CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Chrome and Glass
Chapter 2 - Foliage
Chapter 3 - Takeoff
Chapter 4 - Stories ’Round the Fire
Chapter 5 - Philosophies
Chapter 6 - The Crash
Chapter 7 - A-Plus
Chapter 8 - Aunt and Nephew
Chapter 9 - The Velveteen Night
Chapter 10 - Shame On You
Chapter 11 - Which World?
Chapter 12 - The Promise
Chapter 13 - A Murder of Crows
Chapter 14 - Someone Brave
Chapter 15 - The Watering Hole
Chapter 16 - Park Bench
Chapter 17 - The Bleachers
Chapter 18 - Folding Chairs
Chapter 19 - Creek Talk
Chapter 20 - Myths and Legends
Chapter 21 - Something Like Normal
Chapter 22 - Right as Rain
Chapter 23 - Another Dream
Chapter 24 - Saturday Night
Chapter 25 - The Basement
Chapter 26 - Coppertop
Chapter 27 - Apple and Tree
Chapter 28 - The Link
Chapter 29 - Window of Opportunity
Chapter 30 - Exodus
Chapter 31 - Backyard Prayers
Other Books by Jeff Jacobson
Bonus Offer
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Boy
Who Couldn't
Fly Home
Jeff Jacobson
The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Home:
A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love
Book Two, The Broom Closet Stories
Jeff Jacobson
NewFreedomPress.com
© 2013, 2017 by Jeff Jacobson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. For more information, contact [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
Prologue
TODD LARAMIE SAT AT A BUS STOP in downtown Seattle waiting for the Number Forty-Nine to take him home. Industrial music in his headphones drowned out all sound around him. He didn’t hear the man in the tailored jacket and pants sit down next to him.
“Hey, Catman,” the man said to the high school junior, who, oblivious, kept looking for his bus.
The man tapped him on the shoulder. Todd jumped, seeing the stranger for the first time. He pulled off his earphones.
“I said, ‘Hey, Catman.’” The man stared at him. His dark hair swept back from his forehead, and black stubble peppered his jawline and cheeks. The man’s shirt was unbuttoned at the chest.
“Wha- … what did you say? Why did you call me that?”
“Because, my man,” the stranger said, his striking face moving closer to him, “I know that you know that I know what I’m talking about. The cats, brother. Dig it? You, the cats, your vision, all of it.” The man stood up and began to moonwalk in front of the bus stop bench. He ended it with a spin.
“H-how did you kn-kn-know?” Todd asked, not caring that he stuttered.
“Want some help with it? I know about you and your cat vision. It’s freakazoidinally radical, and I can tell you about it. If you want,” he said, spreading his arms in front of him the way a vendor does when displaying his wares.
“What? Yes, please. What do you know? Please, can you help me? I feel like I’m going crazy!” The boy removed the headset from around his neck and turned off his music with a shaking hand.
“Crazy is as crazy does, my main man.”
“I, uh, it started a couple months ago. My buddies and I were watching the Mariners game, and suddenly I could see myself, see us, sitting there, like I was across the room looking at us through the eyes of my family’s cat. We’d had some beers, and they said I was just drunk.”
“Anything traumatic,” asked the man, stretching out the word and wiggling his eyebrows, “happen to you recently?”
“Like what?”
“Death of a parent? Violent crime? Major body injury?” The man ticked off the points with his hands.
“No, no, nothing like that. I just … oh wait! I fell and hit my head pretty hard on the bench at basketball camp. Had to go home.”
“Yep. That’ll do it,” winked the man, cocking his pointer finger at Todd and squeezing his thumb like the trigger of a pistol. “You started seeing things in black and white? No color?”
“Yes! And I started smelling things, and everything felt, I don’t know, different.”
“That’s the network, my man.”
“What network?” Todd whispered.
“The network. Wanna know some more?”
“Yes. Please. Please help me. I don’t know what to do. I keep listening to this loud music to drown everything out. I don’t even like industrial rock!”
“Lay me some skin and follow me,” said the man.
Todd didn’t care that this white man, who looked like he came straight out of an Italian menswear ad, was trying to sound like a funky homeboy. He was desperate for answers. So he gave the man a high five and followed him down the street.
They walked next to a chain-link fence, then turned into a municipal parking lot. The man approached a bright red Ferrari. The alarm system beeped as both the driver and passenger doors opened with a soft whoosh.
“Climb in, brother,” the man said to him.
The scent of new leather, mingled with something wet-smelling, like moldy wood, rose from the interior as Todd slid into the passenger seat.
“But how did you know?” he asked the man, who turned to face him.
“What you’ve been hearing is the cat network, my friend.”
“The what?”
