Jazzie Chapter 7
The following story is for adults and contains graphic descriptions of sexual content. All the characters, events and settings are the product of my overactive imagination. I hope you like it and feel free to respond.
This story is a sequel to Fourteen. If you would like to comment, contact me at eliot.moore.writer@gmail.com.
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Jazzie 7
Not Some Child
John walks the sidewalk amused that each time he steps off the curb to get around a pedestrian, Henry follows in his footsteps. The nine-year-old leads a double life around Gray’s Farm; perhaps multiple lives. An eleven-year-old could see the sense in that. You behave differently with adults than you did with your friends. Family business was not your friend's business, and sometimes secrets are essential. Parents don’t seem to understand what a boy must do to get along. John stops at the crosswalk, and since the younger boy is still behind him, John swivels around to toss his head at Henry.
Henry steps up next to John. The boy still runs the streets trying to keep up with Nathan and the older boys. It hurts when Henry sides with his old friends. John understands, he would do exactly the same. Since Pudgee Funk and Tayo left the neighborhood, Henry latched onto John. It started with the early warning, then Henry was just there about the Carter house. Chloe does not think much of that.
“Cu ya, this is the corner.” John points around them, “Sports shop, department store, electronics. Upstairs is what we are doing.” Henry turns to each a second time, as if remembering each location is important. He looks up at John expectantly. “This here is important work, that’s what I am saying. Your mum’s got the WIFI and you”ve got Jaden’s old iPhone. Show it to me now.” Henry dutifully holds up the battered device. “I send you a message, you got to find a way to be here.”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you soon enough,” John answers patiently. The school term is starting in a week. John begged his mother to get him back into Gray’s Farm, or any of the St John’s elementary schools. He does not want to go back to Cobbs Cross. But there it is, in a week he has to start taking the bus again. John blames his mum, he blames Jeremy for not wanting to see him, no reason to blame himself for fighting with Nathan and the boys. “Jaden is going to need you to watch his back when I can’t be here. I know this is a long way to come, but the way things are, we will be back at Jaden’s house pretty soon. This is Tayo’s crib.”
“I promise, Jazzie.”
“Got to call me John Carter, Henry,” John reminds the boy.
“We aren’t Black Hood?” Henry asks, disappointed.
“Black Hood got its head chopped off,” John reminds the boy. “This is our business now. First rule?” John quizzes Henry.
“We don’t talk about our business. Don’t worry, Trini needs me, I got his back.” Henry says this solemnly. If there is anything impractical about two young boys protecting a fourteen-year-old hooker, Henry and John do not see it. This is real, this is important, and boys need that. “I’m going to need a SIM card, Jazzie.”
“Oh hell,” John mutters to himself.
John shows Henry the room. Trini is on the bed playing with his new phone. Henry tries the bed springs, then John slips him $10.00 and tells him to get a smoothie across the street. “Keep a lookout.” Henry asks, what for? “Anybody that scares you more than Pudgee Funk. Anybody that looks like they run the street.”
John waits until Henry takes off. “Jaden, we’ve got to talk about this. The end of the month is coming, and you are going to lose Tayo’s place here. I don’t know what you plan to do.”
“Jazzie—”
“We are Jaden and John now, you know that. I promised my mum I’d be righteous from now on.”
“John, we need this room. You know the uptown jammers passing through won’t go to Gray’s Farm. Besides, my mum will tax me if I bring it home.”
“It just looks like that’s the only way you can keep doing your business,” John shrugs helplessly “Maybe this is it.” The money has been nice. Helping Trini keeps John’s mind off of the troubles in the neighborhood, and the sadness he still feels losing Jeremy and Theo.
“Tayo needs me now, more than ever. I’m all he has. Tayo told me so.”
“You talked to Tayo?”
“I went with his mum,” Trini explains. “He’s looking good; doesn’t know when the trial is going to happen. We’ve got to do this for him.” Trini spins dreams about the day Tayo goes free. Trini, a bit older, Tayo taking him in his arms, being his man.
“I’ve got Wadadli redials on my phone now.” John mulls it over. Trini’s business is modest, even with the great ships coming and going.
“You need to go,” Trini checks his clock, “He’s already late.” The teenager looks at John. Trini knows some of the men walking up the steps would like the young boy in the room instead. John’s sister Chloe has tamed her brother’s unruly mop into cornrows. Trini likes the look. “John, you promised to have my back. We need to keep Tayo’s room.”
“I’ll put my mind to it.”
John goes to wait on the steps with Henry. The nine-year-old points two young bloods out to John. There is nothing gang about them. Jaden is just a boy meeting men in a room. They are no-see-ums, silently dropping onto the ripe fruit for a tiny sip. John and Jaden are not muscling their way onto the streets owned by dangerous men.
