Jake And The Girl With The Pretty Legs
JAKE AND THE GIRL WITH THE PRETTY LEGS
Rachel was late for her graduate class at the University but reigned in her impatience and speed as she neared the traffic signal. She slowed her red Ford Mustang as it approached the intersection, noticing an old man standing on the corner holding a small, makeshift cardboard sign with a short message scrawled on it. She squinted in the sunlight, having misplaced her sunglasses again, to read the almost illegible writing: HOMELESS VET-NEED HELP-GOD BLESS.
Rachel glanced up at the looming traffic light. If it stayed green, the hobo was out of luck. If it turned red, she would find something to give him.
She sighed as the light turned red.
Rachel waved the man over. He came scurrying towards her car, dirty and unkempt, sporting a worn army-fatigue jacket covering a soiled t-shirt, faded and frayed blue jeans, and tennis shoes that, maybe, had once been white. A battered ‘U.S. Army’ ball cap perched atop his head, struggling to control unruly gray hair spiking from the edges in all directions. A matching, scraggly beard partially covered a sun-burned, weathered face. Rachel estimated him to be in his late sixties or early seventies. She didn’t remember seeing this particular panhandler around in the past. But then, there were so many of them.
Rachel fumbled through her purse on the seat next to her; she always tried to keep a few one-dollar bills on hand for just these occasions. Her roommate, Wynne, thought she was throwing her money away and that the beggars were just using the money for booze and drugs. Maybe some of them were, Rachel mused, but many just needed help, she was sure. And Rachel could never quite reconcile the fortunate circumstances of her life with the less fortunate ones of those destined to wander the streets with little hope and a barren future stretching before them. She didn’t understand the whys or wherefores of how these things came to be, only that they made her sad.
When she rolled down her window, a slight breeze carried in the unpleasant odor of unwashed clothes and unwashed bodies. She wrinkled her nose but realized that the hobo had at least tried to cover the smell with a cheap cologne—some type of men’s musk scent—that brought tears to her eyes.
No ones, only a lonely five in her purse. Rachel turned to hand the man the money, only to find him staring at her bare legs.
It was a warm October day, and Rachel was wearing shorts. They weren’t Daisy Dukes, but they qualified as first cousins; there was a lot of leg to see. She knew men found her attractive—tanned, with dark hair, dark eyes and a petite frame with curves in all the places God meant them to be.
She should have felt offended or afraid, but the man’s reaction when he realized she had followed his gaze was almost comical. He shuffled back a few steps, his watery, pale blue eyes cast down toward the ground in embarrassment. He looked to the left, then the right, everywhere but at her. Rachel thought he was even blushing beneath his rough, weathered skin.
The man stammered, “I’m sorry, Ma’am… I didn’t mean… shouldn’t be looking… it’s just….” He kept looking down and around but not at her. “Sometimes I forget… I’m sorry, Ma’am.”
Rachel had to bite her lip to keep from laughing; the man’s embarrassment was so acute. As it was, she couldn’t keep her expression from turning into a huge grin. “I’m only twenty-four; I’m a Miss, not a Ma’am.” She held the five-dollar bill out the window. “Here, take it. It’s okay; I’m not angry.”
He hesitated, looked at her and, seeing she wasn’t upset with him, allowed a smile to creep back onto his face. “You have real pretty legs, Miss,” he said, taking the money.
Rachel hesitated for a moment before giving in and laughing. “Why, thank you.” She couldn’t recall hearing the charming “pretty legs” description before, at least not when aimed at her. Impulsively she asked, “What’s your name?”
He looked down at the ground like an embarrassed child and mumbled, “Jake.”
Now the horns on the cars behind Rachel blared; the traffic light had turned green. The old man trotted off the roadway and back onto the shoulder.
Rachel frowned as she drove away. “Good luck, Jake,” she whispered.
Three days later, Rachel saw Jake again. She was out jogging in the early afternoon sunshine, clad in red running shorts and a t-shirt that declared ‘WOMEN WHO BEHAVE RARELY MAKE HISTORY.’ Rachel was moving at a good pace along a path parallel to Central Avenue when she caught sight of the green army jacket and ball cap across the street, near the local Wendy’s Restaurant. She altered her course and crossed over at the light at University and Central.
Jake was standing near the sidewalk in Wendy’s parking lot, a well-worn army knapsack on his back and a frayed army duffel bag resting on the ground next to him. They may well have been relics from a World War II army surplus store.
Jake looked at her as she jogged up to him. For several seconds he stared at her with a blank look. But then, glancing down, his eyes lit in recognition. “The girl with the pretty legs!”
She laughed. “Okay, Jake, enough with the pretty legs stuff; my name is
Rachel.” vv
Amazingly, his simple, huge grin revealed a full set of teeth, albeit several shades removed from white. Then his smile faltered.
“What’s the problem, Jake?” she asked.
He looked back at her, then at Wendy’s behind him. “I’m hungry, but they don’t like me inside. I’m bad for customers or something,” he mumbled. He pulled a dollar out of one of his coat pockets. “And I got money too.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “My treat for lunch. What would you like?” Wynne would think she was crazy.
