Adventures of Jacko the Conjurer
Page 1
Adventures of Jacko the Conjurer
Red Skies Blue Skies
Volume I
By Jamie Ott
opyright. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used without written permission, except for where credit duly given.
Black Crowe Publishers: an imprint of Passionate Prose Industries
ISBN-13: 978-0615517124
ISBN-10: 0615517129
For all inquiries, please contact passionateprose@mail.com.
Flight
Chapter 1
By her own hand, Jacko’s mother had been dead for several years. He lived with his father, John, whom the boy hated with every fiber of his being. Although, on one hand, he missed his mother, he also hated her, too. She abandoned and left him to deal with his father and “friend,” as he called her. They thought he was stupid and didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t. Just because she managed to leave before he was awake, or stay hidden until he was away at school, didn’t mean he didn’t know she was there all night.
Jacko lay in bed and listened in disgust to the giggling on the other side of the wall. He moaned loudly and slammed his pillow over his head as he rolled over onto his belly. He couldn’t relax with the creaking sound of the bed in the next room tapping, repeatedly, and sending vibrations into the wall. It was bad enough that they were together but did they have to rub it in? Were they trying to drive him crazy?
Violently, he shot up from his bed. He stomped to the door, which he slammed into the wall. Without knocking, he opened his father’s door and slammed that into the wall, too. His father, John, and his “friend” Anna jumped to their sides of the bed while trying to cover up. Jacko yelled, “Shut up! I can hear everything you two do through the wall! I’m sick of it!” He rammed the door shut and went back to his room.
The floor rumbled under the force of his feet as he walked back to his bed where he heavily plopped his body. The metal frame bounced back and forth off the wall. His father opened Jacko’s door, entered the room calmly, and gently closed the door, again. Jacko remained with his face buried in his pillow and readied himself for his father’s backlash.
He walked to the bed and yanked his head up with a fistful of hair. Jacko tried to resist, but his father was much stronger. John pulled his head back and then gave him a powerful red welt across the face. In a low voice, he said, “You ever do that again and I will beat the crap outta you.” John slammed his face down, hard into the pillow and went back to his room.
The tapping against the wall resumed. Jacko screamed into his pillow but it didn’t help. He tried to go back to sleep, but the tapping continued. With each tap, Jacko grew angrier and angrier. He imagined shooting his father and Anna, right as they lay in bed, together. Next, he fantasized about shooting himself in the head. Finally, he rolled over onto his back and screamed so loud that the neighbors could have heard, “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMOOOOOORE!!”
Jacko jumped out of bed, grabbed his air rifle and loaded it with pellets. His father stumbled angrily back into his room. He looked up in time to see his father’s face, red with rage, as he made to rush Jacko. Only, this time, he wasn’t going to let his father beat him. This time he quickly pointed the rifle and shot multiple pellets at him.
His father yelped like a dog as he jumped back. He stopped shooting, so his father would have a chance to leave the room. Instead, John and Jacko’s eyes met for second, and then he made to rush him, again. Jacko sent another round of pellets at him. John jumped up and down as he jerked his body about the room like chicken in a cock fight. The pellets hit him ferociously in the chest and thighs with one getting him square in the crotch. John, finally, turned to leave the room and Jacko shot multiple pellets at his back side as he ran out.
Jacko wouldn’t have much time for escape, so he rushed into his jeans, a sweater, and a jacket. Immediately, he packed a change of clothes into his red backpack. Next, he grabbed his laptop bag, threw in his cell phone, wallet, and keys. He raised his rifle, slowly opened the door and exited the way he’d seen it done on television.
Slowly, he opened the door with his gun raised skyward as he peaked his head out. He looked left and right and, upon seeing that all was clear, walked quickly into the hallway with his rifle pointed outward. Jacko scanned the area and then made his way, carefully, to the stairwell.
He walked slowly downstairs where, as he stepped off the last step, and onto the landing, he spotted his father on the phone. Jacko assumed he was talking with the police, as they had been through similar violent scenarios before that night. John always ended up calling the cops, who always took his father’s side of all their disputes.
They looked at each other; his eyes shifted down to the rifle and back up to Jacko’s face. John, gently, hung up the phone. Innocently, John lifted his eyebrows as he walked toward him, trying to emanate a calm yet concerned look with his face. John opened his arms and held them out in a welcome, hug-like gesture, as though trying to convince Jacko, through body language, that all was fine. His father stepped a few paces closer to Jacko, and then charged him like a bull. He made it outside the door in time to hear his father ram himself into the coat rack nailed to the wall behind the door.
Jacko hopped onto his black 250cc scooter and rode off without looking back.
“Get your ASS back here!” Jacko heard as he sped off.
Several police cars turned onto his street as he approached stop signs at the end of his block. He knew they must be headed for his home, but Jacko remained calm as he looked both ways before making a left onto the other street. Nothing mattered to Jacko, anymore, because he was determined never to look back on the town with the father that let him down in so many ways.