“I’m going to talk to the old woman who owns that room. You stay right here. Man’s going to come up these steps. You don’t have to say anything. Just look at the time.”
“Trini going to be sexing long?” John looks at the boy in surprise. “I know that boy-girl business,” Henry ruffles his feathers, “Not some child, Jazzie.”
John wanders back from the street stall where he has been haggling with the old woman who sublets the rooms above the electronics store. Henry has made a friend. The two boys chatter on the steps. John points up to Trini’s room, and Henry shakes his head.
John walks past Trini’s door and down to the beaded curtain marking the point where the old woman’s space starts. The color reminds John of Jeremy’s room. That is all. There is a Jesus picture on the wall and a lifetime of memories strewn about. Despite the Jesus picture, the old woman knows Trini’s business and does not care. She put the screws to John and Jaden. The furniture is trash like Jeremy’s.
John pulls his phone out. There is just one ship in the harbor. Come winter, there will often be four. The ship comes in the morning and usually leaves at night. This late in the day, John is surprised to get a message from Tayo’s contact. He will pass it on when Trini is done. The three boys can go eat something together, before Trini’s business starts again. He bites his lip and writes a message.
how’s your boat? Have you gone sailing? First term starts next week. Mum says it’s better if I stay in Cobbs Cross.
I’m really sorry
This is the first time John tries to talk to Jeremy. He purses his lips, waiting for a quick reply. Reluctantly, he slips the Galaxy back in his pocket and goes down the hall to Trini’s door. John usually does not listen. Trini is three years older than John. This is his business. There are sexing noises.
“Ah good, feel that? Tek dat. Ah fu you, ah … fu … you.” John can hear the grunts through the door. His mother and her boyfriend, they talk a lot too. The boyfriend likes to brag about his thing while he is doing it. It is playful, and John knows it makes his mum happy.
“You done now,” Trini tells the man. This one is a referral from Trini’s mother.
“Does my puppy say it’s done? Money is on the table there, batty boy like you gotta worship my big dick in your mouth or bussy. Toilet like you needs to be pissed on now and then. Am I right?” There is a heavy slap, and Trini protests.”Am I right?”
A body hits the door, and John steps away. He steps toward the closed door, uncertainty. This slapping is like Pudgee Funk getting mad. The best thing a boy can do is to be somewhere else. John glances down the hall to where Henry sits with his new friend on the steps. Then the angry sounds draw his attention back to Trini’s room.
“Am I right?” The angry man repeats. Trini does not answer. “Cum bucket like you is not half full of my seed. Money on the table says I gotta breed you till this likkle nut sack squeezes out its juice.” Trini’s cry is pitched as high as Henry’s voice.
This abuse isn’t Trini’s business. John thinks the teen’s business is happy coupling like Susan Carter's, or the titillating sounds and whispers that came from Jeremy’s bed. This is what Trini says he needs John for, but the teen needs Tayo’s muscles, not an eleven-year-old shuffling frightened in the hallway. It shouldn't be this way! Trini shouldn't be this way! Trini needs to man up like Theo. Theo wouldn't take shit from no man. He’d take that old police baton of his and smack this waste-man on the head.
The man is back to talking about how hard his cock is and John can hear the creak of the old bed as bodies start to move. John takes a deep breath, relieved that the frightening moment is over. His heart will not slow down. It’s better on the steps, just go sit on the steps with Henry. This is no different than going out to Papa Jack’s coupe when mum has her boyfriend over. The Trini protests once again and gets an angry answer. “Tell me you like it, tell me you like it. Your mamma man nash loves my hood. I’m Mr T, I’m Mr T!” The man chants and there are slaps.
John turns to the steps where Henry sits, then swings around towards the old woman’s beaded curtain. He just needs to not be here. John finds himself kicking the leg of a coffee table. Three hard kicks of frustration break a leg free. John snatches up the broken piece and goes back to Trini’s room. Deep breath that might be a scared sob, and John steps in.
“You done now. Time for you to go!” His voice is shrill. John brandishes his makeshift club with both hands. The Internet was not enough preparation for the young boy. John is flustered by the sight of penis sliding free from Trini’s bottom. “Just, just put your pants on and go.”
“Whose this now?” The man sneers. His organ still has strength and it is pointing at John’s face. The man reaches out to grab the table leg. John swats it away, and there is a crack as the wood connects with a thick wrist. The man pulls it back. “God damn!” He complains.
Trini has scrambled across the bed, seeking distance. The man’s eyes are on the determined eleven-year-old threatening him. “You don’t need to excite yourself, boy. We all friends here.” The man’s hands are up, palms out, ready to ward off a blow. John does not play baseball, like Jeremy. John’s game is cricket. He is Shane Burton now and swings his bat between the man’s legs.
