Chapter Five

"So you just sit there, stuck, afraid to risk reality, afraid to cause yourself more pain, to face insanity. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, you see your fear's your cage. You beg for help but you're alone, stuck in a helpless rage."

His bedroom was horribly impersonal; white walls, vanilla carpeting, a full-sized bed with blindingly white bedsheets never made. The furniture in the room (two nightstands, a single bookcase crammed with aging books but no photographs or other knickknacks, a dresser with five drawers, a desk with only a lamp/office supply holder on the surface and lastly the bed) were all honey stained white birch and pressed up against the walls. The one television in the apartment was in the living room so the spot on the dresser were a TV might have gone was instead home to a deodorant stick, a watch, several sunglasses, one masculine chain necklace, a wallet and keys on a modest key chain. Nothing that would overtly scream "Jay lives here!"

He kept his room spotlessly clean for the most part only because he hardly spent any time in it. If he brought company over they usually stayed in the kitchen and living room areas of the apartment and if for some reason they did come to the bedroom, well, his bedroom décor reflected the personality its occupant gave off: whatever.

Jay's room, in a more simple explanation, was like his car. The orange Civic was immaculate and lacking personality to any passerby when it was sitting in any parking lot; it was a bright color but there was no equally loud design painted it, the seat covers were a plain charcoal fabric, no dancing hula girl or Virgin Mary or Pinhead sat on the dashboard, nothing hung from the rear view mirror. Basically, unless Jay was in the vehicle to give it some pizazz it was an open invitation for boredom induced comas. The car and the bedroom were blank canvases, as soon as Jay showed up they turned into a Monet. At least that's what Jay hoped.

Except now, when he was trying to fall asleep, or while getting dressed he made an effort to stay out of his room. Jay never wanted to stay in any bedroom longer than absolutely necessary, it had been ingrained into him.

Despite the light coming from one of the nightstand lamps Jay didn't feel comfortable. He laid on his left side under the covers, bed clothing pulled up over his head. Though he was sweating to death Jay never dared to let his head be exposed. As long as Jay couldn't see out he couldn't see in.

And so there he lay, buried in his cave of covers and waiting for sleep to come. The only way Jay ever stood a chance of falling asleep was to wait until his eyes shut of their own accord, of the weight of tiredness, he couldn't force it.

Jay might have been able to fall into slumber quicker if he went out into the living room and settled into the couch, but there was too much temptation there. One moment he could be staring at the ceiling and the next the television could be on, late night infomercials trying to rot his brain. He might find himself hungry because the kitchen was only a few feet away, he could get up and make himself something. That would be delaying and delay made the heaviness of his eyes dissipate.

If for some reason temptation didn't get the best of him and Jay was able to slip down the river of bad dreams, his mother would wake him up when she came home from work and want to know what he was doing sleeping on the couch. Jay couldn't tell her why, he couldn't start telling her the truth after all his years of lying to her and his father.

Jay wasn't afraid of his mother, he loved her very much, but he didn't want to slip up and hurt her. There was no way she would be able to live with herself when she come to face the reality that in essence it was her fault everything happened, but as long as she didn't know that anything bad had happened to begin with she would be fine.

Mrs. Hogart was a hard working mother. She was strict, but at the same time she trusted her son enough to not drill him with questions about where he was going, what he would be doing, and with whom he would be doing it with – even if she wanted to, she worked too often to stop Jay and play twenty questions with him.

Having divorced her husband when Jay was thirteen for completely average reasons she had moved with her son to this dump of an apartment – which was actually a lot better looking on the inside than the outside by leaps and bounds, but it was still very small – and started working two full-time jobs, one being third shift. She worked hard to keep a roof over Jay's head, the price being that the two hardly ever saw each other.

Jay would hopefully have succumbed to sleep by the time she got home from her second job at a leather factory, maybe even bringing home a bag of employee discount belts and handbags and jewelry from the factory store. She would be asleep when Jay awoke from whatever night terror he was due for tonight and showered, changed, grabbed a pop-tart, left for school. Whatever time he chose to return home his mother would have been long gone, only a note taped the refrigerator with a loving message proof that she had been in the house at all. It was tough, but the notes kept them reminded of each other.

