Baptist Church has two rooms, one is used to conduct the Sunday Sermon, and the other is for the homely women to look after the youngster, so all their tomfoolery don’t disrupt the grown folks and their closer walk with Thee. Do you know Sheriff that Sunday is the only time a man can walk close to God? My Ma says if a man don’t go to the Sunday Sermon, then he may never walk with God. You can bet I go every Sunday morning, yep I’m right there in the front row with the good book in my hands.” “But Johnny B, what went on at the Hill Crest Baptist Church?” “Well Sheriff, I was a fixing to tell you, when you said to tell you bout the Church. So I just be getting to the point. You see Sheriff Reverend James Parks use to speak over our Sunday Sermons. But he up and left us, he did. Went to meet his maker, the poor old feller. But that‘s neither here nor there, cause you already know bout that. It’s no secret that Reverend Parks liked to sip a little shine before he begun the sermons. But I swear as long as I live, I’ll never forget last Sunday morning. Reverend Parks must have sipped a little too much shine, cause he was a giving the best sermon I ever did here. He was up there praising God and all His glory, damning the liars and drunkards to hell. Then he threw his hands up in the air, yelled hallelujah and fell head over heels over Old Jack, broke his fool neck. Doc said he died instantly, Reverend Parks, that is.” “Who is Old Jack?” “The question Sheriff Benny is not who, but what is Old Jack?” “Pray tell Johnny B, just what is an Old Jack?” “Since you asked so nice like Sheriff Benny, I reckon I can clue you in. First off Old Jack ain’t really that old, he’s just a youngster you know.” “You mean to tell me Reverend Parks fell over a youngster, and that’s how he died?” “No not a human youngster! Sheriff can’t you follow anything? Old Jack is my kid brother’s pet goat. You see, Tom B won’t go anywhere without that dumb goat. Anyhow Old Jack took a liking to the Sunday Sermons and Reverend Parks. Old Jack walked into the Church every Sunday morning, and would get up there right alongside the Reverend through the whole sermon. The Lord blessed that man with a kind heart, as well as a cast iron ass is all I got to say.” “Why do you say that Johnny B?” “Cause Sheriff, ever time the Reverend said hell during the sermon; Old Jack butted him right in his backside. If they can go, that there’s one goat got his ticket to Heaven, cause he sure hates hell. That’s why I be here to speak on his behalf. You need to be setting him free Sheriff, there ain‘t no cause for him to be locked up in the blacksmith’s shed.” Johnny B said pausing to catch his breath. “Well I don’t know about that Johnny B, he is responsible for the death of Reverend Parks.” “That there’s where you’re wrong in your thinking Sheriff. Old Jack he’s just a dumb critter that had no cause to be at the Sunday Sermons. My kid brother took Old Jack, and the Reverend let him stay. Now I might be in the mind to trade my little brother for Old Jack. But I don’t reckon you would want to be a keeping him, he’s a throw back, kind of like a fish to small to keep. Won’t get much work out of him, he’s only six. Besides Ma will have Pa take me out behind the woodshed and tan my hide real good like, and I’m afraid she’d be in the mind to keep my breeches. So I reckon I be taken him home too.” “How old are you son?” Sheriff Benny asked swallowing back a chuckle. “Why Sheriff, I’m nearly a grown man. I reckon I’ve been ten years old nigh on half a year now. Small for my age that’s a fact, but I‘m grown enough to speak for Old Jack and that‘s a fact too.” It was getting harder and harder for Sheriff Benny not to laugh, but the boy was so serious about the goat. Although he tried to hide it, it was plain to see that the boy feared that the goat would be locked away for the rest of his days. So there was only one thing Sheriff Benny could do, he stood there rubbing his chin pretending to be thinking of a solution to the boy’s dilemma. Johnny B finished off the soda pop and waited and waited. He nearly jumped out of his shin when the Sheriff finally spoke. “Well I reckon I could release Old Jack into your custody Johnny B, but only on one condition. There will be no more Sunday Sermons for Old Jack, when the old folks find a new Reverend for the Hill Crest Baptist Church. Do we have a deal?” Sheriff Benny asked holding out his hand to the young boy. “Deal.” Johnny B said puffing out his chest shaking Sheriff Benny’s hand just like a grown man. “That’s how my brother saved Old Jack, the famous goat from Hill Crest Tennessee, and that’s where the saying Jack in the Pulpit comes from. At least that‘s what my daddy told me.” “Wow that was some story honey, where did it come from?” “My home town, Hill Crest Tennessee and my brother Johnny B, of course. “Are you telling me that you had a pet goat?” “That’s right Mrs. B. Now can we please go to bed?” “Not before you tell me what became of Jack.” “Old Jack honey, get the name right.” He replied with a chuckle. “Well what happened to him?” “Shush, come here and let me whisper it in your ear, this part is secret. I seem to recall that Old Jack took a liking to the neighbors nanny goat, and he hooked up with her while we were at a Sunday Sermon. The new Reverend was just about to wrap things up, when that old nanny goat came busting through the front door with Old Jack right behind her. He chased her round and round, finally she went out the same way she came in. Then she took off down the holler, with Old Jack hot on her trail, determined to sin come hell or high water. They ain’t been seen since. Now can we go to bed Mrs. B? Cause I got some sinning to do.” He said with raised brows patting her backside. “You are a wicked old goat yourself.” She giggled running down the hall with Tom B hot on her trail. |
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| Jack In The Pulpit captnmaverick@hotmail.com |
#2 of 10 |
| 2473 | |
| Berry wine and spirits flowed, as did conversation and
merriment in McTonney’s Pub. Pete McTonney was a stocky man of
fifty-three. His thick blond hair was twined in a ponytail, he had light eyes,
and in such great shape was he, he looked thirty. His pub was popular with the
McGuinness Grove locals. McTonney’s housed five beds and two haylofts
upstairs, ten chamber pots and a cache of potatoes, apples, jerked meats,
carrots, beets, squash and chewable hallucinogenic plants, including jack in
the pulpit, berry-berries, quincy, cannabis, and Tumi leaves. The pulpit was
for rogues who tried to stiff Pete on their tavern tab. The good plants were
for the rest of us to chew while we jawed about Kings news, rising taxes and
war notes from couriers too scared to enter the tavern but threw their notes
either through the open doors or open windows. Sometimes the couriers missed.
