“I got that too. It’s like I can tell before people even open their mouths. Specially my parents.”
“You’d be a good poker player, then.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. I can’t lie so well. I just blush and squirm a lot.”
“You don’t have to lie, Charlie. You just have to look like you don’t give a shit.”
“I can’t seem to do that either. I wish I could.”
I take the bottle again. Then I look down and rub the back of my head. Maybe that’s how he does it. Maybe that’s how Jasper Jones navigates this world and comes out on top, in spite of the shitty hands he gets dealt over and over. That poker glaze, like a superhero mask. Hiding his suspicion, giving nothing away. But it is still a lie, isn’t it? It’s just a deflection. That’s his trick. That shrug is just a big act. A myth. It’s his way of hiding his rubbish cards.
Like Laura, for instance. Like when he cried that night with his back turned, and then nodded so vacantly when I asked him if he missed her just now. The mask is back on, the alter ego.
Jasper Jones has lost his girl, maybe his best friend too. His only friend. It seems so infinitely sad to me, I can’t even imagine. To lose someone so close, someone he had his hopes pinned on. Someone he was going to escape with, start anew. And to see her, right here, as she was. Right where I’m sitting. What a horrible series of events this has been. But Jasper Jones has to keep that poker face. He has to throw that cloak over his heart. I wonder how much of Jasper’s life is spent pretending he doesn’t give a shit.
It must be a lonely way to be. I wonder if Jasper really needs me here to help solve this or if he just needs company. I wonder if he considers me a friend. I hope so. I imagine him sitting here with Laura, shooting the breeze. I wonder if he has anybody else to talk to. I guess he doesn’t.
I think that maybe I’m drunk. Am I drunk? I don’t know. I feel a little woozy. I can feel my pulse on the sides of my head. I put the whiskey to one side.
“So are you still going to go? To the city, I mean.”
“Yair, probably,” Jasper sniffs. “I bin thinkin about it. After this whole mess is sorted, I’ll head out. Not sure exactly where, though.”
“But doesn’t it seem too soon?” I ask. “You’re only a year older than me. We’re still kids, really. Don’t you want to wait?”
“Wait for what? And I haven’t ever felt like a kid, Charlie. You don’t unnerstand. I bin lookin after myself since I can remember. And that’s food, clothes, where I sleep, the whole lot. I tole you, it doesn’t matter how old you are. Everyone ages. Everyone can learn a trade and pay taxes and have a family. But that’s not growin up. It’s about how you act when your shit gets shaken up, it’s about how much you see around you. That’s what makes a man. And if I can do it here, in this town, I can do it anywhere, I reckon. What’s for me here, anyway? There’s no reason to stay. It’s a dead end, this.”
“I’m starting to feel the same,” I say. I flick a twig into the dam.
“So you do unnerstand. And don’t worry about me, mate. I can look after meself.”
“Oh yair,” I say. “Oh shit, yair. I know that.”
Jasper lights yet another cigarette.
“It won’t be for a while, anyway, I don’t reckon. Not until we can get enough on Mad Jack Lionel.”
“So you know for sure that it was him?”
“Dead set. I reckon so, Charlie.”
“How?” I lean forward, intrigued.
“Well, that’s what I bin wanting to tell you. See, I bin walkin past his house every night this week.”
“On your way to here?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“But isn’t that dangerous? Coming here while they’re searching?”
“Nah, not really. I only come here late at night. And it’s dead easy to slip the patrols. It’s no problems.”
“Right.”
“Right. Well, I tole you that every time I walked past that house, without fail—and I mean every time—Lionel would come out his front door and start yellin out at me. Waving, calling out my name. Or at least I think he was. I could never tell what he was saying, the house is too far away to hear proper.”
“Okay.” I nod.
“Well, it’s been the same as last week when we went there and waited by the gate, remember? Nuthin. Not a word. He hasn’t come out once. Maybe he’s skipped town, who knows? There’s no sign of him at all. And I bin there every night, waiting.”
