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First Part of Jacob's journey, mistaken for some kind of rare marsupial, taken to a zoo. |
J A C O B LEAD IN A big, blinding beam of, ridiculously loud—light blazed over us all, an obvious "technological" gesture of the dominance. That stated to a certain kind of mind, with a certain level of awareness, that we were the property of this effort. The movie beam began to blindly lead the herd we had formed into a room they intended to have been converted into a conference room. Head quarters, our personal command center. It was exactly what the case called for, a 'War Room'. They just projected what film they happened upon, or "recovered" onto the back wall. This, was the summoning of deeply concerned experts, the ones who came to help, quality human beings. Reporters with the body language of a coked out squirrel. Still in a hurry in spite of the fact they had already made it to the conference. Answering the call! Why was a twelve year old boy processed by the 'U.S. Department of Agriculture' and ended up in a zoo? Then the most important question. Where is Jacob? The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies that catch serial killers, vigilante pedophile-hunter collectives, journalists, reporters; individuals able to close twenty five year-old cold cases, as if by some foreign magic... I mean obviously they accepted anyone with a skill—no matter how remotely or randomly related I was to such a bizarre case was considered an asset. I mean I was surrounded by real selfless saints! We mixed our body stenches, sucked in each other's raw late shift breath, I could feel these were legitimately the most hell bent on finding the truth! Self-crowned champions of children. They must have been the only ones who truly cared, and were in all honesty deeply concerned for the boy. We all squeezed into the room. I watched everybody obsessed with the truth about Jacob, apparently. The ray of braided multicolored light that was projected over everyone, it finally killed all the incessant banter. The projector placed the screen on the wall I was leaning on; well where I attempted to hide behind. Obviously they ruined my spot. Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also evident that blaintantly unattended, unused basement. Obviously forgotten. I noticed a lonely bunch of old boxes piled at the end of the un lit hall. A faint, though stubborn bouquet equal to antiquity, that universal stench of mold. Only random light bulbs worked. It was dank, dark, and the prominent smell of cat urine faintly danced under everyone's nose. A stench that made that particular room a place to avoid. I figue, multiple attempts dwindled quik, that silently went down to no more attempts. Maintenance obnoxiously gave up, and agreed to ignore it was there. I claimed a nice cozy corner, close to the door. After a concerto of plastic chairs, with the shiny chrome legs screeching, banging, whaling in manners that made my gut cringe. The place was packed! Everyone was there. Sally, from the very back offices, who loves to make small talk by the coffee pot, all while spewing a hefty serving of scotch all over any poor bastard who made eye contact with her. Each phrase, cat story or quick quip a solid reason to make anybody consider quitting the sauce. In an ordinary weeks time, I swear, I'm pretty capable of forgetting her existence. The whole basement staff had been summoned from, if we shall, the basement's basement. Then there was my humble two man psychology team... well at least I showed up. The rest, were just thick office dwellers, sweaty types, the heavy breathing types. Agents, doctors, analysts, psychologists, government lawyers, you name it. Obviously as water is wet, there were so many shady police. I am sure a sad, drowning in their thick muck of asphyxiating frustration, sluggishly making it closer to retirement. Back to the high-school movie presentation. The first film just started playing. Exhibit 1A, how I supposed to myself it was called. You could see a small crowd of people, in a apartment complex. Obviously it was a housing project were people were just struggling in the grind. They weren't Latino, Korean, Filipino, White, nor African American. Circumstance, money, the struggle, and poor options mixed in poorer choices, made them forget the racial qualms that breed division. Then it cuts to a scruffy old man on his porch. A stout man who definitely used his body to work. Thick black framed glasses he had to push up his nose into position quite frequently. Warm in a long dark gray winter coat. More so, desperate to talk. * Exhibit 1.0 - A:Transcript of (Joe John Gilchrist) [Visual Film Projection: A stout man, 48. Irish decent. Known drug user: Methamphetamine - Cannabis - Alcohol - Cocaine - Opiates. Relation: Close to mother. Subject: Jacob.] "Oi!