“Well, hello there,” he droned in a low, gruff, thick Charleston accent, the gray Henley stretching over broad, sinewy forearms Jessie thought could rip a tree apart. Slowly, he took a long draw from the damaged earthenware mug so that as Jessie looked at him all she could see across the room were two dark, beady eyes peering out seductively from behind and over the rim. Something about the man made her shiver. Rachel had brought lousy men home before, but there was something intuitively creepy about this one. Jessie hugged her guitar tighter against her chest, as if it could cover up her body, because she saw how men leered at her over the years, undressing her with their eyes, and somehow she figured her dad – the guitar - would offer a layer of protection.
Rachel wandered listlessly - laughing, naked - out of the bedroom, eyes glassy and unfocused. She was smoking weed, which the three comrades long ago agreed would not have a presence in their little sanctuary from the world. Instantly, Jessie was even more on guard. It wasn’t like Rachel to break the rules. What she didn’t know was that Rachel was feeling more and more lonely as the months passed and she watched Jessie and Sandy meld more deeply into each other. In fact, Rachel was feeling so down, so blue, that she was easy prey to the likes of Deuce McCall.
A little breeze from the open kitchen window, which was framed with delicate white cotton panel curtains, tried wistfully to usher the last of the day’s sunlight onto the cushion floor. As the curtains wafted gently like angel wings just out of reach, Rachel quivered. Deuce set down the mug with a bang and a splash, and then heartlessly yanked the window closed. As he turned back to the girls with a twisted grin, Jessie felt the air suddenly get sucked out of the room. It was as if a cloud descended upon them and snatched the angel wings away; now the curtain panels hung lifeless. Taunting, the older man picked up the mug again, then wrapped an arm around Rachel.
“We’re…ce-le-bra-tin’,” Rachel intoned slowly to Jessie in her childish singsong voice, pronouncing each syllable with extra care as if she were in fear of falling asleep while talking. “Deuce here… has just opened… a new nightclub… he’s offered us all…jobs!”
With intoxicated glee, Rachel thrust out her hand and grabbed the mug from Deuce. She took a big slurp and, making a face, crossed her eyes.
That ain’t coffee in that mug, thought Jessie.
She was less than impressed, and screwed up her face to prove it. She glared at Rachel, and then at Deuce. Reflexively, she shuddered.
Six months later, Jessie was on her way out of Charleston, heading for as far away as she figured she could get. Once again she had her dad’s guitar, barely, and her knapsack filled with a few simple necessaries, including her broken, damaged teddy bear, which had perched happily on her and Sandy’s bed for the last few years. She was eighteen years old, alone, shell shocked, and well beyond repair. Deuce McCall’s presence in their tough young lives did irreparable damage. Jessie’s heart was shattered, her eyes were liquid pools of pain, and for the next few weeks she walked with a limp.
But she had her father’s 1985 Gibson J-45, and a deep resource of burning, buried emotion from which to write her songs. She was a walking ghost, a war victim from an unseen war fought on North American soil. But she was Jessie – a survivor, whether she thought so or not.
And, somewhere deep inside, she was still alive.
***
Chapter Two
Josh. Well. Sandy would never be replaced – he was her first love, her soul mate, and the man she planned to marry. There was a time she believed Sandy would be holding her hand on a front porch rocker until her walk on planet earth was done. After Sandy, Jessie had no desire to ever sit in the presence of another man she cared about. She thought that part of her was dead. She thought wrong.
When Jessie first arrived in Vancouver, just another homeless kid on the Downtown Eastside, she survived the only way she knew how – through music. She remembered little else, although those were dark days often devoid of light. She would later have fuzzy recollections of amorphous people taking her in when she got sick, of getting hired to work in a black box studio, of touching she didn’t always welcome. But the memories were unclear, as if her mind just shut itself off.
About two years after Jessie set up camp on East Hastings in downtown Vancouver, her destiny suddenly changed. She had left the vague shapes in the black box studio behind at some point a few months earlier, although she couldn’t recall exactly when or why, and she was now relying on her music to bring in enough dollars to eke out an existence.