“For what, though? What will you do?”
“Go in there. Talk to him. It’s not trespassing if he’s out the front, hollerin my name all over the place.” Jasper motions for me to pass him the whiskey.
“Surely you wouldn’t go in there!”
“Course I would. Why not?” Jasper frowns.
“Are you insane? It’s Jack Lionel! You don’t know what could happen!”
“Well, there’s only one way I’m gonna find out, Charlie. What’s the worst that can happen?” Jasper sucks at the bottle.
“What do you mean? I don’t know: a bullet?”
“Maybe. But I got to get to him somehow, right? I got to talk to him.”
“But it could all just be a coincidence, him suddenly being absent. There’s a big chance he’s got nothing to do with this at all.”
Jasper nods.
“Could be. You’re right. But I don’t reckon. I got a feeling, Charlie. It’s hard to explain. There’s somethin that links him into this. I just know it. And I got to talk to him. Think about it: for years he’s bin coming out that door, callin out my name. And I got to find out why. He’s seen Laura too. Seen me with her. And now, starting from that night, I haven’t seen him once. That in itself is worth investigatin, let alone what we already know about Mad Jack Lionel. That he’s killed before.”
Jasper sniffs and blows smoke out the side of his mouth. I fiddle with the buckle on my sandals.
“What do we even know about that, though?” I ask.
“We know the fact of it.”
“Do we, though? Who did he kill? And how? I mean, I don’t know, was he even convicted?”
“As good as.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that from what I’ve heard from my old man, he was lucky to escape the gallows. He only ever talked about him just the once. But I never seen him so worked up about somethin without being half drunk. He went wild. Says he should have bin locked up for what he done. Says he’s a waste of a living soul, that hell’s too good for him.”
“Christ,” I say. “I wonder what really happened.”
“So do I, Charlie. And that’s what I intend on findin out, among other things. I don’t know. See, what I bin thinking is, there’s every chance Laura might’ve bin walkin past Lionel’s property on her own that night. She might have bin tryin to find her way here by herself. And he took his chance. That’s what I reckon.”
“Why would she try to do that?”
Jasper shifts uncomfortably. Takes a long drag at his fag.
“Well, see, thing is, usually she’d just wait for me to come and get her. I’d come to her window of a night, then we’d come here. Or she’d creep out and meet me under one of them peppermint trees in their street. But some nights she got tired of waitin. And she’d come to my house, come lookin for me. And lately, over the last few months, she bin wanting to see me all the time. She wanted to come here every other day. Like she really dint ever want to be at home, you know.” Jasper crushes and pockets another expired cigarette. He scratches his neck and pulls at his nose. Fidgeting in a nervous way. I edge forward.
“But the truth is, Charlie, I hadn’t seen Laura for a bit. As I say, I’d bin out on the orchards picking the early stone fruit, trying to get some dough up for when we left. Thing is, I never told her, I just went. I knew she wouldn’t want me to leave her for so long, so I just went. It was stupid, but I just had to. Not only because I dint want to leave town with nuthin in my pockets, but I wanted to have som
e time for meself again. I was missing just bein here on my own. The way it always used to be. And with us sposed to be leavin soon and all, I dunno, I just wanted to be alone for a bit.” He shrugs.
“That’s okay,” I say. “I understand. I get like that.”
Jasper shakes his head and looks up. He breathes in deep.
“But the strange thing is, last Thursday night I came home, dog-tired, money in my pockets, and the first thing, I went out looking for Laura. I was worried about her, to tell you the truth. And I wanted to see her, I admit. I missed her. Thought about her the whole time I was away. So I went up to her window, like always, but she weren’t there. But I saw her window was open, so I shut it and went back to my house to see if she might be waitin for me. But I couldn’t find her. So I went lookin through town, down to the river, the same route we always took. Nuthin. And then, finally, I made it back here.”
