The Glorious Execution

“You’re not twenty.  You’re nineteen.  And I’m seventeen by the way.  Mom won’t care about two years,” Jessie said smiling.  “If that’s okay with you.”

“But I’m twenty.  I’m three years older than you.  If we were to have sex it would be illegal.”

“I don’t know you well enough to have sex with you.  If it’s too much for you to hang out with a stupid high school girl then it’s okay.  I understand.”

“No,” Jack said.  “That’s fine.  I like you.  It’s okay.”

They had stayed up all night together, then they stayed up all day together.  After Jessie’s mother left Jessie and Jack snuck out, leaving a note for her father.  By the end of the day, Jack and Jessie were a couple.

Jessie was shaking in the lobby.  The decision was weighing on her, Jack could tell. For the first hour of waiting he debated whether or not he should say something, but had no idea what to say.  They remained silent. Jessie’s eyes remained vacant and wandering. Jack’s eyes remained on her.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jack finally said after the hour of silence.

“Yes I do,” Jessie said.

“But why?” Jack pleaded.

An invisible burden hung over the entire lobby, some of the women and girls seemed to be just fine with what they were doing, but others sat with their heads low and in shame the way Jessie’s had been for the last hour.  A girl came back in from having it done, she was holding her stomach and grimacing more with every step.  It pierced Jack’s heart seeing the girl waddle her way painfully across the lobby, humiliated, watched, judged by every eye in there.  Jack found it amazing the humiliation and guilt that he saw in that girl’s face as she crossed the lobby to the exit, considering that everyone in that room was there for the same thing.

“Why do you have to go through with this, Jessie?” Jack asked again, after the girl was gone and the lobby had fallen completely silent again.

Jessie sat for a moment and took a deep breath, pondering how to answer Jack best.  “I can’t have this baby,” she finally said, “because it will ruin everything I’ve worked for.  I mean fuck, Jack, I’m just a freshman in college.  If I have this baby my future is gone.  And my parents would kill me.  And you.”

“Your mom would rather you have this baby.  I bet on it,” Jack said.

“You don’t know my mom.  She would love the kid, she would, but she wouldn’t love me anymore.” Tears stood out on Jessie’s face.  “I don’t want to wind up like my parents,” Jessie said.  “I want to be something.”

“Okay,” Jack said, “okay,” because he felt the exact same way.

On Jack’s twenty-second birthday, Jessie came over to hang out.  Jack didn’t have many friends anymore.  He still lived with his brother in the same place, only now the place was dirty and run down.  Dirty dishes and empty beer cans littered the entire house.  It was just Jessie, Jack, his brother and Thom sitting around bullshitting and drinking.  All the while Jessie was texting.  Jack glared at her wondering who she was texting and hoping she’d see that accusing glare and show her guilt, but she showed nothing, until it was time for her to go.

“Where are you going?” Jack whispered when they were alone outside the front door.

“I’m sorry, Jack.  We aren’t together anymore.  I don’t know what else to tell you.”  She didn’t even look at him when she spoke.

“But you still love me?” Jack stated more than asked.

“Yes,” she said, finally looking him in the eyes.

“Then why don’t you just stay?” Jack asked, his voice almost breaking as he fought back all the feelings welling up inside him.  “It’s my birthday for fuck’s sake.”

“But I have other friends that I have plans with tonight.”

“Who?” Jack asked angrily, knowing who, that fucking frat-boy Dane.

“Look Jack, I’m really sorry, but you being like this doesn’t make me want to stay anymore.”

“You’re a fucking whore,” Jack said.  “You fuck him.  Then you come and fuck me.  I can’t even fucking believe you didn’t even shower in between.  I mean what is it with you?  How can you do that to someone you love?”

“It’s because I love you that I do it,” she said.

Her words were clear and they cut him deep.  He became furious, enraged, he wanted her to leave and never come back.  There was only one way to ensure that.  She was talking, spitting off about her freedom and experiencing the world when his hand silenced her.  As soon as he felt the soft cheek give under his palm he felt remorse.  He was apologizing before the slap was fully swung.  He tried to hug her, hold her, console her, but she would have none of it.  She stormed off across the parking lot, Jack tailing after her, begging for her to just listen to him for a moment, let him explain.

