I met him one night down at Rosie’s Tavern, a long time ago, though I can’t say I remember exactly how we met, and that’s strange don’t you think. Somebody like Jake, well, you’d at least think you could remember. I do know that at one point I though he said his name was Gabriel then I thought he said it was Michael but they were just sounds in my head, sounds I thought of as words. “Jake,” he said with a thin smile, “got it, Jake.”
I can at least remember that much but as for the rest of it (when we first met) not a chance. As I said, strange ain’t it
Jake
He lived his life according to his own personal credo, his own rules. The world ignored him, accelerated and left him behind. He was a man out of place and a little bit out of time in the sparkling new millennium of junk foods, trashy reality shows, super fast communications and stealth planes. He seemed not to notice. He did remark once in his rumbling baritone that the new generation of go-getters seemed not to understand the meaning of honour, and friendship, loyalty to one’s own and all that. I’m just plain old fashioned I guess. He was a generous man and never used his size to intimidate. There was no need; most people just naturally gave him room. Mostly taciturn and solitary by nature, he said one time that he liked being around people but was equally content on his own. I have sometimes thought that when the world moved on, it left him stranded in a backwater of the mind and about all he was doing was marking time, waiting to die you might say.
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In a world of Harleys and Japanese bikes, Jake rode a 750 Norton Commando. He said he bought it brand spanking new back in the tail end of the sixties. “I never rode another bike after that and I maintain it myself. Out on the highway when I shift gears and turn the throttle back as far as she’ll go there’s this sort of coughing, throaty rumble that’s just about the sweetest kind of music to my ears. The clean wind in your face, the sun shining down, that throaty growl in your ear and an empty, long straight road ahead. I got to tell you,” he said, “it just don’t get much better’n than, on my oath it don’t.”
I can’t say we were friends exactly but one day when evil conspired, Jake came roaring in like a shining man, a hero from out some old forgotten legend.
Since then I’ve sometimes thought that maybe, just maybe the way he lived his life shaped him and moved him so that one day he would be exactly where he was supposed to be, the spirit of him shining like the sun.
Jake was a big man, standing a shade over six foot four inches. Steady grey eyes over high cheekbones with just a shade of swarthiness to the skin. His hair was blue-black, thick and long. His upper arms, shoulders and chest carried muscle like Arnie Swcharzenegger in his prime. He’d had a cross within a circle tattooed high on his left cheek. His arms from shoulder to wrist were covered in a strange mix of old tattoos. “Had ‘em done,” he said, “back in the sixties.” Exactly how old Jake might be I had no idea and no inclination to ask. There were a few silver strands in his hair but not enough to notice, apart from a thin almost pure white streak running from just above his temple and disappearing into that blue-black mane of his like a lightning bolt. Jake had presence, at least I thought so, and now and again there was a gentleness to him that I’m hard put to explain, it sort of leaked out now and again, so to speak but damn he was big. The sheer physical size of him was daunting.
When he rode his Norton he wore a midnight blue, open face helmet, wrap around sunglasses, faded blue jeans over square toe cowboy boots and a black sweat shirt with ‘god luvs yea’ in pale blue across the back and a black, worn out at the elbows bomber style leather jacket when the wind turned cool. Astride the Norton Jake’s size made the bike look small. It was tuned to perfection and according to Jake, could damn near pull a locomotive. One time Jake looked at me through those steady grey eyes of his and said in an almost haunted voice, “a great evil is loose in the world.” It stuck in my mind because he never said anything like that ever again. I think there was more to Jake than anyone could ever know. I can’t explain that. It’s like maybe he was someone or maybe something else, something you mostly only come across in books, in stories, in myths and legends of warriors of light warriors without wings the kind that guard heaven’s door.
I met him one night down at Rosie’s Tavern, a long time ago, though I can’t say I remember exactly how we met, and that’s strange don’t you think. Somebody like Jake, well, you’d at least think you could remember. I do know that at one point I though he said his name was Gabriel then I thought he said it was Michael but they were just sounds in my head, sounds I thought of as words. “Jake,” he said with a thin smile, “got it, Jake.”
I can at least remember that much but as for the rest of it (when we first met) not a chance. As I said, strange ain’t it.
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Back then I was a free lance writer trying to catch the eye of one of the major Dailies (newspapers) I was barely making a living. At that time I’d gotten the idea, or notion if you like, that I could free lance part time which should bring me in enough to keep a roof over my head whilst I wrote my first novel. The problem was free lancing turned out to be more or less full time, as I had to be constantly on the move following up leads, newsworthy incidents and what have you. It wasn’t hard, just incredibly time consuming and of course I needed the money, so I didn’t get far with regards my book. In the end the idea turned out to be self defeating, though I did stick at if for a little over two years before finally calling it a day. I’d been writing for one of the Dailies for about six months when I met Jake.