Pete added to his daily pub and firestoking duties hencewith: he chased
misfiring couriers down thrice weekly for busting a pub window. Like veils, lassies draped Pete’s entourage. The ones he had as regular rabbits and the ones he’s considering, as he’d remarked to me once or twice, all hung ‘round him. And, they usually came back for more. What that “more” was though, I never asked. I never had the filled sacks to, actually. The lassies, dressed in their finest and most daring, gave me loins a good firestoking on what that “more” could be, and what Pete McTonney never embellished on. A slender man, somber in face and attitude, approached my table. “Slaughtered a pig tonight, sir. Gots some goat, goose, peacock, badger and mongoose too. Choose yer game.” He spoke as if reciting a funeral verse. “Peacock,” I said, eyeing the far right corner. More lanterns and candles were there than usual. The Jacks would be on in ten, according to the shadows from the trees just outside the pub. “Drink?” “Devil’s Piss,” I said, giving Alistair a scowl when one of Pete’s lassies spied him at my table and called out lovingly, “Allie, do not be late for me tonight! Such a generous barhop are you!” He smiled sheepishly at me and retreated with my order. I looked to see who this was—and gawped. She was a raven-haired maiden, generously buxom and not ashamed in acting unmaidenly-like. Those who drank ale and vanilla beer as she did this night weren’t too concerned with affairs of decorum. My loins firestoking intensified. Someone mounted the bar plankings to attention call expertly on a bugle. A resounding crash followed by broken glass and jars, then shouts of deep, raucous laughter mixed with squealing giggles erupted. The bugler was Gabriel (yes, pun intended) and he was a lightning fast soul in spite having such short stature. He darted away from the barstoolers and under my table until the furor died down. I tucked under it and gave him a grin. “Tried to get you again, did he?” Gabriel grinned back. “Not this time. Cyprus learned I plowed his daughter into next week and found another reason to yank my legs out from under me. He’s so drunk he missed me. Grabbed Angus instead and broke Angus’s full ale mug. Angus sailed him over Alistair’s tidy bar as a thank you.” Gabriel took an empty seat left of me. “So. Ready for the Jacks?” he asked. I nodded. McTonney started a Thursdays Soapbox Night some weeks back to a rousing success. This was the night when, in amnesty, anyone of McGuinness Grove could get what needed saying confirmed or refuted out in the open. It worked, sometimes. I had a sneaking suspicion Pete used this night to confirm all the gossip that flowed in and past his feather bed, and that news was usually primed on Thursday nights. Most of the Grove found courage from mead and beer mug bottoms, ale flasks or Devil’s Piss pouches. Some patrons sang, read their poems aloud or acted one person plays. A few just ranted. But this night was special. The people of McGuinness Grove got wind the Jacks—guys here in the Grove named Jack, that is, and a few from Rierdan township—were rehearsing to say their pieces/rants. “And what a piece that’ll be, Jack, m’boy!” Pete said to me two weeks back, shaking with laughter and spraying expired mead over the both of us as he slapped my right shoulder. “Who told you that?” I’d asked. A glint rose in his light eyes as he stoked the woodstove with fresh hickory. Pete only said, “Ask Gabriel.” “Yeah, he would,” Gabriel laughed and belched loudly while I retold my story. “Okay, so who’s Pete talking about?” I asked. I watched Alistair approach with the grilled peacock and porcelain pitcher Devil’s Piss full. Gabriel said, “Pete and I had Cyprus’s daughter separately on several occasions. Said once she couldn’t decide betwixt the pair of us who was the stronger lance, so she had us at the same time.” “You’re a liar.” I said, smiling. The peacock was grilled with feathers still intact. I removed them like brittle parchment and exposed the semi dark and tender muscle and gristle. Wow, was that good. “So help me God, it’s the truth. And I lost fairly.” Gabriel sighed and took a swig of Piss. He hated being second best. “Least I lost in style. That wench ain’t gonna sit right for a week without having a bit o’ pain where God spilt her in two.” He cast a redhead a nasty smirk. She saw it and shrunk into Pete McTonney’s tunic, but masked this by giving Pete a sound kiss upon his cheek. He shooed her away and headed to the corner where four men now stood. “Aye, patrons,” Pete bellowed through cupped hands. “Quiet! All righ’, yer lot, shut the hell up!” The patrons settled down expectantly. “Tonight’s Soapbox stars a buncha Jacks. You all know them, righ’? Jaq B. Nimble, Barrister of Rumplestilskin & Nimble; Jack Sprat; Jack, Jill’s man---” “Not after Pete’s had her!” someone yelled. The tavern exploded with laughter. Jill’s man’s face grew redder. “—AND Little Jack Horner! Be nice to the Jacks, give ‘em some applause!” Pete finished, louder still, but no one heard him. Growing antsy, the patrons started stomping their feet and their metal mead mugs on the bartop, chanting in unison: “House of Jacks! House of Jacks! House of Jacks!” “Yeah, yeah, okay, you potential clients, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” roared the first Black Jack over the patrons’ noise. The patrons laughed. I got it, now. The soapbox, technically, was the pulpit. These guys, among the rest of the entertainers, were Jacks in it. More accurately, “jackin’ it.” Hey, somebody had to, I thought to myself. Glad it wasn’t me. “So, the rhyme goes, ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,’ I jump over the candlestick, cleared it easy. No one told me about burnin’ my damn toe tryin’ to keep their brat from getting yellow jack fever, right? I jumped high, jumped low. Even changed the spellin’ of my name to sound like Shaq, S-H-A-Q, J-A-Q. I sued the brat’s family. Defamation of character. Rumplestilskin thinks I’m good, I’m now a barrister and he made me his partner. Jack, got a great out for your hill tumblin’ with Jill to get that water. Let’s blame the King and sue him for higher drinkin’ taxes!” The patrons got louder and drunker with every jug, flask and pitcher upturned. They were belching and snickering as Jaq. B. Nimble’s rants over his name and the spin the rhyme is most famous for. “Had a case last week. Don’t you know my client’s trying to be sued by the giant Blumbledore’s widow? Murderin’ her husband, she says.” More laughter. I cringed and sunk lower in the booth. Gabriel snickered at me—Jaq. B. Nimble was drinking, too—and picked another piece of peacock meat from my plate as he turned around. “Man, this cat was greedy as hell, sure! Got some gold coins, cool. Needed those for my retainer. Giant’s wifey thinks the Little Man Jack with the Bigger Beanstalk’s gonna get paid back for the effort. Cat takes off.” Jaq swigs another draught of ale, and continued. “Cat goes back, y’all. Gets a chicken layin’ golden eggs, think he’d stop there, the greedy bastid? Hell, no!” More laughter, this time more hysterical, even the women were making an unladylike noise amid the men, and two guys chorused, “Onesti! Get some lessons from Pete!” The laughter was full tilt, now. “Third time, cat boosts a golden harp. Bad idea. That thing talks! And, was it rattin’ out its booster: ‘Blumbledore, yon love soundtrack’s being coveted. Ye best get a move on if ye want me to coo Sir Barry White hitherto pitchin’ woo to the beloved Gwendolyn.’” Here, Jaq B. imitates a woman’s voice and shimmy as he says this; the patrons were beating their legs, the bar or on each other’s backs in sidesplitting hysterics. I was so low in my seat Gabriel’s underside was my sole view. He snickered and hiccupped at me, grinning wickedly, then went back to the Soapbox. “I’ll beat his murderin’ charge, ‘twas self defense after all, but he’s gonna get stocks time for stealin’, sure. Man, when’s that cat gonna learn? Give the lassie a little play, gives yourself piece o’ mind all day!” On the “all day” line, the entire pub, Gabriel included—even Alistair spoke in unison as a ghost of a smile played on his face—said this with Jaq. Applause and whistles rained as he took several deep bows. “Jaq B. Nimble, patrons! Visit his practice at 21 Pepperdine Lane here in McGuinness!” McTonney yelled over the din. Nobody heard him. “Aye, he was good,” Gabriel belched. He was on his third mead pint, looking rather rosy and deep kissed the wench doing mead duty. She giggled at his belch and from the kiss as she scurried away. “Aw, c’mon, Jack, lighten up.” Gabriel said in his normal voice as I repositioned myself in the seat. His gray eyes flicked a look to the bar while Pete yelled some more. “I spy with my ‘ittle lie …” “You mean ‘little eye’, right?” I corrected caustically. Gabriel hiccupped twice and nodded at the bar. “Whatever, Onesti. Smile. Somebody’s watchin’ you. And she’s a doll.” I looked. A blonde on vanilla beer duty was throwing looks in my direction. Gabriel was right, she was a peach. She smiled and winked at me. I smiled back. Loins, settle down! Jack, Jill’s man, consumed too much berry wine to calm his nerves before reading his poem at the soapbox—and soiled himself while Nimble was still on. He was hauled out the pub’s back door for raising such a literal stink. The third Jack up, Sprat himself, took the second Jack’s place. “I’m Jack Sprat. I can’t eat fat, my woman won’t eat lean game, bitch won’t let us eat anything good!” This Jack looked robust for a vegan. In a flannel gray tunic with trousers, he worked with and for a game club to bring food home for families with no men heads of household. These houses paid for this service. “Keep tellin’ that wench in my line of work, I’m eatin’ only veggies and gettin’ teased by me mates? Fine. I’ll be eatin’ meat before I get home, then load up on sourdough while she’s nursin’ da alfalfa root with a lovin’ caress!” He took deep bows and sprayed the barstoolers with a mouthful