Forty Degrees Below

Chapter 7

Jake watched the kids playing football as they wandered down the street, young, and full of life. He'd always fancied himself as a quarterback. Those were the happiest memories of his childhood playing tag with his brother in Columbia as they ran to catch the school bus in the morning. He stopped to watch their happy, enthusiastic faces. Listening to their desperate cries for the ball, as if their very life depended on it.

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They say he didn't stand a chance. The car came out of nowhere, careering across the road. It hit his younger brother, his only brother. Life would never be the same again after Jed's death. From that moment on, it was as if time had stood still. His parents blamed Jed for playing on the road, the drunk driver for killing him, the authorities; in fact, anybody within striking distance, except for themselves.

After that tragic event, it was as if Jake had become invisible, mentally and emotionally shut out by his parents. They'd doted on his baby brother, but after Jed's death his mother went to pieces, had a nervous breakdown, unable to cope with the loss, and Jake felt he had to work twice as hard even to be noticed by them.

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He collected the hire car and hit the road out of LA taking Highway 101 to Santa Barbara. Being a Midwestern Missouri man meant that a view of the sea was a luxury, he'd never seen the Pacific before. He watched mesmerised at the waves, and the mile long rolling surf as it broke upon the shore. It lifted his spirits. He felt he belonged.

Seeing the Santa Ynez mountains on his right, and feeling the warmth of the sun on his face made him feel a touch more optimistic. He switched on the radio, and the song 'California Dreamin'' by The Mama's and Papa's was streaming over the airwaves.

His mind drifted back to the memory of his brother. If there were an afterlife, he thought, he wondered what Jed would be doing right now? He reflected how he went from being a cheerful, happy, go-lucky kid, at one time, to a morose, silent, introvert after the death of Jed. He remembered being targeted and bullied by the other boys in his year. Even my parents noticed the long silences and finished up by bringing in a counsellor to try to help him work through it.

Dr Hay was a bizarre, somewhat eccentric mild-mannered Englishman. The primary memory that always stuck in Jakes mind was one of him laughing at himself. Dr Hay frequently ended up upsetting something as his limbs had a habit of moving in the opposite direction to where he'd intended. Tripping over the rug, knocking over one of his mother's favourite vases, or accidentally treading on the cat's tail, were the little incidents that made Jake laugh and put a smile back on his face. In the end, they became excellent friends and Jake used to look forward to his visits.

He'd have these thick eyebrows that he swore wouldn't have looked out of place on Batman. When he became serious, his eyes would all but disappear under those twin thick matted, entangled bushes.

"Seize the moment. Don't wait for the moment to seize you. Otherwise, you'll be waiting forever-and-a-day. Life is for the living," he would announce. At other times he would say, "don't repress it, express it. Write it!" He could be irritating. Jake became bored with these occasional lectures, but soon discovered, that the only way to shut him up was to look interested, and do what he said. 

So, Jake wrote and wrote - about anything. What made him sad, what made him happy. In time, he opened up more and more and started to incorporate his feelings of loss, of being left out in the cold by his parents, and his frustration over bullying. And the more he wrote, the better he felt, and the happier he became.

Jake owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr Hay. It was a symbolic turning point in his life. Hay became the father figure he lacked at that time, and it breathed life into his burgeoning gift as a wordsmith.

The wild, open countryside eventually gave way to urbanised agriculture which in turn morphed into the sprawling mass of the low-lying outskirts of Santa Barbara.

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"Don't you think he sounded young on the phone?" Curtis questioned sipping his coffee.

"Why do you ask?" replied Anya, feeling mildly irritated at her husband's attitude as she cleared the breakfast bar.

"I suppose, curiosity more than anything. My audience tends to be older." 

So what? She felt like saying. Who cares how old your beloved followers are! She couldn't give two hoots. "Well, you know what they say about curiosity, it killed that darn cat! Just wait until you meet him. I'm sure all will become revealed," she replied, hoping that would shut him up.

He took himself off where he could be alone with his thoughts, to understand why he felt so uneasy about the prospect of meeting this Jake. Something was niggling away at him, and he couldn't pinpoint what it was.

He's come across some flaky people in his time as an author. Individuals who've got some weird perceptions about who you are, or what you believe. So, maybe I've composited who Jake is, based on the accumulated experiences I've had, he thought. And just because Jake intuited my forthcoming book, my minds has bracketed him with all these strange, offbeat people I sometimes come across in my line of work. Yes, that's it!

"Damn," cried Anya, as she winced in pain, and threw a knife in the sink, cursing as a drop of blood formed on the tip of her finger.

"Are you okay?" He yelled as he came running out of the sunroom.

Typical, he doesn't think to ask whether I'm okay when he's holed up in his den working on his next big hit late into the night. "Yes, I'm fine! Just caught a finger on one of the steak knives," she replied irritably sucking on her finger.

"Well, you don't look okay!" He exclaimed, running up breathless. "Look, you don't have to do all of this clearing up now - leave it. Come and sit down and relax," He said wondering at her irritability.

"No, I'm okay, it's just a damn cut," she said, avoiding eye contact. "Don't you have a meeting planned downtown this morning? You'd better get a move on if you want to get there in time."

"Okay, well look, give some thought about getting some help. It's a big place, and I'm not always around," he said closing the door behind him. 

She waited until she could hear the sound of the car receding down the drive, and smiled to herself. "I've got all the help I need, thank you, Curtis," she muttered to herself.

"He's swallowed the bait," she said joyously, rubbing her hands together. "He should be there in ten," and put the phone down.