by Nate Allen
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COPYRIGHT © 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62347-554-3
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Dedications
To my father, for instilling in me the belief that I had a purpose;
To my brother, for believing in me when I had self-doubt;
To my son, for his inspiration and reminding me the only difference between believing and doing is trying;
To my nephew, for his audience, encouragement …and letting me know when “doing” became done.
Acknowledgements
To my 10th grade English teacher Mrs. “A” for suggesting I might be incapable of writing anything of substance, and in the process letting me know that I could.
To my 12th grade English teacher Mrs. “G” for providing me a place to be creative when I needed to be someone other than myself, and letting me discover that you have to “crawl” before you can run.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: SYNCHRONICITY
CHAPTER 2: FIRE ALARM
CHAPTER 3: THE MECHANICAL RABBIT
CHAPTER 4: HEDERA HELIX
CHAPTER 5: LOSE YOURSELF
CHAPTER 6: ADAM AND EVE
CHAPTER 7: ESCAPE
CHAPTER 8: LOVE REMOVAL MACHINE
CHAPTER 9: POCKETFUL OF SALT
CHAPTER 10: PSYCHOLOGICAL WEEDING
CHAPTER 11: A CRIMINAL CONVERSATION
CHAPTER 12: A STORM IN A TEACUP
CHAPTER 13: A LIMA BEAN IN A DIXIE CUP
CHAPTER 14: THE EIGHTEEN PERCENT DILEMMA
CHAPTER 15: WHEN THE DEVIL BEAT HIS WIFE
CHAPTER 16: MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCE
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CHAPTER 1
SYNCHRONICITY
In the 1920’s Psychoanalyst Carl Jung coined a phrase, “Synchronicity.” To sum up the use and appreciation of the term here, the expression “meaningful coincidence” seems to capture the essence. In a world where we spend much of our time and energy searching for meaning in things where none exists, sometimes, quite serendipitously, we conversely find meaning, be it good or bad, in things that at first glance seem to be “meaningless.” Whether you wish to call it “destiny,” “fate,” or mere “chance,” the truth is that at the end of our days, perhaps some of the most significant occurrences, moments, and relationships in our lives are nothing more than just a matter of timing, a consequence of being in a certain place at a certain time …synchronicity, as it were, or “meaningful coincidence” as the case may be.
To the people who knew him best, Jacob Garris Arnett was a smart, honest, dependable and caring man. An underemployed yet hardworking conscientious and trustworthy fellow with character, a loving devoted father, and friend… The kind of man you could leave your wife and kids with …and to be sure he was all of those things. But there was another side to him as well, the “yin” to that “yang” which was not clearly visible, nor entirely yet developed or revealed to himself even, which was capable of jealousy, deception, vengeance, and …obsession. Things which were entirely unthinkable and contrary to his conscious self and the man he thought himself to be, contrary to the image of the man whom he wanted to be seen as, and yet, as we all are, he was just a work in progress and malleable …and as time would reveal, the people who thought they knew him best, didn’t know him as well as they thought.
He was on an upward swing in his life when he met her, having recently returned from an adventure abroad, the intended goal of which had not been accomplished, but the attempt itself had proven to be quite beneficial for him. In many ways, over the course of a life, failure often proves to be a much better teacher than success, and out of it many things can be learned, suffice it to say he’d had the opportunity to learn much in his life, better to have tried and failed, he thought, than never to have tried at all.
Generally speaking, it was a time when most of the things in his life were going quite well, family, work, women. For a man of forty-five he was literally in the best shape of his life, and it showed. When he walked into a room, people took notice, the women …for the reasons women take notice, but the men as well, after all, it is the nature of the beast to size up the competition and measure oneself against it, and he represented a level of competition. Upon close examination he was not a pretty man, his flaws were many, and yet he wore them well. If scars are the sign of a man of character, willing to fight for what he believes, then he resembled such a man. A faint crescent shaped indentation under his left eye, from the ring of a man who had long since died of unnatural causes bore testament to the fact. To be certain, it was not the individual aspects of him that could be dissected and appreciated or admired, but the “whole” of him as it were, from a physical standpoint, was more impressive than the sum of the individual parts. At 6ft, 192 lbs, he had the profile of a man who looked like he could be a handful if called upon, and he knew it. At a time when many of his peers were having mid-life crises, he was quietly, unbeknownst to anyone, having a mid-life “free-for-all,” on a roll, ladies and lust in relative abundance as it were …having the time of his life.
