by Jamie Ott
Chapter 2
As soon as Jacko crossed the state line, the heat increased, making him feel even more tired, so he found a cheap motel off a stretch of road right outside Reno, Nevada. The desk clerk didn’t ask any questions of the boy, but he gave him a key without even saying hello – Jacko liked that!
When he walked back outside, Jacko noticed a dive diner with low class people screaming, yelling, drinking, and hanging about in the parking lot to his right. He, then, looked to his left and saw only the highway and miles of more dusty grassland. He pushed his bike up to the second floor of the motel, and parked it right outside his window.
Inside his room, he peeled his clothes off, climbed into bed, and slept. Six hours later, an earthquake woke him by vibrating the bed. He looked around and realized it was not an earthquake, but a rumble in his stomach. The clock said nine p.m. He had two huge meals today! Inwardly, he yelled at himself, why can’t I stop being hungry?
He stumbled out of the lumpy, sinking, bed. Jacko showered and rinsed his shirts in the bath tub. He hung one to dry, and put the other one on. Better wet than stinky, plus the shirt lowered his body temperature, considerably.
Outside his door, the first thing that scared Jacko was the loud, rowdy, voices of older people. What if they tried to start something with him? The voices were coming from the parking lot behind the diner, where he saw seven rowdy men hanging about semi-trucks. Not very far from those men, he eyed several prostitutes standing about cackling and smoking.
Jacko drew in his breathe, brought up his chest, and tried to be brave while praying that no one would talk to him. When he opened the door to the diner, his stomach quivered at the smell of grease and burgers. Despite what he’d seen, which was about two dozen scary, hairy, overweight, tough, burly, truckers - half of which seemed to be missing a good deal of teeth - his stomach propelled him forward.
In the air, hung a nasty, thick, haze of cigarette smoke; through which several of the faces looked him up and down. To Jacko, they looked surly and mean. In particular, a dark haired guy in a blue and black plaid shirt tried to stare Jacko down. He looked down at his feet quickly and continued to the available spot at the bar that was closest to him upon entry; that way, if there was trouble, he could just run.
“What can I get ya?” asked a waitress with eyebrows that rose up into her forehead, and an incredibly wrinkled face.
“Bacon burger, fries, and a Coke or Pepsi,” he mumbled.
She walked off to get his order when the guy who stared him down approached.
“Hey, kid. What are you doing here? Where are your parents?” the man asked with a menacing curiosity that did not go unnoticed.
Immediately, he knew the guy meant him anything but good. The way his eyes shifted down to his leather jacket, down to his shoes, and back to Jacko’s eyes, made his skin tingle.
The man’s sunken eye’s looked dark and empty, yet full of crazy. The skin of his face was falling into dark, leathery, folds. He was severely underweight and his breath smelled bad.
Jacko sat for a moment trying to think of what to say.
“Say something. What are you deaf? Where are your parents?”
“I’m just here to get a bite and go. Is that okay?” Jacko tried to sound tough.
“So you’re all alone, huh?” the man grabbed him by the back of the neck, forced him off the chair, and threw him on the ground. “Well, that’s just great cuz I’m lookin’ for a little action tonight and your face has got ‘awl’ my attention, pretty boy, hee hee,” the man laughed almost like a donkey.
“Hey” said the waitress who set Jacko’s food on the counter, “leave him alone or get out.”
The man’s face lost the laugh and his eyes became real serious and dark as he said, “Don’t need to tell me twice, wrinkle.”
“Screw you.”
“Yeah, no thanks,” he mumbled, “I got me som’in…” he talked to himself as he walked back to his seat.
Jacko sat back down to eat at an extremely slow pace; he knew he needed to be worried, so he took his time to think how, best, to leave the diner. Unfortunately, no good ideas came to his mind. Jacko slowly turned his head to see the man was watching him. He gave Jacko a dirty smile and winked his right eye at him.
It crossed Jacko’s mind that maybe he needed a weapon. Slowly, carefully, he slipped the butter knife into the sleeve of his jacket. When he’d finished, the lady asked if he wanted anything else. Jacko asked if someone would escort him back to his room, but the woman rolled her eyes and told him to leave if he was done ordering.
Jacko hated the waitress for not showing even the least bit of sympathy for his situation. He looked to his left and saw the man was, now, standing at the door of the restaurant, laughing at Jacko’s attempt to save himself; the waitress saw it too but couldn’t care less.