The man goes down to his knees, too blinded by the pain to make a sound. When his head lifts up, Henry steps around John and breaks a rotten spindle on a bare shoulder. The young boy skitters back toward the doorway. “Run away!” John orders the grovelling man. He has the table leg ready. “We all just forget this.”
John is scared to death, but he backs up to the wall, then inches away from the door so the man can leave. It is not John’s table leg club that convinces the man. It is Tayo’s gun trembling in Trini’s fists. “You heard Jazzie, we forget this, but you go.”
Faced with an angry-frightened teenager pointing a gun, the man gathers his dignity. John can read the look that promises, next time I see you …. The threat is better veiled when the man measures Trini’s trembling hands. “Now don’t excite yourself,” the man cautions the teenager again.
Henry in the hallway keeps his distance as the man departs. Then he is breathless-bouncy back through the door into Tayo’s room. “We did that Mo’ Fo’. That’s rizzle! I was sure Trini was gonna bust a cap in that old nizzle.” Henry’s admiration for John is boundless. “Jazzie, he got ghost when you stepped up!”
The two boys slap and giggle the tension out. “It could have gone down different,” John warns the younger boy. “Thanks for having my back, bro.”
“You a baby-gangsta with that biscuit,” Henry turns to Trini.
“Henry, enough with that silly talk, you see if you can put this leg back on the lady’s table so she doesn’t make a fuss.” John hands his makeshift weapon over. Henry takes it from him, snoops around the door jam to make sure the man has left, then hurries down the hall. John turns back to Trini. “Jaden, you give me that thing before we’re sorry about something.”
There is a transformation. Trini becomes aware of the automatic weapon in his fists. It has still been pointed towards the door as Henry and John celebrate. The adrenaline drains away and the traumatized fourteen year old anchors himself in John’s quiet voice. It is natural to offer the gun across the bed to John. Tayo’s weapon is an uncertainty best left to Jazzie.
“You don’t need this heat. I’ve got your back.” John sets the loaded gun gingerly on the bed between them. “Something like that ‘matic' is going to get us killed!
“You see how it is?” John sighs.
“You had my back, John Carter.” Trini pulls his pants on and sits down on the bed.
“Jaden, you know that old man was a pussy. What good is a boy like me against some man with his rage on? I step in next time, I’m going to be a fly swat against the wall.” John waves in the general direction of the door. “Henry thinking he is a baby gangsta with all that trash talk, how’s that going to help you?”
“You’ve got to understand,” Trini answers, “business gets rough sometimes.” Trini can’t explain how the agony can spark the words and roughness, or why a boy like him can want it, just a little. For all the manood Trini sees bursting through the eleven-year-old’s chrysalis, Jazzie has not grown into it yet. Jazzie was going to be butterfly-beautiful like Tayo. Trini can see it. He bites his lip and looks indulgently at his business partner.
“You’re close to being a grown man. You gotta stand tall with these men. Get yourself a strong stick or pepper spray; man treats you like that, you be ready to stomp on his nuts.” John is picturing Theo and the way the young man’s telescoping baton just snapped out with a practiced menace. How do you get one of those things? He asks himself.
“Okay, Jazzie,” Trini tries to mollify John.
“I talked with the old bag down the hall. Tayo pays his rent, we can keep the room. She knows our business; thinks we could pay her something more to look away.” John is being pushed into complicated things. “We can pay her, probably.”
John sits beside Trini and looks up at him. “Jaden, this is your business. Tayo just told me to pass on messages to you.”
“And watch my back,” Trini adds. His eyes are on his hands.
“Tayo is gone,” Trini bridles at this, “Tayo is not here, that’s all. Jaden, this is your business. I am not some uptown pimp telling you what to do and when to do it. You the boss of yourself here. If this business is what you want to do—”
“Yes, I need to do this.” Trini affirms.
“Then you always get to say yes or no, understand?”
“You’ll keep having my back?” Trini turns his face to John’s. Their eyes meet.
“Till I’m fly splat on the wall over there,” John agrees. He reaches out to touch Trini’s face. The older boy turns his head slightly for inspection. “Man, that bastard got you good. We had some roti coming in off the boat in about an hour. I better tell him not to come. You’re pretty banged up.”
“It’s okay, Jazzie. I can do it. Tayo needs the money from the tourists.”
“It’s not okay. Looking like that, you leave graffiti on a wall, the next boy walking by thinks he can tag the wall too. You gotta take care of yourself, Trini.”
“I will, Jazzie.”
John brushes the side of Trini’s face again. “He hurt you elsewhere?”