About a year later I was following up on a lead when everything went to hell and gone, and if not for Jake, well; they do say the Sinclair Brothers (undertakers) lay out a nice corpse.
I recall Jake said, a great evil is loose in the world, or something like that and maybe I inadvertently touched a piece of it, metaphorically speaking that is, or maybe not. Truth is I just don’t know. Maybe I came too close to something I was unaware of and somebody pressed the panic button. Basically there’s no sense to it, no sense at all. Somebody once said, evil is deadly but it isn’t too smart that’s why it’s evil it doesn’t have the smarts to think any other way, so you can’t reason with it, it’s deaf, dumb and blind, it’s living hate. That’s evil’s foundation, hate for damn near every living thing. Its very ideology is hate. And that’s what most decent living folks just plain don’t understand. Evil hates you. Evil hates every living thing that breathes in reason and light.
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There are pivotal moments in one’s life charged with power enough to change you forever. You may not see it that way in any immediate sense or awareness of change, but later as you go about your daily life you begin to notice change, however subtle, and realise you are, in your own personal way, a better person for it; the way I sometimes think I am a better person for having known Jake. It wasn’t until long after the fact that it slowly dawned on me, that in some way I simply cannot explain, something I have no answer for, Jake in a spiritual sense reached out and touched me, a sort of inner awakening if you know what I mean. A big, tough, hard faced man no one in their right mind wanted trouble with, maybe he carried an angel called Michael on his back.
Whatever and however one bad Saturday night on the wrong side of town changed my life. A pivotal moment you might say, only this one was lethal. This one came out of the night to steal my life, to leave me broken and dying in the gutter. You need to think about that, you need to know exactly where I’m coming from.
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I never did find out where the information came from, only that it was there, written on a grubby sheet of notepaper folded twice and pushed under my door. At that time I was trying to find out if there was any truth to the rumor that an unknown gent from overseas was offering to buy Semtex (plastic explosives) no questions asked for more money than anyone on the street could believe, which of course made everybody and his dog suspicious. To this day I still can’t believe I was stupid enough to start asking around.
The note said for the right price the writer had information on the man I was looking for, and stated the time and place to meet. I fell for it.
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Winter had finally closed in, the late evening gloom murky with damp rising mist that carried a stench of decay, and abandonment on its breath. Dark, bruised looking clouds scurried across the night sky, the spectral light of a waning moon struggled to break though gaps in the drift. Shadows, light and dark, shadows on the wind. The devil caught Billy Ray down in Tombsville Arizona whispered in the mist. I shivered, hunching down in my jacket, belatedly thinking the meet was a very bad idea indeed. Sometimes we make mistakes and by the time we realise just what a calamity it is, it’s too late, and if you’re lucky if god smiles on you and you get to walk away body and soul intact, it isn’t just a case of thinking well I won’t make the same mistake again, of course you won’t, but did you notice, are you aware just a little, of the change the mistake and your lucky break in getting to walk away body and soul in tact has wrought in you, a pivotal moment in the aftermath of which you are never quite the same. When that something gets your attention you might just want to take notice because sometimes chance may not come your way again, mostly it’s a once in a lifetime offer, a sort of take it or leave it, the choice however is yours, it always is.
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And sometimes it seems there is no choice at all, I chose to run but there was nowhere to run nowhere to hide, and I can tell you in the deep and the dark of the deserted street my blood ran cold, my heart hammered against the wall of my chest. I’m no fighter, no brave wee lad with the strength of champions but then I’m no lamb to be led to the slaughter either. Of course I didn’t stand a chance, I did the best I could but it wasn’t much. No it wasn’t much at all not against seven. Not when seven times your own number are bound and determined to steal your life.
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The street was narrow, not much wider than an alley squashed between high blank walls, a service street maybe running through the heart of a long abandoned warren of warehousing and industry. The sky gleamed like dark oil overhead. An air of decay of lost hope and torment hung in the eerie silence like black crows with holes in their eyes. A lone sodium lamp hanging from a high, rusty bracken shed weak yellow light lending the rising mist a sickly fevered look, Desolation Alley, I though uneasily, a place of dark angels and murky deeds. About then I decided to abandon the meet and the whole damn thing. There has to be a better way of making a living, something about all this just wasn’t right and there and then I decided the dailies would just have to get along without me. Not that I contributed much but this place gave me the creeps and well it was like a wake up call.