Needless to say, he didn’t leave the ugly, old bat a tip; in fact, he completely skipped out on the meal. He figured his best chance was to run out of the diner as quickly as possible. If he paid the diner, then the guy would know he was preparing to leave, but if he just ran, it would be a surprise that would give Jacko a head start! Besides, if the waitress couldn’t find it in her conscience to help a boy in trouble then he was entitled to a free last supper, as, if the crazy man caught him, Jacko was sure he’d be dead.
He sat extremely still for a moment while gathering up his courage to run. Next, he stood up and bolted out of the door as fast as he could. Jacko ran around to the back of the building. This seemed like a good idea because he didn’t want that moron following him back to his room. The last thing he needed was for his bike to get trashed, or for someone to burst through the lame lock of his motel room while he slept.
Jacko waited in the back lot of the diner for fifteen minutes, but he never heard the diner door re open or subsequent footsteps. He didn’t know if he should continue to stay where he was or try to make it back to his room. One strange thing he did notice was how quiet it had suddenly got, as though all the truckers and hookers had gone away. Oh boy, he thought. If they were gone, he was definitely in trouble. On the other hand, he wondered, if they weren’t gone, would they care if an innocent boy was being beaten to death?
He slowly walked out from behind the building. Looking all around him, he carefully walked his way back toward the front of the diner, which was the only way back to the motel. Jacko felt a moment of relief as he thought he was in the clear. He was just about to take off running, when suddenly he was grabbed from behind and thrown up against the stone wall of the diner; the knife fell to the ground.
“Hey pretty boy? Where’s your mama?” and the man threw a fist in his gut that sent Jacko reeling for air. The excruciating pain spread all the way down to his groin and up to his neck.
Jacko was nearly in fetal position, yet still standing as he tried to catch his breath. The man pulled Jacko straight up by the collar of his jacket. He ran his hand through Jacko’s hair and caressed his face and neck; Jacko gasped for air.
“Why are you doing this?” he breathed.
“Because I don’t take crap from nobody; especially not from a faggot like you,” and he hurled Jacko’s face down onto the edge of his knee where his cheek split.
At that moment Jacko got really scared because he knew the man wasn’t going to stop there. Tears sprung from his eyes when the man decided to make mince of the flesh covering his ribs. A few more brutal connections numbed Jacko out. The heel of the man’s boot slammed his head into the ground. Funnily, he thought to himself that the ground felt soft like a feather pillow, and then there was silence. All seemed to go black and, for a moment, he felt like he was floating in air.
In that silence, there was a low ringing noise in Jacko’s ear. Slowly, it grew louder and louder, and Jacko wondered if he had blacked out. Why was he dreaming of ringing noises and feather textured tarmac? How could he be thinking of these things
when a psycho was beating the crap out of him? That was when Jacko saw the face again; white blonde hair and dark brown eyes. “Sissy?” said Jacko.
As quickly as he saw the face was as quickly as it disappeared.
Remembering where he was, he opened his and wondered why he was no longer being hit. A few feet away, the man lay on his elbows, on the ground, and was looking at Jacko with confusion on his face.
What Jacko didn’t see was, while he was contemplating his state of awareness, the man tried to kick him once more. Mysteriously, instead of giving Jacko a whopping good one, he was somehow knocked backward onto the ground. Now, the vagrant man may have been confused, but he wasn’t willing to give up on easy prey. Jacko watched as the man stood back up and tried to boot stomp poor Jacko once more. He sent his heel right in the direction Jacko’s forehead, but for some reason he couldn’t make the connection. The man’s foot just stopped mid-air at a few inches above his face.
The man tried to retract his boot from the frozen point in the air, but couldn’t. He cursed, growled, and scowled enraged. The man huffed with his hands around his ankle and pulled with all his strength. Suddenly, he flew off backward and his legs went over his head. The man landed still-faced, down on the ground.
Despite his shaky equilibrium, Jacko pulled himself up. Wiping the blood from his eyes, he started to limp his way in the direction of the motel. He stopped when he heard a strange gurgling noise coming from the man. Jacko walked back over to the man and kicked him onto his back – he was struggling to breathe. The man’s hands were pinned to his side as he struggled and tossed about like a fish out of water. Jacko wondered if he were having a seizure. The man’s crazy brown eyes bugged out as he opened his mouth wider and tried to breathe in.
For a moment, Jacko did consider running off and leaving the evil man to die, but then his conscience kicked in. He couldn’t just leave a man to die no matter what he’d done to him. With that thought, Jacko ran back inside the diner to tell the waitress to call for help.
