Jake
I didn’t know it was going to be such a big deal, I was just having fun. I mean, come on, it was just a joke. But leave it to them to toss you in jail when what you did didn’t even harm anybody. I was just standing back, observing my work when I heard sirens. Next thing I know, a chubby ole’ police guy is shoving my head onto the hood of his car while tightening hand cuffs ‘round my wrists. Now, here I am, bein’ held ‘gainst my will to sit in my own lil’ wooden box, explaining to the judge my reasoning for why I did what I did.
“Let’s see here,” the judge mumbled while rummaging through some papers, “Jake Grinson…is that right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I didn’t really care what she thought of me, I mean, it’s not like I had a future ahead of me or nothin’.
“Well then. It says here you lit the southern end of your school on fire. This can lead to serious consequences Jake.”
“What ever,” all I could think about was how beautiful the golden flames looked, dancing in the dark.
I’m pretty sure I was making her angry, except she probably deals with people like me all the time; criminals who just don’t care. “I see you’re going to be another difficult case. Since you don’t have the money to pay bail, you must serve 5-10 years in jail plus 50 hours of community service,” just as she was about to final her order with her hammer thing, some random guy in the audience stood up shouting at the judge to wait a second. He waddled up to the judge, his pot belly swaying under his outdated overalls, and handed her some piece of paper. I was curious why this stranger cared what happened to me.
“Hmm…I see. Jake Grinson, you are being taken custody by Mr. Caleb Windhorst,” the judge announced while bangin’ her hammer.
The two police men on either side of me undid my cuffs n’ tossed me to who apparently seemed to be “Mr. Caleb Windhorst”…whoever the hell that was. To be honest, I sort of wished this Caleb guy never stood up. I’d rather live in prison where all my soon to be buds were than chat it up with this stranger. His saggy blue eyes made me sick. His world was probably perfect. I doubt he even knew what depression was. As I approached him, all he could do was awkwardly smile, this whole thing was awkward. “Hello Jake, I’m Caleb Windhorst. I was a friend of your mothers,” he held out his hand and was trying to be all friendly n’ crap like that.
“What ever,” I could care less what his plans for me were. I didn’t want to touch his chunky hand, so I shoved by him and out the door.
He waddled after me, trying to keep up, “Wait, Jake, you don’t know where my car is,” ha! This guy made me laugh. To hell I was goin’ in his car! I ignored him and continued down the street. I turned around; glad to see I was done with the bastard. Or at least…that’s what I thought, “Jake! Hop on in! It’s a long walk home,” boy was this guy mad. I didn’t have a home, and if I was goin’ to pick one, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his.
I saw a bar ahead of me, but my path was soon cut off by this joker, “Look buddy. I’m flattered you saved my ass in there, but I don’t know if you can tell or not, I’m not interested in your offer.”
This guy didn’t seem to hear me. He leaned over and opened the passenger door, “Come on son. You’ve made your point; you hate life and don’t want anything to do with me. But you’re my responsibility now and I can’t have you loose running around town causing trouble. Now, hop in will you. Please.” I didn’t seem to have a choice. I “hopped in”.
As we drove by parent’s buying their toddler’s ice cream and families celebrating their child’s birthday, Caleb started telling me ‘bout himself, “I know you’re probably wondering who I am. Well I’ll tell you. I was a good friend of your mother, Angela. We’ve been best friends since the fourth grade and-,”
“If you were such good friends with her, then how come I’ve never herd of you?” This guy already bugged me; it hadn’t even been five minutes yet. This was going to be a long car ride.
“Well, you see, Jake…hmm…how should I say this…Your mother and I became very close as time went on, we had a ‘thing’ as you would call it by the time we graduated from high school. But then she met your father, and I suddenly became the ‘other guy’. He didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him. Angela felt terrible about what she did to me, but still claimed I was her best friend, but your father didn’t like me hanging around. When you came along, your father said he didn’t want you to know about me, or else he was going to leave the two of you,” even though this guy was all torn up inside from remembering all this crap, I could only think of one thing; my mother let him fuck her? She must have been pretty desperate. No wonder she picked my father. He wasn’t done with his sob story though, so I just stared out the window while he continued, “Once your father…changed, your mother had called me up to explain to me if anything had happened to her, she didn’t want your father to take care of you, she wanted me to take custody. Then the…accident happened, and well, here we are.”
This guy bugged the hell outta me. I don’t see what my mom ever saw in him. I decided it was best to stay silent, I didn’t want to give Caleb any ideas I cared. He would probably shut up if I didn’t show any interest, which he finally did, after going on and on about how much I’m going to enjoy it at his farm. I mean, who wants to live the rest of their life on a farm? Not me…I’d rather go to prison. Why’d this guy have to fuckin’ save me n’ all. Since the sound of the pavement scraping against the tires wasn’t peaceful enough for Caleb, he turned on the radio to a station playing sappy love songs about some nerd findin’ his true love walking down the street and they lived happily ever after. Like hell that ever happens. There is no such thing as love, let a lone happily ever afters. Life is just a bunch of messed up micro organisms dumping us in one huge crap hole.
Ahead, in the distance, I saw a blur of a huge red barn. I could only guess that was the farm. The empty land surrounding us fenced off a herd of lazy ass cows making themselves as fat as they can. As we got closer, instead of cows, it was horses. Except they were more interesting, some even were actually working off their calories chasing each other ‘round the field.
The pavement soon turned into dirt, leaving a brown cloud trailing after us. Caleb drove the car right next to the small white house. Neighboring it was the big red barn. Ducks flew out of the way of the car, back to the safety of their pond, behind the house. I felt as if I was barfed into a fairy tale, there wasn’t one thing out of place. Boy, the rest of my life looked like a blast…
Caleb led me out of the car and showed me ‘round the joint. He started with showing me the barn. We turned the corner to see a cute little thing, about my age, brushin’ of her trusty steed. She had smears of dirt on her sun burnt cheeks and straw sticking out of her bright red hair…boy, there were so many comments bubblin’ in my head I could say to see her explode! Maybe this place wouldn’t be all that bad
“Ah, Jake, this is Abbey,” Caleb said all jolly n’ stuff, I really could care less what the chick’s name was, I just wanted him to finish this stupid tour already so I could shower.
“Howdy,” I thought I was quite the clever cat, if I do say so myself, speakin’ these crazy peoples language n’ all.
“I can tell you’re excited,” she joked.
“Ecstatic…” this got her off my back. She turned away from Caleb and I and finished whatever the hell she was doin’ with that stupid horse.
