 Jack a Dull Boy - Critique me please | |
Hey Thanks for looking! This is a simple Personal narrative assignment for my English Class and I would love some critical feedback. Thanks!
Jack a Dull Boy
He smelled like cheap wine and autumn.
Through the spaces of the Venetian blind in my 9th story office the first hint of daylight creeps down the building across the way. Spreading a small space in the blinds with my fingers, I stand at the window to see the sun come up over the distant mountains. It looks like the buildings are burning. But it’s just the sun reflecting in the windows panes.
It had been an evening not dissimilar to many I had spent in this office, slouched over a keyboard, candy wrappers making a ring around the wastebasket, a stack of disheveled papers covered with sketches and scrawled design type, me squinting and swiveling from one computer monitor to the next.
This evening, much like the innumerable that came before, was spent mostly alone with only the deep pulse of Bjork and Floyd to keep me company. Even Nate, whose project this was, had left long before sundown.
Nate had given me a final pep talk before leaving, in his usual light hearted fashion: Amicable yet with a certain undertone of hostility. In fairness though, his stature forbade him any alternative demeanor. Nate’s was a phenotype which disallows one to enter a room unnoticed or without stepping sideways. His immense size caused him to crouch forward slightly to center his weight more fully on his powerful haunches. This, along with his stout neckline and firm set jaw, gave him the appearance of a mountain gorilla when he walked.
“Just call me if anything comes up.” He said just before leaving, resting his heavy paw on my shoulder. “
“Ok. Have a nice night.” I muttered without taking my eyes off the screen.
We both understood our roles well and were each cognizant of the delicate bureaucratic balance in which we hung. He knew that his livelihood depended on my work and I knew that my continued employment was dependant on his positive comments on project reports. He also knew just as well as I that his constant chidings and pep talks had no true bearing on my level of productivity but that I would likely produce the same result with or without him.
Nate represented a majority perspective at the large downtown advertising firm where I worked. I represented the minority. People like Nate, whose job is to make nice with the big spenders and bridge the chasm between managerial uppities, jargon speaking techies and free spirited creative types, outnumbered us “Creative Types” 2 to 1. His job description read like that of a preschool teacher:
1 - Make sure kids stay on task.
2 – Give encouraging progress reports
3 - Make sure you use lots of little gold stars.
I however, didn’t really mind all that much. I’ve never been one to stand in the way of someone getting a buck, no matter how unnecessary their job. That is of course unless they are on my bankroll. Unfortunately, my opinion was not entirely represent of all the other designers and programmers, they being the minority. As time passed on I soon began to realize their angst. While multimillion dollar deals where proposed and approved every day, one had to wonder how much of that would trickle down if the bedrock were lifted.
I snapped close the blinds and, stretching deeply, let out a yawn that had been waiting all night. I was exhausted but my work was finally done. Tomorrow Nate could fill out his report and give me a gold star but for now I'm going home.
Mine was the only car in the lot that morning and my footsteps echoed as I crossed the concrete towards the far end of the parking garage. The cold autumn air felt crisp and damp following the light snow that had fallen previously that morning. “Perfect weather for touch football.” I thought, envisioning the evening skirmishes planned for after dinner. Today was thanksgiving and sadly, I almost had to remind myself. Soon enough though, that’s all I could think about as I pulled further and further away from the mirrored buildings and flashing traffic lights.
It was then that I first saw him. He was on the other side of the street and had just fallen down. I had almost missed him but something caught my view as I sped past, making me lift my foot from the accelerator. It was a brief moment but an important one, the moment in which your moral fortitude is tested. The moment in which you decide to react and make a difference or forget and sink deeper into you own protective steeliness. I could not in honest conscience say that I made the choice to react, something made me. Something beyond my capacity, it felt, slowed my car and turned me in the other direction. Before I could completely understand what had happened, his weathered face was peering into my passenger side window. I reached over to open his door, through blind confused reflex more than anything else, and in he stepped.
“Those…..damn cops! Man, I wooo kick one o demn inda nuts fit….wert fur ther damn guns! Hey thanks man I’m Jack.” The first thing I noticed about Jack was his hand which he so cordially thrust towards me, swaying it from side to side. Callused and flaky, it looked like an inflated surgical glove wound with string and had obviously been frostbitten. A deep laceration was visible on the underside of his palm and was partially dried but still seeping blood.
Jack noted my alarm and started screaming profanities I had never heard about “those damn cops” who were harassing him. It was they, he said that had made him cut his hand. “I wuuuuz jumpin o’er the damn fence” he slurred “cuz them wuzz chasin me.”
“Jack” I asked “Can I take you home?”
“Helll yeah! It’s fbuckin cold mhan!”
“Ok where do we go”
Jack flailed his arm towards downtown and then stuck both his hand under his arms mumbling some more about “those damn cops”. I reached over and turned the heater on high and pulled back onto the road.
Looking at Jack you would likely not pick him as a wino or a bum. Jack looked, aside from the scruffy cheeks and slight smudges of dirt, like any other person you would have seen walking down Main Street in any city in the world. His clothes, although entirely inadequate for the inclimate weather, appeared clean and orderly. He smelled like cheap whine and autumn.
“Thizis a nice car man. Zit your parents.?
“No it’s mine”
“Wow, man you must make a lot a dough.”
“I do alright I guess.”
Jack told me about the 1975 El Camino he used to have and how his ex wife had taken it when they split up five years ago. He said she took most everything he had, including their two sons and he had no idea where they were. He talked about her for the rest of the ride home, how she had run off with some other guy and he came home one day to an empty apartment.
“That’s when ah muuved downtown” he said.
I didn’t much hear Jack for the rest of the trip. I was to busy thinking about what it would be like to have your world flipped upside down like that with no warning.
When we pulled up to his apartment complex downtown, in the low rent section, he reached out to shake my hand again but then remember the cut.
“You should get that checked” I said.
“Awwww screw it. Donnn need tannyway.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say but I sortof really wanted him out of my car before he stained my seat. I reached over into the glovebox and pulled out a bag full of change I used for meters and handed to Jack.
“I’m not sure how much is in there” I said, “But it ought to buy you a thanksgiving dinner.”
“Mannn thanks. Yuour all right.”
So that was it. Jack got out and shut his door, leaving blood smeared on the window, then climbed the steps to his apartment. Who knows what happened to him after that.
For me, it was a long ride home, trying to understand what it all meant, my only thought seemed to be “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”  |
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