The waitress was unmoved by Jacko because she was angry at him for stiffing her. Upon seeing him, she screamed nonstop that he’d better pay her or she’d whip his ass. That he was beaten, bloody, and his clothes were torn, made little difference to the wrinkled woman. Jacko looked around for a payphone but there was none. Yes, he could call from his cheap, little, prepaid phone, but it was registered in his name.
He looked around to see if anyone looked like they would help him. Unfortunately, all he saw were the many faces of uncaring, big bellied, plaid wearing truckers. All they could hear and see was the scary waitress screaming at bloodied Jacko.
Then, a man in a dirty white apron burst from the door behind the counter. He walked up to Jacko, yelling. Jacko screamed at the man that he needed to call an ambulance, but the man kept shouting.
Ignoring the man, he ran back outside, and the man followed. “You get back, boy!” But when he saw the man, with the plaid shirt, turning blue on the ground, he was completely silenced.
The man had passed out while Jacko was inside arguing with the waitress. At that moment, when he kneeled down to check to the man’s airway, a voice whispered inside Jacko’s head - it told him to quickly leave. He stood up fast and looked around for the source, but all he saw was the cook running back inside the diner. The voice whispered again - hurryyy.
Jacko limped-ran back to his room in which he gathered his items and stuffed his bag quickly. Stumbling down the steps with his bike, he looked across the lot to see two cowboys bending over the body while one spoke into a phone.
Several hours later, he was miles away from Reno. Deep down, Jacko was worried about the man and hoped that he would be okay. What would happen to him, if the man died? He kept asking himself.
Thinking about what happened at the diner made his head hurt, but he couldn’t stop. He tried to focus his thoughts on the line of city lights in the skyline ahead, but the pounding got worse. Then, two flashes of white glared at him from, some feet, ahead of the bike.
Jacko grinded his breaks and the bike went skidding. He swerved off into a ditch and right onto a ground cactus that flipped his bike over sideways. Fortunately, his jacket was of biker leather, but it didn’t stop the needles that pricked through his skin. He moaned loudly and lay still for a few moments. Jacko told himself that he was fine and tried to push himself up, but, instead, he passed out.
When he finally woke up, it was because something wet was slapping his face. He slowly, groggily, opened his eyes to find that he was in a bed. The bed was lumpy and saggy; the sheet he lay upon had a large impression next to him that was heavily speckled with yellow animal hairs. The next sight he particularly noticed was the condition of the house, which was old and dusty with gaps in gray wood slats for walls.
Jacko slowly pulled his legs over the side of the bed and rested them on the floor. He had to hold his breath, so as not to put extra pressure on the inside of his stomach and ribs, which hurt bad. After a moment, he drew in a slow, deep lungful of air and breathed out heavily as he stood up. The shock of the pain in his body made him groan so hard that he scratched his throat. He reached a hand up to feel the damage to his face and immediately cried out. Although Jacko couldn’t see it, he could feel that his face was swollen several sizes larger than normal.
His legs worked painfully, and he barely made it to the rickety thin door of the room. When he opened the door, bright blue sky made his eyes squint. He limped outside and saw that he wasn’t in Nevada anymore, or, at least, he couldn’t have been. Instead of desert, he found himself standing in a low land bald spot of a mountainous region. There appeared to be nothing man made, aside from the house, in which he stood, for many miles.
As Jacko’s vision got clearer, he noticed several strange things about his location. The first was the quality of the air that he could see too clearly. He noticed how the little particles moved about actively in little convection like patterns. When Jacko refocused his eyes, he saw the air was like transparent little bubbles. The bubbles left little speed tails behind its movement, which left a million little traces all across the air and sky.
Next, Jacko noticed the thousands of conifer type trees that surrounded the area, yet they weren’t typical conifers of any species he’d ever seen. They were extremely bright fluorescent green and had transparent fluorescent auras making convection patterns around them. The trees appeared to go on for many miles into the sky, which was impossible thought Jacko.
Even stranger was the grass that wasn’t grass at all, but seemed to be patches of moss. He slowly lowered to the ground and extended a bit of it for closer examination. The moss extended from the ground in massive amounts of coil. It felt slimier than moss would and, up close, looked more like grated zest all stuck together. The color was green like spirulina with a similarly funky smell. The moss expanded and contracted in his hand, as if it was breathing.