Jake’s excitement overflowed. “A double cheeseburger, some French fries and one of them big Frosties!”
Rachel was back five minutes later, with a Frosty for herself, also.
After taking the food from Rachel, Jake was back to looking at the ground and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Would you… ah… eat lunch with me?” he murmured.
“Sure, where?” Rachel couldn’t quite believe she’d accepted. Wynne would think she’d lost her mind.
Jake motioned across the street at a large expanse of University property on the corner adjoining the campus, the grass shaded by several wide-crowned, long-needled evergreen trees.
It was under one of those trees that Jake pulled an old, worn army blanket from his duffle bag and spread it on the ground. Torn in several places and the hem frayed, Jake handled the brown blanket as if it were expensive and delicate fine linen. After setting up their luncheon on the mantle, words began to spill out of Jake in a torrent. He wanted to keep the interest of his newfound friend, somehow.
People walking by occasionally stared, talked and whispered among themselves about the raggedy, homeless man and the pretty, college coed sitting and talking on the blanket. It was only background noise to Rachel, so engrossed was she in Jake’s conversation.
Sometimes Jake rambled, sometimes his sentences became disjointed, and sometimes he forgot his train of thought, but as time passed, Rachel pieced together a little of Jake’s life.
Jake Christopher Landry, his “whole full name,” he called it, was born and raised in the small town of Rockwood, Michigan, graduated high school there, and then attended a year of college at Eastern Michigan University. With the Vietnam War in full swing, he felt compelled to fight for his country and enlisted in the Army. Jake had almost completed his second tour of duty when they shot down the helicopter he was piloting. Severely injured, Jake had spent a month in a military hospital in Saigon before being transferred back to the States for another three-month stay in a veteran’s hospital. An agonizing, yearlong rehabilitation followed this.
Jake had a girlfriend when he left for “Nam,” but not when he returned. Because not all of him came back, he had kept all his arms and legs, but part of his mind was a casualty—a permanent sacrifice for his country. He tapped the right side of his head with his knuckles. “I have a metal plate here where part of my head was.”
Since then, Jake had wandered through the years, life becoming not much more than eating, sleeping, and basic day-to-day functions to stay alive. Sometimes there were “special” good things for him, like Rachel, “a pretty girl who was nice to him.” He blushed, something he often did in her presence.
Besides functioning on a simple level, Jake forgot things. During the warmer months, he lived in the Bosque, the green belt of trees and vegetation along the Rio Grande River. During the winter, Jake slept at Joy Junction and the other homeless shelters around the city. But sometimes, he forgot how to get there and had to ask people, just as he sometimes had to ask how to get back to the churches that served free meals for the homeless. Jake couldn’t remember how long he’d “lived” in Albuquerque. He forgot street names. Jake forgot people’s names. But he said he’d remember Rachel. Jake promised he would not forget her.
He stopped talking, pulled a worn picture from a pocket in the backpack, and handed it to her. “That’s me when I went to the Army.” In it was a serious-looking young man, clad in an Army dress uniform, hat tucked under his left arm, ramrod straight and staring into the camera with a sober expression. It was a younger version of Jake, with a buzz-cut and clean-shaven. “You can have it if you want…” a panicked look overcame him, “… uh… Rachel… yes, Rachel.” A look of relief flooded his face when he remembered her name.
She handed it back to him. “I can’t take this, Jake; it’s too important. It’s part of your life, who you are.”
He was looking down and away from her now. “I just wanted you to know I wasn’t always like this,” he mumbled. “I used to be a real person.”
“My God, Jake… don’t say that…” Her eyes brimmed with tears, and her throat constricted with grief. The man before her might be a shell of the strong, committed young man in the picture, but they were both still Jake.
Jake jumped to his feet. “I have to go now. They’re coming.” He was looking past her down the street.
Rachel followed his stare and saw two uniformed policemen talking in front of a store two blocks away. “What’s the matter, Jake?” she asked, watching panic contort his face.
“They don’t like people like me hanging around. They make me leave.” He picked up the old army blanket, brushed off the loose grass sticking to it, and painstakingly folded it.
“That must be a very special blanket,” she said.
Jake continued folding it and carefully packed it in his duffle bag. “It was my father’s from when he was in a war, World War II, in Europe. He gave it to me when
I was little. Before I was like this. It’s all I have of him.”
He hefted his duffle bag and backpack and turned to her. She could see tears in his faded blue eyes. “Thank you… Ma’am, I mean… Miss… er, Rachel…,” he faltered but continued. “Don’t forget… once I was different… better, that is… not like this.” Then his mind slipped gears again, and that childish and embarrassed smile creased his weathered and lined face. “You still have the prettiest legs I ever seen in my whole life.” Jake turned and walked away.
Rachel watched until he had disappeared around the corner. She didn’t know what else to do or say.
A week passed, and Albuquerque’s clear, high desert nights had grown colder. It was late, after eleven p.m., but Rachel had eaten a late dinner with her boyfriend, Jon, and felt compelled to keep her daily jogging regimen. Wynne said she was crazy to be running around town that late at night, but Rachel, in her baggy gray sweatsuit to combat the cooling October night, was fearless. Besides, she had her trusty Mace in her pocket.