A whisper of sound drifted in. I turned on my heel intending to walk away but wouldn’t you just know – it was too late!
I wrote a song once with a soft reggae beat
Laura gone to Jerusalem
Laura gone to find the Lord
Laura gone to Jerusalem
Laura gone to talk with the Lord.
I sold it for seventy five dollars to an up and coming band who went on to do very well for a few years. Why I recalled a song that was lost and gone at that particular moment in time I have absolutely no idea. Damn, I thought, I wish Jake was here. The image of him, stretched out across the tank of his bike, because that’s the only way you can ride an old Norton with drop down (handle) bars. Jake said “Nortons only have one speed; fast.” The image of him burned in my head. I wish Jake was here, I thought with a hollow swoop in my gut because somehow I just knew my life was over. I wouldn’t go down without a fight, no never that, but I could see now, as they cat footed closer, these men came from across the sea, from a place where the hot sun burns the desert, but they had been foolish, they’d made the mistake of offering to buy for silly money the one product no one in their right mind out on the streets wanted any part of. Bombs in cars and planes was an altogether darker, more final evil rooted in implicit hate.
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Three men blocking the narrow street. “You ask too many questions,” one hissed in heavily accented English, “now you are dead.” His companions chuckled mirthlessly. I didn’t hesitate, I turned and ran, only to be brought up short as four dark figures advanced down the street towards me, their swarthy skin taking on an unhealthy yellowish tinge in the flickering sodium light. I prayed the light would go out plunging the narrow street into pitch darkness. I might then slip through and away. Of course the light didn’t go out.
I stood with my back to the wall. The seven formed a loose half circle around me. A sudden shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds lancing down, adding meager brightness to the eerie scene. The asphalted street gleamed slick and damp. Like a dark ribbon, I thought incongruously. Panic welled up gagging my throat. Fear heightened my senses. Breathing heavily in the frigid air my fists clenched tight I waited for the onslaught. Boot and fists, I thought and then with a sickening lurch in my gut I saw a gleam of steel in each man’s hand. Like Caesar, unarmed, going down beneath the knives.
As they moved in a sudden thought of Jake turned blinding white in my head. I heard it then, faint but growing louder, the shrieking howl, the crazy screaming thunder like nothing you have ever heard, the sound of a Norton, throttle wide open, the engine howling like a wounded beast, a huge helmetless figure stretched out across the tank, hands gripping the drop down bars, the white streak in his hair, glowing like a neon light, a lightning bolt, Michael’s sword and then he was in the alley, headlight burning pure white, the ear shattering bellow of the Norton’s over revving engine blasting out of the exhaust with nowhere to go. The high walls of the narrow street hemming the sound in like a sonic boom it echoed and echoed and bounced off the walls filling the air with an unearthly keening, wailing sound overlaid in thunder.
The seven turned in a tight bunch momentarily ignoring me.
It happened and it was over and sweet Jesus what did happen. Jake roaring in, using his beloved Norton like a weapon. A huge towering figure standing astride his bike, throttle wide open front brake locked down tight. Raw screaming power feeding the back wheel, tyre burning as Jake, with easy strength, controlled the bike, allowing the back end to swing round in a tight circle burning rubber spewing up in choking clouds. He knocked them down like skittles then calmly stepped off his bike. The Norton lurched forward smashing into the wall, spinning back, falling over in a tangle of twisted metal and burning rubber.
Three of the seven lay on the ground unmoving as Jake calmly faced the remaining four, moving in on him knives gleaming in their hands. Jake looked over their heads at me and said, “Run, run now whilst you can.” He shook his head, white teeth gleaming in the murky light, the lightning bolt in his hair seeming to glow and pulse with a life of its own. “Run,” he shouted, “and remember me.” And then they were on him and his hammer like fists rose and fell.
But I couldn’t run, I wanted to but I couldn’t, he was a friend and the wolves had moved in to pull him down, to rend and tear the light. I couldn’t run. For all my life depended on it, I couldn’t run and leave him. For all I knew I could run and live, deep down inside I knew my life would be nothing but a haunted empty shell knowing I’d left my friend to wolves who would rend and tear his body until the light went out in his eyes.
With an inarticulate yell clawing at my throat I launched myself forward only to be brought up short by a terrific blow to my head that dropped me senseless. Later, much later when I gathered my scattered wits and staggered off home, I knew only Jake could have delivered that blow, only Jake could have knocked me senseless, the four attacking him all had their backs to me. But how in the name of god he had reached out over their heads to knock me down and thereby keep me safe and out of the fight, I don’t know, it just wasn’t possible, you see I was still too far away a few feet at least. It wasn’t possible but somehow it was. I slowly regained consciousness. My head was ringing like a bell.
