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  After shopping, I started hitting the downtown scene, trying out all the different bars and clubs. I’d visit one two or three times in a row, at which point I started to get recognized as a regular. I’d get to know the bartenders, the waitresses, even some of the managers. Once I felt comfortable in a place, knowing the names of almost the entire staff, I’d move on and do the same thing all over again with a different place.

  And that’s how my new life went for a while--like I said, three months. Gym in the morning, and usually three or four nights a week in Larendale. By the end of the three months, I was exactly in the position I wanted to be. My body had transformed. The sickly, skinny depressed young man who had rolled into Jacob’s Bluff had put on almost twenty-five pounds of muscle and it showed in all the right places. My chest, arms and abs--the ladies’ muscles--were the best they had ever been.

  The Mercedes was a last second decision I had almost not even thought about. But, as I was getting into my Jeep one evening, about to make my nightly ride into Larendale, I looked at it--really­ looked at it--and realized that it didn’t fit. It didn’t fit at all. I had the body, I had the clothes, I had the mindset, now I needed the car. I drove three hours to the closest import dealership and worked with a Salesman named Steve, picking out the car and signing a 48 month lease. I then paid Steve and a buddy of his named Aaron two hundred bucks a piece to follow me back to Jacob’s Bluff. I drove the Mercedes, Steven drove my Jeep, and Aaron brought up the rear in his pickup truck. I had already rented a storage shed in Jacob’s Bluff--the largest they had to offer, also signing a years commitment--and that’s where I parked the Mercedes. Thanking the guys for their help, I watched them drive away in Aaron's truck, and then got in my Jeep and headed back to Ralph and Minnie’s. Minnie was making lasagna that night, and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t heavenly. That was a Thursday, and now that I had the car, Friday seemed like the perfect day to stop all the practicing and go play a real game.

  Walking down Winston Avenue in my expensive suit and whistling to myself as I went, I slowly passed by Roots, a dim café and jazz club. The place never seemed to be very busy, although I found the place pretty relaxing. Then I strolled by Johnny Gray’s, a straight up get drunk watering hole which usually only featured a prominently male population, and then walked another block and stopped outside of Pebbles.

  I never had any idea of where Pebbles got its name, but after years of not knowing I’ve just stuck with my original thought that the owner had a thing for the Flintstone’s character of the same name. Pebbles was always busy, and for good reason; it had everything.

  It took up the first two stories of the building it was in, and during the normal work week the front downstairs area served as a restaurant which got a more than steady lunch rush every day like clockwork around 12:15. The restaurant served its full dinner menu until 9:00, Monday through Thursday, but on Friday and Saturday the cooks worked hard all the way up until last call. On Friday and Saturday nights is also when the rest of Pebbles came alive.

  Off to the left from the restaurant, you walked through a short hallway and came out on the other side into a huge open space. To the right there was a large dance floor positioned below a very intricate system of speakers and lights of all colors mounted on the ceiling. A bar surrounded the dance floor on all three sides.

  To the left were the pool tables. Away from all the blasting music, but close enough to still hear and appreciate it, the pool area was more mellow. Usually filled with people whose idea of a good time was to sit around with a group of friends, sipping a few drinks and shooting the sticks, all while being able to actually carry on a conversation, as opposed to the gyrating bodies that would go home half-deaf after spending hours sweating under music that would have toned out a bombing raid. There was a bar along the far wall by the pool tables also. In Pebbles, one didn’t ever have to walk far to obtain alcohol.

  Upstairs was another dance floor, this one smaller, usually catching the overflow from its downstairs counterpart, with you guessed it, another bar. Off the right hand side of the upstairs area was a door that led out to a rooftop seating area that was dimly lit and featured little round tables all around the edges. The rooftop was where one of three things happened: People came to talk on their cell phones--an impossible task inside due to the noise--, smoke, or when a guy found a girl willing to "go somewhere else and talk", the rooftop usually became that first somewhere else.

  I liked Pebbles, and driving from Jacob’s Bluff to Larendale that night, I knew it was probably where I’d go first.

  It was a little after 9:00 PM and the crowd wouldn’t reach full capacity for at least another hour, but that was ok, I had wanted to get there early. I stepped through the door and the beefy looking bouncer, a black guy wearing jeans, a black t-shirt with the word Pebbles on the front, and his "work" Air Jordan’s, smiled when he saw me. "My man! Good to see ya, bro," he said, holding out his fist. I bumped his fist with mine. "Hey, Damien. What’s good?"

  "Oh you know, trying to make that paper. Be like you one day."

  We laughed together and then, still smiling but being dead serious I said, "You don’t want to be like me, bro." I slapped him on his solid shoulder and then went and took a quick peak around the place. The restaurant was the busiest at the time, close to all the tables full, and the dance floors were almost completely empty. There were some middle-aged friends playing pool, but they’d be long gone by the time the younger crowd hit. I went back to the restaurant and got a table. I sat so I could see the door.

