I would love to write a long story but until then I wrote this. Sorry if the paragraphs look weird, I just copied and pasted. I'll edit the paragraphs later.
It was the middle of January when Jack was in the cast.
He had played for the senior hockey team. He was around six feet and built like a cement wall. However, like all walls, they have to end up falling sometime.
Tonight game, us, the Pride, against our biggest nightmares, the Boulders. This name applied for their team and the players, most of them standing taller than Jack and weighing more than most kids in High school should. However it wasn’t during the game when he got hurt, it was after the game.
Jack got into a car accident. This was something that had never happened before. It turns out he and his pals, dressed in their red and blue jerseys, wearing their gold medals proudly, went to a bar after the big win and Jack shouldn’t have been driving.
He was swerving on an abandoned road, ran into some bushes, backed up and then ran into a light post a couple miles into town near a busy intersection, denting the front of his car, and he kept going. Down the neighborhood streets, half on the sidewalks most of the time.
The police caught up with him and issued a D.W.I. and began to check him and the car. Jack pulled loose and ran, ended up messing up a step and falling thirty feet later. They took him to the hospital where it turns out he broke his ankle. He then later lost his driving privileges for an entire semester and was sentenced to community service. That didn't infuriurate him though, what did was he couldn't play hockey.
I recieved a phone call from Jack a couple days later. He began to growl about him not being able to play and finished with a simple, “Nothing serious, Nobody got hurt but me, oh, tell the teach that I’ll be back next week.”
I didn’t really worry about him, he was always impulsive: him crashing and running from the cops seemed ‘normal’ for him. I just didn’t worry for him.
He came to school a couple days later, leaning on crutches.
“Jesus Al, I don’t need a goddamn wheelchair, those are for wusses: I play hockey for God’s sake,” he told me when I asked him why he wasn’t sitting.
“Whatever you say man, whatever you say,” I balanced both our stacks of books in my arms as we walked to his locker.
It was the end of the first day he was back and I had play practice so he called his mom for a ride home. “You owe me for this, my mom is sick of driving me around everywhere man.”
When I got home that night my mom told me Jack had called. I returned his call after dinner and he answered, he was panting.
“This girl... she was the hottest thing I ever saw!”
“Well hello to you too,” I sarcastically remarked, “What girl?”
“When I was waiting for my mom I turned my head and on the schools’ rooftop was this girl with pitch black hair. She just stood there before she looked at me. Then she waved at me!” Jack was excited now. His voice had grown louder with each word and his tone had gone from good-humored to stern. This was different from the old Jack I knew.
“She coulda been wavin’ at somebody else ya know, ain’t like you’re the goddamn focus of the world,” I hopped onto my bed.
“She was friggin’ waving at me I swear! And what’s so weird- it’s like I met her before- somewhere, but I din’t...”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line, the only thing that could be heard was the radio. What was Jack talking about? Was he drunk again?
“Aw, man, I gotta call you back, mom’s gotta use the phone,” I lied to end the awkward conversation. We hung up and I went to bed.
The next week went on, Jack getting odder and odder by the minute. Each and every second, reminiscing about that girl on the roof.
“Dude, have you even seen this girl since last week or something? You were probably just looking at a tree or something,” I asked at lunch, poking at my meatloaf.
“Albert Sullivan Mananski, have I ever lied to you about a hot girl before?” Jack had a mouthful of mashed potatoes and looked at me with questioning eyes.
“Jack, man, I think you whammed your head in that car, lemme drive you home today, mom isn’t using the Bird,” I smiled proudly. The Bird was a silver convertible with a black silhouette of an eagle on the hood. My dad left me in his will. When my mom lost her car I gave her the Bird, of course driving it when she wasn’t using it.
“Alright then, we’ll take the Bird,” Jack handed me his tray and I dumped it.
After school the two of us headed to the student parking lot and into the car. I started the engine and started the heater after tossing Jack’s crutches in the back. Jack sat in the passengers seat, messing around with the radio until he had reached the rock station. He smiled at me when I got in.
“Let’s ride. Don’t take me home too quick, I think my dad is going to be home and wants me to help with the...“ Jack’s gaze was turned to out the window and it moved slowly from one side to the other.
“There she is!” He traced the glass with his finger. I looked.
“There ain’t nothing there man, you’re seein’ things again.” I saw the snowy lot covered in tire tracks, but I saw nobody. I pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the main road.
“I saw her, the girl with the black hair. I saw her Al. Believe me! I know this is... there she is again! She’s there!” Jack’s expression seemed almost ghostly. He traced his finger again on the window, pointing at the walkway on his side. He truly believed he saw somebody.
“I see a girl, but she has red hair, not black,” I turned my focus back to the road, trying to ignore Jack’s pleas for me to look out the window.
A couple miles later Jack turned to me.
“Listen Al, I’m sorry, I think I’m going crazy. I mean, the night of my accident I had a weird dream that I hit somebody. I mean, I didn’t hit anybody, but my dream was all ‘you hit somebody and they’re after you now. Like run dude!’ So I’m freaking out and stuff. I have the same dream every single damn night... Now I’m seeing people, I’m like so confused.”
