by August Arrea
“Then you know I am quite capable of surviving far worse things than being separated from my grandson for a little while.”
“I know you’re strong, grandma, and I’m not trying to start an argument with you,” Jacob said as kindly as possible. “But you’re also a lot older.”
Ava rolled down her sleeve and with a look most disconcerting aimed at Jacob she simply exclaimed, “Phooey!”
Jacob sat silent for a moment while staring at his grandmother with a barrage of thoughts swirling inside his head. “It means a lot to you that I go, doesn’t it?”
“It only matters what it means to you, Jacob,” answered Ava. “But by no means allow your decision to be hinged on some sense of servitude you feel you owe me. When my time comes, and indeed one day it will, your presence whether it be at my side as you are now or on the other end of the globe will not impede that moment. Just as you were unable to stand between your mother and the journey which awaited her.”
Jacob jumped to his feet and began pacing the floor about his room.
“I would be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking about going to this place, wherever it is.” There was an air of excitement in his voice. “There’s a part of me that feels it’s the only way I might ever feel...I don’t know...normal. It’s just...”
He hesitated to go on, until he glanced over and saw the understanding look radiating from his grandmother’s eyes.
“I’m scared.” He felt shame for even admitting it but Ava gave him a comforting smile.
“Of course you are,” she said. “What life would be worth living if untouched by fear?”
“Then you think I should go?”
“Are you not the polestar of your own destiny, dear boy?” answered Ava. “It’s the foolish person who makes his way through life being guided by someone else’s sails. Keep to your own compass.”
With that she got up, but before she left Jacob to his thoughts she pulled out something hidden within the folds of the shawl she had wrapped around her. It was the brown, leather-bound book Jacob saw hidden away in the box buried at the bottom of his grandmother’s trunk.
“I gave this journal to my son a long time ago on the eve of the day when he was set to leave with Gotham on the same trip.”
Jacob took the book from his grandmother and carefully opened it. There was nothing written inside. In fact, a third of the pages at the beginning of the journal strangely were missing, torn free from the binding.
“It was returned to me like that. Whatever thoughts they may have held are long lost.” There was a marked sadness in Ava’s voice which she struggled to keep steady. “I would like you to have it now. And should you decide to go tomorrow, it would comfort me to know your journey picked up where his ended.”
The two hugged, but only briefly before Ava pulled away. For they both knew in the moment they embraced that the decision concerning Jacob’s quest had already been made, and that he’d be leaving for an untold length of time in a few short hours. Maybe then, with the warmth of the morning sun on her face to help dry her tears as her eyes threatened to shed them, she would be better able to manage her goodbyes. But not now.
“Isn’t the school dance tonight?” she asked, pausing in the doorway while glancing off as if thinking out loud.
“What about it?” Jacob replied.
“Oh, no reason really. It just dawned on me earlier when you were lamenting over leaving your friends what a shame it is you didn’t go.”
She had a way of saying something without ever uttering the words. And so she did again before disappearing into the hallway.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Last Dance
T
he homecoming dance was already in full swing when Jacob finally arrived on foot at Harpus High. He could hear the dull, drumming pulse of music pumping away inside the gymnasium, even from where he stood at the far corner of the school where the football and track fields sat eerily vacant in the darkness of the chilly night.
In a flash, he scaled the chain-link fence separating himself from the school grounds on the other side. He then sprinted across the width of the open grassy field he had been forced to run in circles around countless times during gym class toward the large tan and maroon-colored building from which the music spilled. That was the easy part. Getting inside the gymnasium where the dance was taking place, however, would be a completely different matter altogether.
The entrance to the gym was made completely of glass, which offered a birds-eye view of everything going on inside. It also made slipping inside nonchalantly virtually impossible, mostly because of Mrs. Braukoff’s unmistakable presence, which Jacob spied almost immediately. She was standing alone off to the side looking permanently pinched as she usually did in a dowdy, drab floral print dress which hung sad and lifeless on her formless frame with a strand of pearls dangling from around her thin cranelike neck. Her gaze managed to be on everything and everyone at once, like that of a prison guard watching over the inmates from the gun tower.