The teenager grins at the eleven-year-old, “No Jazzie, he didn’t hurt me. You’re going to learn that soon enough. I like your hair that way.” He brushes John’s temple the way Tayo won’t let him.
“Just keeps it off my face,” John eyes the teenager warily. “Damn, that man is blacklisted! Your mamma sends another man like that around to see you, she’s blacklisted too.”
“I worry about Tayo. He needs me, Jazzie. I don’t work that much and we need to take care of Tayo. His mum needs us to give her money for Tayo.”
“Tayo is going to be a guest of Her Majesty the Queen along with Pudgee Funk. You need to take care of yourself. Tayo’s mum, who says how much of what you give her gets to Tayo anyway? The problem is, you're stuck on that man. He talks you down all the time, worse than that man who just left. You’re mooning after the wrong man, Trini.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Trini answers with a knowing smile.
“That’s another thing we need to talk about: you passing all your money on to Tayo. This is your business, well, our business, and we have extra expenses now with that old hag down the hallway. You are so addled by that man, I can’t trust you. My mum helped me open a bank account; guess she thinks I’m saving money for secondary school and not buying drugs. You get your mum to help you open your own account. I will take all the money.”
“If you say so, Jazzie.”
John stops talking and reaches for the money the man left. He counts it out between them on the bed. “No tip, these Wadadli men are so cheap. So you keep the tips as usual. Everything else goes into my bank account. I transfer money to you like an allowance. Keep some back so you don’t keep throwing it at Tayo’s mum.”
“Okay, Jazzie,” Trini agrees. “You know Alvita?” Alvita is (was) one of Pudgee’s girls. John might have kicked her in the face as he was scrambling out of Pudgee Funk’s Alterra in English Harbour. She is Pudgee’s type: bursting out in every direction. “Maybe Alvita knows I’ve got some business going on. We need more money for this room. She is fifteen. If you ran the messages for her, like you do with me, maybe she uses the room, maybe the men off the cruise ships want—”
“Are you telling people about this room?” John is upset.
“No, she thinks I date men at my mums. I’ve done that a few times.”
“That stops,” John interrupts emphatically. “Maybe you do meet men somewhere else, but not in our neighborhood.” He struggles to understand what is bothering him. “I can’t watch your back if I don’t know who you do your business with. You get a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, well, you’re a man. That’s your business. I have to know though. I’m not going to be Alvita’s pimp, and no girl is going to share our room!”
Trini is sure he needs to revisit this argument later. Jazzie is clever and reliable. Alvita needs someone like Jazzie now that Pudgee Funk is gone. “You know, the Black Hoods need some direction, now that Pudgee Funk is away.” Trini looks pointedly at John.
“Have you been smoking? You’re older than all of us, well, not the hoes like Alvita. You want to run the Black Hoods, you step up.”
“Boys are not going to listen to me,” Trini says this like a fact he does not care about. “You’re large with them, Jazzie.”
“Black Hoods is dead. I don’t want to be like Pudgee Funk sitting on my mother’s couch, you on one side, a hoe like Alvita on the other. Maybe I got Dray or maybe Henry sitting listening to me talk about getting my dick sucked?” John shakes his head. “We don’t need to play stupid games. I’ve got other things to do.”
“You’re the boss, Jazzie.” The teenager stands up and strips his pants off. “I should clean up.” He pauses as if John might object. “I’m glad you have my back, and you look really good in cornrows.”
John supposes Trini is not like Theo and Jeremy. The teenagers in English Harbour walk proud all the time. John is three years younger and the fourteen-year-old leans on him. Trini is shy in some way that John cannot really understand. It’s like, in some way, Trini is always naked like this in front of some man, ready to sex. John thinks about how Tayo talks Trini down in front of everyone, Trini takes it like a whipped puppy. Maybe it’s the love-Tayo thing, or the hormones they talk about.
Henry returns from the other part of the building. John swings around to examine his young protege. “What did you take from that old woman?” Henry shows him a pocketful of trinkets. “Go put them back; we are not thieves. Thieving is just going to put you into the Boy’s School. You end up in the mafia, you end up dead.” John remembers the gun. Can’t leave that lying around!
When Henry comes back, John is tidying up the room, getting it ready for the next man. Henry drops on the bed. “So, you do that with Trini, the sexing in the batty?”
“What you think? What do you think?” John corrects his own diction with a sigh. “I’m twelve, come December 18th. I’m not going to tell you lies like I’m Mr. Mention all over Wadadli. Plenty of time to do all that later.”
“Trini not your type?”
“No telling what a man’s type is till they become a man,” John reasons. “This is our place, Henry. I think we should fix it up a bit. Trini deserves a nice place to do his business. Nice place for all of us to spend some time.”