On a grey foggy early summer morning, with buzzing seaplanes providing a cozy backdrop down the hill in Burrard Inlet, she opened the stickered old Gibson case and lifted out her dad’s guitar. Straightening, Jessie positioned it over her shoulder, and then found herself staring into the kind eyes of a distinguished older man she recognized.
Jack Deacon strolled past Jessie every day while she busked on the sidewalks. He surmised she was living on the streets, although her eyes were clear, intelligent – sad. Watching her closely as she strummed on the Gibson and softly sang, he was often compelled to stop and cock an ear in order to distinguish her music from the constant cacophony of roaring cars and buses on Hastings Street. On this particular cool drizzly day, after watching Jessie and figuring in the past weeks he had given her enough money to buy pizza for a few months, the small statured man with the wavy dark hair and big heart lingered and stared at her, questioning, curious.
He took a few steps and then stopped and wandered back. There was something about the girl’s eyes that intrigued him. They were ice blue, and almost hidden behind stray locks of her long auburn-tinted brown hair. But they were intense, bright.
“Are those your songs?” he inquired curiously, his low voice confident, mellifluous.
Jessie knew who he was – he was a famous actor. Everyone knew who he was, or else they’d been living under a rock. She wondered absently why he cared to ask.
“Yes,” she said.
“You…write the lyrics? The melodies?” He wanted to be really sure.
“Yes,” she replied, eyeing her scuffed flip-flops and dirty toes.
He pondered her for a bit, then gestured forward and said, “Come with me.”
Jessie looked up and met his gaze. Her steely blue eyes unnerved him, but in a compassionate way.
Jessie shored up her body and faced him head on. Sure, he was a celebrity, but he was also a man, and men were not on her good side. Famous ones are likely even worse than most, she thought. Out for a free fuck. Or maybe a paid one, she thought bitterly, but somehow hopefully. It was a slack week. She’d love a good steak, a big bite of protein to keep her engine running. She wasn’t afraid of bartering for sex, hell, she’d lived most of the last eight years that way, with the exception of a serene and beautiful time with Sandy. She looked away.
Jack saw a change come over her face, her eyes. Something uncalled for had made its way to the surface. Something unbidden was hidden in this pretty girl’s depths, and had suddenly clawed its way into her memory. In later years the kindly Jack would see that less and less from Jessie, but still – there were difficult memories buried in the girl’s heart, and Jack knew from experience that such thoughts generally never really went away. Jack’s heart ached for - what? He didn’t know. But he felt compelled.
He reached out his arm and gestured for her to follow. The movement caused her to glimpse his way again.
Steak…mmm…and he is clean and nice looking, so the task at hand would likely be manageable, maybe even pleasurable if I let myself focus on it for a change. He seemed like a kind man, as nice as she figured a man could get, at least. His eyes were gentle.
Jessie replaced the Gibson in the guitar case as Jack watched. He pictured his wife Lydia shaking her head at him and smiling knowingly, saying, “Jack, you know you can’t save them all,” but he also knew that was one of the reasons she loved him and that helped them stay together all these years. He cared about people, and he still held out
hope that one day he could save at least one of Vancouver’s numerous homeless. Little did he know just how entrenched this girl would become in his family’s life, in his son’s life, and in the eyes and hearts and minds of people all over the world.
Jack reached for Jessie’s guitar case but she white knuckled it and wouldn’t let go. He shrugged. “Have it your way.” He started down the road, gesturing for her to follow. Behind him, she hesitated.
“I’m one of the good guys, I swear,” he tried to assure her, throwing up his hands in surrender.
Like a puppy, Jessie followed him, reluctantly trudging down the road behind the famous man. She wondered where it was he went each morning in this neighborhood that a man of his class would be sure to consider sketchy, a harbinger of darkness and despondency.
Jack led Jessie to a transparent glassed-in space a few blocks away, turning every twenty feet or so to see if she was still following. As he held open the door, she recognized some of the more colorful personalities from the neighborhood lingering outside, puffing on cigarettes and sipping steaming cups of take-out coffee.