—Oi fat boy! In the brown coat!" A raspy, smoker's holler boomed from the far side of the basketball court—a concrete slab between two netless crooked-towers. Across the way, the twin condominium sat like a long library shelf packed with stories of the forgotten. Volume after volume of misery, heartbreak; assorted flavors of violence, and the rhythmic rot of existencial decay of lives entangled with addiction—in the flesh. Joe was a walking mess, his body stayed muscular, but he wore a couple of moist bright red lesions, the kind that never heal, festering painfully into a corner of his mouth, the worse one crept up his snowcap. He had an exhausted, raggedy teal-colored bath robe on, an even older abused parka—barely hanging off his shoulders, and light-green piss stained sweatpants. The cameraman and his co-worker head towards Joe in a camera jerking take that looked like hurry. "You're press, right!", Joe was quick to get in his space and asked. Right in the investigators oily, blackhead peppered face. He delivered the message with a violent involuntary jolt. Joe had to press his coke-bottle thick glasses into place. In what I assumed was his natural state of being. "I knew the kid and his mother Karina." "We get together often for beers." he put his back flat against the condo's off-white shade of sadness and failure. Then proceeded to slide into a crouching stance, lower-back pinned against the brick wall, forearms on his knees; like convicts do in prison. 'And totally! Yes, this man had done some time!' He began with an inaudible growl from the back of his throat, "... always yammering about when the boy was born. On a Sunday." Joe's filth packed nails, like magic they stole everyones focus on how he fished a Newport from a crumpled pack that he had stashed behind a flower pot. No plant to be seen, just caked dirt, mixed with regret and gratuitously bashed cigarette butts. "Late in the afternoon...". He lights up, then a fit of coughing ensues. "In the pouring rain, she'd say. It was some yearly storm, she said it made streets into rivers. Oh, yea, yeah she said it was the, "El Cordonazo de San Francisco". "... born abroad, down in South America. Any how this little story, here begins when the family finally came back here to America, ya' see." In Washington State. They resided in Richland, in the high plateau desert dust, the worst managed nuclear waste programs, choking dry and unappealing. Birthplace of Fat Man, the atomic bomb, an embodiment of humanity's final idol to war. Death, suffrage beyond what common people's could ever fathom. Yeah, the one that gave the Japanese such a bad day, so much death. The boy was seven years old at the time. Although they were one member short, than when they set out to work abroad. Karina, Jacob's mother, wasn't at all that well. I never knew what happened to Gene. Was it divorce? You know; what really stayed in my mind? Was Jacob, to be honest. Peculiarly small, for a seven year old. You know? The poor little runt must have been living in his very own brand of hell in the school yard! I'm sure of that. Especially because this little dude, for some reason, was in a slightly dingy, bear pajama. A onesie on at half past two in the afternoon, ya get me? A few weeks later this onesie deal, became a thing. Not just what the kid was wearing after a long trip. No, sir! I never saw Jacob without the same light brown pajamas on. Zipped all the way up to his scrawny little neck. Once he began to let the hood flopped down his back I saw Jacob was a nice looking boy, though his big brown right eye and equally huge sea blue left one made even me uncomfortable. You know? Everyone else were kind of put off. Obviously never noticing the kids blatant defect. One after the other, prefered to obmisse him in their own kind of disgust, in the boy's defect, that didn't fit in their snug, secure way of being. What was in an everyday experience; that nested in the breast of chaos hidden under a common day. He was a nice looking for a latino kid, though Karina was pale as a ghost, a southern California girl. With the most beautiful green eyes but, such a heartbreaking look. Like a beaten down dog, just no fight left. Every movement asking for forgiveness inside the chaos. Rare hugs. Mother's maelstrom; the blizzard ever folding upon itself; her pain, a twisting mess. I couldn't see how the boy would even have, the slightest notion, an allowed desire, any chance of a pure rapture all unease, desired beyond his I stared back at the kid, I was compelled to, nothing else. Jacob was trying to fold himself into his... Self? >MOM< Mommy, squatted down into the boy's eye line. Jacob was a completely sensitive kid, frequently underestimated, the boy knew when something was wrong. Dodging, moving her head closer, further away. Jacob was in a place mothers should avoid to lead their baby boys. She had abandoned him three times