  I ordered grilled salmon with a baked potato and ate slowly, watching the people come in off the street. When I finished my food, I ordered a scotch and sipped it conservatively, still watching. By ten the place started to fill up. The restaurant area became less and less popular and the music got cranked up from the dance area. Damien was working hard now, at ten they started checking ID’s of everybody that came in, due to the influx of alcohol that would begin to be served.

  Sitting there I’d seen roughly a hundred people come through the door, split about equally between guys and girls. Of the fifty or so girls, only about fifteen made it onto my list of Possibles, those being who I found the most attractive. I was being picky on purpose. At 10:15 I got up from my table, leaving a fifty dollar tip, and made my way through the hall to the dance/pool area.

  The dance floor was becoming packed and I guessed that in another half hour it would become a fully grown mosh pit. I did my best to scan the floor and saw a few of the faces from my Possibles list. They were immediately out of the running. I didn’t dance, and certainly not in the suit.

  I headed to the pool tables and stopped by the bar, leaning over the counter and tapping Jon on the shoulder. Jon, the bartender, who I’d met on one of my previous trips to Pebbles spun around, towel over one shoulder and bottle of vodka in hand, recognized me and gave me a nod, along with, "Oh, hey, man. What can I get ya?"

  "Jack and Coke, please."

  Seconds later I had my drink and turned, leaning my back against the bar and looking around the pool tables. The music was thumping from the dance floor and many of the guys playing pool were bobbing their heads to the beat, while some of the girls, who were mostly watching and laughing and drinking, were swaying back and forth with the music, throwing in a head bob or two and looking like they were trying very hard to keep from bursting into full-blown dance mode. Some of them did, setting down their drinks, grabbing hands and scurrying off to join the others in the sweating pile of bodies.

  I sipped my drink slowly, eyes scanning, and found her. She was leaning against the wall in the corner, below a green neon sign that said BILLIARDS, a drink in hand and chatting with a girl next to her. They were both apparently with a group of three others; two more guys and a girl. The two guys appeared to be showing the third girl how to bank her next shot. She was short, slim, and definitely in the top ten hottest girls in Pebbles that night. Probably mid to late twenties with shoulder length brown hair,
pretty smile, smokin’ rack; all packaged in a tight white tank top and jeans. I don’t know why exactly she stood out to me. But I chose her.

  I turned around and found Jon at the far end of the bar. When he made his way back up my direction I pointed to my girl and asked him if he remembered what she was drinking. He smiled and said, "Man, you kiddin’ me? I never forget a drink."

  I doubted this, but only cared about him remembering one. "The little cutie in the white top--it's called a Bowlda." He told me what was in it, but I’ve long since forgotten. I asked him to make another one and send it her way.

  I watched the waitress carry the glass over on a tray--was a whole tray needed to carry one drink?--and then smiled and gave a casual wave as she delivered and pointed in my direction.

  Five minutes later I watched as the girl in the white top left from under the neon green BILLIARDS sign, whispered something in her friend’s ear, and started walking my way. I locked eyes with her and never looked away as she crossed the room.

  She put her half-empty glass on the bar and said, "Thanks for the drink."

  I gave her my best smile. "No problem. I was hoping it might get me an introduction. Looks like it worked."

  She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and half shrugged, grinning. It was cute as hell. "You could have just come over and said Hi."

  I waved my hand in the air, "No, that’s too forgettable. This is much classier, makes an impression. Plus, I wanted to get you away from those two guys you’re with." I jerked my head in their direction. The two guys were now playing by themselves and the third girl had joined the second under the neon sign, filling in the space.

  "Please… that’s my older brother and his friend. No worries there."

  I wasn’t worried to start with.

  She stuck out her hand. "I’m Heather."

  "It’s a pleasure, Heather." I took her hand in mine. It was tiny and soft. "I’m Jackson."

  Chapter 23

  Yes, I was crazy. I may have been toeing the line of the loony bin for a long time after Amy’s death, but after my botched suicide I had not just stepped, but gotten a running start and jumped as far as I could over the line, landing with a thud and kicking up dust.

  When I failed to kill myself, only causing head trauma and a few uncomfortable conversations, the thought of just wanting a way out kept nagging me. I could try and kill myself again, sure, but after reviewing the process I had gone through the first go-round, it seemed unlikely. So, I started a thought right before I drifted out of consciousness on Ralph and Minnie’s bathroom floor, laying in a pool of my own blood, and I finished it laying in a semi-upright position on a hospital bed, watching TV re-runs and spooning sugar-free Jell-O into my mouth like there was no tomorrow. I wanted a way out, I wanted to go back to before; not only back to before Amy’s death, but before Amy entirely. Back to before our first date, back to before ever even meeting her in the Teachers' Lounge. I wanted to have never even had a job at Hillston High School at all. I needed to erase it all, forget who I was and who I had ever been.

  So, I decided I was going to stop being me. Dan Dawkins, time to go to the back of the bus. In fact, go ahead and just jump out the rear emergency exit while you’re headed back there, I don’t see much of a need for you anymore. I made up my mind then, from that day forward I was going to evolve myself. A lot of people already knew me as Dan, there wasn’t much I could do about that except limit, if not cut out all communication with them. Looking ahead, I was going to be Jackson Hugh.