“Yo Jack, you is late this morning.” A grizzled fifty-something ebony-skinned man Jessie knew as Nate welcomed them.
“Lydia insisted I talk to Charlie before I left. She asked me to try to talk some sense into him.”
“I’d be givin’ up on that one, Jackie boy. You know the old saying, something about not changing spots…”
Jack grimaced. “He’s young yet. Twenty-three. He’ll figure it out. Nate, this is…,” He turned back to face Jessie, who was lingering ten feet behind Jack clutching the Gibson case as if it were her watchdog, or perhaps a brick wall. His eyebrows crinkled together. “What’s your name?”
Guarded, Jessie glanced from Jack to Nate, then she let her eyes roam around to the few other stragglers wolfing down their last gulps of caffeine on this misty day. A poster taped crookedly to the plate glass caught her gaze. Her eyes narrowed.
Downtown Eastside Summer Acting Workshops
In smaller letters below, Jack’s connection was affirmed.
Sponsored by the Deacon Foundation
Jack wheeled around to see where the sad eyes landed. Shifting his stance, he faced her again.
“Acting. Yes. I figure a girl like you who likes to tell stories through song might feel the same way about doing it in a play. You might make some new friends.”
“Free coffee,” Nate tossed in, raising his paper cup in a toast.
They waited while Jessie pondered her options. Expressionless, she studied photographs of laughing actors on the poster. Anxious to fill in the silence, Nate spoke quietly to Jack.
“Forget about that one, Jack. She don’t speak. None of us talked a word with her the whole time she been living on East Hastings. Not even Arnie, who takes her in when it’s asskettle freezing. She ain’t worth your money.”
“I’ll decide if she’s worth my money.” Jack grimaced, staring Jessie down. This time, her eyes didn’t waver from his. He was issuing her a challenge. “Besides,” he added, “I’ve heard her speak. In song. She actually has a lot to say.”
Jessie blinked and inhaled slightly.
Ah, thought Jack. Got the girl’s attention.
“Your time, your trouble,” Nate shrugged, and then he tipped a finger to his knitted toque, nodded to Jessie, and stepped inside. Jack leaned against the door as some of the others waded inside as well, clapping the actor companionably on the shoulder as they walked by.
“So,” Jack offered when he and Jessie were alone, “the way I see it, you’ve got two choices. Either step inside, drink some free coffee and have a few laughs, or go back to singing alone on the street. The workshop fee is paid; I’m willing to give you what you would make from busking.”
Cocking her head, Jessie asked almost inaudibly, “What’s in it for you?” Because, in her experience, men almost always had ulterior motives.
“I get to see people having fun, a few laughs.” He paused. Soberly he added, “I don’t need anything else. I’ve got a wife I actually enjoy going home to.”
They stared each other down for another minute before Jessie shrugged a wary okay. Somewhere in her deeply buried heart she ached for a release of some kind. But she couldn’t find it on her own. She couldn’t dredge up the energy for change. Jack’s kind eyes, and Nate’s obvious trust of him, were bow lines pulling her to some kind of distant shore. She felt that intuitively, and it compelled her to walk past Jack and in through the glass door.
On some level, somewhere along the way, the acting workshops had become a chore to Jack. Sure, they were important, a good charitable endeavor that he mostly hired other people to run. But the homeless people who attended were often jacked up on something, had little or no talent and, although he found himself somewhat attached to a few of them, like Nate, he hadn’t found anyone who really compelled him to go the extra mile to develop as actors. Now this girl…she was scruffy and dirty, apparently angry as hell at the world, and searingly quiet and intense. But there was something about those eyes.
As she passed Jack, shrinking her body away so as not to touch him or risk being touched in return, Jessie heard his low voice from behind.
“So, what is it?”
“What?” Jessie whispered quietly, twisting her body slightly to see him, but aiming her eyes at his feet.
“Your name.”