She, on the other hand, was on an admitted and self-proclaimed downward swing in her life. Stuck in a seemingly stale marriage that had unnoticeably and unremarkably morphed from love into what can best be described as a necessary friendship, with three children years from leaving the nest. The growing disappointments of a life full of promise which seemed now stifled and unfulfilled, she felt as a prisoner to her perceived happiness, and the charade of it all, the weight and burden of which had left her with understandable bouts of depression, at times just short of what seemed like an inevitable nervous breakdown, but, to her credit, short of it nonetheless. On the surface hers’ was a story which was unfortunately not atypical of many a woman in mid-life, or a Dr. Phil episode for that matter, but as time would tell, there was absolutely nothing typical about Rae Anne Johnston beyond the appearance of things. If she’d been asked she would probably have described it very simply and succinctly as her “needs were not being met, and that was causing her some issues.” Issues she was seeking to resolve, and which would give rise to this story. To lend some perspective and orientation to this picture, a legend to the map so to speak of this journey, at its onset they were going in opposite directions, one heading up, one going down …and for a time, a time that would prove to be one of the most emotionally gratifying and yet painful of his life, they were stuck on the proverbial elevator of life together. This is a recounting of what followed.
It was a Saturday night in late October, a couple of days before Halloween, a beautiful time in North Carolina. Jake was making what had become a twice monthly pilgrimage from Franklin County to Raleigh because …quite simply, there was nothing to do, no nightlife to speak of in Franklin County aside from a couple of local haunts, which were over-fished and the patrons too familiar. Franklin County was in no short measure a great place to raise a child, an increasingly popular rural bedroom community adjacent to Raleigh and Wake County that was growing out of the sheer fact that Raleigh had become too expensive for most working class families to live in it. Beyond that, it was not a particularly great place to be a divorced middle-aged man, it literally seemed as if the only single women there were either living with their parents …or collecting Social Security.
Over the course of the past year, he had begun to venture out with more frequency. His role as parent had hit a level point, his ex-wife was at a good place in her life, and the custody situation of their son had balance and routine to it, affording him the opportunity to get out a bit more socially. Being the capital of North Carolina, Raleigh to many represented the face of the burgeoning “New South” and as such it offered a fair amount of variety for nightlife. As the population of th
e area had continued to boom, so had the choices, though to be fair and accurate, it was still at heart a college town and yuppie destination, and the slice of that pie which was geared towards adults in their 30’s, 40’s and beyond left something to be desired. Over the course of that time he had sampled nearly everything it had to offer with varying degrees of success, but had eventually become something of a regular, shameful as that sounds, at a couple of places. One in particular called Leon’s.
It was a surprisingly eclectic establishment, offering great food, good music via a local band or DJ on the weekends and what he likened to a Playboy mansion-esque atmosphere, sans pajamas, of casualness and intent. The structure itself resembled something between a scaled down replica of a southern plantation house, and the stereotypical upper middle-class North Raleigh home on steroids, nestled unnoticeably on a wooded corner lot beside a day-care and a quarter mile from elementary and middle schools. It was unique in the nightscape of the area because of the coziness, wide range of ages, incomes and backgrounds, all very comfortably mingling and mixing together. People came there knowing this, and perhaps more importantly because of it. Always a diverse crowd ranging from people in their 20’s to people in their 60’s. Executives, executive-wannabe office types, blue-collar folks like himself, college students and a biker contingent all frequented the place, each respectful of the other, and crossbreeding like primitive tribes.
It was also logistically speaking the closest nightclub one encountered coming from where he lived, and proximity had its value and importance, driving late at night was always a concern and consideration, especially when traveling through an über policed town like Wake Forest. This particular evening like any other, Jake strolled in through the lobby and dining room into the tavern area, glancing around the room to see what the night had to offer in terms of ladies, and yes, making note of the ratio. It was by all accounts a good night to be there, the place was lively and loud, and the numbers were in his favor. He had not even made his way to the bar when he first noticed her, sitting tucked away in the corner with several of her girlfriends.
She had not dressed to go clubbing, or gotten “dolled-up” as it were, but modestly, like on a girls’ night out, as it in fact turned out to be. She was a spectator to the human game of chess at hand, and his entrance had not gone unnoticed by her. While she sat there giving the appearance of listening to her girlfriends’ idle chat, her eyes and a wry smile fell on him, not in an overtly flirtatious “come hither” or inviting way, but more likely as though she were unconscious and unaware of it. He sized her up as men routinely do, she was attractive, very attractive, but it took a discriminating eye to recognize it. Not because it was a subjective beauty, but on this outing disguised, subtle and downplayed, not unlike the understated schoolmarm in a Van Halen “Hot For Teacher” video. He thought she looked ready to bloom.
She was wearing comfortable clothes, which he would later learn, didn’t do her voluptuous figure any justice whatsoever. He was wearing a long sleeve thermal shirt that served its purpose on the autumn eve, yet intentionally revealed a hint of the chassis he had built beneath it, faded jeans and a pair of sixteen year-old sharkskin boots that fit his mood on this occasion.
If “All the world’s a stage and we are merely players…” then nightclubs are its “improv,” countless dramas, comedies and one-act tragedies simultaneously playing out all at once, complete with the ever popular impersonations, people either pretending to be someone they’re not, or who they think someone wants them to be on any given evening, all in the name of lust and hopes of getting laid, and everywhere critics. Leon’s had no shortage of “characters.”