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My face was cold, I remember that, I was lying face down on the ground cold seeping up from the asphalt, cold crawling through my face, a bell like sound ringing in my head. I’m alive, I thought in dazed wonder, damn, I’m alive.
I opened my eyes. I lay there confused as to what I was doing stretched out on the cold ground. Everything was incredibly quiet and still, like a graveyard. I thought somewhat stupidly, I’m in a damn graveyard. The silence was absolute. Blind panic fluttered my limbs. Rolling over I staggered up onto my feet, weaving slightly as I regained my balance. An acrid smell of smouldering rubber hung in the air. I shivered, dragging tainted air into my lungs as I eyed the wreckage of Jake’s bike, a twisted mass of steel and scorched rubber. The soft ping, ping of cooling metal echoed dully on the cold air, that and the sound of my ragged breathing were the only sounds to be heard in the gloomy empty street.
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Empty! I looked left and right, up and down, the street was utterly deserted. Something wasn’t right. Where the hell was Jake, where were the dark men?
The last thing I could remember was hurtling forward to help Jake and then suddenly running flat out into an invisible wall. Like a giant fist slamming against my head. I can’t recall falling to the ground. I hurtled forward and then, oblivion. What happened to Jake and the terrorists, the dark men? I don’t know. I simply do not know. If not for the smouldering remains of Jake’s bike I might very well have imagined the whole thing, questioned my own sanity and what have you. It happened, but where was Jake and our attackers, I had no idea.
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I eventually made my way home intending to bathe my bruised face as soon as possible only, when I looked in the bathroom mirror there wasn’t a mark to be seen not even a scratch. Something hit he so hard it knocked me senseless, you just don’t get hammered that hard and walk away without a bruise or at least a mark of impact on your flesh, you just don’t but apparently I did and I can’t explain that. Fact is I don’t think I want to even try.
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I never saw or heard from Jake again. I asked around but those I asked claimed they had no idea of whom I was talking about and that was weird.
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I moved away; far, far away. I picked up a job in warehousing and scored the afternoon shift which suited me just fine. I wrote in the still of the night, went to bed around three am, rising around nine or ten am. I settled into a quiet routine. I didn’t mind my job and got along okay with my workmates. My book was taking shape and then, about two years later I met a lady who took my breath away.
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Ten Years On
My third book was due out anytime soon. I wasn’t a great writer and never thought that I might be. I just loved to write and counted myself extremely fortunate when now and again something I wrote appeared in print. I still worked in warehousing. My books paid their way but I didn’t exactly earn much by way of royalties, not that I cared. I just loved to write plain and simple. I never mentioned Jake or the incident out at the abandoned industrial strip to anyone, not a soul and who would believe me if I did? My lovely wife perhaps but best not to stretch it, I thought, best just to let it go, besides, I often thought with a smile, my life is a song. Back then it was terrible, now I have four terrific children and a loving, caring, compassionate lady, a nice house with a not too big mortgage, friends, a decent job and books to read and books to write, yes, my life is a song; and then one day:
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It was Tuesday and my daughter’s fifth birthday. A number of birthday cards had arrived in the post and what with the excitement and all a postcard addressed to me sort of got lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t until the following day about thirty minutes or so before I set off for work that my lovely lady said, “oh I almost forgot, this came for you yesterday,” and handed me a picture postcard.
My name and address was written in beautiful copperplate. The stamp was postmarked London W I (London West I). The picture was actually a black and white reproduction of an actual photograph, a photograph of a 1975 850cc Norton Commando complete with drop down bars and single saddle. The 1975 850 Commando had, I later came to learn, replaced the original 1960’s 750cc Commando. With bated breath I slowly turned the card over. In the blank space reserved for one’s message the old fashioned cursive script read;
“Sometimes a pivotal moment heralds great change,
Your life is a song. Mikael.”
The bulk of the collection is eight short stories that are set in yesteryear. The compilation is filled out with four entertaining fantasy pieces and three poems.
Pieces of Eight is an eclectic collection of eight imaginative novellas/short stories. Themes represented in the work are science fiction, paranormal, psychological drama, humor, murder/revenge and astrological fulfillment. Pieces of Eight is the com
3 WAY MIRROR is about a lost identity as experienced by a twenty-eight-year old who thinks he's Charles Randall, until strange events suggest otherwise.