“Air conditioner,” Henry suggests hopefully.
“You are a nine-year-old Saton, Henry,” John replies exasperated. Now that tempting thought is going to prey on my mind! John groans. “You did good, kid. I think you earned yourself a meal.”
“And a SIM card?”
We Need It
Shekerley Boatyard fracture-fingers out into Falmouth Harbour on the east, where Matthew’s Road swings north up through the center of the island. A driver would catch a view of the cricket grounds, and miss the turn that takes you to the boatyard and marina.
Jeremy parks his Zuma by the Easy-Bake office. This side of the road looks like a container port. Two steel boxes make the office and a third adjoins them at right angles for storage. The owner’s domain is on the first floor above. Behind the red and white shipping container office is an ambitious pile of rusting containers welded into the beginnings of Shekerley’s recycled tourist accommodation.
Across the road leading to the docks are lines of boats up on the hard, and Shekerley’s workshops. A massive boat lift sits idle by the water. Jeremy stands beside this, just behind Melvin Lindsey. A heavy tool bag digs into his bare shoulder. Vinny is a septuagenarian scarecrow with a cigarette dangling from his unshaven lip. The sailboat’s skipper is storytelling.
“We were making the run from Nonsuch Bay to English Harbour. This puttz in a big-ass powerboat backed right on us. The idiot had no idea what he was doing.” The portly woman shakes her sun bleached tips. She and her companion must not be liveaboards, Jeremy thinks, otherwise, they might fix their problem without our help.
“I had to gun it, to get around his boat. They must have been less than six meters from Sapho. I really pushed the engine.” The sailboat skipper looks back along the dock to where her Jeanneau Attalid 32 floats moored in the marina. “I didn’t think much about it. About forty-five minutes later, Helen told me there was smoke coming out of the exhaust. I gave it a look, and realized it was steam.”
“It was overheating,” Vinny manages to keep the burning cigarette on his lower lip, “Let’s have a look.”
The woman leads them to her boat. “When we reached Half Moon Bay, the overheating alarm went off. We just shut everything down to regroup. Sapho handles well in light wind, so we just sailed on.”
Shekerley Boatyard was Jeremy’s first home when he reached Antigua. That was before he acquired a principal share in Gravity. It suits him to have Gravity in English Harbour at the moment, but Shekerley Boatyard is still his home port.
Jeremy’s precarious position rests on a three-legged stool. He cooks and cleans at Claark and Anna van der Merwe’s Lekker Braai, charters little Gravity, and works and learns here at Shekerley Boatyard. Jeremy Gates’ consuming ambition is to obtain his RYA Yachtmaster Ocean ticket; then he can legally charter his Dufour 29, sign on to skipper a larger charter craft, or even earn his living as a yacht delivery captain.
Claark and Anna are such great souls, almost family now. They nurture his independence just as his parents do. Jeremy knows he is lucky. When a charter comes his way, they cheerfully adjust their work schedules. The owner of Shekerey’s, Kenroy Jean-Baptiste, is a grasping, penny-pinching grump. He snarls Ebeneezer-Scrooge about his boatyard. For inexplicable reasons, Kenroy is sanguine about Jeremy’s frequent absences.
This laissez-faire may be because Jeremy’s primary job is helping Melvin Lindsey. At seventy-three years, the aging wizard makes his own hours. Kenroy’s daughter in the office will phone, and Jeremy knows Vinny has just walked down the road. Kenroy pays him well to keep the old man happy.
The Attalia 32 is almost exactly Gravity’s age. The coachroof is lower and features Plexiglass port lights. Jeremy eyes the boat critically. The fabric and the vinyl locker covers droop. When he follows Vinny down the companionway, he notes the disarray of the spacious interior. Two demanding skippers introduced Jeremy to boats, Sapho would not pass their inspection.
“She’s underpowered,” Vinny remarks from the bench he has taken. “Two-cylinder Yanmar,” the old man adds. Jeremy nods. He has no intention of becoming a master mechanic. It is enough to understand the boats he sails. Gravity is all electric, thank God, but electric or diesel, engines for boats this size are made for docking and negotiating close quarters. Jeremy has opened the access behind the companionway steps. “Go on and open the panel in the aft cabin.”
The old man and Jeremy are not friends. Melvin Lindsey has met Theo Clarke. Vinny is too old fashioned to approve of batty boys; however, he has lived past condemnation and weathered the disappointments of his children. Besides, Vinny is comfortable with the way boy and man work together. Jeremy listens and learns. Most importantly, the boy is nimble.
Jeremy removes the belt so he can pull the router pump off. “Remove the exhaust elbow. It might be the hoses, but I doubt it.” Vinny lights a fresh cigarette from the stub.