I didn’t know what to say to this. I continued to drive and began to think about what this dream could mean. It was hard to decipher the meaning of the girl because it seems she had nothing to do with the main idea.
“I think your dream means,” I began after a long pause, “I think it means you’re guilty about the accident. But the girl is a totally different part of your life. Maybe like, years ago, or in a few years, there’ll be a girl with black hair and you reject her for some reason. So like, yeah, I think you’re guilty about the crash and this girl,” I explained to him after a long rock silence.
“Heh, sounds reasonable, you were always the smart one man.”
I was driving around the town, soaking in the feeling the Bird gave on this chilly winter’s day, pulling into Jack’s drive way. He turned to reach for his pack when suddenly Jack let out the most horrendous shriek that God’s green earth had ever heard. I hastily turned and yelled for him to calm down.
“She’s there! She’s there!” Jack raved on. Furiously, just to calm him, I turned my head towards the backseat where his gaze was focused but again I saw nothing.
“Man, I’m this close to takin’ you to a hospital.”
“Make her stop! She’s angry with me Al! She’s trying to choke me! Get her away!” Jack thrust open his door and hopped out on one foot, without his crutches he lost his balance and fell to the snow, whimpering. I got out of the car and went around to grab his crutches. I walked towards Jack and helped him up, handing him the crutches. His face was whiter than the snow.
“Al, you believe me? She was here...” Jack hobbled to the front door with me beside him. I didn’t reply. “Hey, it’s Friday, why don’t you call your mom and stay the night? I’m like friggin’ scared outta my goddamn mind man.”
Later that night at Jack’s house when we were watching the television the phone rang. “Ma, get the phone!” It rang three more times and Jack sauntered to get it. I couldn’t hear the conversation but Jack came back pale again.
“Dude ... I just got a call from her.” Jack sat back down on the couch nervously looking around. “She wants me Al. She wants me…”
“Jack, man this is too friggin’ much. I think there is some ghost haunting you man. What the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t do nothin’ damnit! I swear to God though if I am being haunted I want a damn good reason, ya hear? I ain’t feel like being haunted by somethin’ that don’t belong haunting me.” Jack had an enraged gleam in his eyes as he stared at the television. I turned my head. The news was on.
“Man, news is lame, change the channel,” Jack poked me for the remote.
“No man, I wanna know if it’s gonna snow Sunday, I need to see whether or not to shovel tomorrow or then,” I held the remote as Jack sighed. It turns out it was going to snow later tonight and Saturday. I gave Jack the remote.
“Alright, now let’s watch some Jerry Springer...” Jack smirked and pressed channel 29, seen on the top left corner in a green. The channel didn’t change. He pressed the numbers again. It went through, but the channel didn’t change. “Man, what did you do to my goddamn remote?”
“Nothing, I’ll change the channel, hold up.” I extended my body and arms and pressed the up button. The channel didn’t change. I clicked it again but still it remained on the news. “What the...” I reached for the power button and clicked that. The television didn’t turn off.
I turned back to Jack. His eyes were bobbing out of his head, just gawking at the screen. Curiously I turned my head to the television as my jaw slowly became wider and wider.
There was a picture of a black haired girl on the television screen. A news reporter, who was on the scene, suddenly appeared and this is what he said:
“A local man found a woman, whose name we haven’t received, lying in the bushes down a long abandoned, country road. Reports say the person or persons who attacked here attempted to dispose of her body behind the bushes. There are no suspects at the moment, although whoever attacked her apparently beat her with a large blunt object on the entire left side of her body. More on the story at ten.”
At this point in time Jack apparently was shocked beyond belief, but controlled his screams. I peered at him.
“They found her... and I … I hit her with m-my car… Al… that’s her! I… I hit her. I killed her. Oh my God,” Jack placed his face in his hands and began to sob. I got up and sat next to him on the couch attempting to comfort him.
“Dude… what are you gonna do now? What is gonna happen to you man? Jack, what’s going to happen?” I muttered picking up the remote. The television finally switched channels.
“She’s there Al,” Jack whispered between tears. I examined the room. It was empty except for us but I couldn’t help but feel my hair stand on edge. “Listen to me. I am sorry. Do you understand? I was drunk that night. I was so drunk, man. I shouldn’t have been drivin’, I shoulda taken a taxi or something. Listen, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you…” I listened to Jack repeat his words of apology over and over again in the room.
“I am sorry for not believing him about you,” I whispered beside Jack’s near-shouting words, “I am sorry I didn’t believe in you. Don’t be mad at him, he didn’t know what he was doing…” My eyes turned solemn as I continued to listen to Jack. As soon as he started, he stopped. Jack sat there and. I looked up at him.
“She’s gone. I swear to God, she’s gone,” Jack’s face became emotionally unstable with joy. After a while his stupid grin became smaller, more normal and he changed the channel to Jerry Springer and we said nothing the rest of the night about what happened. “More popcorn Al.”
For the rest of our senior year we said nothing.
It wasn’t like me to worry about Jack. I didn’t ever worry about him after his car accident it wasn’t like me. He was so incredibly reckless anyway, the older he got the more risks he took. The more danger he got himself into the more it thrilled him.
I never worried though.
That would have completely ruined the story.
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