By the time Jesse spotted Geronimo it was way too late to outrun him, the big Chief was almost on top of the boy. It’s not as if Jesse didn’t try, he ran as fast anyone could in a ‘drip dry only, one size fits all, do not iron’ cowboy outfit but his enemy was catching up with him, and fast.
Jesse
slid in behind a large rock, the space being just enough to allow the
boy to squeeze through with little chance of Geronimo following. He
squatted down for what seemed an eternity and tried to avoid breathing
too heavily.
Suddenly
Jesse felt the air move above his head and looking up he saw the
massive fingers of his enemy feeling around for the boy’s head. There
wasn’t much room to move in the cavity and this allowed Geronimo to grab
Jesse’s hair with ease.
“That's hurting.”
“Then come out little warrior and I will save you more pain.”
Jesse
had no option but to come crawling out. He was then made to lie on his
back as Geronimo lifted his tomahawk high into the air.
“I will make this quick little warrior and then you will join with your ancestors.”
Whack! The tomahawk came down on Jesse’s head.
Or rather it didn’t.
The teacher’s hand slapped Jesse’s desk right next to the boy's ear.
“Jesse! You’ve been sleeping in class again.”
Sure
enough when he lifted his head the rest of the class were staring back
at him, nothing unusual there. Some kid at the back shouted ‘don’t kill
me Geronimo’ in a high pitched girl’s voice and all of the other kids
started laughing.
Jesse was still feeling stupid when he met with his mother.
“What’s up, hun?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
He hated the way, even although he was eight years of the age, that his mother always took his hand in public.
“Stop struggling hun, I’m not letting you go and anyway we’re going to see someone.”
“Who?”
“It’s a surprise.”
All
sorts of stuff went through his mind, like maybe she had seen sense and
was going to get him that new game after all. Jesse and his mother
stepped off the bus right outside of the ‘Golden Pastures Home of
Serenity’.
To
Jesse it looked like a prison and once he had been dragged inside, it
smelt like one too. His father, his real father, was in prison and Jesse
had been to visit him a couple of times and boy did the place smell.
“We’re here to meet someone special."
As
Jesse and his mother were shown upstairs by an overweight man who
confused Jesse by calling himself a nurse, Jesse’s mother held her son’s
hand tighter and tighter which made the boy think maybe she was scared
about something.
"I haven't been to see him in a very long time."
Pushing
open a glass door, they entered what the big-nurse-man called the day
room. In one corner, a young woman was trying to get those who occupied
the chairs to exercise and stretch. Mostly they just stared out of the
window. In another corner, two or three women were learning to arrange
flowers in vases. Over by the library of unread books were two people
sitting painting. A young guy called Steve was showing them how to put
the water colours onto the paper.
The
elder of the two, a woman called Sadie and proud that she was ninety
two years old was enthusiastically throwing paint on the paper.
"Very
good Sadie, very good indeed". The other budding artist was a man who
looked as if he had been famous at one time, at least that’s the way it
seemed to Jesse. He was concentrating on his painting but his eyes
looked as if whoever was inside of his head had gone home.
“This
is your grandfather, Jesse. Dad meet Jesse, Jesse meet my dad.” Jesse’s
mother cleared a very nervous dry throat. "I know I haven't been to see
you much and I'm sorry. We're both sorry."
Steve said “I’m sure he knows you’re there, don’t worry if he’s quiet.”
Jesse’s
mother took her son over to a corner to have one of those ‘talks’ but
this one seemed to make her more uncomfortable than usual.
“I’m
going to leave you here for a while Jesse. Now stop looking like that.
How often to I ask you to do anything? Eh? Don’t be selfish. You can
help your grandfather to paint. Get to know him.”
And with that she was gone.
As
Jesse’s mother walked back down stairs, she kept telling herself she
had no choice, no choice at all but to leave the boy. Back home she had
Jesse to look after as well as Ed, her boyfriend, who was in the process
of being a professional musician. Ed slept most of the day and was
sometimes out with his band in the evenings. To keep the house going she
had to work double shifts, mostly back-to-back at the local Supervalue store. She seemed to have the uniform grafted on to her body to prove it.
Luckily
Jesse had brought his hand held computer with him, it was an old one
which he’d been given by his father, his real father, not that Ed guy
who his mother let hang around. He knew when his dad came out of prison
he’d buy him a new one and he’d get rid of Ed. His dad had made Jesse a
promise, not about Ed but about the computer. Jesse looked at his
grandfather who just kept painting without turning his head.
Jesse had just got to level fourteen of Empires of Saturn on his computer when suddenly Ed was standing by his side.
“Who’s the old guy?”
“I thought my Mum was coming.”
“Oh yeh, she called, she’s still at work.”
And with that, Ed yanked Jesse off the seat and out the door.
“Who did you say that old guy was?”
They
bought one burger on the way home although Jesse suspected that Ed had
kept most of the money in his pocket. When they got back home, Ed told
Jesse to go up stairs and do his school work or something as Ed was busy
with his guitar. And could he please keep the noise down as Ed had to
concentrate.
Jesse
tried to keep awake as long as possible. He didn’t like falling asleep
when Ed was there because when he woke up, Ed had usually gone out to
buy beer with the remainder of the burger money.
Jesse had only put his head on the pillow for a second when Geronimo turned up in his bedroom.
“We have unfinished business little warrior. Geronimo must complete what he started or his own ancestors will be angry.”
Jesse
immediately jumped from his bedroom window and landed safely in the
garden which struck him as strange as the jump was about fifteen feet.