She kept to the well-lit areas around campus and the adjoining neighborhoods. But she was cold and took the shortcut back to her apartment. She detoured between the two buildings housing the Medical Examiner’s Office near a loading dock—a route she had taken dozens of times.
But this night, it was a terrible mistake.
The first attacker, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, came out of the darker recesses of a doorway and hit her low, like a football player, driving her into the adjoining building’s stucco veneer. Rachel’s head thudded off the wall, the sledgehammer of pain buckling her knees, black stars on a brilliant white background exploding in front of her eyes. The man’s fist crashed into her jaw, and the stars grew bigger, threatening to meld into total darkness. Her legs failed, and she began a slow slide down the wall but still maintained her hold on consciousness, trying to concentrate on getting enough air back into her lungs to scream.
Mauling hands were pulling, yanking her sweatshirt up, over, and covering her head, pinning her arms above her. More hands, a second person, was pulling at her sweatpants, trying to pull them off as she sat dazed on the cold cement, propped weakly against the rough wall.
Her sputtering mind latched onto one horrific word… rape… they were going to rape her! She wanted to scream, but her jaws wouldn’t seem to work anymore. All that wheezed out was a hoarse, raspy moan through her clenched teeth and bleeding lips.
Rachel’s mind lurched, stumbled, prayed, Help me, God… help me, please… the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…
Suddenly, miraculously, the grasping, grabbing hands disappeared from her body.
There were sounds of scuffling, swearing, and fighting. A scream, someone tripping over Rachel. Somebody was trying to help her.
Rachel slumped over onto her side in slow motion, gasping and gagging. The pain was so intense in her head and jaw she thought she might vomit. She curled into a fetal position, bringing her knees up to her chest, but was too weak to work the sweatshirt down from over her arms and head. It was dark, and she was so cold. Rachel couldn’t hear the sounds of fighting anymore.
Then someone was covering her nakedness with something warm. She mercifully slid into unconsciousness, thinking and feeling no longer an option.
Rachel could hear voices, words, and disjointed sounds. Seconds passed as they coalesced, sticking to her consciousness. She opened her eyes, squinting at the red and blue flashing lights swirling through the darkness. Her head was throbbing, and her jaw hurt. Her surroundings swam back into focus.
Two police cruisers had parked near the loading dock entrance, their emergency lights slicing through the night. An ambulance had backed onto the down-ramp; a stretcher with a moaning, inert shape awaited its loading. Rachel pushed herself into a sitting position, resting against the rough stucco wall.
Two male EMTs standing beside her, awaiting the second ambulance, immediately knelt down. The older of the two spoke. “Take it easy, young lady; you might have a concussion. Why don’t you lie back down?”
Other than her head, jaw and swollen lips, everything seemed to be normal. “I’ll be okay.” A wave of nausea washed over her, and it hurt to talk, but she wanted to know what was happening. “Did you catch the guys who attacked me?”
With an audible grunt, a heavy-set police officer, whom she hadn’t seen at first, knelt beside her. “The other ambulance is hauling away the two guys who assaulted you. Someone beat them up pretty good, but we can’t take any credit for that. They confessed to attacking you but said a young guy in an army uniform came out of nowhere and beat the hell out of them. A campus police officer on foot patrol heard yelling and screaming, came to investigate and found you and those two punks unconscious, but no sign of any army guy.” He paused a second before continuing. “Any chance I can have that blanket and picture now?”
Rachel glanced down at herself. Her sweatsuit was back in place, and the police had draped a dark wool blanket around her shoulders. In her left hand and, clasped protectively to her body, was a threadbare, brown army blanket and, in her right, a photograph. Both hands were cramped and sore.
“You’ve had a death grip on that old blanket and photograph ever since we found you. You’ve been semi-conscious, delirious and refused to let go of either. Someone had covered you with that blanket. I don’t know where the picture came from, either.” The officer reached out and touched her arm. “I’m Officer Mike Jenkins, and I’ve been with the Police Department for thirty years. You have my word. I’ll take care of the blanket and picture and get them back to you.” He stood up and reached down to her.
Rachel reluctantly released the old photograph from her stiff fingers. The blanket she brought to her face, the coarse surface a caress against her cheek, inhaling the faint odor of sweat and musk deeply. The tears came without warning as she handed the blanket to the officer.
Glancing from the photo to the smiling but tearful young woman before him, he asked, “Do you know the soldier in this picture?”
“I’m only twenty-four. That picture’s like forty-five years old.”
“And you know this how?” Officer Jenkins looked from the old army blanket to the photo, then back at Rachel.
She remained silent, her eyes averted.
He sighed. “I don’t think I even want to know. We’ll get a description of the
Good Samaritan from the perps and try to locate him.”
Rachel’s smile faded. “I think he’s gone, officer. I think… maybe… he was just on loan.”
Impressum
Texte: John C. Laird
Bildmaterialien: istockphoto.com
Lektorat: Alexandra Laird
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 02.03.2012
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