“No,” Jessie shouted.  “That’s it.  You don’t hit me.  You don’t fucking hit me, Jack!  Just leave me alone!”

She wouldn’t hear any of his pleading.  It was dark and Jack worried about her safety as she tromped off down the road into the blackness, but she assured him that Dane was on his way and that it would probably be best if Jack wasn’t around when he got there.

That night Jack thought he’d rather be dead than alive.  All his life he’d wondered about the other side, wondered if he shouldn’t just go ahead and go, since life was so hard, but that night was pure agony.  He thought about her all night.  Thought about that first night when he had to hide in the closet when her mom got up. Then they went to the flea market and hung out.  He thought about how exciting and strange it was to be on his first date ever with a beautiful girl, despite the fact that she was still in high school.  He’d only been out of high school himself for a year and a half.  But now she was in college, too.  Now she saw that there was more to life than what her parents ever dare allowed her to see. She wanted to be a part of it, she wanted to go hog wild.  The only thing was, Jack could not let her go.  He could not consciously walk away from the woman he loved and fuck another woman. It just wasn’t the way he wanted things to go. For Jack, the only option was to convince Jessie that she was his soul mate and that they should just accept it and move on together.  He wanted to go hog wild with her, together, but she wanted to go alone and he just couldn’t accept it.  He drank with everyone at his apartment until they all passed out or left. Then he stayed up by himself and finished off the bottle of Johnny Walker Black on the back porch, smoking cigarette after cigarette as he drank.  When he’d finished the bottle he smoked his last cigarette, then stumbled into the living room and passed out on the couch watching Apocolypto.  The last thing he thought before he went to sleep was that she wasn’t coming back, not after that.

“Whatever happened to being a screenwriter?” his mother, Jane asked, narrowing her drawn on eyebrows and grinning.  She’d always thought that her son was a pipe dreamer, but she didn’t discourage him because it made him happy.  Still, she hoped he’d give it up one day, once he learned what the world was really like.

“I’m still writing, mom.  I don’t have to be in school to write.  School just isn’t for me.”

They were sitting by the big window at the far end of the cafe, eating sandwiches and drinking water.  His mom had come to see how her boys were getting along in the world. She wasn’t pleased with what she found.  She hadn’t known that Jack had failed out of school. She knew she’d never really know why he failed out, but she had a good idea.  He couldn’t stop talking about that damn girl, what was her name?  Pam?

“Jessie’s calling me, mom,” Jack said, pulling a vibrating phone from his pocket.  He took the phone and went out the side door of the restaurant to talk on the patio alone.

Jane watched her son’s face through the window as he paced back and forth, she knew that look.  It was the same look he had when the little girl, Megan, who’d lived across the street moved away.  This girl, Jessie, was leaving him too, only this time for very different reasons.  Jane didn’t pretend to know what those reasons were, she assumed they must have been somewhat justifiable, but she also couldn’t see how that girl wasn’t just head over heels for her son.  By the look in Jack’s eyes she could tell that he was head over heels for this girl and it broke her heart to see that look on his face.  She felt bad for attacking him earlier about school.  She felt that her son was not in a good place, he was stressed and heartbroken.  A thought crossed her mind, to ask him if he wanted to come home, but she knew the answer immediately.

Finally, Jack came back inside finished his sandwich in silence.

“Everything okay?” Jane asked.

Jack only nodded and continued eating.  When he was done he thanked her for the sandwich, but he really had to go.

“Okay,” Jane said.  “But just remember that you are a blessing from God, and I love you.”

“I’m not a blessing from God, mom,” Jack said, annoyed.

“Yes you are,” Jane said, angrily.  “The doctors told me I could not have any more children after your brother, yet, soon after the ladies at church laid their hands on me and prayed I had a dream that you were my child and that is where your name came from.”

Jack shook his head, he’d heard this before.  “Okay, mom,” Jack said, giving her a quick, feeling-less hug then darted quickly for the car.