of beer as they applauded and razzed him about his woman. Sprat gave their insults right back, though, especially to Kieran. “Hey, Kieran, take a wild boar to your arse … oh, wait, Nara’s at home breastfeedin’ your fourteen bastard children!” Sprat earned a punch from Kieran for that line. Kieran sent Sprat flying through the tavern’s back doors … and he and Jill’s Jack landed in the water-filled horse manger. Looks like Pete had a pair of wet Jacks on his hands tonight. “Quiet, patrons!” Pete yelled as the tavern customers were laughing fit to bust. “Jack ‘n’ Jill dance, everyone!” No sooner did McTonney say this than Kieran and the other brawly men cheered and pushed back the tables. The soapbox corner turned into a seven man instrument band, Little Jack Horner played his squeezebox instead of the soapbox and couples commenced dancing. Bellyful of peacock and fairly tipsy on Devil’s Piss. I held up a wall with a bemused smile across my face. Gangly Alistair was a piece of work: as the zephyr, lute, harpsichord, maracas and fife played on, he was doing his share of lady-impressing moves. The air grew muggy and fetid on McTonney’s main pub floor. The noise, the smoke and the stomping were too much for my whiskey-laden senses and I found the stairs leading to the tavern’s haylofts. The quiet and cool air of the loft perfumed with sweet smelling hay cleared my head a bit. I used three chamber pots—a record for me—and cleaned myself as best as possible. I wasn’t going home at all. Just as well. Gabriel’s in no condition to get home either and I was in no spot to carry him there. We were staying at Pete’s tonight and I knew he wouldn’t mind. I took the hay bed nearest the window and watched the night sky spawn before me. Orion, Gemini and Cassiopeia looked closer than ever as my thoughts slid into one another like clouds on a breeze. This night was fun, Pete saw to that. I faced stock time, as Nimble let the community know so deftly, but so what? It wouldn’t kill me. Dammit, I totally forgot about--- “Jack?” a lovely pitched voice came from the darkness. I sat up cautiously. My head stung from too much noise and too much Piss. “Who comes?” “Constance. The one smiling at you all evenin’, lad,” the voice said, drawing near; her skirt and hay rustlings signaled this. She didn’t sound as out of it as I was. Constance lay down next to me, her right hand barely touching my left one. I kept staring at the stars. “Nice to know you,” I said to the darkness. “What was it you wanted?” Constance’s hair fell over my face, curtaining my view of the sky. “Gabriel and McTonney speak well of you. I’ve been watchin’ since you came into the pub for weeks. I like you, Jack. Very much. And, I’d like you to lance me.” I declined the offer, but we’re courting, Constance and I. Alistair’s engaged to Doreen, the comely mother of a courier Pete chases thrice weekly and Jill’s Jack went home hungover and sopping wet to a squawking wife. When I’m released from the stocks, Gabriel and I get to share a hayloft in McTonney’s while Constance and her cousin Nainsi took over our former home. Rumplestilskin & Nimble expanded their barrister practice to Rierdan Township. And Pete plans to keep Soapbox Thursdays. So popular it is, he’s ordered a bigger feather bed. |
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| Jack In The Pulpit lee10@host365.com |
#3 of 10 Winner |
| 2339 | |
| Betty Martin sobbed throughout her son’s funeral
service. Even when the vicar invited Ian to the pulpit to read the 23rd Psalm,
she snuffled into a thick wad of Kleenex. The church was old. The thick, grey-stone walls and the high vaulting ceiling distorted sound as Ian’s voice boomed, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…” Detective Inspector Stow, sitting at the rear of All Saints, thought he heard the hint of an unusual sibilance in the speaker’s voice. He listened more intently. “….He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness…” There. Was that a hiss, a slight whistle? Or just an echo? An old man started to cough. By the time he’d finished hacking, Ian was leaving the pulpit. Stow slid the brim of his hat round and round in his hands, making it shinier than ever. Things, he was sure, were not what they seemed but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was that troubled him. The service ended and the funeral procession left the church. The grieving mother stumbled on the centuries-worn flagstones in the aisle. Ian grabbed her and prevented her from falling. “Give me your arm, Mum,” he grumbled. “ I don’t know why you won’t wear your glasses, seeing as you’re as blind as a bat without them.” Betty Martin allowed her son to help her and they followed the coffin on its last journey. Stow waited while the church emptied. He didn’t feel it was appropriate to follow the cortege to the graveside. The sexton began to retrieve the scattered hymnbooks. “Something’s wrong,” Stow murmured to his colleague, Detective Sergeant Fowler. “But I can’t pin it down.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll come to me over a pint?” He grinned. “The Bakers Arms’ll be open by now. Fancy a quick half?” * Two weeks before, the smell of frying bacon had disturbed Betty’s sleep. Like the telephone that had rung in the middle of the night, it became another thread in her rambling dreams. But this stimulus was more insistent. The delicious, invidious smell coiled sneakily into her bedroom, inserting into her unconscious mind, images of plates piled high with full English breakfasts; of eggs and bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes, sausages and toast…”and black pudding,” she murmured. “Don’t forget the black pudding.” She woke. Her eyes opened begrudgingly. Her mouth was full of saliva and she swallowed. She’d had no fried food since her doctor had diagnosed her with a high cholesterol count five years ago. She rolled over and struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed. Favouring her aching hip, she fumbled her feet into her slippers and her glasses onto her nose. She peered at her radio-alarm. It was 8 o’clock. “What’s Ian doing up at this time of a Sunday?” she asked her reflection as she tugged a comb through her sleep tangled hair. She went downstairs and was just finishing tying the belt of her dressing gown around her plump middle as she entered the kitchen. It was filled with an exquisite scent. Her son turned from the cooker. “Fancy a bacon sarnie, Mum? There’s plenty. And a pot of fresh tea, too.” He waved towards the table. “Help yourself.” He put a bacon sandwich on a plate in front of her. “Enjoy,” he said. “Oh, Ian. You know I shouldn’t,” Betty simpered, pulling the plate closer. “One bacon sandwich every five years isn’t going to kill you. And I’m Jack, by the way.” “Oh!” Betty said through a mouthful of heaven. It no longer bothered her when she mistook one of the boys for the other. Betty picked the final crumb from her plate. “Anyway, what are you doing here so early?” she asked. “Me and Sue had a row last night.” Jack explained. She wanted to go clubbing and I wanted to stay in and watch the big fight on the tele. I told she couldn’t go out.” “And she went?” “Yes. She went anyway,” Jack confirmed. “So I did what any boy would do. I came home to my Mum and as it was late and you were in bed, I slept on the settee in the sitting room. You don’t mind, do you?” Delicately, she wiped her mouth with the back of her index finger. “Of course I don’t mind.” “And I brought the bacon from our fridge. I know how to please one of my girls even if I can’t do right for the other.” Jack looked carefully at his mother. “Did the phone wake you last night?” he asked, “at one o’clock?” Betty thought for a moment. ”Yes, I did hear it,” she said finally, “but I thought I was dreaming. Who was it?” “A wrong number,” he answered. He began to collect the dishes. “Why don’t you go and get yourself dolled up for the day while I wash the pots?” Betty nodded. “What about Sue? Shouldn’t you go back home?” “She’ll have had too much to drink last night,” Jack reassured her, “and she’ll be asleep and snoring until teatime at least. She’ll be in no fit state for kiss and make up.” The doorbell rang. “I can’t answer the door in my dressing gown,” Betty hissed. “You go. It’s probably Jehovah’s Witnesses. Get rid of them.” Jack’s footsteps echoed down the uncarpeted hall. He snatched open the door, muttering about, “blasted god-botherers.” The man on the doorstep removed his hat. His suit was crumpled and his shirt collar rumpled. He looked as though he’d been up all night. “Ah, Mr.Martin,” the man said. “Detective Inspector Stow,” Jack replied with a lazy smile. “You look a bit the worse for wear.” “We’d like a word with you please,” Stow indicated his companion. “You know Detective Sergeant Fowler. May we come in?” “Can’t it wait?” Jack asked. “We’ve only just got up.” “No it can’t wait.” Stow insisted. Jack turned to his mother. “I suppose we’d best let them in,” he suggested. “Why can’t you people leave us alone? It’s Sunday morning for God’s sake!” They all turned towards the man who stood at the top of the stairs. He was identical in every respect to Jack Martin, even down to the style and colour of his clothing and the way he wore his hair. “My brother, Ian,” Jack explained. “Ah, yes,” Stow murmured. “The respectable one.” Jack ignored him and ushered them into the lounge. Betty offered them tea but Stow refused. Betty sat down, with a dark, unsmiling, unshaven twin standing on either side of her. Stow turned to Jack. “I was hoping we’d find you here,” he began, “as no one’s home at Rochdale Drive.” “What were you doing at my house?” the other man asked. Stow blinked. He’d only taken his eyes off the two of them for a second when they’d entered the lounge but it had been long enough to mix them up. “And where was my wife? She should be home?” Stow looked grim. “I regret to have to inform you, Mr.Martin that your wife is dead. She was murdered at Adriano’s last night.” Betty gasped and clutched