“And then you found her,” I say. Jasper nods slowly.
“See, what I think might’ve happened is, she must’ve bin tryin to get here at the same time I was out looking for her. She probably got fed up waiting, and snuck out to try to make it out here on her own. That’s where she would have walked past Lionel’s place, see? That’s what I reckon, Charlie. That’s where it all went wrong, mate. I dunno. Maybe you’re right. Maybe she really did know the way here, or she was bullheaded enough to try. Maybe Lionel follered her. Or maybe Lionel had follered us both here one night, maybe he knew the way.”
I try to reason it through as Atticus Finch might. But it’s hard when Jasper seems so resigned to this scenario, as though he’s accepted it as truth. I shake my head. It’s too much for me. Jasper coughs and spits.
“And that’s where I fucked it up, Charlie. I left it too long, I should never have gone away without tellin her first. I should’ve seen her sooner; I should’ve written, at least. See, it don’t matter who done this”—and Jasper points up at the branch overhead. “Because it’s my fault. It’s my fault this happened.”
“But, Jasper,” I appeal, spreading my hands, “we don’t know what happened. That’s the thing.”
“We know what happened, Charlie. We just don’t know how. Or why.”
“Either way.” I shake my head. “There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. That’s absurd. It had nothing to do with you. It doesn’t matter what we find out. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this. Jasper, we don’t know anything. We don’t know if it was really Mad Jack Lionel. We don’t even know if Laura left her bedroom by herself. It’s just a story we’re telling ourselves.”
Jasper sighs.
“You’re not listening, Charlie. If I’d have bin with her, like I should’ve bin, this would never have happened.”
“Well, okay. But we don’t know that either. And that’s no way to look at things. That doesn’t make it your fault. The fact is, you weren’t to know. How could you? By that logic, every horrible world event would be your fault because you didn’t stop it. I don’t know. You should have warned Kennedy not to ride in a convertible.”
Jasper shakes his head. “It’s different. That’s not my fault, because them people never relied on me, like a family would. So I dint let them down. And I let Laura down. I should have come back sooner, or left her a letter. I should have known she would come here lookin for me. And that’s my fault, just like everythin that come after. I had a … a duty. To protect her. To help her.”
“Protect her? From what?”
“Nuthin. Forget it.” Jasper sniffs and sighs in a way that suggests he’s unwilling to talk anymore. He slides out another cigarette and, with a knitted brow, lights it.
It’s irksome. I get the sense he’s withholding something from me. I’m always a step removed. Eliza, Jasper, my father. I can wade through the dark, but I can only see as far as the guttering candle allows me.
All I know is the end, the part where I walked in. But the rest of the story, all the parts before it, is still just a litter of torn leaflets. It seems so helpless and hopeless. I’m so small and weak in the wake of all this, in its sinister ripples. I wonder if we will ever find out for certain. I wonder how much I should really stake in Jasper and his assertions. Of course, it’s an attractive notion: pinning it all on the town recluse with the shady history. But it seems so filled with coincidence and chance. It seems too convenient. Then again, maybe the simplest answer really is the most accurate. I wonder too if Jasper actually needs my help. Whether he came to my window looking for Atticus Finch or Tom Sawyer. A brain or an ally. Maybe both.
I don’t know.
We stay silent for a time. I don’t ask any more. I take on some more whiskey, though.
After a while, Jasper shuffles and looks up.
“You reckon they’ll get a man on the moon?”
“They say they can do it.”
“Seems impossible, don’t it?”
“Sure does,” I say. “We can’t even get to the bottom of the ocean, let alone all the way up to the moon.”
“I reckon they might, you know,” says Jasper, with a small smile and a shake of his head. “I reckon they’ll get there. Imagine it.”
“It’d be something,” I agree.
