Why Is Jake Always So Lucky?

Why Is Jake Always So Lucky?

A short story by Paul Crehan

As a kid, he was the one who found quarters on the sidewalk—and a lot of times he’d get two Hershey Bars out of the vending machine when he’d just paid for one. Two or three times, when he wasn’t ready for a test, the teacher wouldn't show up. Test cancelled. Stuff like that. His whole life.

And look at this now, today—the first snowfall of the season, coming down like God had emptied the bin of his paper shredder, and there’d be no less than three feet of it in a couple of hours. And that—lucky Jake!—would see him through until the swelling on his ankle went down. Then he could wrap it up tight and pour a lot of Advil down his throat and take care of business.

Slipping on the back steps and twisting his ankle like this—that hadn’t been lucky, but on the other hand, he could have hit his head and gone unconscious, and that would have been a disaster, if he’d been out for a long time, and all the bad shit he worried about happening actually happened. Not to mention that he could have gotten frostbite, or worse, frozen to death. So. Lucky. He’d take a sprained ankle any day. Of course, it might actually be broken. But still—he hadn’t hit his head.

And also, he thought—more luck!—he had been pretty sure that when Nance had healed up from her broken leg two summers ago that they had gotten rid of the crutches. But nope—there they were in the hall closet. He’d only looked there on the off-chance they might be there, and they were.

He got himself up from the couch, the snow damned-near racing to the ground as if diving for cover, and doing pretty well with Nance’s old crutches, he got himself to the kitchen to replace the ice pack secured around the ankle. He put weight on the ankle—a little more and a little more—a surprising amount, before the pain said take it easy. Wow—he was definitely going to be okay, and if not okay by tonight, then for sure by tomorrow morning, when he had to worry about the two Swedes. More than likely, they wouldn’t come now. But for sure, they’d come in the morning. And Raylene. He actually had to worry about her more. She was more dangerous.

Having secured the new ice pack, he made his way back to the couch and half-dumped himself onto it. He flipped on the TV, for company more than any particular show. He half-watched The Great British Baking Show and half-watched the snow fall. It was war out there, it was fury. But it was much ado about nothing—something Nance had once told the cops when they had come—and he thought about her line now—much ado about nothing, and he chuckled: all that furious business, and yet, somewhere in the darkest hours, it would settle down. Exhausted. Spent. He knew the feeling.

He missed Nance. A lot. On the TV, Paul Hollywood, the baking judge, was giving someone the coveted handshake, and he realized that he’d screwed things up with her. She’d been a good wife, all in all. She had done her best to please him. She’d been good-looking, really good-looking when he had married her—and he had to admit that it was his fault that they couldn’t have kids. He’d gotten himself checked out on that score. But because he’d been so embarrassed by what the doc had told him, he made it sound like it was her fault, had to be her fault, because the doc said he was fine. She believed him.

And when things were okay between them, it was really all right the way they sat here together, sometimes snuggled up together on the couch watching whatever. He let her watch whatever she wanted, because TV, all the stuff on TV, it didn’t seem to have to do with him. Except this baking show. He was good at cakes and pies. His mother had taught him all that. He really liked doing that. Baking. He’d won a contest they had at the fair two years in a row. Blueberry, then peach. Won back-to-back. But then, the judges, they rigged the contest against him because they couldn’t stand it that he’d won twice, so they never let him win again.

But Nance, wise Nancy, she told him to let all that anger go. “Just let it go, Jakey. Please. Okay? Please?”

And he did it. He did it for her. He let it go. Nance was good for him. So good. If he had been one of those soft-like guys who cried, he realized that this was a moment where he might-could do that.

He looked out the window. Fully dark now. But his ankle throbbed. On the other hand, the snow was still in its fury, throwing itself at him. But ha—he thought—you can’t get to me. Bunch of zombies.

He noted the bottle of Wild Turkey on the coffee table. It had been opened—when?—he couldn’t remember. Had he opened it? Maybe Nance? It was sitting there by a coffee cup. His or hers? She had bought two with that design—Santa hugging a reindeer. She—he?—had drunk from it to well below its shoulders. She liked a little Wild Turkey in her coffee. Calmed her down. Which was good for both of them.

He reached out, took a long pull from the bottle, put it down. He settled back against the pillows and turned off the TV, as someone got hugged by the other competitors because the judges had eliminated him. Jake closed his eyes.

When he awoke, with a start, it was with his face toward the window. A contrail of pink had streaked through a thin layer of blue floating atop a thick gray presence, in which he saw the shadowy woods.

He sat up, rubbed his face, and pressed down on his foot. He stood. No swelling, no pain. He wouldn’t even have to wrap it. Lucky, lucky Jake! He’d put some Advil in his pocket, though—in case halfway through the job, the pain flared up. The one thing he couldn’t do today was give up.

He turned around, quickly, to look out the window. No Swedes. Thank God. No Raylene. But all three of them would come.

He put on his boots and coat. He stepped onto the back porch, and this time, noted where the ice had made (as it always did) a tiny-town collection of Great Lakes. To avoid plopping his rear end into one of the lakes, he settled himself down carefully and put on his snowshoes. He set off with a shovel, the powder damned near parting for him, as if he were some, he didn’t know the word—but it came to him—a Nance word: pasha; as if he were some pasha, everyone making way as he passed and saying salami—but that couldn’t be the word. She had said that about the police chief, and she would demonstrate to try and make him laugh—Chief Froelich, heading down the sidewalk and everyone parting to let him pass and saying their salamis. Anyway, the snow was like that, and it crunched under his boots, like he was crushing the bones of all those who had made way. He didn't like the thought of that, though. It made him feel--he didn't know--mean. Like Chief Froelich. So unnecessary, how that man was.