at her chest. “No,” she squealed. Ian touched her on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Mum.” “I must ask you to come with me to identify the body,” Stow said gently to Jack as the colour drained from the younger man’s face. Jack sat heavily on the arm of his mother’s chair. “I need,” he stammered, “I-I need some time.” “I understand that, Sir, but I really must insist that you come with us now.” “Why the rush?” demanded Ian. “My brother’s just been told his wife’s been murdered. Why don’t you go out and find the murderer instead of harassing him?” Stow addressed Jack. “We have CCTV pictures of you arguing with your wife at the Club at 1am, 10 minutes before she was found dead in the alley outside. So you really must come with us, Sir, to answer a few questions.” Jack shot to his feet. “But it wasn’t me. I was here, wasn’t I, Mother?” he pleaded. “The phone woke us both up at one o’clock, didn’t it?” “Yes, it did,” Betty nodded. “I heard you answer it.” “Are you sure it was 1 o’clock?” Stow asked her. “Oh, yes. Definitely. It was 1 o’clock.” Stow hesitated. “I think, Mr.Martin, I’ll leave things as they stand for now, while I make a few more enquiries. Shall I let them know at the Infirmary that you’ll be along later to identify Mrs.Martin?” Jack nodded. * Betty dressed slowly. She struggled to fasten her bra, snagged a stocking and put her vest on inside out. She pulled her dress over her head and was doing up the buttons when she heard her sons arguing. “You know damn well I was at the Club last night,” one of them shouted. “You’ve bloody well set me up.” Ian had been in trouble once, when Jack had led him on an escapade that ended with them spending six months in a Young Offenders Centre. Since then, he’d been known to panic when the police were at the door but Jack merely shrugged off his many brushes with the law. The front door slammed. Betty peeped through the bedroom window and saw one of her sons kick the tyre of a car. The tyre appeared to be flat. He turned to the other car on the drive, got in and drove away at high speed. Betty pushed an arm into her cardigan and shrugged. She was used to Jack’s high-speed exit from the drive. Neighbours complained that somebody would be killed one day but what could she do? Betty and Ian were sitting in the kitchen having coffee when the police came again. Detective Inspector Stow stood on the doorstep. He looked even more dishevelled than on his previous visit. Detective Sergeant Fowler still shadowed him silently. “You don’t have to drag Jack to the morgue,” Ian snarled as he opened the door. “He’s on his way there.” “May I come in?” Betty looked at Stow’s taciturn face. “It’s Jack, isn’t it?” she staggered and clutched Ian’s arm. “Yes, Ma’am. His car was involved in an accident on the motorway. He was pronounced dead at the scene. I’m dreadfully sorry.” Stow stared at his boots. Betty started screaming. “I think you’d better go,” Ian told the officers. He slammed the door behind them. * “Beer OK?” Stow asked. “Grand,” Fowler smiled at his boss. “Ta.” Stow took a long swig, then wiped froth from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I needed that.” He put his elbows on the table. “You know, I can’t get over the feeling that we’re missing something.” “What do you mean?” “It’s all too inconclusive. We thought Jack Martin had killed his wife. We had CCTV to back that idea up. But his mother gives him an alibi for the time of the murder. So, suspicion falls on the brother. We know Ian was at the Club and it must have been him we saw arguing with Jack’s wife on the CCTV. But his mates give him an alibi. They said he never left the bar until they all left together at 3 am. Then Jack Martin goes out in his souped-up motor, which he drives straight into the back of a lorry on the motorway at 90 miles an hour. Sounds like a confession. The Chief thinks that what it is. He thinks Jack had his wife killed and set his brother up to divert suspicion from himself but then couldn’t live with the guilt and killed himself. Case closed.” “I suppose,” Fowler mused, “if we could have broken Jack Martin’s alibi, we could have shown that he might have followed his wife to the Club. But his mother confirms he answered a telephone call at her house at the time his wife was killed.” “Hmm,” Stow replied and finished his beer. They stood up to leave the pub. Stow picked up his hat and ran it through his fingers. Then he heard again the words, “I don’t know why you won’t wear your glasses seeing as you’re as blind as a bat without them.” “Bloody hell!” he shouted. “Sir?” “Mrs.Martin confirmed she’d heard the phone ringing at one o’clock, but she’s as blind as a bat without her glasses. And I doubt she was wearing them in bed! What if Jack Martin murdered his wife, drove to his mother’s house, then called her phone using his mobile? She’s such a simple soul, he could easily have planted the idea in her mind that she’d heard the phone at one o’clock.” Stow snapped his fingers. “And I’ve just remembered something else. When the twins were in Borstal that time, their social worker told me there was only one way to tell the two apart. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten that, even though it was ten years ago. Apparently, the younger of the two, Jack, had a slight short-tongue and on occasion, he had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘s’.” Stow slapped his hat on his head. “That was Jack in the pulpit!” He strode from the pub leaving Fowler scrambling to catch up. “Don’t you see?” he told his puzzled colleague. “Jack set his brother up. It’s just like playing that game with three identical cups and a ball underneath one. If you take your eye off the game for a second, you’ve lost.” They stopped at their car. “And I’ll bet the flat tyre on the car belonging to Ian Martin was no coincidence either.” Stow unlocked the car. “Get in. Get in,” he urged. “Ian drives a five-year old Fiesta. He most likely wouldn’t be able to control Jack’s sports car at high speed.” He started the engine. “Especially if Jack had already nobbled his own car. Jack didn’t die in the car wreck. Ian did. He panicked and ran away, and if anyone found evidence of sabotage, Jack, as Ian, would claim one of Jack’s drug-dealing buddies had done it.” Stow shook his head at the ingenuity of the scheme, which would allow Jack Martin to start again, as Ian Martin, with a fresh, much cleaner sheet. “Dammit,” Stow grinned as he drove into the Police Station forecourt. “I knew something wasn’t right. Ian died in the car accident and that was Jack in the pulpit.” |
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| Jack In The Pulpit Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com |
#4 of 10 |
| 1943 | |
| Sister Mary Joseph claps her hands to get everyone's
attention. "Children, I have wonderful news for you," she says, being careful
to speak in chopped-up, repetitive sentences and to pronounce each word
distinctly. "The Bishop is coming to visit our school tomorrow. The Bishop
himself. Coming here. Coming to see you, his most special children." Sister's hands bury themselves into the mysterious folds of her habit as she searches for the Saint Christopher medal. She takes it out and holds it by its thin, silvery chain, letting it twist and turn in the warm spring sunlight that beams through the windows. Flashes of red, blue and yellow dance across the room. I resist the temptation to watch the colorful flickers of light and keep my attention focused on Sister's lips so I can know what she is saying. "In honor of the Bishop's visit," Sister Mary Joseph goes on, "we will have our speech contest." As she speaks, she dangles the medal in front of us, using it like the proverbial carrot on a stick. But to us, the deaf children in her class, it is more than a carrot, more than a medal, more than the prize for the winner of a speech contest. To us it is the Nobel Prize of Diction, the Academy Award of Articulation, the Olympic Gold Medal of Enunciation, the greatest honor a third grade student at Saint Bartholomew's Academy for the Deaf can hope to attain. I want that medal. * * * At lunch time I run to the cafeteria, eager to tell my brother about the medal and the speech contest. However, when I join Jack at the table where we eat, I am saddened to see that Father DiNuzio has taped mittens to his hands again. I know it must cause him shame for everyone to see him wearing bright red mittens, but it is for his own good. He has been using his hands too much. Sometimes I think he does these things on purpose, though he is older and should know better than to use his hands at school. I watch in awkward silence as Jack fumbles with his lunch. Small globs of tuna casserole fall off his fork and soil the mittens he has been made to wear. Droplets of tuna and cream remain where they land, making a mockery of the mittens. I think he does it on purpose. I worry about Jack. * * * That evening I am practicing my speech in front of the mirror when Jack comes into the dorm room we share. When we are alone together like this and no one can see us, we use sign language with each other. Unlike the other children at St. Bart's, our parents are deaf and signs have always been the way members of our family communicate with each other. I am worried, I tell Jack in signs, that Father DiNuzio will make him go to the state school ... I don't care, he answers back ... but if you go there, then you won't be able to go to heaven ... what do you mean, he asks ... I tell him the story Sister Mary Joseph has told us in class, how Saint Peter sits at the pearly gates and checks everyone's speech ... so, he signs, as if he couldn't put two and two together ... so if you don't have good speech, he's not gonna let you in ... why not? Jack asks ... because God doesn't like to hear his children mumble, I tell him, repeating the admonition word-for-word just as Sister Mary Joseph has told us ... you idiot, he signs, God doesn't even have ears, and then he gets up and goes out to play