before. In his mind he was laying in a ear-hight body of dark water, trapped wanting to love his mother, void of trust, the damage had spread to family, strangers, only dogs were selfless angels. With an almost convincing squint of her green-eyes, she found his brown and blue ones through the grime and matty nylon fur. The child was as stiff as a board. Another landslide of bullshit, laid on him through tears, and broken words. The airport lights were getting ridiculously loud so he pulled the hood down tighter. Raggedy; awfully worn-down mittens dangled from the edges of each sleeve. The furry and filthy light brown gloves beside Jacobs both tight hands, for some reason rolled into a solid fist. “You know Mommy loves you, right?”, all Jacob could focus on were the strips of dead skin on her lips and how dry her mouth looked. Also wondered why white foam had built up at the creases of her mouth. The kid was weary, too much traveling. Of mom's shameless drunk version, rude, selfish—a textbook fiend. Scared too many nights, hours never seeming to end alone with his confusion. Every time mom pawned Jacob off, added up and the boy was just done. The urge to love his mother, make her stop being so sad was always stronger, and clenching his fists was all he could do about it. It was just the two, in that airport, and jacob knew his luck was tied to his mom. The boy just looked at her and nodded. “You are a piece of me, Jake. A piece of my body! Look at me," the mommy grabbed his cheeks, so their eyes met, " kiddo I dote on you!”.  P A R T I. And just like that, Jacob fell into a deep soul—wrenching fixation of sorts, the moment the trio made it to their destination. The driver, the tall thick one in a green overall, and a flared up pimple-red plagued back, obviously a steroid side-effect, flexed his stiff limbs. Shortly after they all stood in the light that flooded the hall from the open cage door. The moment the entrance was breached Jacob could only glare down the gullet of what intended to devour him next. The Marsupial was still fixated on the big green door, in his gut anxiety was in a whirl, he realized it was, his next home. Mom wasn't there. A path she promised they would both brave together; no matter what... A quick moment beforehand, they arrived in a white van to that dark, dark place the judge called Zoo. Where a nice vacant cage sat in waiting, expecting a lost kid mistaken for a common animal. The entire situation was a perfect storm of chaos, abuse, neglect, to the point of being plane out bizarre. Muscle-Head had his arms spread wide open, like a gameshow host, or a circus Ringmaster would, presenting the generous abundance, it was packed full to the ceiling with emptiness, all for Jacob! The court ordained they were to take the "Rare Marsupial" to that place, 'The Zoo', where he supposedly Belonged. An environment where he would be fed and properly taken cared of. The zoo administrators obviously had figured- upon a stroke of genius, that there was profit to be made! Proper identification, sex, species classification took back-seat. It became an unspoken matter; besides, they could just find-out what the hell he really was later. The Zoo admin got busy making their business plan. The huge "Publicity Campaign!" was the first point on their charter for sure. A place where he could get gawked at by the endless crowds of people. Crowds after crowds of different kinds of stranger's disapproving or perhaps judgmental, screwed-up stares will gather in herds every day in front of Jacob's cage. That was his destination, safely away from the others! Where both continued having a clear view of the other. In Jacob's twelve or eight year old mind, he had begun to grow into accepting just how much he didn't fit in with people in general. He came to really apraze the magnitude in which he didn't fit. How real it became for him, after his mother found enough coldness apparently within her, to let go of her son's hand that day, turned calm as everyone else while she disappeared into the crowd. " You know how we all have a self destruction button inside us all? Yeah, Obi like in a disastrous situation some people are brave enough to let themselves be killed so others can live. Right?" Jacob didn't have his hood on, you could see the night was rapidly bleeding out, and jake was drawing in the dirt using his left foot. "My mom had her self-destruction button already pressed for some reason. Its was like she had wrapped gray tape around, that button everybody has, the self-destruction button, she was her own hostage. Mom just thought it was her only way to hurt her father..." "I don't know why. She bled on everybody..." he exhaled into what almost was a sigh. "I am pretty sure she left a part of that craziness in me..." he said to Obi, and out into another random night. He had a stern, though overwhelming look of concern etched on