Every Sunday Jessie went to the Methodist church, and every Sunday Jack met her there.  Her parents had stopped going to church years ago, but Jessie had taken up the practice of going soon after she got her license.  Jack parked his truck next to Jessie and got out.

“Hey,” Jessie said, getting out of her Jeep.

“Hey,” Jack said, walking straight up to her, taking hold of the door with one hand and her in the other, and pressed his lips up against hers.  They kissed long and deep, completely forgetting they were in a church parking lot.  Jack shut the door without taking his lips away and pressed Jessie up against it, pressing his crotch hard against hers so that she felt how hard he was.  It had been a while since they’d made love. It had nearly been seven days, which was very long for them. Typically it wasn’t more than a few hours.

“We could just go to my place,” Jack said when they finally parted lips.

“No,” Jessie said, smiling.

“We could.  Church doesn’t even start for another thirty minutes, there’s plenty of time. Come on,” he begged her with his eyes, then kissed her again.  His hands slipped down from her back to her butt, gripping her cheeks tightly and pressing her harder against him.

“Okay,” she said.

His first thought when he woke up was that she was not coming back, not after that.  Apocolypto had been playing on repeat all night and was now at the part where Jaguar Paw was dunking his nuts in the trough.  Jack felt like his own nuts were burning after all the shit Jessie’d put him through.  He almost felt justified for a moment, but then remembered what he’d done, the look on her face after it happened.  He hadn’t hit her full swing. He’d only barely slapped her, just enough to make a noise and scare her.  He bet there wasn’t even a bruise and he found out later there wasn’t.

Like the night before, the day was rough. Only this time there was no alcohol to numb at least some of the pain.  A man’s mind is a man’s worst enemy, Jack remembered as he made a loop around his section to check on his tables.  Despite all that was going on in his mind, when he stepped up to a table he smiled as if all was right with the world.  Even though his mouth was smiling, his voice chipper and respectful, his eyes still showed the pain.  Anyone who took the time to look in Jack’s eyes could see that there was something bothering him, something that was beyond the typical worldly pain.

One man, probably in his sixties, saw that look in Jack’s eye.  Even though the man didn’t know exactly what was going on, he knew that look.  He was eating alone, quiet and lonely, but there was a spark in his eyes that most people above the age of twenty-nine didn’t have any more.

“You doing okay, sir?” Jack asked, stepping up to the table, strategically between the old man’s bites.  “How’s your steak?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful.  Wonderful,” the old man said, wiping the corners of his mouth with the cloth napkin he’d taken from his lap.  “But how are you doing young man?”

“I’m doing good, sir,” Jack said without missing a beat.  “Thank you for asking.”

The old man nodded and went to put the white cloth back in his lap.  Jack started to turn away and say, “Just let me know if you need anything,” but the old man spoke first.  “Bullshit,” the old man said.  “Something’s bothering you, and by that look in your eye I’d say it was a girl.”

Jack nodded.

“Have a seat,” the man said, holding out a cracked and arthritic old hand.  His blue eyes were sharp and fierce for a man his age. They looked on Jack with clarity and compassion.  “Tell me about it.”

Surprisingly, Jack found it very easy to open up to this stranger. He told the old man everything.  When he came to the end of the story, he feared the old man’s reaction to his hitting Jessie, which was not what Jack expected.  The old man nodded his head and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.  Jack noticed how old the man actually was at that moment, he saw the cruddy cracks in his face, the crow’s feet around his eyes.

“Sometimes a man has to do what he has to do.  I ain’t saying what you did was right, but it was something you had to do, son.”  The man lit a cigarette and then said as if he were asking about Jack’s favorite beer, “Will you ever hit her again?”

“Fuck no,” Jack said, feeling a hollowness in his gut as if the old fucker had hit him, knocking the wind out.  He could see her face after he hit her, it burned him inside and he wished that he had been able to go back and whoop his own ass, but he couldn’t do anything.

“What’s done is done,” the man said, leaning back in his chair.  “She may never speak to you again, but other girls will.  Learn from this lesson, son.”

Jack nodded, thanked the old man and shook his hand.  The man left him a hefty tip and a note that said, “Don’t forget, there are more women in the world than men, you’ll find another soon enough.”