with his high school friends. I had never thought about a God without ears before. If it is true, I don't know how it is that Jack would know such a thing and Sister Mary Joseph would not. Besides, what about all those people praying and singing hymns and practicing their speech? What would be the point of any of that if God didn't have ears? I worry about God. * * * Saint Bart's is a small school. Because we do not have an auditorium, the sisters gather all the students in the church for the Bishop's visit and Sister Mary Joseph's speech contest. Allison is gangly tall with pretty red hair done up in pigtails that I like to pull sometimes when Sister isn't looking. Sister Mary Joseph calls on her first. Allison always goes first when we have visitors. It is because she has good speech. "Columbus had three ships: the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria," Allison says while standing in front of the altar. I love to watch her talk. Her tongue reminds me of a butterfly, the way it dances so delicately inside her mouth, a beautiful pink butterfly. "The work you do here is truly God's miracle, Sister Mary Joseph," says the Bishop. Then he turns and blesses Allison, making the sign of the cross above her head. I wonder if Father DiNuzio will come forward and tape mittens on the Bishop's hands, or if making the sign of the cross is exempt from the rule about not using our hands in school. But I do not have time to give this weighty matter the deep thought it deserves. Sister Mary Joseph calls me to the front of the church. "This boy is from a deaf family. Both his parents and his brother are deaf, and yet, we have taught him to speak," Sister Mary Joseph announces to the school, who already know that about me, and to the Bishop, who does not. The Bishop lays a hand upon my shoulder. It is large and heavy with dark patches of hair on the back of his fingers, like that of a giant bear. "Poor, unfortunate lad," he says, as though I were some sort of orphan. "Mason," says Sister Mary Joseph, addressing me directly, "what was the name of the boat the Pilgrims came over on?" I know the answer. I know it even before Sister asks the question because it is my question, the one I always get asked when we have visitors, the one I spent all night practicing in front of the mirror. The Columbus question belongs to Allison, the Mayflower question is mine, Roger gets asked about Plymouth Rock, Dixie gets to mumble through saying Massachusetts, and so on and so on. Dutifully following the same script we use for every performance, we are a one-act play, The Incredible Talking Deaf Children. Produced and directed by Sister Mary Joseph, with a little help from God, a shiny Saint Christopher medal, and heaven held out on a stick. "Mason," Sister Mary Joseph says again when I have not yet answered, "what's the name of the Pilgrim's boat?" I want to answer. I want to win the medal. But there are also things I do not want, and so I remain silent. I don't want the Bishop who has bear paws for hands to see my ugly caterpillar tongue. "I think Mason might be a little nervous today. Please, let me have a moment with the boy," Sister asks of the Bishop. The Bishop nods, and Sister places her arm around my shoulder and guides me off to the side near the confessional booths. She takes out the Saint Christopher medal. Her message is clear. If I answer the question, I win the medal. "Mason," says Sister Mary Joseph after she has led me back to the front of the church, "what was the name of the boat?" Everyone is looking at me. The Bishop. Sister Mary Joseph. Father DiNuzio. Saint Christopher. Up in heaven, I imagine God sitting at a large wooden desk that looks a lot like Sister Mary Joseph's. He leans forward and drums His fingers, waiting for me to speak. It doesn't help. I don't need a finger-drumming God. I need a miracle. I need a savior. My eyes fall on Jack, sitting at the end of the pew with his class. You want that medal?, I see him sign ... yes, I answer back, keeping my hand low by my side and moving it only slightly in case it's a sin to sign in church. Jack gives me a wink and before I know it, he jumps out of his pew and bounds down the aisle. Sister Mary Joseph turns around to look. Jack takes her by surprise and grabs the medal from her hand. Sister's face turns as white as her habit is black. Father DiNuzio's face turns red. He can't get out of the pew he's in because the children are jumping up and down and screaming. Jack fakes left, then right. Sister Mary Joseph lunges for him. She loses her balance and stumbles into the kneelers at the foot of the altar, allowing Jack to dart past her outstretched arm. The children scream. Father DiNuzio is still stuck in the back. His face is beyond red. He's turning purple. Now the Bishop joins in the chase. He tries to grab Jack by the collar. He swipes at him, but Jack is quick and ducks under, causing him to miss. The Bishop's meaty paw knocks Jack's hearing aid off his ear. It lands on the tile floor and shatters into a dozen pieces that bounce and skittle off in half a dozen different directions. As though she were blessing the remnants of Jack's hearing aid, Sister Mary Joseph makes the sign of the cross. The nuns are trying to herd the students back toward their classrooms. The scene playing out before them is not something they want the children to see. But the kids are screaming and pointing at Jack, and they don't want to go. The whole thing looks like a giant game of tag with everyone running around, and all the nuns are "it." It's funnier than the movies they show us on rainy Saturday afternoons. With the children scattering as they run from the nuns, Father DiNuzio finally makes it out of his pew and into the aisle. He starts toward Jack. Jack sees him coming and hurdles the altar rail. Safely on the other side, he does a dance like a football player who has just scored a touchdown. He holds the Saint Christopher medal between his thumb and his finger, and he sways it back and forth at the end of his outstretched arm, taunting Father DiNuzio and the Bishop. They try to climb over the altar, but Father is too old and the Bishop is too fat. Realizing that he is safe from his pursuers, Jack walks up the steps to the pulpit. He wears a devilish grin on his face. He begins to sign. One by one, the children stop their fussing and fidgeting and turn to watch him, captivated by the lyrical movements of his hands. I think it is a pity that no one except me can understand him. You thought you were teaching me to talk, Jack signs, but what I learned was that I should hate myself ... I committed no sin except to be born deaf, but deaf wasn't good enough for you ... so you invented your contests and your medals and told me that I should learn to speak for myself ... but you never listened when I did speak, when I told you what I really wanted was to think for myself ... you tried to make me into you ... and all I ever wanted to be was me. Without his hearing aid on, Jack doesn't hear Mr. Zerwinski, the school janitor, sneaking up behind him. I try to get Jack's attention, but his half-shut eyes are turned heavenward and he's rambling on about his earless God again, and he doesn't see me. Mr. Zerwinski grabs him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides, and carries him out of the church to Father DiNuzio's office. Jack's sermon is done. The nuns regain control of the children. They line them up and march them back to their classrooms, and school goes on as usual. That afternoon Mr. Zerwinski comes to my classroom to give the pieces of Jack's hearing aid to Sister Mary Joseph. When Sister goes to answer the door, I reach up and pull on one of Allison's pigtails. She turns around and sticks her tongue out at me. |
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| Jack In The Pulpit Debbie Penn turnerloonybin@yahoo.com |
#5 of 10 |
| 1100 | |
| I met my beloved Jack the same day he decided he wanted
to preach from his own pulpit. I moved into town on Saturday and on Sunday
while at the town meeting; which was held before church services, I discovered
that while the parents talked the kids played. We were playing hide and seek
and I was it. I sucked at the game, it turned out, and before I caught a single
person the church bells rang signaling the end of the meeting and the beginning
of church. Kids were yelling “timeout” so they couldn’t be
tagged during services and then headed to church. As people filed into church I found out that the children sat in the front rows so the preacher could intimidate us into paying attention. About halfway through the service there was snoring so loud it reverberated through the church. People looked around for whom it was but no one was exposed so it continued joined by the giggles of children, no matter how sternly the preacher stared at us. Soon adult laughter joined the children’s giggling and the preacher’s face contorted as he spoke louder trying to drown out the noise. He face was bright red when it was time for his bring-it-home speech and he lit into us. He slammed his fist on the pulpit and shouted, “Falling asleep in Christ is the path to destruction and hell!” A resounding “Amen!” came from inside the pulpit. Startled, the preacher stepped back and Jack, a charmingly cute boy of ten with blond hair, blue soulful eyes, and a splatter of freckles across his tanned nose, emerged. I, seeing this as my only chance to not be it, jumped from my seat and tagged Jack it. Jack, in a husky, take-charge voice said, “the game ended when services started.” I argued that since he was sleeping he never said “timeout,” therefore he’s it; this is an argument we’ve playfully repeated over the years. Even though the congregation laughed, the preacher made us do work for the elderly people of the parish for the whole summer. We spent three months going to the store, cleaning, and doing other stuff together. We liked the same things. As long as daylight was burning, we were together and soon became inseparable, the best