“The cat network. All over town. The cats stay sharp. Report in. Keep an eye on things and share the news, if you know what I mean.”
“Not really. I mean, I just see things through their eyes. And my hearing … it’s so sharp. Lately, I sort of, I sort of feel what they’re feeling. Why is this happening? Do you know?” He put his right hand on the dash and leaned toward the man, who smelled like aftershave.
“Sure do. You’re leaking. And pretty soon you’ll just be one of those echoes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. And buddy, I could give a flying frick,” the man said. He reached over, closed both of his hands around Todd’s throat, and began choking him. Todd recoiled and tried to pull the man’s hands off him. But they were too strong. His legs beat and jerked, trapped beneath the low dashboard.
“Hey, baby, yeah, feel the love, just feel it,” the man whispered, moving his face close to Todd’s as the boy’s eyes bulged.
The boy hit and slapped
at the man, who, barely blinking an eye, leaned in even closer and bit down on Todd’s lower lip, drawing blood. Todd gagged and shook, trying to scream, trying to pull away. Eventually he stopped moving, his head dropping forward on his neck, arms slack at his sides, unconscious.
“You, my friend, are a lousy kisser,” Tony said as he licked the blood from his mouth and turned the key in the ignition. Rap music blared inside the Ferrari as the engine roared to life. Tony stepped on the gas pedal. The car lurched out of the parking lot and skidded onto the street.
“You cat, me cat, everybody we cat,” he shouted along with the song.
CHAPTER 1
Chrome and Glass
CHARLIE CREEVEY DIDN’T GO TO SCHOOL that Friday. He still didn’t feel back on his feet, and his Aunt Beverly suggested he take the extra day to see if things calmed down.
“Besides, you’ll have the weekend to get back to normal again. Well, your new normal, that is.”
Charlie helped around the house for a while, carrying things to the basement with Randall.
“You ever see her workroom?” his uncle asked as they passed by a closed door near the garage.
“No.” The house was so big that there were still parts of it he didn’t know.
“Have her take you in there sometime. It’s a bit of a surprise.”
“How so?”
“You’ll have to find out for yourself. My lips are sealed.”
Diego called Charlie that Saturday morning. “You back in town, or what?” he asked.
“Yeah, got home, uh, late last night.”
“I’m so glad you’re back. It’s been wild at school with Principal Wang’s heart attack. Monday was so awful. Teachers were crying, everyone walking around all spaced out. Then when we heard he would be okay, it was crazy. Like a huge school party. You missed the whole thing!”
Not really, Charlie thought to himself. He felt the mixture of guilt and relief that came up whenever he thought about Principal Wang. What if the man had died?
When he talked about it earlier with Beverly and asked why he had also had the dream of the young Chinese girl saying “dangerous” in Chinese, she shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know, Charlie. It’s hard to say. It could mean that one of your gifts will be dreams of premonition.”
“What’s that?”
“Some witches gets clues about the future in dreams.”
“That would be weird.”
“It’s too early to tell, Charlie. Nothing is very clear after someone gets popped. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Do you?” he heard on the other end of the phone. He hadn’t been paying attention to what Diego had been saying.
“Do I what?”
“Wanna hang out? Today?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” said Charlie. He hadn’t broken anything in the house for several days. Nothing had flown into the air and wrapped itself around anyone. It would feel great to get out of the house. Besides, he wanted to see Diego.
“Why don’t you come over? You can meet my mom, and maybe I could take you to Lincoln Park.”
Beverly agreed to drive Charlie over to Diego’s house.
“He seems like he’s becoming a good friend to you,” she said as she stopped at an intersection and waited for an elderly woman and her dog to cross the street.
Did she know? He wondered if she suspected. But it didn’t seem like she was hinting at anything. He had begun to learn that she was pretty direct about things. He liked that, even if he wasn’t used to it.
“Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”
“That’s good. I really liked him when he came over the other day.”
They pulled up in front of a very odd-looking house. More geometric than any of the traditional homes in the area, it was painted beige, red, and black.
“Oh, it’s this place! I’ve always wanted to see the interior,” exclaimed his aunt.
Charlie wondered about this. Wouldn’t it be an easy thing for his aunt, someone who single-handedly drove two witches from her home, to figure out a way to see inside a person’s house?
“Now, Charlie, call me for any reason, okay? If you start to feel funny or if it seems like you aren’t able to hold up the charade of having been in California anymore, just call.”
“Okay.”
“Remember, Diego thinks you’ve been sick. It won’t be strange if you’re not completely yourself. But just call me for any reason.” And then, “What a house!”
The front door opened and a smiling Diego walked out, dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, and a red sweater. Charlie opened his passenger-side window, smiling in spite of himself, hoping he didn’t look too eager. He was really happy to see the boy.
