Jacoby Levitating

“What the actual fuck is happening?”

I was standing behind a trash can that smelled of cat piss. I reasoned that the sight before me was the byproduct of ammonia intoxication because people can’t just levitate ten feet off the ground, in the middle of the street, with no chords, ropes, or jet packs.

“Isn’t that Jacoby, that weirdo from third period?” Clara questioned beside me.

Not only was I not aware that she had been next to me, but I was confused as to why she sounded so calm. It was indeed Jacoby, the most random of people to be performing a miracle for the ages. How could she have sounded as haughty as ever in the face of such wonder unless I really was losing my mind.

           “Claire Bear, can you please tell me, does it look like Jacoby is . . . doing anything strange?” I hesitated to just come out and say what I saw because I was already on thin ice. Ever since the death of my uncle Jerry, I had been walking around a little less than myself. The loss had dredged up a lot of, let’s call it, “stuff” and my parents had everyone on high alert as a product.

Clara was for sure, though a decent neighbor, a backstabber who would spill business for anything she could perceive as an opportunity to make herself look like an invaluable person.

“Him standing in the middle of the street like an idiot? Yeah sure. I should go over and tell him to move before he gets himself killed.” True to her word, she walked right over to him under the bright summer sun, a hand smoothing down the front of her white dress to keep the wind from lifting it up.

           Jacoby didn’t seem to see her immediately but did float down just before she could come within a few feet of him. Her eyes were trained, when he was floating, on the space that he eventually stood, the entire time. It’s as though she could only see him in that very spot. He did not act startled or waiver in the least.

           It was then that I decided I was losing my carefully kept marbles and so chose to straighten out from my bent position and make myself a respectable citizen by engaging with Jacoby directly. He and Clara had begun to chat and were walking towards the Paramount Pharmacy, the best in our well water town.

           “So, yeah, I was just looking down the road. That was all Clara. I thank you for your concern,” Jacoby said as politely as he could muster though it was obvious, at least to me, that it pained him.

           I smiled, a tight, cheek hurting smile when he looked my way. It was hard to meet his honey brown gaze. He had been in the air, I could have sworn but wouldn’t dare say, just a few seconds prior. When I did meet his gaze head on, his brow furrowed quizzically, and his eyes widened.

           “My, Clara. You have been so kind as to check in on me. Always so helpful. Would you mind going’ on in there to the Pharmacy? I was supposed to ask about Ms. Sally’s ointment. You mind seeing if it has come in yet? I promised I’d do a check for her and keep my mouth shut about it. For a seventy-year-old math teacher, she can still be quite vain, you know?”

           Clara shook, giddy with the gossip. She spared me a half smug glance then skipped on in to nosey her way into Ms. Sally’s business. Jacoby stayed behind, eyes fixed to me the whole time and I was painted red, my neck hot with flush.

           “Hi Adams,” Jacoby said. He began to walk over to a nearby bus bench. The street was quiet for a summer Tuesday afternoon. Everyone in town was out celebrating in the square after that morning’s homecoming parade and I was exhausted from the theatrics. I was supposed to be heading home. My date, Abbey McKinnon, would no doubt have been in a rage if I were to show up late with the limo that evening.

           Home was exactly where I was headed before I saw whatever hallucination of Jacoby.

           “How’s it going Jacoby? Did you enjoy the parade?” I ask.

           “Oh, no. I didn’t get a chance to see it. I was busy with something.”

           The turn of his lips proved contagious as I felt my own twitch upwards in response, but only for a second before I looked away. I thought I saw his eyes flit to my mouth, and this left a hollow but at the same time full sensation in my center that filled me with alarm.

           “But I hear congratulations are in order. Clara told me about our team. Good work, I’m sure Abbey is stoked to be with a winning King.”

           I choked on a chuckle. “I most certainly will not be crowned king of homecoming. Not this year. Abbey and her girls, Clara included, decided it would be best for the books if we were runners up this year and won in our Senior year instead. She said ‘everyone loves an underdog. It’ll read better,’ apparently.”

           I sat down next to Jacoby and my ordinary fidgets started in my legs, causing a wiggle, wiggle in my ankle. I apologized and shuddered away when I bumped my foot into his, but he waved it off with an easy smile.

           “Jacoby, I uh. I thought I saw something back there, a moment ago.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you think you saw?” He looked me right in my eye and my stomach couldn’t abide by the direct challenge.

“Oh, nothing.’”

“There you two are! Jacoby, you little rat. Ms. Sally ain’t asked for nothing.”

 *

The festivities of the evening went to plan as the women in my life had intended and they could not have appeared happier. My mother was all too eager to snap up picture after picture. She insisted on going to Abbie’s house and wanted to pay her portion of the limo and hotel fees the parents had agreed to. The other ‘rents had given Mama a bit of a discount with all the travel my dad had been doing as of late. No one wanted us to burn through the funds he’d left. They were meant to last.

I had stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, tired of all the posing and fake deliberation on what it meant to be this year’s runner up with Abbs. Oh, me? Oh my, what a surprise and an honor.

“Having a good time, runner up?”

           Jacoby appeared beside me on the old brick wall by the dumpsters, his hands folded together. I felt a little shaken, like a rattle in a baby’s hand at the proximity. “Sure. It’s been a heck of a long day.”

“I’d suspect as much.”

We looked at each other and something about the eye contact, after a while, plied me like warm water softening plastic.

“Where the fuck you come from? I didn’t see you inside.”

Jacoby frowned, but that frown fell faster than a drunk falling for a stripper and it was replaced by a small smile that bloomed across the bottom half of his face like dye in a pail of water. “What?”

I sobered, afraid that it would be my only moment to ask: “Do you know how to float?” He went still and silent, so I pressed on. “Look, I know this may sound like a bag of cashews and peanuts, but I swear I saw you like twenty-feet in the fucking air this afternoon and Clara acted like everything was normal and maybe it was, maybe I was - “

“You did see me. And no, Clara couldn’t. If you weren’t the person, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be, then you wouldn’t have either.”

To be honest, it took a moment to dissect what he said because that last sentence confused me. I looked up and down the wide alley we were in. The metal door to the cafeteria was left ajar, the night's festivities taking place just down the hall from it and audible even where I stood. “What does that mean?”

“I uh. I am what some may call a warlock in training and my aunt totally told me not conjure a love spell so I may have used a levitating love potion which essentially makes me appear to be levitating to those who may sort of, kind of, be interested in me - which I totally am not accusing you of, seeing as you have a girlfriend and all but, yeah. You’re not crazy, but I completely understand if you now think I am.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or run. So, I did all of them.

And somehow, my wiggly hands pulled Jacoby along with me.