of friends. When our church duty was over, we continued to do everything together. We frequently went on hikes noticing the different plants that grew and soon we made a game out of finding a new plant. We found shapes in the clouds, raced to the tops of mountains, had spitting contests, learned to drive, found constellations, and more. We had fun together. His laughter was innocuous to me and it made my head swim with glee. Whenever I was in his pleasurable company I felt like I was in heaven. When we were together everything was more intense, every scent or sight was intensified and we increasingly became more attached to each other to the point that we couldn’t stand to be apart. Life without Jack is dull and boring. He was the source of my joy and happiness. Flowers were so fragrant we would inhale their beauty while listening to the song the birds sweetly sang us. We talked all the time. We talked about our joys. We talked about our sorrows. We talked about broken promises. And we talked about our dreams. We talked about everything and nothing. We stayed that way through school and college, doing everything together. Jack studied ministry so, naturally, I joined him because we do everything together. Now I’m a Sunday school teacher and Jack’s a preacher. Of course, until last week he had no church of his own and just filled in around the area whenever a preacher was sick or something. He enjoyed that but it just wasn’t the same as having his own pulpit and he deserved his own pulpit. He was so good, he brought the congregation closer to God and he touched my heart every time he preached. My love for him was such a strong emotion that I became devoted to making sure his dream came true. Therefore, I prayed daily for Jack to get his own pulpit and, I guess God was tired of hearing me because Jack was offered the church here. So we moved, thousands of miles from home, in order for Jack to have his own pulpit and make our dream come true. He was so excited about giving his very first sermon tomorrow that he was in his den, with the door locked, practicing what he was going to say and how. He practiced how to say “fire and brimstone” ten different ways. I could listen to him forever. He was a joy to behold. Just looking at him this happy made me ecstatic and the love I felt welled up inside me and I wanted to do something special for him. While he practiced, I followed the directions Jasmine, the organist at Jack’s church, gave me and I walked to town where I bought the items to make a wonderful dinner. On the walk I saw many familiar flowers and plants reminding me of how endeared I am to Jack. On the way back I saw Jasmine’s two little girls picking a plant I’d never seen before and they told me the plants are called turnips. So I walked in the damp woods for the plant that has green with purple striped petals surrounding a vine of tiny white flowers. At home I finely chopped the roots and added them to the meat. Steak tartar-at first I hated the stuff, insomuch as it’s raw seasoned hamburger-his favorite meal. I set dinner on the table just as the phone rang. It was his mother calling to wish him luck but he asked her to call back because he was eating. The phone beeped signaling another call as she said goodbye. I answered the other phone and it was Jasmine who told me I have to dry or cook the turnips otherwise they are lethal. I dropped the phone and ran to Jack but, Jack couldn’t wait and had eaten his steak. Spasms racked his body. He fell on the floor in pain gripping his stomach. His blue eyes pierced my heart as he looked at me wondering what I did. He died within seconds. Now I will sit by my husband and eat my steak because we do everything together. Sincerely, Georgette & Jack- Together forever P.S. Jasmine, thanks for the information on Indian turnips or, more appropriately, jack-in-the-pulpits, the flavor’s unique. |
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| Jack In The Pulpit Darryl Brooks DarrylBrooks@comcast.net |
#6 of 10 |
| 2385 | |
| “Jack-in-the-Pulpit? What the hell’s
that?” “A flower – grows from a bulb-” “You’re killing me. All I said was I need to get my mother a plant. “I’m just saying. Get her a lily or a jack-“ “How about a rose? Everybody knows what that is. You walk in and say, ‘I need a rose’ and they get it. You ask for a jack-in-the-pulpit, they look at you funny.” “Not in your finer boutiques.” “You kiddin’ me? What do you do for a living, Mort?” “Just cause my career path-“ He stopped, frozen by the look from his boss. “What do you do, Mort?” “Handle collections for you, Jackie, you know that.” “Then don’t try to tell me what to get for my mother. Now shut up and watch the door.” “I’m watching, Jackie. He comes out, I’m all over him.” Mort Dingle and Jackie Dupre sat in silence, Mort watching the mirror and Jackie wondering why his sister talked him into hiring this clown. “There he is! Jackie, he’s coming out.” Mort jumped out and Jackie walked around the back of the car to fence the man in. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked Mort. “He works for me, Stan,” answered Jackie. Stan spun around. “Jackie! Oh man, I didn’t see you. I thought-” “You got my money?” “Some of it, Jackie.” “How much?” Stan pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Hands shaking, he counted. “Twenty, thirty, I got thirty-two. I can get more tomorrow.” Stan handed the bills toward Jackie. Jackie stared for a few seconds, then glanced at Mort, who snatched the bills from Stan. “Let’s take a walk, Stan,” said Jackie. Mort grabbed Stan by the shoulder and pushed him toward the alley. When they reached it, Mort shoved him behind two dumpsters. “Jackie, swear to God, I can get more this week.” “Stan,” Jackie said, shaking his head. “You borrowed five-hundred three weeks ago, and missed the vig twice. I told you, take your time paying the principle, but you got to make the interest. Now you owe six-hundred and you hand me thirty-two bucks? I think I’m going to leave Mort here for a talk.” “No, Jackie, please. If I’m hurt, I can’t load trucks. How am I going to pay you if I can’t load?” “That’s your problem.” “Please.” “Shut up. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. This thirty-two bucks, we’ll call it pain and suffering. That means Friday, you owe me one-fifty. You don’t have it, you’re going to have to find some line of work don’t require mobility, got me?” “Yeah, sure, Jackie. I’ll get it somehow. I’ll load extra trucks-“ “I don’t care how you do it. And come to me. Don’t make us have to find you.” Jackie turned and walked out of the alley. Mort hit Stan in the gut before following. Stan began walking home, trying to think. He had four days to come up with one-fifty, plus his rent was due. Enough for food, cigarettes, and beer – call it two-fifty. He did piece work at Ace Foods, loading trucks. They paid him twenty-five a truck, no matter how big. No way could he load ten trucks in four days unless he got lucky with the loads. Damn it! Why did this keep happening? If he could just put together a little money and one sweet deal, he’d be set. He was halfway home when he thought of his mother. He hated asking her, but desperate times… Stan slipped up to his mother’s door and knocked, but no answer. Maybe she’s not home, he thought, I can slip in and check her stash in the sewing chest. He took out his key and tried to insert it, but it wouldn’t fit. That’s when he noticed the shiny new brass. “What the…,” he said as the door was opened. “What do you want?” his mother snapped at him. “Ma, why’d you change the locks?” “Because things kept turning up missing, and you’re the only one with a key.” “What things?” Stan said. “The silver candlesticks I got as a wedding present. My watch – this watch,” she said holding it up. Stan stammered, “Where… How…” “I had to buy my own damned watch back from the pawn shop. They already sold my candlesticks.” “Ma, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking-“ “Save it” “Look, Ma, I didn’t come here to fight. I came about the Mother’s Day present I was going to get you. There’s this pearl brooch I saw, I’m going to get it for you.” “Why are you telling me? If you’re buying me a present, just buy it.” “Well, see, that’s the thing. Mother’s Day’s Sunday, and I’m a little short. If you could front me a few bucks ‘til I put together this deal…” “Always a deal, just like your father. I don’t have any money for you. I love you, and I hope you get your life together. Don’t come back here until you do,” she said, slamming the door in his face. “Bitch,” Stan muttered turning toward home. By the time he got there, he was remorseful as usual. She’s right, he thought, opening a beer, I have to get myself together. By the time he finished a six-pack, he had once again resolved to change. “Tomorrow, I’ll be on the docks before the shift starts. I need to load two trucks two days and three the other two. I can do that. It’ll make some long days, but I can start paying off Jackie and quit gambling. Tomorrow will be better,” he said to himself, falling asleep in the ratty recliner where he spent most nights. In spite of past failures, Stan stayed true to his word. By Thursday noon, he’d loaded six trucks. If nothing else, he had Jackie’s vig in his pocket. By the time he met him Friday, he’d be in the black. He sat on the bench, waiting for his next truck. A few minutes later, Buddy dropped down beside him. “Hey, Stan, what’s up?” “Just loading, Buddy. I need to get three today. Hope I get a light one next, you know?” “Yeah, but I won’t have to worry about it after tomorrow.” “What, you found a job?” “Nah,” Buddy said and lowered his voice, “I got a sure thing at the dog tracks. I been loading all week – going to put the whole wad down on the last race. It’s a sweet deal. I can let you in, but you got to promise not to tell anybody. Too many people get in and the odds tank, you know?” “Sounds good, Buddy, but I’m going to pass. I have to load four more trucks before I get out of here tomorrow.” “Okay, let me