At first, Jacko was scared by the breathing moss, but his fascination won out. He ripped some of the moss from the ground to see what it would do. He immediately regretted this because a high pitched squeal emitted from the ground. His hand started to get really hot as the moss turned a fiery red.
He dropped the moss and jumped back in alarm. His eyes stayed on the squealing moss that had begun to slowly diminish in size. “What is going on here?” he asked aloud. He looked a bit closer at the moss without getting too close. The red cells expanded and contracted even faster. Jacko watched in fascination for a few moments and then the moss was completely gone - it had disappeared.
It occurred to him that he should probably feel bad for what he’d done to the moss; that it might be dead. Quickly, he forgot his occurrence about killing the grass when he raised his eyes back to the trees. He walked a hundred feet to the edge of the bald spot.
Up close to the trees, he could see the needles had strange qualities too. They were hard like plastic and extremely lon
g. In fact, they were all exactly, approximately, ten inches in length and they matched each other exactly in girth, which was very thin. Like the moss, they expanded and contracted too. Now Jacko should’ve learned his lesson the first time, but he didn’t. He pulled a needle out and there was a loud hissing noise that came from the tree. The pore, where the needle no longer occupied, smoked and exhaled a sewage-like odor.
Jacko felt really bad at that point because he didn’t want to hurt living things, but he couldn’t fight his strong curiosity. Further, the bark was a funny reddish-brown and when Jacko touched it, it turned redder. He tried to pull a little twig off to see what it would do, but the tree drew back its branch and punched him in the head.
Jacko stumbled backward and fell, rolling on the ground and holding his throbbing face. He wasn’t angry, though, because he knew he deserved it.
When the pain subsided, he pulled himself up and walked back toward the house. As he got closer, he noticed there was a little body of water on the other side.
The pond gurgled and bubbled in the center, as he got closer. At first, Jacko was scared because he didn’t want to get hurt, again. Nevertheless, he walked closer anyway. Jacko jumped back when the water boiled upward like a geyser and fell back to the pond. He watched the water for a moment, and determined that the water was going to continue to rise in the same manner. He inched closer to the bank of the pond and was fascinated to see how the water fell back to the pond in the shape of various animals; mostly fish, but also cows, cats, and birds.
Jacko was amazed! Was the pond putting on a show for him? What was this pond?
Well, come and look.
“Huuh?” he said dreamily. The water was putting some sort of spell on him and he couldn’t resist it. Sedated, He moved closer to the water and when liquid hands grabbed him and pulled him in, he didn’t even scream.
Jacko was sleepily submerged in the pond, which became bigger once under the surface. Under wasn’t so bad, he thought to himself. He noticed he felt free from pain there. In fact, he felt great, giddy, and happy!
When two big, green, gold fish swam up to him with greetings, Jacko shook their fins with extreme enthusiasm.
“Let’s swim!” and Jacko nodded and smiled.
Under, the water seemed like a whole new world. He looked down and saw his body had been shrunk, but he was unfazed! They swam so fast! Jacko couldn’t believe their speed. They went worling for miles under the water. Jacko’s head spun and he grinned because it was fun to get dizzy there. The fish wanted to teach him tricks, and Jacko grinned and swam little figure eights. He hadn’t had as much fun in a long time and when they invited him to a goldfish tea party, he was so happy that he did a flip out of water for joy.
It was all fun until there was a loud splash, then, something sunk it’s knives into his ankle. Jacko turned to see it was a big yellow dog. He tried to swim away, but it was shredding his foot. Jacko felt his legs slide through the muddy, mossy bank. The green fish grabbed his hands and tried to help pull him back in the water.
Their efforts were useless because the dog was too strong for them all. The fish were clearly angry as was Jacko; they jumped up and down through the surface of the water, waving their fins, in the shape of fists, at the dog.
Finally, the big yellow dog pulled Jacko back to the ground. Jacko’s front and face smeared in the mud of the bank. He turned and yelled, “Get off me, you mutt!”
“Excuse me but I am not a mutt.”
“Okay,” said Jacko, who was shocked that the dog demonstrated intelligence, “is this a dream?”
“It’s not a dream. I’ve come to help you.”
“Help me with what?”
“Help you stay safe on your trip east.”
“Sent by whom?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I was having fun, why did you have to pull me out?”
“If you stay too long, you become a fish. Look at your hands!” and Jacko saw that they had a funny greenish tinge. “They’ll take you away from reality. The pond goes a lot further than just the ground.”
Jacko didn’t know what the dog meant, and he didn’t bother to ask because he was too busy taking in its size, which was like small horse.
