JACOB (in progress)

^{J   A   C   O   B}

}

         

         A big, blinding beam of light - a movie projection, abruptly shot over us. Over our heads, blindly leading the heard we had formed into converging toward the projection on the wall. This, was the summoning of deeply concerned experts, the ones who came to help, quality human beings.

         Answering the call! The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies, vigilante collectives, reporters; individuals able to close a 25-year cold case, as if by some foreign magic...

         I mean people who apparently, are most hell bent on finding the truth, self-crowned champions, pledged to help the children. The ones who care, and are truly, deeply concerned for the boy. Now bent on the truth about Jacob, apparently.

         The ray of colored light, projected over everyone, finally called all the banter to stop. The screen appears on the wall I was leaning on, well hiding behind, well, whatever bits of myself I was able to shove into the dark. Obviously... they ruined my spot.

         Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also just an unattended, unused basement. It was dank, dark, and the prominent smell of cat urine faintly dancing below everyone's nose, but collectively the stench that made that particular room a thing. Multiple intents became the lost attempts, that settled in to be no attempts, maintenance blatantly gave up, and agreed to ignore it was there.

         I claimed a nice cozy corner, close to the door. After a concerto of plastic chairs, with the shiny chrome legs screeching, banging, whaling in manners that made my gut cringe.

         The place was packed! Everyone was there. Sally, from the very back offices, who loves to make small talk by the coffee pot, all while spewing a hefty serving of scotch all over any poor bastard who made eye contact with her. Each phrase, cat story or quick quip a solid reason to make anybody consider quitting the sauce. In an ordinary weeks time, I swear, I'm pretty capable of forgetting her existence. The whole basement staff had been summoned from, if we shall, the basement's basement. Then there was my humble two man psychology team... well at least I showed up.

         The rest, were just thick office dwellers, sweaty types, the heavy breathing types. Agents, doctors, annalists, psychologists, government lawyers, you name it. Obviously as water is wet, there were so many shady police. I am sure a sad, drowning in their thick muck of asphyxiating frustration, sluggishly making it closer to retirement.

         Back to the high-school movie presentation. The first film just started playing. Exhibit 1A, how I supposed to myself it was called. You could see a small crowd of people, in a apartment complex. Obviously it was a housing project were people were just struggling in the grind. They weren't Latino, Korean, Filipino, White, nor African American. Circumstance, money, the struggle, and poor options mixed in poorer choices, made them forget the racial qualms that breed division.

         Then it cuts to a scruffy old man on his porch. A stout man who definitely used his body to work. Thick black framed glasses he had to push up his nose into position quite frequently. Warm in a long dark gray winter coat. More so, desperate to talk.

*

Joe Gilchrist:

         "I can tell you a bit about, what happened, to that Jacob kid.

         See, I've sat with Reena many times for beers." he got in a crouching stance, back flat to the brick wall, forearms on his knees, like convicts in a documentary. All I could think of was, yes, this man has done time! He began, "Always yammering about when the boy was born. On a Sunday." Joe's filth, packed nails fish a Newport from a crumpled pack that he fished from a flower pot. No plant to be seen, just caked dirt.

         "Late in the afternoon..." He lights up, then a fit of coughing ensues. "In the pouring rain, she'd say. It was some yearly storm, she said it made streets into rivers. Reena said her uncle's shitty station-wagon made her terrified they weren't gonna make it to the hospital! Oh, yea, yeah she said it was the, "El Cordonazo de San Francisco" .


         Yes he was born abroad, down in South America. Any how this little story, here begins when the family finally came back here to America, ya' see.

         In Washington State. They resided in Richland, high plateau dessert, dry and unappealing. Birthplace of Fat-boy, the atomic bomb, an embodiment of humanity's final idol to war. Death, suffrage beyond what common people's could ever fathom. Yeah, the one that gave the Japanese such a bad day, so much death. The boy was seven years old at the time.

         Although they were one member short, than when they set out to work abroad. Karina, Jacob's mother, wasn't at all that well. I never knew what happened to Gene. Was it divorce?

         Did he drown on some tropical paradise beach?

          Privileged,

          Murder? May be an accident of some sort, I can't say...

         Karina, was how we all referred to her. The kid's mom.
         You know; what really stayed in my mind? Was Jacob, to be honest.
         Peculiarly small, for a seven year old.

         You know? The poor little runt must have been living in his very own brand of hell in the school yard! I'm sure of that. Especially because this little dude, for some reason, was in a slightly dingy, bear pajama. A onesie on at half past two in the afternoon, ya get me?

         A few weeks later this onesie deal, became a thing. Not just what the kid was wearing after a long trip. No,sir. I never saw Jacob without the same light brown pajama on. Zipped all the way up to his scrawny little neck. Once he began to let the hood flopped down his back I saw Jacob was a nice looking boy, though his big brown right eye and equally huge sea blue left one made even me uncomfortable.

         You know?

         Everyone else were kind of put off. Obviously never noticing the kids blatant defect. One after the other, prefered to obmisse him in their own kind of disgust, in the boy's defect, that didn't fit in their snug, secure way of being. What was in an everyday experience; that nested in the breast of chaos hidden under everyday

         He was a nice looking for a Latino kid, though Reena was pale as a ghost, a southern California girl. With the most beautiful green eyes but, such a heartbreaking look. Like a beaten down dog, just no fight left. Every movement asking for forgiveness inside the chaos.

         Rare hugs.

         Mother's maelstrom; the blizzard ever folding upon itself; her pain, a twisting mess. I couldn't see how the boy would even have, the slightest notion, an allowed desire, any chance of a pure rapture all unease, desired beyond his

I stared back at the kid, I was compelled to, nothing else. Jacob was trying to fold himself into his...

         Self.

         Creasing his narrow shape left to right, trying to fold were all eyes disowned

><

         Mommy, squatted down into the boy's eye line. Jacob was a completely sensitive kid, frequently underestimated, the boy knew when something was wrong. The bug eyed, gungy bear head hood of the pijama was in full use. Dodging, moving her head closer, further away, and with an almost convinced squint, she found his brown and blue eyes through the gime and matty nylon fur. Jacob was as stiff as a board. Tired furry light brown mittens dangling from his sleeves, each hand in a solid fist.

> > > > < < < <

And just like that, Jake watched the cell door, hastily slammed shut... A door of sorts the boy had no acquaintance with, bone deep fear as such, fear an animal's way in, (never out) to the very last instant, get, in a solid, blearing, ho-ja. Then somehow made mind borrowing solitude a bit heavier, just a bitter excuse not to sleep at night.