Not only was Elvira Braukoff the student counselor at the high school, she also served as a Bible teacher at the nearby neighborhood church. Which meant she was well-positioned to ensure a wide-swath of teenagers were steered from falling into the Devil’s waiting clutches. And if there was anyone evenly matched to go up against the Devil it was Mrs. Braukoff, saccharine-voiced though she was. While her unassuming presence was more ice than fire, the manner in which she doled out reprimands to students for any act she deemed an unholy or sinful indiscretion was pure brimstone. Exactly what was considered unholy or sinful in Mrs. Braukoff’s eyes, however, seemed to change like the weather and usually extended much further than the school’s own rules of conduct. An outfit one chose to wear to school or the overheard punch line to a questionable joke could bring a disapproving frown to Mrs. Braukoff’s face as easily as bullying or cheating. One thing was certain, one knew instantly they had committed an infraction when they felt an ear suddenly and most painfully being taken hold of by the vice that was Mrs. Braufoff’s sausage-like thumb and forefinger.
Even the town’s name wasn’t safe from Mrs. Braukoff’s righteous ire. Cain’s Corner, she argued to anyone who would listen, was an evil and unclean name for any community to label itself, and she proceeded to spearhead an unrelenting campaign over the years to force the city council to have it changed. It didn’t matter that the town’s namesake came not from the biblical Cain who slaughtered his brother Abel but Cain Crawford, an ambitious entrepreneur who migrated to the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1800s to make a killing during the Gold Rush only to find his fortune in the slaughtering of trees by starting up Crawford Lumber Co., the first landmark of the town he founded.
“Mark my words,” Mrs. Braukoff was fond of saying, “by branding our fair and wholesome town with such an unholy moniker is to extend an invitation addressed to an evil most unwelcome.”
Naturally, it proved to be an uncomfortable coincidence when Mrs. Braukoff’s marriage of nearly thirty years to the well-liked and respected Reverend Horace Braukoff came to an abrupt end one day two winters earlier as he was driving home after performing the last rites on one of his parishioners when his car suddenly, without any foreseen cause, veered off the road and slammed head-on into a tree and exploded into a fireball of flames. The shocking tragedy made some in the community rethink the validity of the crusade to change the town’s name. The students of Harpus High contended—quietly, of course—that Mrs. Braukoff’s manner of Bible thumping was too much to take in daily doses, even for the poor departed reverend, who saw the tree as a merciful and permanent escape from the righteous bleating he had been forced to endure.
Still, parents loved Mrs. Braukoff because she was more than willing to do that with which they preferred not to be bothered: keeping their children on a tight leash when out of their sights and, when the situation called for it, meting out the proper discipline. Even Jacob didn’t share his classmates immense disdain for Mrs. Braukoff, nor d
id he take part in their constant mockery of her behind her back. True he didn’t care much for her, but he felt more sympathy than dislike for the woman and found it best for him, and his ears, to take an abrupt detour whenever he saw her heading his way down the same hallway at school. Unfortunately, there weren’t many detour options Jacob could see around her or her ear-pinching claws this night at the dance.
~~~
For some time Jacob stood just outside the reach of the lights illuminating the entrance into the gym watching the happenings of the dance through the fleece portal formed around his face by the dark gray hoodie pulled up over his head.
“Where are you?” he muttered to himself as his eyes scanned the clamor of bodies gyrating to the incessant beat pounding away loudly from the other side of the large bank of windows. It didn’t take long before he was drawn to the disturbingly familiar moves belonging to his friend Ty, whose bizarre repertoire of dance moves were uniquely spastic, if not seizure-like in their execution. Jacob found it to be like watching a musical exorcism taking place in the middle of the dance floor.