Removing the bolts is fussy in the confined space. It takes an extension on the wrench. Older helpers hate this about working with the old man. He sits and smokes while they scrape knuckles and pretzel themselves in the boat’s tight spaces. Jeremy borrows some soap. He begins to wrestle the hose off the elbow. “Come on you black bastard, come off for me,” Jeremy’s hands twist at the stubborn hose.
“Young stars, you always have your minds on sexing,” Vinny is never above some teasing banter.
Jeremy concentrates on working the hose free. “You’re right!” His palm pauses to stroke suggestively down the length. “This hose, this lovely long hose, I can’t wait to get it off!” The two parts break free. He does not bother to pass it over to the old man, “Not clogged.”
Vinny comes around beside Jeremy so he can look over his shoulder. His instructions continue in a tired monotone. This routine maintenance is nothing interesting. Only a dribble follows the removal of the drain valve. The system is pretty clogged. “Do you have any charters this month?”
“I have one in two weeks. A couple from Miami.” This helps the Gravity account, but it takes two charters each month to pay his small boat’s bills.
Vinny continues talking through the deconstruction of the heat exchanger. “Emerald’s Ferdinand is in Miami. He sent for his wife Lisa and the two little ones.”
Over the last year, Jeremy has learned dribbles and drabs about the old man. Jeremy has learned that Vinny and his wife have family living with them. The middle aged daughter brings two children. The son, Mattias, is a twenty-two-year old bus driver. Vinny does not know that Jeremy has met the young man at one of Branko Mensah’s Gay-Straight Alliance meetings. The gruff policeman may have given Mattias the look, as Theo would call it. Dayana is Emerald’s youngest child.
Jeremy has to open both ends of the heat exchanger. There is yellow scaling all over the perforated end of the suction side. Jeremy does not ask the old man’s advice. He rummages through the tool bag, and picks an Allen wrench that should fit into the half inch tubes.
Jeremy twists back to the Diesel engine. He holds the wrench up so the man can see it. “This Allen wrench, do I ream the hole out slowly, or go in hard; really punish it?”
“You’re flirting with hell, boy.”
“Ah, the primrose path!” Jeremy addresses the exposed outtake. “I want to go hard.” He begins the task of loosening the scaling. “So many lovely holes, Vinny, so many holes.”
Vinny shakes his head and grunts. Vinny lives a touch over a mile up the road from Falmouth, just down the road from Liberty Wesleyan Holiness Church. Vinny still walks the wooded slope along Table Hill and Monks Hill. The boy he works with mentioned his baby daughter back in Ohio. The boy’s parents raise the girl, like Vinny’s daughter is left to raise the two great grandsons. Vinny sighs, except for Ferdi in Miami, Melvin Lindsey does not think these young ones know responsibility. Too busy chasing money. Dayana works in St. John’s all week. His granddaughter brings groceries home from Epicurean Fine Foods and Pharmacy. At least Yana gets home on weekends.
Vinny thinks Dayana was a lot like Jeremy when she turned fifteen. The girl ran the streets of St. John’s. There was trouble with bad friends. Just like that, her boyfriend gave her Josue. It took the second boy, Yari, for her to come back to her senses. “So, how’s that little girl fur-yu doing, all so far away?”
The inflow side is bad. The cover plate is iced with frothy mineral layers. The intake holes are worse. Jeremy delicately frees the rubber seal before working the Allen wrench into the other end of the coolant tubes. The chalky buildup is easy to remove. “Sky is babbling up a storm. I swear she has a Kiwi accent like her mom. She is standing now. She is a happy girl.” Jeremy senses the criticism behind the old man’s question. Instagram clips from his parent’s living room unintentionally guilt him. Vinny hands Jeremy the wire brush, and he begins scouring the faces of the heat exchanger.
“Why does the little liar bother you so much?” Theo asked him. “I don’t know, but it does!” Jeremy exclaimed. Theo will not understand why John Carter’s betrayal preys on Jeremy’s mind. Like everyone Jeremy trusts, Theo just repeats that Jeremy should not take too much on herself. I don’t know. There is nothing tying Jeremy to the Antiguan boy. It’s stupid! He only knew the kid for a month, and spent a mere handful of hours with John Carter, but it leaves Jeremy feeling like a failure.
There is this tiny girl in Ohio with his mom and dad. It was a vast relief to let them carry his daughter away at Christmas. He welcomed everyone’s opinion that a fifteen-year-old boy should not try to parent newborn Sky. Only, this is another instance where he ran away from something because it was hard to deal with. He feels it has become a pattern: embrace the excuses. The more Jeremy thinks about it, the more he feels he acts no better than John Carter; pretending he is innocent, babbling justifications, choosing the easy way out.