know if you change your mind – it’s going to be long odds.” Stan felt good about his decision as he sat waiting for his next load. The foreman finally brought over his ticket. “Door six, Stan. Reefer. Fifty-four K,” the foreman recited and handed Stan his loading ticket. Buddy laughed as Stan walked away, “Think about it, Stan.” “Yeah, son-of-a-bitch,” Stan muttered as he walked toward door six. Refrigerated truck, fifty-four thousand pounds. Worst load you could pull. This one would kill him, no way to get a third truck in today. As he picked up the first of five thousand boxes of cheese, he thought about a sure thing at the track. By the time he finished and got his twenty-five dollars, he decided he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face another day pushing cheese into a cold truck. He looked around for Buddy. Not finding him, he asked the foreman. “Buddy left over an hour ago. Pulled a short load.” With that, Stan dragged home. He was stiff and cold from four hours in a cold box with twenty-seven tons of cheese. When he got there, he collapsed in his chair and fell asleep. Waking the next morning, Stan could barely lift his arms to light his cigarette. He washed some aspirin down with a warm beer and decided. He had to find Buddy. He had plenty of time; Buddy said it was the last race. Walking out his front door, he was stopped by Mort, leaning against Jackie’s double-parked car. “Stan,” Mort said. “Mort,” Stan said, his hand involuntarily touching his pocket. “I was going to come find you guys, like I said, after work. I got to load two more trucks, then I’ll have it.” “Stan, it ain’t’ like we don’t trust you, we were in the neighborhood. If you say you’ll have it this afternoon, that’s good enough for us. But if we have to look for you, it ain’t going to be pretty.” Mort turned and got back into the Cadillac, and Stan hurried down the sidewalk. “What do you think, boss?” Mort asked Jackie. “I think Ace Foods is the other direction. Did you see him pat his pocket? I don’t know if he’s got our money, but he’s got some of it. Follow him, let’s see where he goes.” Stan got to the tracks just before the first race. He hurried up to the betting window out of habit before he stopped himself. No, I got to find Buddy, get the scoop on the last race. He walked along the windows, looking for his friend. He didn’t spot him, so he headed down to the bleachers by trackside, but no luck there either. “Shit,” he thought. Where is he? The only place he hadn’t looked was up in the lounge, but that had a ten-buck cover. He walked through the place once more. By this time, the second race was underway. Getting worried, he paid the ten dollars to get into the lounge. He wandered around for forty-five minutes without luck. Leaving the lounge, he spotted Mort heading up the stairs. “What the hell is he doing here?” He turned around, bolted into the restroom, and hid in a stall. He waited five minutes before peeking out. Not seeing anyone, he hurried down to the main concourse. Looking at the board, he saw they were finishing the fourth race. There were twelve races tonight. How was he going to keep ducking Mort and find Buddy at the same time? He could just fork over the one-fifty, but if they caught him here, they would probably rough him up anyway. By the time the tenth race began, he was getting frantic. An hour of ducking and hiding while trying to find Buddy was grating on his nerves. He was making another pass when he spotted Mort coming toward him. He turned around and got in the closest betting line, hiding his head behind a racing program. Glancing back, he saw Mort was at the end of the same line. “Bet please,” the teller called out. He said the first thing he thought of, “Two dollars on number three to win.” The teller looked up. “Sir, this is a twenty dollar minimum. If you’d step to the side…” He was attracting too much attention. “No, sorry. I meant twenty on number three to win,” he said, paying for and retrieving his ticket. He walked away and made for the track entrance. He had bet on a long shot. If he lost, he couldn’t even pay the one-fifty. Where the hell was Buddy? As he watched the three dog finish last, he heard his name. He turned around to see Buddy walking toward him, a smile on his face. “Decided to take my advice?” With a shaky sigh, he said, “Yeah, where you been, I’ve been looking for you all day?” “No point in getting here early, I’m betting on one dog in the twelfth.” “Okay, so what’s the deal?” “This is a grade A dog been racing down south. He’s registered here under a fake name in a grade C race. He’s going to blow past the rest of the pack. Put it all on number seven to win. Odds should be at least forty to one.” Stan hurried back to the windows. If he pulled those odds, he’d walk away with almost six grand. He could pay off Jackie and live in style. He was thinking about winning as he bumped into someone. “Excuse me,” he said without looking up. “That’s okay, Stan, we was just looking for you.” Stan looked up into Mort’s cold smile. “Mort…” “Thought you were going to work, then meet us with our money.” “They were light on trucks, so I came to the track instead. Let me place this bet. As soon as the race is over, I’ll pay what I owe.” “Why not pay first? I’d hate to think you were betting all your cash and both legs on a dog.” Stan was starting to sweat. Only a few minutes until bets closed. He couldn’t tell Mort about the deal. If Jackie found out and bet large, the odds would tank. “I swear, Mort. Meet me right here after the race and I’ll pay you the whole thing.” “It’s your funeral,” Mort said as he walked back toward the lounge. “One minute to post!” the announcer said. Stand hurried to the fifty-dollar window where there was no line. “A hundred forty on seven to win,” he said. He turned from the window with his life in the paper ticket showing forty-two to one odds He got to the track as they opened the gates. When the dogs came by, they were in a tight pack. He could see number seven halfway back on the outside. Through the first two turns, he held that position. “Go,” Stan said, almost in tears. Down the backstretch, the pack spread out, but his dog was no better than fifth. Stan turned to look at the exits, planning an escape as the dogs hit the third turn. A roar from the crowd brought him back around. Seven was coming strong on the outside. By the time they got to the last turn, he was third and gaining fast. Stan’s heart was leaping out of his chest as seven continued to gain, now in second place, then in first, crossing the wire a full head in front. “Yes, oh my God!” Stan screamed as he ran back to collect. He had just turned around when Mort came up and grabbed his shoulder from behind. Stan turned, smiling. “What are you grinning about?” Mort said. “Nothing, Mort, my man, here’s your money,” Stan said as he counted out Six hundred and fifty dollars into Mort’s palm. “All square?” “Uh, yeah, I guess so,” Mort said, turning away, wondering how his boss was going to take this. The next day, Stan was in a jewelry store, buying that pearl brooch for his mother, while three blocks away, Jackie entered a flower shop. “Can I help you sir?” “Yeah, I need something for Mother’s Day. You got any of them Jack-in-the-Pulpits?” |
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| Jack In The Pulpit Cam cam_nine@yahoo.com |
#7 of 10 Runner-up |
| 2408 | |
| Something had to be done, that's all I knew. I mean, enough was enough. I came here for peace and quiet, not craziness. Not to have some crazy old bat screeching outside my door every five minutes. It was like having a car alarm outside your window: just when you think its stopped and you can finally relax... there it goes again. My nerves were shot. My ears were ringing. And all because of a plant. I hadn't had a moment's peace since they put a - no offense - damned plant next to my door. I guess I must have looked too happy. And when I tried to talk to the staff, when they would mosey in to mop or change the bed or just stand there and watch the television or any of the things they do when they're really taking inventory of whatever you didn't have a chance to nail down yet -- what did I get? Faces and sighs and "It's just a plant, Mr. W, how can it possibly be bothering you?" Or, "You're not Shady Dunes' only resident, William, the plants are here for everyone." Or "You want me to tell Inez to have your daughter bring you ear plugs, Mr. Whortleberry?" Yeah - I got bull. Because what do they care? They're not stuck like prisoners listening to a crazy old bat screeching all day. Big joke to them. They can go home and get away from her. And Brenda. Another big help. "Oh, Papa, not again! You know you can't afford to make waves here -- don't you remember what the sister at Saint Vitriol's Eldercare said when she was stamping your transfer papers? She said Shady Dunes is the last stop before a state nursing facility. You don't want them to put you in a state nursing facility, do you, Papa?" "If they don't want me here, I can always come live with you." You know, I never liked taking family photos - there's just not much to look at on either side of the Whortleberry-Vetiver fence. But if you'd seen Brenda's face when I said that, you'd know why I wished I'd had my old Brownie camera right then. It was like someone smacked her in the kisser with a sack of flour. "Papa, you know you can't live with me. You know Mama's living with me, now. You know she doesn't want to have anything to do with yo...." "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Relax, for chrissakes, I was just joking." Brenda's face washed back to its normal splotchy grey. "Anyway, I think it's kind of cute that your neighbor talks to it." Just like her mother. Taking everyone’s -- anyone's -- side but mine. "What's so cute about a crazy old bat screeching at a big green stick shoved in a pot of dirt?" Brenda popped her huge bug eyes at me like I was another bug she'd just run into under the kitchen sink. An inferior type of bug, of