With Ty in his sights, Jacob dug into his pocket for his phone. The bright light from its screen lit up his face as his fingers quickly tapped out a message: “Oh. My. God. For the love of everything that is good and pure, PLEASE LEAVE THE DANCE FLOOR! I’m outside the gym with no way of getting around the battle- axe watchdog. Need to speak to you. Code: Urgent!”
Between the loud, pulsing music and Ty’s continuing best efforts to match his wild writhing convulsions to the beat, Jacob knew it could take a while for his sent text to be noticed. All he could do was wait. And watch. Which was equally hard as it was entertaining. Try as he might, Jacob was unable to stifle the toothy grin fighting for release behind his pursed mouth as he debated which was more comical, the absolute seriousness his best friend committed himself to his performance, or those dancing next to him bearing the unsure expressions of whether or not an ambulance needed to be called.
Jacob’s smile was short-lasting when his gaze shifted somewhat closer toward the center of the dance floor. There he saw Wray and Yul oblivious to the show Ty was putting on for the rest of the crowd. They were dancing close together slowly, even though the beat—and everyone else around them—was moving light years faster than their feet. Immediately Jacob felt those gut-eating pangs of jealousy that had recently made themselves familiar to him stir themselves awake as he stood glowering in the darkness. Intensely focused, his eyes held watch on Yul’s hands positioned on Wray’s back as if in prayer. Then they gradually made their way downward to the small of her back and then—
The couple circled around, and as they did Jacob, to his great relief, managed to catch a glimpse of angst in Wray’s face. Her body tightened visibly with discomfort as she made an attempt to pull back from the hands groping her and allow some much-needed light between herself and Yul. Jacob knew Wray was a tough girl who could take care of herself, as he witnessed first-hand on more than a few occasions when hormone-raging boys had attempted to cross the line with her. Yul, however, was different. Being caught in the blonde meathead’s muscle-banded arms was like finding oneself face to face with an octopus. And even Jacob could see Wray was having trouble prying herself away from the tentacles holding her.
Before he even realized what his feet were doing, Jacob was marching straight toward the gymnasium. All thoughts of Mrs. Braukoff had vanished. Obviously she wasn’t the all-seeing oracle everyone feared with Yul openly pawing Wray in the middle of the dance floor like he was. His gaze burning with hatred was locked on its target like a sniper’s scope. The perverted grin on Yul’s mouth as he attempted to relax Wray with cooing whispers to the ear was enough to make Jacob see an instant curtain of red. Blood red.
Blood.
It would most definitely be spilled tonight on the gymnasium floor, Jacob assured himself while clenching tighter his fists with every advancing step. Even if it ended up being his own, at least it would free Wray of the vulgarian’s dirty paws. Jacob, however, envisioned a very different outcome. One which involved personally yanking Yul’s arms straight from their—
“Is there something I may help you with, Mr. Parrish?”
Mrs. Braukoff. She was suddenly there, blocking the way into the gym like a police barricade just as Jacob pulled open the door and incinerating instantly the image he enjoyed ever so briefly of seeing Yul Dane standing helpless in the middle of the gym armless and spurting copious amount of blood from his shoulder sockets as his peers surrounded him and laughed at his just punishment.
“Mrs. Braukoff!” Jacob exclaimed in as polite a manner as he could muster while screaming at himself “Why didn’t you stay where you were moron?”
“Pardon me for saying so, but you look exceptionally, uh, nice tonight.” His fast-thinking but obvious attempt at softening her with flattery failed as she seemed to become even more pinched than she usually appeared.
“I asked if there was something I may help you with,” she repeated as her right eyebrow slowly arched itself like the back of a black cat.
“If it’s alright with you, I just need to slip inside for a quick second,” said Jacob while attempting to look past Mrs. Braukoff and her sad floral-print dress. It was amazing to him how one woman could manage to block such a large portion of the dance floor behind her.