Oddly, thinking about his own mother made Jay very tired. His eyes slid shut and with a sigh Jay jumped into the blackness behind his eyelids.

It was snowing at Pooh Corner. Bright, fluffy snowflakes danced down through the clean air, whirling and twirling across the crisp blue winter sky backdrop. The snow on the ground, rolling with the hills, was for the most part barren of tracks, but close to the forest a trail of small animal tracks wound its way from off to the right, near an old rickety fence – tiny hoof and paw prints.

Close by in a thick blanket of snow, bundled up so much in colorful winter gear that only a cheerful face proved the mound of clothing was indeed a human, little Jason sat under a giant oak tree. He was giggling something awful as he watched Pooh Bear and Piglet try to build a home for poor ol' Eeyore with gathered sticks. Their effort, though filled with respect and caring and love, was pitiful. Their small house was lopsided and small, too small for a donkey of Eeyore's size to walk in and out of it.

Jason was singing along gleefully to the animals' outdoor song anyway, adding hearty "tiddly poms" where need be.

The Hundred Acre Wood was beautiful at any time of year and Jason came by often to see how Christopher Robin and his friends were getting along. They went on many adventures, the group, and had much fun. Jason spread his time out evenly between everyone, but he never seemed to have enough time in which to visit.

He was about to voice his small complaint, about to stand up and ask if he might help Pooh and Piglet with their task, when a rectangular chunk of foreground swung open much like a door. But there was no door there, it was clear winter sky! And a man stood in the doorway, milky yellow light hitting him from behind so he was silhouetted, face hidden in a veil of blackness.

Slowly Jason's friends began to fade away, the house for Eeyore, the mighty oaks, the glistening white hills and the bright blue sky. Like water draining from a bath Jason soon found himself back in his bedroom, sitting in his big wine red arm chair with a book in his lap. He hadn't really been in the Hundred Acre Wood, he had only been reading about it.

Because his favorite chair was directly across the room from the door Jason only had to lift his head to see the man standing in the doorway of his bedroom. It didn't fit, the man standing there silently halfway in a room overflowing with happy children's toys. The man was far too somber, the loud colors of Jason's toys dulled, the clown grinning happily, shining from the light bulb behind its stained glass, night light features stopped being so gay and humorous.

The man stayed silent, didn't move. It was Jason's babysitter unless his parents had come home, which was unlikely because they had said they'd be gone until well past Jason's bedtime. If in fact it was his father standing in the doorway, why hadn't he greeted his son with his usual "Cabbages or Kings, my boy, cabbages or Kings?" greeting? That was Jason's favorite rhyme, The Walrus and the Carpenter.

The clock hanging above the red race car bed showed three passed six. Jason hadn't read through his bed time again, he still had a little time left.

"Was I singing too loud?" Jason asked, for he did that often when reading his Pooh Bear book.

Finally the man stepped into the room, but he was still too far away from the reading lamp – the only one on in the room – to be seen in great detail. "No, you weren't." His voice was flat, had been from the moment he first said a word in the house.

His babysitter was supposedly Daddy's age, but he looked a lot older. While Daddy still had a full head of head and his beard was only slightly getting sprinkled with salt and pepper, this guy's head was balder than a cue ball. Mr. Jacobs scowled to much, he had deep ruts forming around his mouth, while Daddy smiled all the time. Jason's father was very tall, almost dusted the tops of the doorways, but Mr. Jacobs was an imp in comparison and not one of the pretty ones because he seemed so unhappy all the time. He was boring too.

Why did Jason even need a babysitter, he was old enough to take care of himself.

"Then did you decide you wanted to hear my story?" Jason asked, excited. It wasn't a very good story, he had no idea where it was going yet and he spent too much time describing the characters and their families, but his parents gave him praise. They let him sit at the dinner table and draw with crayons on thin paper his many players of the story. He had gone through ten titles already, but his parents gladly and enthusiastically listened to each and every retelling of the project.

"Yes," Mr. Jacobs replied simply. He didn't sound like he actually wanted to hear it at all, but Jason didn't mind.

"Okay, okay," the boy said hurriedly. He jumped out of the chair and ran over to his desk, waving at his babysitter with one hand. "You sit down on the bed and I'll get the drawings–" he said the word like 'drawrings' "–so you can know what the people look like."