Geronimo had also managed the same and was once again on his case.
Jesse
crossed Sinclair Street at the last minute,just as a bus was turning
the corner, which meant that Geronimo had to wait. At least that’s what
Jesse had thought but there was Geronimo on the roof of the bus beating
his chest.
Jesse
dived into Mrs Swanky’s garden and hid beneath the Rose Pagonias. He
was sure that Geronimo had failed to see him and thought he heard the
warrior passing on down Sinclair Street.
After
a few minutes Jesse felt it was safe to crawl out from the bushes,
still he had to make sure that Mrs Swanky wasn’t staring out of her
window – something she seemed to spend hours doing. It felt safe enough
and so he made a dash for the side gate. However just as he turned he
saw that Geronimo now had a partner, someone he’d never seen him with
before – it was Ed dressed, not as an Apache as he would have expected,
but as a circus clown. Jesse hated clowns and Ed probably knew this.
Now
Geronimo and the Clown were chasing him through Mrs Swanky’s vegetable
garden. Jesse noticed that the door to the garden shed where Mr Swanky
used to sit and smoke, was open. So he jumped in and slammed the door
behind him, all in one glorious movement.
Through
the window he could see Geronimo and the Clown discussing how to get
Jesse out of the shed. It was just then that he spotted the flaming
torch that Ed held in his right hand. They were going to smoke him out
or worse still, burn the shed down.
Jesse
started to shake a little, just nerves he thought, but it grew worse
and worse until he was almost shaking out of his skin.
“Jesse, wake up or you won't sleep when it's time!”
It was his mother shaking him on the bed.
“Did Ed collect you okay and did you get something to eat?”
Jesse just nodded his head.
“Ed seems to have popped out for a moment. So you're all right then?”
Jesse’s mother didn’t wait for an answer. She ruffled his hair then left the room, switching off the light on the way out.
The
next afternoon it was only Jesse and his grandfather in the painting
corner. Sadie had been taken away and as far as Jesse could work out, it
was something to do with the police coming to get her. He’d heard the
big-nurse-man say that it had been a cardiac arrest. Jesse thought she
must have done something really bad to get one of those.
Since
it was just Jesse and his grandfather and since he’d forgotten his
Empires of Saturn game, he thought he’d tell his grandfather about how
things really were.
He
told him about how he always tried to keep awake so that Ed wouldn't go
to the bar, and how, when he did fall asleep, Geronimo and his friend
the Clown were out to kill Jesse and that the Clown was really just Ed
in disguise.
As
Jesse had expected his grandfather didn’t say a word but just kept
painting what looked like hills and trees. Thankfully it was his mother
who came to get him that night.
This
time, on the way home, they had burgers, fries, onion rings and
chocolate pudding to finish which was just as well as the night turned
out to be a bad one; not only did Geronimo appear in his bedroom but so
did all the other kids in his class, including his teacher – each of
them dressed as Apache warriors and all of them wanting to scalp Jesse.
This
time he managed to outwit them all - they had expected Jesse to jump
out of the window - but he ran down the stairs and out the front door.
He was half way along Sinclair Street before they realised he was even
gone.
He
had only stopped to catch his breath for a moment when he saw not one,
not two, but at least six clowns led by Ed heading towards him. He had
to face it, it was all over for Jesse and that was that. At eight years
of age he’d had a good life and now it was time to meet up with his
posse.
There
was nowhere to run, that was until someone grabbed him by the collar
and threw him over their shoulder. They sprinted through all the gardens
and didn't stop until they were safely on the main road out of town.
When
no one seemed to be following them, his rescuer put him down by the
side of the road and told Jesse to sit on the big rock by the tree. It
was only when Jesse put his hand over his eyes to shade them from the
sun, that he realised that the man was his grandfather.
“Granddad!”
“I couldn’t leave you in that tight spot Jesse, not now that you and I are friends.”
“I thought you couldn’t speak Granddad.”
“Nothing to say son, so I just keep quiet.”
And
so they talked and talked. His grandfather told Jesse about all the
dreams he'd had when he was Jesse’s age and how he’d had a good life.
Jesse told his grandfather about how he tried to keep awake but ended up
falling asleep in school and how the kids laughed at him.
His
grandfather said that if ever Geronimo or the clowns came after Jesse
again then they would have his Granddad to answer to. He would always be
there for him and that was a promise.
Then his grandfather told him of the one thing that he’d wished he’d done.
“When
I was a boy I always wanted to go the prairies and see the forked
lightning. Don’t ask me why but you’ve got live your dreams Jesse no
matter what. Now I’m stuck in a home just painting and waiting and no
chance of ever seeing the lightning. Don’t be like that my lovely boy,
always, always live your dreams”
For the first time that he could remember, Jesse slept the rest of the night without Geronimo or clowns coming to visit.
The
following day an excited Jesse headed off with his mother to visit his
grandfather but his mother saw by the look on the big-nurse-man's face
that something was very wrong.
“Could you please step into the office for a moment, the boy can stay here.”
It wasn’t long before his mother came out of the office with red eyes - she had been crying.
“I’m so sorry” said the big-nurse-man.
Jesse’s mother held him very tightly but didn’t explain why, then she took him by the hand and led him down the corridor.
“Wait”
said the big-nurse-man “he finished that painting, your father, before
he died. Maybe you’d like to take it with you? You can collect the rest
of his stuff later.”
The
nurse came out of the office with her father’s painting. It still had
the hills and trees but in the middle of it was Jesse with his
Granddad's arm around him, both were looking out at the prairie as it
was being struck by lightning.
bs2014
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