“Do you know what this is, Mr. Parrish?” Mrs. Braukoff coolly inquired while thrusting her handy clipboard in Jacob’s face before immediately proceeding to answer her own question. “This is a list of names of students who signed up as instructed to say they would be attending the homecoming dance. And why do we have such a list you may ask yourself? To help prevent strays from neighboring schools and other outside riffraff up to no good from sneaking their way into this gymnasium and soiling what should be a respectable function for the students of Harpus High.”
“But I’m not a stray from another school or outside riffraff. I’m a student here,” said Jacob.
“Yes, you are,” Mrs. Braukoff concurred in her high-pitched saccharine voice that was anything but sweet. “But I think you know me well enough to know that I have not needed to refer once to this list all evening, and that is because I have committed to memory every single last name on this piece of paper. And you know as well I that your name—is not—on—the list!”
Jacob had to bite his tongue to keep from telling Mrs. Braukoff what she could do with her blasted list.
“Maybe, you might make an exception?” he said instead, forcing his mouth to form a pleasant smile.
“Should God have made an exception when he turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for turning around to watch the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah after she was told not to?” replied Mrs. Braukoff, who had a refined talent of finding an opportunity to reference scripture in almost every conversation she had.
“No, Mr. Parrish, rules are just that, rules. And I will tell you what I told the four other students who showed up here before you did tonight: If you wanted to attend this function, you should have had the foresight to make sure your name found its way onto the list,” said Mrs. Braukoff, dangling the clipboard clenched in her hand in front of Jacob’s face as though it were the last golden ticket to get into the Wonka chocolate factory. “Although, to be quite frank, even if your name was on the list I can most assure you the way you’re dressed alone would keep you from passing through these doors.”
Jacob glanced down and gave himself a slow once-over. It was true the T-shirt and jeans he was wearing along with a pair of Converse sneakers, which had seen better days, was a noticeable downgrade compared to the semi-formal spit and shine seen parading around inside the gymnasium. It hardly deserved the snobbish glare focused down the end of Mrs. Braukoff’s upturned nose as though Jacob was some replicant of the Peanuts character Pigpen come to life.
“We do have a dress code, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Mrs. Braukoff sang with odd glee.
“Look, Mrs. Braukoff, I’m not dressed to g
o to the dance because I’m not here to crash the dance,” Jacob tried to explain. “I just need to find someone inside and—”
“Need I remind you, young man,” Mrs. Braukoff cut him off sharply, “that this is a school dance and not a place to socialize.”
The absurdity of the words that met Jacob’s ears was enough to make his head spin like a top joined to his neck.
“Now then,” Mrs. Braukoff continued, “what I wish to see is the back of your head getting smaller and smaller as you walk yourself away from this doorway, and may I suggest to you that you contact the party inside responsible for the ants in your pants by texting them, or Tweeting them, or whatever new way you younger generation have discovered to communicate to one another without loosening your tongue.”
Speaking of tongues, there was nothing else Jacob wanted more at that moment than to reach into the miserable spinster’s mouth, grab her’s by its forked end and bring her to a strangled silence by wrapping it several times around her neck. As he stood glaring his contempt for her, a feel-good thought suddenly came to him, aside from the beautiful image of seeing her tongue finally put to good use. He could easily just bowl past the woman and accomplish two feats at once: get inside the dance to Ty and Wray, and earn the eternal gratitude of his classmates who would get the choice experience of seeing Mrs. Braukoff knocked flat on her backside. Sure it would likely mean spending the rest of the year in detention and whatever else Mrs. Braukoff could think of as punishment. Then again, Jacob wasn’t planning on being back at school the coming Monday.
~~~
Thankfully for Mrs. Braukoff and her derriere, the gleam in Jacob’s eye was doused by the sudden roar of music escaping the gym through an opening door a further ways down and the sight of Ty coming to his aid.
