Day 10: 16,673 Words, and all my blessings call me Mr.

I was so inspired by this morning's chat that writing today was relatively quick! I decided to go back and write some more about the backstory where Jack meets Donald Sutherland (Mr. Black). I realized that I had called the section "The Birth of Jackie" but then left the scene before I explained why Jack starting using the name 'Jackie' instead.

“Do you remember me Jack?” the man asked, the good humour gone from his voice as quickly as it had come. “Or perhaps I should call you Jackie- that’s what we used to call you, little Jackie Bauer.” As the man spoke the name in his whispery voice, something began to break loose in the back of Jack’s mind. A dim memory. Little Jackie Bauer. Yes, he remembered something about that. He turned his head back and looked at the man, looked at his face, and heard the voice in his head. “Little Jackie Bauer,” it said, over and over again. Yes, he remembered this man.

He remembered his voice, his face, although his hair had been more pepper and less salt back then. The lines on his face hadn’t been as deep, although he still looked really old, like possibly 40. He remembered that the man would come every so often to watch him play. He would give him games to play, games that involved all kinds of puzzles. And when Jackie would solve them, he would clap his hands with delight, but his eyes never looked happy, they looked… hungry. He remembered the games, and another memory was surfacing, one much darker and deeper. Jack resisted, knowing that there were some things best left behind, but the memory came back. It was jangled, confused, like looking in a funhouse mirror. He remembered they would attach nodes to his head. He remembered biting down on something. He remembered pain. He remembered…

“We used to call you Mr…”

“Mr. Black,” the man finished. “That’s right.” Mr. Black smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his cold blue eyes. Did he know which memory was swirling around in Jack’s brain? Jack used every ounce of his considerable will to make his face a mask, an expressionless mask. The man, Mr. Black, reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a business card, laying it flat on the table in front of Jack. It was cream, shiny black print on expensive looking card stock. Jack, at 16, had seen few business cards, but even he knew that most had more information on them than just a name and a 10 digit telephone number.

Mr. Black

862-555-0199

“Not from around here, then, Mr. Black?” Jackie said, his voice dripping with contempt. Mr. Black laughed again, amused.

Jack reached his hands across the table and picked up the card, inspecting it. As he turned it over, he saw that there was more writing on the back.

“I live my life with no regrets. That’s why my greatest blessings call me Mr.” Although his face showed nothing, Jack felt chilled to the bone. Whatever was going on here, this man was clearly out of his mind.

"Care to tell me about what happened today, Jackie?" the man asked, switching gears. The Jack of five minutes ago might have hit Mr. Black with a real zinger, like "Is Barry Manilow aware that you raid his wardrobe?" but this Jack, Jackie if you will, knew that Mr. Black was not to be trifled with. 

AND Jackie finally sees Annalise. It has been a long time coming, but this is the first time their paths cross in the current time. For those of you with PhDs- please know I have nothing but respect for people who complete these degrees. The tone of my novel, and particularly the inner voice of my characters, seems to require continued excoriation of academia.

“Nice to meet you, Gordon,” Jackie said in his signature whisper voice. His tone communicated that it wasn’t nice at all. He kept walking at a breakneck pace, disbelieving as the man kept up.

“Aren’t you interested in the title of my dissertation?” Gordon chirped, sounding desperate. Jackie understood something about desperation, though he had never completed a PhD, and therefore did not understand the specific desperation that came with spending years of your life writing an illegible pile of garbage that perhaps 2 or 3 people would ever read. But Jackie, although he felt something like empathy for this man, did not have time.

“Not at all,” he replied tersely.

“Do you want to know the difference between a vampire and a Vampyre?” Gordon asked. They had almost reached the continental breakfast spread, and to Jackie’s chagrin, most of the attendees had already moved into the conference room. Just as he rounded the corner, he saw her. Although it had been years, he had lost count of how many, since they had last met, he would have recognized her anywhere. She had changed, it was true. The Annie he knew wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing a pencil skirt and ruffled blouse. Her signature curls had been tamed by some Herculean means, and her long dark hair felt straight down her back. But it was only a glimpse as she turned into the conference room and disappeared.

He glanced back at Gordon, who had fallen oddly silent. The man had been keeping up a steady stream of inane questions since they had bumped into each other in the lobby. And with that thought, something fell into place. The collision had been anything but accidental. The man had deliberately held him up. But why? Who was Gordon the Vampyre, and why was he really in New Jersey?