“Were you licking my face a moment ago? Why don’t I hurt anymore?” Jacko’s wounds felt stiff but were no longer open and bloody.
“The water is healing, I suppose, Jacko.” he breathed, happily.
“This can’t be real.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, then, what’s that?” said the dog looking down at his feet.
“What’s what?” and he looked down to see that his ankle was bleeding through his jeans. His ankles felt like they were being tugged at with scalpels, again.
“What the heck?” he felt queasy at seeing his bleeding ankles. “Oh my.” Jacko closed his eyes and almost passed out.
When he reopened his eyes, he was looking at a night sky. Still feeling nauseous, he blinked his eyes shut, and when he opened them, again, he saw the dog gazing at him. He looked down at his ankle, wobbled, and closed his eyes one more time.
Jacko saw the night sky and knew he needed to get up, but he was still dizzy. “AAAAHHH” the pain from his ankles shot up his legs. He looked down and saw he was flat on the ground, and two large, slimy, grey skinned dogs were pulling Jacko away by the ankles, one in each mouth.
There was a loud, powerful bark that came from above his head. Jacko looked up and saw the yellow dog only he was smaller than a moment ago. To counterweight the mangy dogs, the big yellow one sunk its teeth into his shoulder, causing Jacko to scream louder.
One of the dogs dropped his leg so that it could bark at the yellow dog. Jacko swung his free leg and kicked the mouth of the dog that held his other ankle. Upon force of contact, the dog’s eyes turned red and his bark to a loud screeching noise, like a fictitious dragon.
Jacko almost wet himself, but the yellow dog yelled, “Chupacabras!” When Jacko remained still on the ground, the dog then yelled “COME ON!” and nipped him on the shoulder. The nip brought Jacko out of his surprise. Just in time, too, because one of the dogs erupted in scales along the spine of his back and breathed out a long forked tongue.
In the background, he saw two more dogs were coming from the rocks a mile out. When he stood, Jacko was astounded to see that they nearly carried him off while he was passed out. He stood and looked around for his bike, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness because there was no traffic. “Come on,” said the dog once more.
Jacko followed the yellow dog back to his scooter, which was some 200 feet back toward the road. When he got close enough, he stopped. The bike was no longer his little 250; instead it was a full no name bike with a side car that the yellow dog leapt into. Jacko didn’t know what to do, “This isn’t my bike! I don’t know how to ride it.”
“Just get on, it works the same way; it’s just bigger,” then the dog pulled out a helmet and goggle with its paws and pulled the visor down as the straps magically buckled themselves. “Stop gawking, Jacko! We gotta go!”
Jacko jumped onto the seat just as one of the dogs leapt at him. He turned the key and they sped off down the road as the yellow dog turned around and barked behind them. He managed a look in his side mirror and gasped; they had changed from dogs into little scaly, dragon-like animals. They barked and screeched as they tried to catch up to the bike. Jacko put on more speed and the dragon-dogs were lost.
His heart pounded in his chest for a few minutes as he tried to understand what had happened. He realized the yellow dog could have answers for him but was afraid to stop too soon. Every few minutes, he would look at the bike and dog to remind himself that they were both real.
After another 40 miles east of Reno, Jacko began to wind down. At which point, he pulled over into a deserted gas station for a rest.
He parked behind an empty gas stand and took off his helmet, as did the dog. Reaching in the back, he pulled out a bottle of water and took a few sips.
Jacko wondered to himself if the dog would want water. The dog must have heard his thoughts because he looked into Jacko’s eyes with comprehension, jumped out of the car, and ran to him.
“Okay,” as he poured water out in a thin stream to the ground. The dog stuck out its tongue and tried to lick up as much of the liquid as it could.
After another sip, he put the bottle back in his luggage and sat on the bike and said “Okay, talk,” but the dog said nothing. He just sat there breathing really hard with his tongue hanging long, down his neck.
“Where did this bike come from, huh?” he asked and the dog just looked at him with a blank stare.
Jacko sighed and pulled out his bag of jerky, which he shared with the dog. Finally he sighed again and said “Alright, dog, don’t talk.”
He dug in the luggage area of the bike and pulled out his sleeping bag and tarp; he kicked all the little rocks out of the way of his intended spot. Jacko took off his shoes and climbed inside his bag. The dog walked to the bag and lay down next to him. They stared up at the stars as the dog leaned his head back for Jacko to scratch him behind the ears.
Red Skies, Blue Skies