It had been a long hard week, as a self-employed landscaper, the fall is a busy time, aerating, seeding, and fertilizing are hard but necessary work before the onslaught of leaves makes the work impossible and takes a precedence all its own, and this year in late October, there was an increased sense of urgency to get the one done before the other occurred. It had been a dry year, unusually dry, and the leaves had turned colors early and in doing so, shown their intentions of falling early as well. It was a time when he was still cutting grass, and yet doubled with the task of sowing the same thirty lawns so that his customers would have need of his services come spring. It was laborious, and he sometimes enlisted the help of day laborers that could be found at an unofficial, yet well known labor drop-off point near Cabarrus Street on the fringe of southwest downtown Raleigh, just blocks from the Municipal Building, the Amtrak station stood as a backdrop to what often sadly looked like a modern day Hoover-ville.
Raleigh had experienced enormous growth the previous decade, and continued to. It was the type of growth that other areas of the country had to be envious of, but it had not been a universal prosperity. To those native to the area like himself it had seemed destined to, the proximity to three major universities and diverse research institutions, the World-renowned Research Triangle Park that they collectively fed and had given rise to, an educated workforce, combined with a temperate climate, and location, location, location. Mountains to the west, the Atlantic to the east it was naturally beautiful.
North Carolina, as one of the original colonies was steeped in history and tradition, and yet it was in many ways not unlike the image of Mayberry that The Andy Griffith Show had painted it to be, Raleigh seemed like the world’s biggest small town, with growing pangs and aspirations and apparently there were signs all over the country pointing toward it, RALEIGH, NC 2342 MI, etc.
The northeast must have been littered with them, NY, NJ, PA, Ohio, and the list goes on and on, or so the license plates on the beltline would indicate. No state was safe from Raleigh and the Triangle area extending a welcoming hand. Rest assured, it’s true that you can’t keep a good thing secret, and Raleigh and North Carolina had historically been the country cousin that other more metropolitan areas had not taken seriously, a place visited on vacation, but not invited to the table at the big house so to speak.
It had not happened overnight, but had been long in the making, life in the South has historically been slow, and while it was quickly picking up pace, it was largely of our own design and architecture. The tenets of what had made the area unique remained in place, and as a southerner, patience, while unnatural to humans in general, was part of the culture. Things didn’t always get done when you wanted them to, but they got done. The area had waited its turn, and was now getting a lot of national recognition, and happily welcomed the unemployed looking for opportunity, the wealthy looking for continued prosperity… (And to show us how its properly done,) the middle-class Northern Urbanites looking for greener grass, or at least some patch of it, and the retirees looking for a comfortable alternative to Florida, Arizona, etc., to spend their golden years. All willing and able to pay their taxes, spend their disposable income, feed the local economy, etc. And to be sure, once the migration had begun, there was no shutting the door.
The continued acclaim became a priority and monster fueling itself. The City Administration seemed to have an obvious and undeniable “pissing contest” with its regional neighbors, Richmond, Charlotte, even Hot’lanta. And its propaganda-publicity campaign had worked, almost too well, to the point the growth was on the verge of exceeding the infrastructure necessary to sustain it. In reality the majority of the companies that came, brought employees with them, and the really “good” jobs they created, were of a high-tech nature that folks like Jake were not qualified for, nor could directly benefit from, only indirectly as unskilled entry level jobs in their plants and facilities or by result of the construction itself, building their homes, or like he, mowing their yards and landscaping their upscale lawns. It was a time when artisans and tradesmen prospered, plumbers, carpenters, painters and the like, made a slew of money and fallow tobacco fields took on romantic names as new neighborhoods and million dollar subdivisions, the previously land-rich/cash poor became new players in the local economy.
After a particularly strenuous wee
k, he was too exhausted to put on any “airs” when heading out. It was an occasion that provided a fair and accurate representation of him, genuine and unpretentious, and I am certain that was of some importance as to what would later transpire. Like her, there was nothing typical about the man, beyond the physical outline of him and the simple initial assessment, he was a complex contradiction, like that curious item at a yard sale that you keep revisiting and examining, trying to make sense of and determine its value and worth. There was more to him than meets the eye …mostly in a good way, though unknowable future events might require some amendments to his personal constitution.
He had played many roles in his time before deliberately heading down this difficult, wonderful, yet narrow path he now called his life, and in the process pissed away more opportunities than most individuals get in a lifetime, but tonight he was simply a man looking to get lucky, and she wasn’t getting up from her perch, and he wasn’t about to intrude, so upon finishing his beverage he proceeded to the dance area, to the chessboard so to speak, to participate in the game at hand.
As the night progressed and closing approached he found himself in the company of two women in their 30’s, one attractive, one not so attractive. The attractive one he had met months before, her name was Lisa, or Leslie? …and that in its entirety was all he knew about her, except as he recalled, she sometimes hiccupped when she giggled. He had nearly sealed the deal with her when her less attractive friends saved her from his lecherous intentions. He had later wondered if she hiccupped at other inopportune times, and tonight thought he might solve that mystery. She had brought along her equally amorous friend Grace, that name he was certain of, as he couldn’t help but notice her lack of it, and the three of them were moving around on a sparsely occupied dance floor, like they were all ready to get naked and jump in a pile.