“You know, Charlie,” says Jasper, scratching at his calf, “I don’t get how people can look up at the moon and still reckon they’re the center of everythin. When I sit here sometimes and take it in, it makes me feel like I’m just the smallest piece of dust in the universe. Like I’m nuthin. It’s a lonely feeling, but it sort of makes me happy too.”
“How do you mean, the center of everything?”
“Laura once told me that they reckon that over a hundred billion people have lived and died on the earth, in the whole history of it. A hundred billion have come and gone and had lives before we even got here. You can’t even imagine it. But when you think about it, you realize you’re stupid to think that you’re the one who found this space here, that it’s your bit of the earth. Unless you’re the lucky bloke settin foot on the moon, I reckon people are fools to be claiming this or that for themselves, drawin lines and territory. Just like they’re fools to be thinkin that some big bearded bastard gives two shits how much money they throw in a tin tray or if they eat fish of a Friday. It’s all rubbish.”
“You’re talking about Catholics?”
“No, not just them, Charlie. But it’s some of it, yeah.”
I think about it. “Well, see, I think it’s that most people don’t like that lonely feeling. People don’t like looking up and feeling small or lost. That’s what I think prayer is all about. It doesn’t matter which stories they believe in, they’re all doing that same thing, kind of casting a line out to outer space, like there’s something out there to connect to. It’s like people make themselves part of something bigger that way, and maybe it makes them less afraid.”
“Do you do it, then?” Jasper looks at me quizzically.
“Me? No. Course not. I’m a speck of dust like you.”
“Does it make you sad?”
“Sometimes, I guess. I mean, it’s bleak to think about.”
“Like an empty feelin.”
“Right. I guess it must be comforting to actually believe in God and Jesus and all that. It must fill in all that space so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. But it’s a bit like closing a door when there’s a cold draft, isn’t it? It’s still cold out there, it’s just that you don’t notice anymore because you’re warm.”
“Exactly,” Jasper agrees.
“But all that stuff has never worked for me anyway. I’ve listened to Gooseberry and read bits of the Bible and all. But there are too many holes and gaps and slippery bits that I can’t get past, and I just keep thinking about them. I have too many questions along the way for any of it to stick to me. It just hasn’t ever made any sense. Sometimes I wish it would, though, just so I don’t have to feel so tiny.”
“But that’s not so bad, Charlie. Take it from me. I bin made to feel small all my life. I’m used to
it. And all it’s ever done is made me want to fill it up meself, you know? To do big things. That’s the good thing about havin nuthin to lose. There’s no use havin a cry about it. And if this is all you believe in, this time and place here, then you’re not likely to waste it, are you?”
“Makes sense,” I say.
Jasper nods slowly. He coughs and flicks ash into the dam and presses on.
“Somethink else I could never understand,” he says, “is how people, ages ago, could look up at the moon and still reckon the world was flat. Flat, Charlie. See, that’s what I mean by people thinkin they’re the center of things. Everythin comes back to what they could see. Nobody ever thought they might be a small cog in a bigger engine, just one of those billion little balls spinning through space. Everyone was convinced it was orbiting round them, not the other way round. It’s crazy. Like they were living in the middle of one of them snow domes. You know, the ones you’re supposed to shake up.”
I nod. “I know the ones, yeah.”
“You see what I’m saying?” Jasper asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. You know, in India they believed the world was a big flat board that was carried on the back of a turtle.”
Jasper smiles. “Bullshit,” he says.
“I’m serious. A turtle.”
“Bollocks, Charlie, I don’t believe you. That’s the grog talkin. A giant space turtle? That’s what you’re tellin me.”
We’re both laughing.
“That’s right. The earth is a big biscuit, and we’re on the back of a turtle. Shooting for the moon.”
“That’s crazy.” Jasper shakes his head.
“You’re right, though. People just kind of used what they saw around them, and made it up from there. And you can’t really blame them for trying to make sense of it. It’s when you know better and still believe it, that’s when there’s a problem, I think. Have you ever heard of Easter Island?”
Jasper Jones Page 16