The faces with their tube openings are shining now. Jeremy uses his phone to shine a constellation through the refurbished tubes. He did not shape John Carter’s life. He is not responsible for the young boy’s bad choices. The boy is a parent’s problem. Checking up on John is not even an argument, but Jeremy argues with himself. You were not even helping John. You let him hang around when he should have been in school. You let him sleep on Gravity when he should have been at home. You even winked at his theft, why?
Jeremy ensures the seals are clean before he starts to reassemble. When the router pump has been reattached, Vinny adds descaler. They run the reassembled Yanmar for a few minutes. “Grab the tools,” Vinny tells Jeremy.
“You’re done?” The woman asks.
“Let it pickle for about half an hour. We be back to clean she out.”
Vinny goes for a smoke and Jeremy joins a scratch game of cricket on the road between the office and the workshops. “So, who cobbed first and third bases?” Jeremy swings the length of plywood as if it were a Louisville Slugger. The boatyard men jeer at him good-naturedly. George Thomas bowls a blob of hardened spray foam at the 2x4 wicket, and Jeremy golfs their makeshift ball over the young man’s head and into the ready hand of a waiting fielder. “So, that’s two points, right?” The men jeer some more.
Melvin Lindsey tinkers with Jeremy’s troublesome Zuma. There is a steady stream of questions from Jeremy, because the Zuma scooter is his craft, and a man should understand his machine. Vinny appreciates this about the castaway American boy. Vinny simply resets the ECU, and the Zuma fires on the first crank. “Sweet!” Jeremy smiles.
“I think resetting the engine control unit will fix the problem. You may need to replace it. It is old, but it has some miles left in it. I wouldn’t drive this rust bucket on our roads.”
“That’s what my mother says,” Jeremy grins. The scooter is really just for along Matthew’s Road and Dockyard Drive, a couple of miles. Occasionally, Jeremy stretches the leash constable Branko Mensah allows him, and runs it up to Swetts where Theo’s family lives. Occasionally, the Zuma with its unlicensed driver finds its way to St. John’s. Jeremy reasons he is sixteen, he would have his license if Antigua and Barbuda were sensible about it.
With Jeremy’s scooter fixed, the old man’s day is done. Vinny always declines a ride up the road to Liberta. Jeremy extracts his phone and looks at messages. How's your boat? Have you gone sailing? First term starts next week. Mum says it’s better if I stay in Cobbs Cross, and I’m really sorry. This is John’s first effort to talk to him. The bit about being back around Falmouth Harbour, Jeremy guesses the boy wants to see him again. He’s such a little conman, Jeremy frowns.
“Do you know anything about this boy?” Theo asked him when his hard drive was stolen. “Me and this boy, we wouldn’t think twice; just snap it up … we need it, yeah? … You’ve got options, love.” What does he know about John Carter? Not very much at all. Maybe he has something John Carter needs, and maybe the boy has something Jeremy Gates needs.
Jeremy thumbs out a reply on his phone.
I have not gone sailing. I have been pretty busy working. I’m glad you are still in school. I hope you are staying out of trouble.
Making Room
Theo wears ripped jeans faded to a powdered blue, and a dress shirt rolled up his biceps. A freshly Windexed safety helmet waits on the cooktop peninsula. Theo is trying on a pair of Jeremy’s used work gloves. “You have small hands, but I love you all the same.”
“You look like a Village Person.”
Jeremy has opted for a pair of chinos slacks he is outgrowing. Theo approves of the snugness of the choice, and the equally disposable T-shirt. If it does not rip during the day, Theo promises it will rip across Jeremy’s broadening chest before he takes it off.
“You know,” Jeremy adds, “You could wear that outfit to Chandler’s Open Mic.”
“You hate my new dress!”
“Not at all,” Jeremy assures his boyfriend.
“With you in that outfit, we will still need four more. Straights love a bit of gay camp. We would have the whole place on its feet signing out YMCA. Pity all your friends are still deep in Narnia.” Theo dismisses the idea. He drops his morning dishes into the sink. “First day on the job!” The safety helmet settles on his tightly bound hair. “I’m feeling very blue collar this morning!”
Jeremy is less enthusiastic. Part of this is all things Fourteen Gates, and most of this is the construction work’s unwelcome distraction from things that matter. Theo works to cheer him up. His boyfriend strikes a pose, flexing his muscles. It serves to remind Jeremy that Theo is a masseuse who can lift Jeremy’s 139 pounds above his head before he drops him on the bed.
“Okay Grumpy, it’s off to work we go. Clarence might let the little bass slack off, but Mr. Deveroux is going to point at me and say, Off Pat’s wages.”