  Why become Jackson? It made complete sense at the time, as a lot of things do to people at wits end with their back against the wall. He was fully formed. I knew what he looked like, I knew the way he talked, I knew how he dressed, what he liked to eat, his taste in woman. I knew everything about him. Not all of these details ever made it onto paper for readers to know, but I knew. I knew things about him nobody else would ever know the way a writer always knows things about their characters. He’d been in my head for a long time, walking around and getting bored. I was going to bring him to life, unleash him from the page and see how he faired in Real World, USA. Murder was never my intention, but at some point I started to lose my grip on the reigns. The more I acted like Jackson Hugh, the less it became acting. He started to take over, and I realized it too late to care.

  The reason I made my deal with Ralph and stayed in Jacob’s Bluff was anonymity--both mine and the town. So far, in all my adventures not a soul had recognized me. This was good. Plus the town was so obscure I’m not sure even some of the people who lived there knew where they were. It was a good place for a trial run, a good place to practice.

  I drove six hours to Oklahoma University and spent half a day wondering around campus, taking pictures with a disposable camera I bought in the bookstore, and asking every kid that looked like he or she might be a stoner if they knew of anyway to score a fake ID. I got mostly suspicious looks and a lot of "I don’t know, man." I had about given up when an idea occurred to me. I stopped a young guy wearing golf-shorts and a solid pink shirt if he knew where I might find the Graphic Design department, or just some place that did digital scanning, editing, or printing. He cocked his head and thought for a minute and then said, "There’s a media lab two buildings over on the third floor, might check there." I thanked him and went on my way. I piggybacked into the building, falling in behind a girl yapping on her cell as she swiped her security card on the reader by the door and walked in, never once even seeing me. I’m pretty sure they advise students of these types of things, but that day I was thankful every kid thinks the same thing when they heard stuff like that, "Oh, it won’t ever happen to me."

  I found the media lab, and more importantly I found Chen, an Asian freshman who looked like he could have been twelve, sitting at a high powered Mac workstation. I introduced myself, and then taking a risk--like I cared, nothing to lose, remember--asked him if he wanted to make a quick 100 bucks. He agreed before I even told him what I wanted. Broke college students, God bless ‘em. An hour later I left with a fairly decent new drivers license, which looked identical to the one I entered the lab with, only now instead of being Dan Dawkins, I was Jackson Barnes. It wouldn’t hold up to a police examination, but I felt it would do for any day-to-day things where, in the off chance, I may be asked to show ID.

  I chose a different last name to further hide myself. I already took a chance by letting Ralph and Minnie know my real name, as well as others in the Jacob’s Bluff community, and it was fortunate for me that none of them seemed to have been up to date with the current best seller list. But, I didn’t want to push my luck. Just because somebody hadn’t heard of the author doesn’t mean they’ve never heard of his characters. Ask somebody if they’ve heard of J.M. Barrie, and you’ll often get blank stares. Ask them if they’ve heard of Peter Pan and if nothing else they’ll say, oh yeah, the guy in the green tights.

  So, with my new identity in my mind and in my pocket, I started going to Larnedale as Jackson. To Ralph and Minnie, I continued being Dan. I continued being Dan to the rest of Jacob’s Bluff as well. The town was too small to risk the odds of somebody who knew me as Dan running into somebody who might know me as Jackson. I wanted to avoid confusion. Ralph might draw assumptions (although correct) about my mental stability if he knew I was being somebody else behind his back.

  Now, I mentioned earlier that on the nights where I didn’t go out I stayed at Ralph and Minnie’s and would write. When I got back from the hospital and went upstairs to my new temporary home bedroom, I found my cell phone sitting on the nightstand next to my bed, compliments of Ralph, I’m sure, who’d probably found it on the floor of the bathroom the night I’d slipped and fell. Seeing it, I remembered Jenna’s voicemail. There was only a little battery left, but it was enough for me to play back the message. I listened intently, feeling anger flush my cheeks at the sound of Jenna’s voice. I don’t know when my hatred for her grew so strong, but I realized that I now blamed her for everything
that had happened. She had become my scapegoat.

  The message was very simple and aside from the forced and awkward beginning greeting, it was strictly a business call. My publishers had paid me an advance for a multi-book deal, and Jenna was calling to let me know the deadline for my next manuscript.

  Writing couldn’t have been further from my mind, and the thought of trying to sit down at a computer and focus intently enough to churn out anything worthwhile seemed like an art that was long lost for Dan Dawkins. I didn’t panic, not exactly, but I knew that I needed the money from my book deal, and suddenly saying that I wasn’t going to be writing anymore and paying back the advance was out of the question. If I did that I’d have to go and try and find another job, one that wouldn’t offer the comfort of the lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to, and that didn’t exactly please me. The deadline was still a good ways away, so I decided to put the problem on the back burner for a while. Get my mind straight first (ha-ha) before I tried to start up the writing process again. I had a good number of stories saved on my laptop already that didn’t make it into The Teachers’ Lounge, and I could dig some of those up for filler if worst came to worst, which lately for me it seemed was the only way anything happened anymore.