THE JENKINS BOY

The Jenkins Boy

BY FREDERICK J. MORALES



"I hear tell of the Ned Jenkins Boy,you know the boy that darn near always went

out star gazing." "Well he's still doin' it to this day",the passerby replied." Ever

since his sister committed suicide and darn near hardly anybody quite understood." "He

hasn't stop staring up at the sky all day yet that I know of." I said. "That there cycle

of his is really something else!" said Jacob. "That's about all he was really worth, " I

won that bet he made that he could beat me at cards any day of the week." I

replied,sitting on the front porch of my house as Jacob stood out there in front. "I'd a

hated to be in his shoes after his daddy found out he lost that bet." Jacob said."Ned

junior had it coming to him, I replied." " How all did it happen?" Jacob asked.


Everyone knew everyone in Appalachia, I guess it would be different in the Rockies, I

thought. Everybody in the small mountain community of Holler Creek had watched Ned senior

ride into town so long ago,like he owned the place and on a pure Morgan thoroughbred

horse, that everybody wanted for their very own on because they only had quarter horses.


"The Jenkins boy had lost that horse in a card game, but had won a twelve hundred

cubic centimeter Harley Davidson motorcycle,got kicked in the back side and thrown out of

his house by his dad and in the dark hours of the early morning,before the Sun had

risen,almost five years ago. All anybody could hear for miles was Ned Jenkins yelling at

his boy until almost dawn that morning." I said.


After the seventy-four Harley went into its sort of final approach, everything was

quiet again. The whole mountain knew the Jenkins was back. The loud noise of the engine

had awakened Holler Creek and Jacob was calling on me to get some answers.

I had been hearing him come up the mountain road for almost an hour when I ran out and

stood on the porch of my old shack, to get a look at Ned Jenkins junior after five

years,but it was too dark and the forest blocked my vision.


"From what I understand his daddy had also walked on the wild side when he was an

youngin' I continued to tell Jacob. There was still so much more that remained a mystery

about the Jenkins. The family had originated from the upper crust of this nation,Ned's

dad was born in Washington D.C. and moved to Holler Creek,married a cajun queen, he had

brought along with him in a brand new station wagon but the marriage was doomed to

failure from what Ned junior told at the card table. A few years later after the Jenkins

boy was born,they had a little girl named Manhattan and she fell out of that tall oak

tree near Blind pass and died. You heard wrong Jacob, she didn't kill herself,that there

was an accident ten year ago." I continued.


Ned's dad always called him boy no matter how old he got, I thought,try to remember

what happened five years ago. Ned senior was a soldier in the second world war,went broke

trying to support his wife and son after Malisa died.I guess me and the Jenkins boy

should have drank a whole more of that white lightening growing up together,I might have

understood him better, I thought.


"Now Ned junior is back from that shooting war in Vietnam and he's the spitting image

of his dad. I ran into his dad the other day and he said "that turkey shoot in Europe was

a whole lot better than the one in Asia. Jacob laughed." Everybody talks about everybody

in Holler Creek and no one bothers anyone unless the gossip gets out of hand. but this

story I was telling Jacob,had to be told because the Jenkins boy used to be the bully of

Holler Creek and not anyone could ever beat him at anything, until I beat him at cards.


"Ned and I got to drinking whiskey and carrying one weekend and we got around to

playing cards when he made the bet. We started oh! with five card stud,then seven card

and poker and he won each hand. there was no dealing from an inside straight on because

he would be watching me like a hawk until we got around to playing Black Jack. After we

drank the bottle of whiskey from his daddy's cabinet he up and said "dealers choice,all

or nothing." He dealt me two cards and then himself, the closest hand to twenty -one

would win the horse he said. The moment of truth had arrived he turned over his two

cards and I counted nineteen,then turned over my two cards and he saw a ten and an eleven

of hearts."


The End