He knew where to go—head toward the tree that looked like it had given up on life, the way all its branches didn’t stretch out proud and upward but drooped to the ground, pretty much announcing, I give up. Chop me down.

When he reached the tree, he turned around to survey the vast snowfield he had crossed. The Swedes were nowhere in sight. They would be, though. Soon. He couldn’t stand all that cross-country skiing of theirs. Everywhere you looked! And it was so stupid. Who would subject themselves to so much effort and call it fun? The wife had a really nice ass, though. But he'd want to avoid an altercation with the husband. He was tall and broad—a square-jawed motherfucker. A real Dudley Do-Right. Plus, he had those sharp poles. Jake would have to think harder than he had been about that guy—buckle down and think various scenarios through.

He shifted his gaze toward Raylene’s house—and there she was, in the corral with her horses. Good. She wasn’t nosy when she was occupied with her horses. She may have seen him (and in fact, he had better count on it that she had), as he trudged across the snow carrying a shovel. But he had established a pretty good alibi about the shovel a long time ago. He liked scraping back the scree on Prescott Mountain looking for fossils and arrowheads. He could go hours doing that, and in point of fact, he did do that for hours. He had a nice little collection of arrowheads and incisors from dire wolves, and--find of all finds--an eohippus molar.

He turned back around and plodded on, deeper into the woods. Another 60 yards would do the trick, but already he could see the rock formation, looking like a big pile of Legos.

Though he tried to focus on what he had to do, he felt a real pang of sorrow. Nance had been weepy the whole walk out yesterday morning. He thought it might do her some good—sun, fresh air—nothing like it for the saddies, as she called them. But she would not stop, and somewhere on the walk, instead of saying, as she did, I’m sorry, Jakey. I’m so sorry, she might have mentioned how much she appreciated that he was trying to help her. But she didn’t, and he saw the rock, and that was that.

He had dragged her into a narrow space between two long, loaf-shaped boulders. Not ideal, because anyone going by, especially those fucking Swedes, might see her. It wasn’t likely they would, because you’d have to skirt this part of the rock formation higher up its side than a normal passerby would do, but that bitch-wife was a real observant sort and mouthy. I see you are missing a button, Mr. Ambrose. Callouses on your hands, Mr. Ambrose. No wonder you’re so lucky at finding your fossils! You work hard!

He had thought about covering Nance with branches and snow, but quick work was faulty work: In covering your tracks too quickly, you might actually be doing more harm than good, like leaving behind all kinds of clues you wouldn’t think were clues. And he had to go—go, go, go. He had to separate himself from her body. Fast. He had to go home, get his shovel, and get the hell back.

But it had been then, in his hurry, and reaching for the door, that he had slipped on the ice covering the top step, his ankle giving way violently as he tried to regain purchase, his leg sweeping underneath him so that he fell onto his hip so hard that he bounced. The pain had shot through him body-wide, head to toe, and he'd seen white light. He was going to pass out. But he couldn’t pass out. That would have been the end, if he had passed out. Someone would happen by, back there, and find her.

Will. It had taken all his will. He'd gotten to his hands and knees and crawled into the house. Think. He had to think. What to do. First, tend to the ankle. More than anything, he’d need to stand. Then walk. He'd have to be able to walk. All the way back.

He kept ice packs on hand, because, well, Nance often needed them after she had irritated him. He had opened the freezer. Lucky Jake! There were plenty. He had applied one to his ankle and limped to the couch. He’d rest. Twenty-minutes on; twenty-minutes off. That was the regimen. Maybe one go-round would do the trick. It had to. He had to get back. He had looked out the window. He knew he'd be compulsive about it. And that’s when he'd seen the snowfall. The first of the year. Oh, beautiful, beautiful snowfall!

It would cover her, so even if the Swedes or whoever the fuck happened by, they wouldn’t see her. Lucky, lucky Jake.

Now, Jake scraped back the powder covering Nance’s legs. It had kept her nice, frozen fresh, and would have, he figured, for three days, if he’d needed that long to heal up. Jake stabbed the snow with his shovel and yanked Nance’s ankles free from the gripping snow.

He moved backward through the powder, and it gave way, gave way, gave way, salami, salami, salami, and it gave way as he continued toward his spot. He realized he was grunting. Not just breathing hard, but grunting. He had to be quiet. Never knew where those Swedes might be, and Raylene always magically appeared in the weirdest places for no reason at all. He looked around. No Raylene in sight. But what did that mean, really? Because he could turn a corner, and there she’d be.

And now, in the distance, there they were, the Swedes, heading his way. Fast. So. He’d have to be faster. One day, he’d have to figure out how to make the three of them, as a problem, disappear. But he didn’t want to make trouble for those horses. They were magnificent creatures. He liked them. And Raylene was awfully good to them. But he could find a home for those horses. Hell, he could take them.

Once beyond this big pile of Legos, Jake knew the way so well, he didn’t have to look over his shoulder to note his progress. Instead, he looked through the trees and across the vast snowfield. At Raylene’s house, and at her corral. At his and Nance’s house. And he saw the Swedes at the hard work of their fun, and now even closer—but ha! Not close enough. He had time.

He felt good, the light out there through the trees, lighting up the snow so it was a big fluffy beautiful North Pole of beauty, like Santa would drive across it ho-ho-ho’ing any moment. It made dragging her body less of a drag, and anyway, it wasn’t too far off now, where he’d bury her. With all the others.

He’d been lucky for a very long time. But then again, he was always lucky. Lucky, lucky Jake!

                                         The End