his face as closing time was coming upon him. The kid hugged his knees on the same zoo bench, (form the c.c. footage studied) he became alone eventually but, he was shortly found. T "Stumpy the Grouch", Jacob had nicknamed the smallest of the team. He angrily opened the steel-laminated slab wide. The nerve-cringing moan of the hinges—a tooth-grinding lament—sent a ghoulish chill down everyone's spines. The sudden relief came only when the door abruptly smacked the tired gray rubber stopper fixed to the base of the wall. Automatically, the other custodian, 'Muscle-Head', Jacob had a long habit of nick naming people thus making them less frightening. So, "Muscle-Head" was bestowed upon him by the child. He was the first thing that had startled the boy into that 'fight or flight' mode! He found a far corner at the police station. Taking refuge in a shady, burnt bulb, corner sofa. Stiff, it was itchy, and Jacob didn't mind the stains under deafening scream of "What's next?". A huge ape-like mug peered down upon him. Covered the kid in his shadow. Jacob hugged his knees tighter and felt his huge hand around his right arm. He was in charge of containing the animal, and he had Jacob restrained all right! In a brutish fistful of filthy brown pajama cloth, is what he had. He instantly tossed the boy, lopsided, inside. There was a bit of disgust in his handling of Jake, a clear hostility in Muscle-Head's body language. Jake was possessed; in a full blown trance, it could be easily observed. One thing though, I was watching a child, in a bear onsie, win! He managed to actually escape everything that went down, in a sort of manner. "You know?" Jake made some sort of a mental jailbreak. They carelessly tossed him into the solitude filled "enclosure." From the dim, ankle-height orange led-lit concrete halls, that seemingly went on forever. Their thumping steps resounded against the heartless concrete walls. They successfully made three sharp turns with their prisoner. Job accomplished! They made it to their destination, Jacob's animal pen. A "Backroom" kind of slumber rose from the ground. The whole zoo reeked heavy somehow of sleep. That boy was still someplace else; comfortably numb. Perhaps he was a billion leagues away, or he was actually capable of phasing off to a pocket dimension outside of time, unbothered with what they were doing with him. Jacob was assigned two zoo approved handlers, though by the time they finally came to pick him up you could see the third shift written deep in the creases of both their faces. With their grimy clothes, exposed wild haired beer bellies, and the rotting take-out wrappers, soggy from a few too many lunches on the go. They were all festering in a heap. Crumpled into shady corners, under the seats, or out front just tossed in the back. It's foul odor mixed all day in the sun. Making its own brand of awful. A gut-wrenching stench, a mix of circumstances reeked the whole five-hour windowless van trip, over to the zoo. It was close to eleven o'clock at night when they got to the Police Station! Both transport workers became irrelevant, to Jacob. Considering what I have learned about the boy throughout the investigation, I'm sure he ripped them both from his plane of existence. All their brute strength, their rough mean faces, how much fear they made him felt, it was all ripped into a different dimension; as far as the brain of this weird kid was concerned. Poof! They ceased to exist in Jacob's mind. He was in control. That was the predictable outcome, mom led her baby boy to experience. It made no difference to Jacob he prefered keeping away from the hostile, panic-driven, and cruel pack of social animals. Selfish jackals who swear themselves to be human! What a joke, what a sad, sad joke... His belief in the crude half-baked promises that spewed out of her, foam edged, mouth. Vivid memories of her thick leathery hands, they always shook, so much they stole all the boy's confidence. Her words, they felt so long ago, unreachable even in Jacob's head every day that came and went by. Almost becoming a lost event inside a boy's brain, a disappointing sobbing from Mom, instead of... well, what ever a resilient adult should sound like. Mother's long distance phone call and pipe burnt fingertips; she promised but, never came back as herself. The kid suspected the hypnotic maelstrom he was suffering so badly to be from mom's naivety, an endless urge to step off the ledge she was taught, she left a self destructive rot hidden wet and so very deep somewhere inside the boy! It was the unpredictable hurt, from a stepfather's leather belt. Shouting so much yelling. Later he felt his Mom becoming cold, distant. "It was like she was unplugged. I tried to make her feel better, Obi. All my efforts were in spite of her having erased my Dad!" he confided late night. The one sided hugs. It all shattered a huge part