“Hi, Charlie. Hi, Beverly,” Diego said, bending down and looking in the car.
“Beverly, would you like to come in too? My mom’s here, and she would love to meet you.”
“That would be great. Yes, I’d like that.”
Lydia Ramirez waited on the front porch. She stood barely over five feet tall, nearly a foot shorter than her son, dressed in yoga pants and a loose top, her black hair pulled back in a clip. Her son’s bright eyes and wide smile were echoed on her face.
“Welcome, welcome, Beverly,” she said, her slight Mexican accent warming her words. “So nice to meet you finally. And Charlie, you too. I’ve heard so much about you!” she said. Diego blushed a bit but smiled even more.
They exchanged pleasantries then walked inside the house.
“I’ve always wanted to see this place,” his aunt said. They removed their shoes and left them near the front door.
Lydia took Beverly’s arm in a friendly gesture and the two women fell into a tour of the house, discussing remodeling nightmares, views of Puget Sound, and the differences between modern and classic architecture.
“They’ll be at this forever,” Diego said. “Come on. I’ll give you my own tour.”
The house was unlike anything Charlie had ever seen. His aunt and uncle’s home was very big, grand on a scale he was not used to, but it still felt like a house to him. Basically, it was what he was used to, only bigger and nicer. This house was completely different. He remembered Diego’s description of chrome and glass but only now realized what he had meant.
Stainless steel appliances sparkled in the pristine kitchen. The countertops were concrete, cut in sharp angles. A glass-like surface covered the cabinets, and a soft green light warmed the plates and glasses within. Diego explained that the surface, which was the colored part, not the soft white light bulb hidden inside the cabinets, could be exchanged for a blue effect.
“Mom changes it about every two weeks. According to her mood, I guess,” he shrugged as if to say, “Mothers and their moods. Go figure.”
Charlie had never seen such a stark living room before. There were only two pieces of furniture, both upholstered in leather, on the wide light wood floor: a black recliner chair and a red curved couch, both of which sat near a black metallic freestanding fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave an unobstructed view of Puget Sound. Since the house was situated farther south than Beverly and Randall’s place, Charlie could see more of Vashon Island than from Washington Street.
A wood and glass staircase rose up to the second floor. Diego hopped up the steps in his stockinged feet. Charlie followed.
Evenly spaced skylights lit the second floor. Soft pale carpet ran the length of the hallway. Lydia’s bedroom was also very spare, with a large bed and a simple set of dressers, nearly everything painted white.
Charlie was therefore completely unprepared for the train wreck he saw when Diego opened the door to his bedroom and invited him in.
“This is what my mom calls ‘The Land that Time Forgot.’”
Utter chaos and disaster reigned over Diego’s room. A king-sized bed was shoved against one wall, with most of its bedding lying crumpled on the floor. Books and papers were scattered on every available flat surface, including the desk, a folding tabl
e in the middle of the room, and the floor. Posters of male models, male and female Hollywood stars, and South American soccer players covered most of the dark blue walls.
A two-tiered set of stacking tables rested against a wall in one corner. Several large decks of cards, bigger than those used for poker, covered the surface of the top table, which was draped in a gauzy yellow material. Leaning against the wall sat several framed photographs of dark-skinned people, some of whom looked quite old. However, there was one of a beautiful young woman with a bright smile and a red dot painted on her forehead. The woody scent of incense filled the room, and Charlie spotted a thin stream of smoke rising from a silver disk on the smaller of the two tables.
Clothes hung out of drawers, sat where they had been tossed on the floor, or draped, half in and half out, of the full closet on the far wall.
“This place is a mess!” Charlie said, so surprised by its contrast with the rest of the house that he forgot to be polite. It didn’t seem to match the bright, well-put-together young man he had been getting to know.
“It sure is,” said Diego, laughing. “Isn’t it great?”
He walked into the room and threw himself on the bed, stretching out and folding his arms behind his head.
“A man needs his own kingdom,” he said, smiling. “My mom hates it. But we made a deal when she bought this house three years ago. She could have it any way she wanted as long as I got to have my room any way I wanted. Her rule is that there can’t be any rotting food or really stinky smells. My rule is that I get to have as much clutter as I want. I didn’t think she’d agree, but she did.
“But,” he added, “I have to keep the rest of the house as neat as she wants. It’s a good deal for her. She’s picky about it and figures that as long as I know how to clean the kitchen and the bathrooms and help her cook and do chores around the house, it doesn’t matter what I do in my own space. Oh, and she has to knock before coming into my kingdom. It works out pretty well. She’s a lawyer and taught me everything I need to know about negotiating.”
The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Home: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (The Broom Closet Stories Book 2) Page 1