“That’s not what he says to you, Dil. Is that his tart?” Jeremy knows the correct dialogue.
Theo comes around to place a helmet on Jeremy’s head. “Does Fergus have a tart?” He asks.
“She’s not a tart,” Jeremy obliges Theo with the next line and a small smile.
“No, of course not, she’s a lady,” Theo brushes Jeremy’s chest with his gloved fingers.
“She’s not that either,” Jeremy continues their dialogue game. He removes his helmet and gathers his work gloves into it. Darling, Theo begins as Jeremy opens the door. “What are you doing here?” Jeremy stops abruptly on the doorstep when he sees John Carter by the door.
“I got your message.”
John is sitting with his knees up to his chin. There is the familiar well-worn uniform and school bag by his side. First day of the new term and he is back in English Harbour. “Your apartment is empty. That man over there said you had moved across to here.”
Clarence Williams and his two sons are already removing doors from units marked for renovation. Theo steps around Jeremy. “Bashful this morning, are we?” Theo is not unkind, but there is the familiar I’ve-got-my-eyes-on-you gimlet look in Theo’s eyes. “Here to nick some construction material, then?”
“Don’t mind Swishy, here,” Jeremy consoles as John buries his face in his forearms. Jeremy nods his boyfriend off across the courtyard. He drops down beside the boy, letting his elbow brush a bare arm.
“I’m sorry!” John starts from the safety of the shelter he has built out of his own body.
“I know.” Jeremy’s knee bumps against the boy. He has had time to think this through. He regrets the abruptness of his departure from the bake shop in Gray’s Farm. Jeremy knows it is easy to get swept away by your own desires; to be selfish and take, when you know you should be content with what you have.
The pair sit silently together. Jeremy looks across the newly planted courtyard, and John presses his tears into his forearm. Their lives are different, but in their own ways they try to fill something missing in their lives; Jeremy has been a boy nicknamed Fourteen, and John is Jazzie.
It’s not always your own idea, Jeremy recognizes others draw you in to trouble. Jeremy never planned to leave Chillicothe, Ohio. He was snatched away. The taking liberated Jeremy, and it set him on this path he had to follow. Life happens, and you happen to it.
Jeremy is five years older than the boy beside him. Five extra years of making mistakes. The last two years have helped him realize some might be fixed, and some are too terribly final to contemplate. You can’t fix everything, you just move forward looking for a path.
Perhaps forgiving John is another way to pay it forward. Jeremy has so much to pay forward. Making room for someone else to fix their mistakes — risking being hurt again, Jeremy can do that for John Carter.
“This is what we are going to do. I’m going to take you to school this morning,” Jeremy nudges the boy to get a response. John looks up at him with liquid eyes. “You can’t be playing hooky to see me. I’ll drive you there, and watch you march through the school gate.”
John presses his lips together, watching Jeremy carefully. Jeremy meets his eyes. “School's done, I’ll be there waiting for you. If you want, you can come back to Fourteen Gates and we can talk; or not, we can just hang out.”
John sniffs and blinks a transformation as Jeremy waits. John’s uncertainty dissolves like a shadow passing on when the cloud clears the sun. “And I can still come over, when I’m not busy? Sometimes I’m busy after school. I’ve got responsibilities now.”
Adolescent-alienated from the memory of his own volatile childhood, Jeremy is uncertain how to respond to John’s capacity to shift from a cascade of tears to joy. Depression lingers at sixteen like an old man’s bruise. Jeremy sighs his doubts away. “Busy is good,” then a question comes to Jeremy. “Tayo, maybe twenty, has a dragon tattoo on his neck? You sent him my way?”
“You know Tayo?” John has a sudden recollection of Trini’s knowing smile, Don’t be so sure. He looks defensively at Jeremy. “I never told Pudgee Funk or Tayo about you. You’re my business, no business of theirs. You know Tayo?” John quizzes Jeremy.
“We’ve met at parties,” Jeremy shrugs. He does not see it anyway. He met Tayo on the beach just after bumping into John Carter at the food stall. It would take some serious Alex Rider spy stuff to match that up. Jeremy leads John over to his scooter. You just have a dangerous knack for picking sexy-biker types, Jeremy scolds himself.
John waits for Jeremy to start the scooter before he scrambles on. Tayo is already a guest of Her Majesty the Queen. Pleading not guilty is a lost cause. He does not need to worry about Tayo and his young American. Jeremy Gates is John’s business. John touches Jeremy’s back. He does not need to hold onto the big teenager. John has more confidence now. It is reassuring to sit with his hands on his hips, trusting his friend and himself. When the scooter leans, John will lean with Jeremy.
Brief, Anonymous Survey:
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