She took her time before responding. On some level, it felt like giving this man her name would be like handing over her life which, in some ways, she did that day.
Her eyes slowly travelling upwards to meet his once again, Jessie felt her body exhale. Her shoulders drooped.
Reflected in Jack’s eyes was a girl exhausted from the effort of trying to survive. His heart leapt. He was already forming sentences in his head to introduce her to his wife of many years, Lydia, and his celebrity playboy son, Charlie.
From between the quiet pink lips came a whispered voice, a depleted hushed tone filled with despair but arching upwards, like a rainbow, towards hope. “Jessie.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Jessie.” He gestured towards a circular grouping of plastic orange chairs where people were starting to gather, effusively shaking hands as they welcomed each other to another day of acting lessons on the Downtown Eastside. “Have a seat.”
***
Jessie admitted to herself almost right from the start that she liked acting almost as much as playing her music. The workshops were structured and organized. They covered history and theory - Meisner and Stanislavsky, amongst others. The class watched films and studied the directing and the acting. Jessie was captivated by the art of Charlie Chaplin and the physical genius of Buster Keaton. She learned to react instead of act, and her quiet demeanor gave her the patience to indulge the lesser talented folks in the class as she ached to have her turn on stage, fearful though she was at times.
Over the weeks of the school, Jack showed up more and more often as the light seemed to glow a little brighter in the girl’s eyes. He was drawn to her, as sand to the wind, and he drove his family nuts as he increasingly talked about her over the dinner table. His wife was glad, as she had intuited her husband’s slight withdrawal from the workshops – she knew he was bored. She was relieved that he found ‘a cause’, for that’s what Jessie seemed to be, to her.
Charlie was another story. His success started in his teen years; now, he often dropped in home for dinner when he wasn’t on a film somewhere. He had a succession of women in his life, and wasn’t particularly interested in an enduring relationship with any of them. He’d recently opened his first bar, the upscale Charlie’s Club, and he was rather taken up with the running of the place. All this talk about some Jessie girl was driving him insane, and he refused to go down to the workshops at his father’s request to see her, partly because he laughed off the fact that any homeless girl could possibly kick a life on the streets, no matter how talented, and partly because he was a little afraid to go down there. Aft
er all, he was the famous Charlie Deacon, good looking and well liked, no matter how much of a playboy he turned out to be. It would be risky going down to the dangerous and unpredictable Eastside, even in the bright sunlight.
But one day his father insisted, and hired security to attend his famous son. Down they went to the Eastside workshops, where Jack was pleased to see Jessie quietly smiling as she listened to Nate defend himself in a friendly argument.
When Charlie entered nervously in the shadow of his bodyguard, Jessie was slightly surprised to see him. The others occasionally talked about him but no one seriously expected Charlie to ever show up ‘in the slums’, as they called their downtrodden, drug-infested neighborhood. Yet here he was in the flesh, all five foot ten famous goodness of him.
Sizing him up, Jessie stayed in the background as her co-actors fawned over Jack’s son. He was taller than she pictured from his movies, good looking with dark close-cropped hair, friendly, humorous eyes and an athletic slim body. Jeans and a button up blue checked shirt with a white T-shirt underneath gave assurances to the group that he was a casual kind of guy, although the Rolex watch peeking out from beneath his folded back cuff hinted otherwise. Yet he was friendly, magnetic, approachable.
Charlie yanked an empty chair out from the circle, twisted it around and sat reversed on it, folding his arms over the backrest. He jumped into Nate’s argument immediately.
“What’s all this?” he demanded. “What are we fighting over, a part?”
“Damn straight,” Nate answered. “It pisses me off that the white guys always get the leads.”
“I’m not white, I’m Hispanic,” decreed a young guy, his sleek black hair tucked under a bandana. “And I rock your black ass on stage.”
Charlie grinned and, as Nate sat back defiantly, Jack Deacon’s son ambled his eyes over the other faces in the room. His glance landed at Jessie and stayed there.
A Song For Josh, Drifters Book One Page 3