Without visible or verbal protest Mr. Jacobs shut the bedroom door and walked halfway across the room to the bed, sat down on the edge of it with his hands intertwined loosely in his lap. "You're proud of that story, aren't you?"

Jason nodded passionately. "Yes, sir! In my spare time at the fire house I'm going to write more stories and maybe even get them published. But no matter how much money I get I'm not going to stop being a fireman and do you know why?"

"Why?" Still Mr. Jacobs's voice was flat, he didn't sound like he actually cared about anything.

"Because I want to save lives, writing books doesn't do that. I mean, I don't want to be a hero or nothing, Mr. Jacobs, but I like helping people. I like giving people something to believe in. I want to help people be happy because I'm so happy. And if someone loses everything because of a fire they can have one of my books for free because no one should have nothing, no one should be alone or have nothing to believe in."

Jason started walking back to his chair with a modest smile on his face when Mr. Jacobs leaned forward and with a long arm lightly grabbed Jason's arm.

"Come sit down next to me. My eye sight's bad, I won't be able to see your drawings from way over there."

"We can go to the living room where there's more light if you want to," Jason started calmly. "The light from the lamp doesn't reach this far away from my chair, you won't be able to see the drawings if I sit over here."

"I can see just fine here, there's enough light."

Jason wasn't a spoiled child. He was an only, but he knew full well that he couldn't have everything he wanted exactly when he wanted it. His habit was to whine when he felt uncomfortable. "But I can't and I'm the one telling the story."

Mr. Jacobs was a grown-up, Jason the child, and upbringing told the boy to respect and listen to his elders. With a huff Jason sat down on the end of the bed closest to his chair and reading lamp. He couldn't explain why, but a part of him told him to push for going out into the living room where the windows reached from floor to ceiling along the wall looking out to Mrs. Howell's flower garden and back porch. It was summer, the widow would be eating her supper on that back porch and being the caring grandmother that she was would have angeled her chair toward the Hogart's living room like she always did when Jason's parents were away and he was left without them.

But Jason stuffed that feeling down and labeled it as overreacting. Why should he have anything to worry about? The worst thing that had ever happened while he parents were away was a cut from a rose bush.

Jason started his story, rubbing the healed wound on his thumb from that rose bush. He had to stop and start a few times because he had to go back and add new details to the piece and eventually stopped all together when Mr. Jacobs had slid so close to the boy that Jason was near falling off the bed.

His parents did that while listening to his story, sat close to him on either side of him and "ooh"ed and "aah"ed at the woven piece of fiction about a frog who wanted to be a knight. But Mr. Jacobs wasn't Jason's father or mother, and Mommy and Daddy didn't put a hand on his leg in that way, didn't look at him like that – no, not at all like that.

"I don't like the way you're touching me, please stop." Mommy had taught him to do that, to say it sternly and loudly, clearly with conviction. She said to repeat it so that the bad person, if Jason ever met one, would get the message. "I don't like it at all, please stop."

Mr. Jacobs took the pictures away with his free hand, didn't remove his other from Jason's knee. He leaned his head down so that the boy's ear was right by his lips. "Don't you want to be a man, Jason?" The words weren't flat anymore, but alive. Oh, God, so alive. They chilled Jason to the core.

Wriggling free wasn't an option, Mr. Jacobs held him too firmly with a hand now around his torso. Squeezing his eyes shut Jason tried to melt away, out of Mr. Jacobs's grasp, away from the hand moving up his leg. Tigger. He was in the Wood again, bouncing around with Tigger and bothering Rabbit, spilling his freshly harvested carrots all over the–

"Relax. There's nothing wrong here, it's all right. Lay down."

The words Mr. Jacobs was speaking kept breaking through. Neither Narnia's forests nor even Toad Hall's walls were a match for Mr. Jacobs and his vile explanations that this was utterly normal, that if Jason would just relax he'd enjoy it.

"A real man, Jason? Don't you want to be a real man?"

Jay never screamed when he woke up from the memory, the painfully vivid memory of that night. He would awake in a cold sweat, the bed sheets tangled around the foot of the bed, the feeling of Mr. Jacobs's hand all over him, but he never once screamed. What would screaming do? Bring help that would come ten years too late.