of the kid's soul. A big sudden whoosh of air made the kid flinch! They all took it head on. A bang thundered immediately after! Out from the deepest dark it seemed to have been belched—a harsh, a stern command barked to the face, a frightening call into attention. The noise boomed down endless halls with the same intensity, bouncing off hidden snares of nothingness clawing dread down Jacob's heart, made the kid jerk up into a tight clam; muscle and fear. Making his stomach curl from a thick deep horror that stabbed from deep down inside. Swiftly replaced by the sound of dry metal in a toothy grinding of a key in a lock, and an opening door. So many directions echoing back to the boy it undoubtedly was a large place. Why was the door slammed shut just like the adults did in their fits... He stood up straight, pulled his hood back, revealing his dark brown mess of a head. The crackling warndown plastic of his onesies' feet, scuffing the ground so loudly they woke the howler monkeys. He looked at the darkness behind an enormous plexiglas window extending from wall to wall. Obi's face was lit in a ghoulish light while he watched Jake's hood a bears head hanging from his neck as he smirked at the messy head of tangled hair. Jacob just popped a squat on the highest rock he was able to climb up to. There was a rock waterfall made at the far left side of the enclosure, and began to half sulk while he scanned the place. The huge double glass doors were promptly used, that left Obi to make sure they got properly secured. A proud night custodian, he quickly began locking the front doors. Loud and proud announcing he was from Nigeria, any opportunity he got. A janitor as well, his mop and bucket made that clear. As clearly as he challenged Down Syndrome, happy, ultimately lost, independant, and he always introduced himself joyfully and with determination as told people his name was "Obi"; always with a big smile. He would throw his head back in pride. Obi, was no fool. An thirty-three year old migrant. He left his mop leaning against the wall, and he was walked, full speed towards the video shack. The rhythm of his bothered paces, his beaten-up, tired work boots down the corridor was the only racket that could be heard. Straight to the monitoring room. Once Obi closed the door he was covered in a veil of flickering light, a bluish and grayish hue covered the front of him as he looked up, in the hum of the computers. Boxes slumped sadly forgotten in the dark of one corner. Ancient metal and plywood desks on the opposite walls. He pulled a chair over to where the screens were. Watching the dingy yellowish monitors they had set up in rows. Three vertical and nine across, mounted on the back wall. The place reeked of mold. The image on the outdated screens was black and white. Grainy as hell. Obi knew Jacob wasn't any type of animal, no, he was no special marsupial! Jacob was a child. A boy born into a perfect storm. Tempered in a drama that didn't belong to him. Trauma, the violence, the abundance of rejection, well, the bottom line was he found himself to be unwanted. The filthy bear pajama had little to no real base to declare the kid some kind of animal! Never did he ever make a low whimper, not even a faint whisper, no attempt at all to say he was just a kid that gave up on the adults in his life and he decided to hide inside his bear onesie. Clad somehow in a moment he cherished. *Missing Files: #3. and #14. The boy apparently had adapted in a peculiar, way. Enjoyed when people shuffled by. Prudently far and glass barrieded away from him. In reality, the kid had outgrown the dirty bear get-up. Time. It's a ravenous unescapable poltergeist out for all of us. The absolute definition of existence, the very essence of it, change. Hollow of mercy, love, sadness, where what follies of men, or women, wishes, hope, have no meaning in it's pass. Months had drawled into deformed creatures, weeks. Aware of the amount of time this confusion had wasted, so many dates squandered one after another. Days leaked into the next. Forgotten unperceived days that pile into one huge angry lump of doe. It became plain as daylight to the child's eyes, the bear pajama deal was over. People gawking at him believing he is anything other than human, done. Obi, which filled the kid with contentment telling him his name meant "God's Heart" or "Father's Heart" in Nigeria. Said to him "You're lost white boy! You don't belong Jake-up! you just don't" Yolanda's drabby eyes drooped over her old lady glasses, her head appeared out his barely ajar door. Her gaze was as sour as always. She made him uneasy, rude, and rough in whatever he had to do with her. It was about five fifty in the afternoon, "Hi! Jake, umm, your owner's dead. Ok? Em, O.D I suppose." Quickly as she appeared she was gone. The door locked. |
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