course. Just like her mother used to do. "Papa, it's not a 'big, green stick shoved into a pot of dirt.' "No?" "No." She shifted her ass in her chair and leaned in at me. "It's a 'Jack in the Pulpit,' Papa." "A what?" "A 'Jack in the Pulpit.' A flower that looks like a little man standing in a pulpit." She settled back in her chair, happy as a pig in shit. "And that's what makes it kind of cute that your neighbor talks to it. I’ll bet she thinks she's talking to a real little man." "I see." I started fishing around under me in the chair cushion for the TV clicker. Brenda was talking like an idiot, now, and that reminded me the news was coming on soon. "So the crazy old bat is screeching at a plant because she thinks there's a little man in it, and this is cute? And not loony-toons? You should only live with that going on outside your door all day, every day. You'd change your idea of what's 'cute' pretty quick." Brenda smirked and tilted her head toward the door. "Yeah, well, I don't know, Papa, she seems pretty quiet to me." "Ah, that's because she's not in there right now, she's downstairs doing Arts and Crafts." I scooched to the edge of my chair, closer to her. "And GUESS how I know that, Brenda? Because I had to hear all about what time and who's coming and will there be cookies and, if so, what kind. At the top of her crazy, screechy lungs to that little 'man' out there. All day yesterday." Brenda's face was a mask of bug-eyed disbelief. "Okay, you don't believe me about her? Go, stick your head out the door and take a listen. It's a whole flight down, but I'll bet you can still hear her screeching. Go ahead, Brenda, go stick your head out the door and hear for yourself. Go, go on, do it, go." "Stop it, Papa, quit poking at me, you're being annoying, I'm not going to DO that, so just leave me alone already, would you?" She was annoyed? Good. Now she knew how it felt. And at least she got to go home and get the hell away from what was annoying her. I should only have that luxury. I should only have a home to go to. We sat there for a couple of minutes, looking at everything but each other, then: "Look, Papa, how about... have you talked to her?" "Of COURSE I've talked to her. Every time she's out there screeching about spiders as big as Buicks in the bathtub or who stole her bottom teeth -- I stick my head out and tell her 'shut the hell up, you crazy old bat.' But she just shows me her gums and starts screeching about bowel movements. So what's the use?" Brenda grinned. "Well, that sounds like she likes you, Papa, if she's smiling at you." Then -- "So, how about, instead of letting her get to you like this you make friends with her,? Maybe if you get to know her, you won't notice how loud she is. At worst you might be able to talk to her about getting a hearing aid or something. After all, more flies get caught with honey, Papa." "More flies get caught with shit, you mean." "Papa!" "Well, that's what we used to say at work." "But, still, Papa...." "'But still, Papa. But still, Papa.'" I'd had enough. "'But still, Papa,' what you want is me to kiss that crazy old bat's ass for being a pain in mine. Look, Brenda, I didn't spend all those years shoveling shit out at the landfill to put food on the table... and shoveling shit to your mother to keep her happy in her little hearts and flowers fantasy world until I couldn't take it any more... just so I could spend my last few years alone and shoveling shit to some crazy old bat in hopes that, maybe -- maybe -- I might be able to take a shit once in a while without being startled right off the bowl by her crazy screeching out of nowhere!" "Okay, Papa, okay! Calm down! Talk about being loud! Hush!" "Oh, Hush yourself, damn it. I'm calm." She sat back in her chair, her mouth a tight little line, her hands folded in her lap, and just watched me. Again with her mother's big, bug eyes. Ah, to hell with both of them. Both of them and their four big bug eyes -- always watching, never seeing -- could kiss my ass. Through the door I heard Maria's pills cart rattling somewhere. Dinner soon. There was a faint smell of laundry in the air, so it could be either stuffed cabbage or meatloaf. I always hope it’s stuffed cabbage. At least you can tell a cabbage leaf when you see one. Maria and laundry also means the news is coming on and I still had the TV clicker in my hand, so I pointed it at the television and started pushing buttons until the television made a sound and the screen started brightening. The minute it did, so did Brenda. "Okay, so, Papa... you want me to get you some ear plugs?" "What I want is for you to get rid of that plant. Before I throw it down the damned stairs." "Well, I can't do that, Papa. It's not mine to get rid of. And it's not yours, either, so lay off." "Then tell them to get it away from my door." "I'm not going to do that, Papa. We can't afford to make waves here. I told you that." "Ah, then do what you want." I got up and turned my chair to face the television. "Isn't tonight the night you give your mother a high colonic or something? You'd better hurry, you wouldn't want her to feel abandoned." "I rub liniment into her bunions, Papa, you know that. As for the other thing you said, I don't even know what you're talking about." She started rifling through her bags, stacking mail, newspapers, shaving cream, all the crap I'd asked for last time she came. And one thing I hadn't asked for. I picked up the zip-top bag holding a small bamboo platter, sand, a bunch of small rocks, and a little wooden rake. "Hey, my Zen garden!" My miniature Zen garden. I'd gotten that for Brenda's mother the time she’d tried meditating. Before she got tired of "ohm-ing" over bird eggs and leaves and went back to glomming all over Budweisers and Marlboros. So it became mine. Brenda pulled her nose out of her bag. "Oh, yeah, that. Mama was Spring cleaning and I remembered how you always seemed to really like setting it up and looking at it, so I sneaked it out of the trash before she noticed." Despite that, I was actually pleased she'd brought it. It always helped me think. There were solutions in it. Finished stacking, Brenda stood and put on her coat. "Well, it was nice to see you again, Brenda. Maybe next time, with those ear plugs, also a couple of jelly doughnuts? All we get here are stale little sinkers. So hard, we have a joke that if you don't want to break your teeth on them, you'd better take your teeth out, first. Ha ha! "Also... if you think of it, say hello to your mother for me." She was stooping to give me her usual top-of-the-head peck when I said that. She almost gave herself whiplash pulling back. "Now, Papa, you know I can't do that." "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I just said that to get your goat." "Well, you got it. Very funny, Papa." She finished slobbering on me and scurried back to Queens and back up her mother's ass. Good riddance. As soon as she was out the door, I opened the zip-top bag and set up my Zen garden. In fact I actually got so involved in it I missed dinner. Which turned out to be the meatloaf, so no big deal, I ate some doughnuts I'd sneaked in from Lunch with the can of Coke Brenda had brought me. And once my garden was set up right, I sat and looked at it till, finally, I knew what I'd have to do to get back my peace and quiet. And, then I realized the eleven o'clock news idiots were signing off, so I went to bed. The funny thing, though, was that I'd heard the crazy old bat screeching outside my door several times while I was looking at my garden, but she never once bothered me. I guess that was because I knew she wasn't going to be bothering me too much longer. And the rest, as they say, is history. But I don't have to tell you. After all, you were here for most of it. So you saw how, the next day, while everyone was in the Dining Room for Bingo, I took the rocks from my garden into the hall and arranged them on the top step of the stairs. And then waited for the crazy old bat to come scurrying out of her room, late for Bingo because of a phone call she'd had to take from her brother in Peoria. Just like she'd been screeching outside my door all day before. And you know how, after she'd tripped on the rocks and went flying down the stairs, head-first, I'd rushed out to scoop them up and get them back into my room and their garden. What you don’t know, though, was it was only after I'd set them up I realized I was missing one. The largest one. Yeah, that's when you saw ME come flying out of my room and down the stairs. Good thing I've still got my eyesight, or I'd have never seen that rock all tangled up in the crazy old bat's hair. Which brings me to why I'm out here telling you this -- I want to thank you for helping me, there, yesterday. If it wasn't for you, hell, I'd probably be on my way to a state nursing facility right now. Or maybe somewhere else. Honestly, I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn't been here when Inez came out of the office and found the old bat laying there. I was just almost back up on this landing when she started screaming and, then, suddenly everyone was coming OUT and it would have looked really bad for me to be going IN. So I was stuck. And, who could have guessed that on the way down the old bat was going to hit her head on... what was it -- an uncarpeted step edge -- and get blood all over everything? I can just see the looks on the detectives' faces if I was standing there holding the bloody little rock when it was my turn to give a statement. So, yeah, it was very, I dunno’... neighborly... of you to let me stash the rock behind you, there, in your pulpit, while all that was happening. As I said, I'm grateful as hell. I hope you weren't put out too much having it in there with you all night, but the detectives stayed for coffee and doughnuts. Okay, so, anyway, that’s pretty much what I wanted to say. Y’know... thanks. So, let me go wash this off and get it back to its garden, now. And, look -- you ever need anything, no matter what it is, | |