jaywalking with jesus

8/8/2019 Jaywalking With Jesus

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Jaywalking with Jesus

Key to Jaywalking in order of appearanceJack Acker = John Fuhry

Jacks family, fake wife etc. = John Fuhrys family etc.Baby Center & Slag Heap Wilson = Shall remain anonymousGophers Glen = South Russell, Chagrin Falls and Maple Hill areasGophers Glen Drive = Maple Hill DriveWayne French = Waverly FrenchCraig Woodrich = Greg GoodrichThe Mud Daubers = All the kids on Maple Hill and Bell Rd.Billy Troutwig = David Deihl & David BarryCousin Vinny = Ray Gallucci

Kelli Sue = Kerry Sue KnauffOtto Pickle = Head Butcher at Fisher Fazios in mid 70sRobert Dover = Robert DoberMiss Stonebeak = Shall remain anonymousDuke Denhim = Any town bullyDentist & Staff = Shall remain anonymousHowie Spitzig = Donald SpitzigBivalve Betty = My Uncle Dicks quasi-girlfriend, though I did makea real-honest-to-goodness clam shell necklace for Sue French,Waves wife in 2002; which she still has.

Dinky Don Schmelt = Combination of two friends named Dave &JeffSammy The Mewling Schmelt = Dave BarryBrian Zogman Hart = Bryan HeartzJan Hart = Joan HeartzBarry Longneck Lewis = Barry GoodrichRobin The Blind Robin Rigatoni = Joe Paduin, Barrys bookie whodied around 1990 or so.Micks Caf = A combination of Ricks Caf & Raintree Restaurant

Foreword: Though virtually all the incidents that take place in thisnarrative are factual and true, some poetic license and hyperbole isutilized in some character description and story development (butvery little). The discerning reader should keep this in mind. Thoughsome totally unembellished stories (like the dryer drum fiasco, theBlue Jays and the daubers and brew) may be hard to believe, they


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are word-for-word true. Put your seatbelt on and come along for theride.

Jaywalking with Jesus

An Odyssey into Idiocy and Ineptitude

J.J. Acker

The Early Years

Like all stories it had a beginning, though this story almost endedbefore it began. Suckin' down pure 1950s vintage oxygen like an

emphysemic running a marathon, Jack Acker, the "Miracle Baby"weighed in at two and a half premature pounds and never gained anounce of maturity.

Having received the Roman Catholic "Last Rites" twice before hewas three days old, one would think he was destined for somethingbig. Jack was destined all right. Destined for a life of near misses,blown chances and "what-ifs" punctuated with totaled cars, pre-induction physicals (at the height of the Viet Nam war) broken

relationships, promises, hearts, hands and noses, he was everythingsave miraculous.

But this is more than Jacks story, its many stories about manyadventures shared by a varied collection of people no one couldpossibly make up. No one knows what dreams they were chasing orwhere they thought they were going, but their aimless pursuits of funand entertainment bordered on insanity.

Like someone said, Sometimes you just have to jump the fenceand run with the pack. Well, Jack jumped out of an incubator,leaped over the fence and he and the pack never looked back.


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My Story; the Beginning of the End; Maybe

ABOVE Left: The Miracle Baby after my Baptism with myexhausted father collapsed next to me. If you look very closely youcan just make out the halo forming over my head. Nice pillows.

ABOVE Right: My Old Man actually young before I was born.Obviously, I turned him into an exhausted shell of his former self.You should see his pictures after my younger brothers and sisters gotto him.

Let the Games Begin

Somehow surviving the first three or four years of life in theprimordial soup of toddler-hood, I suddenly found myself thrust into awhole new world....Miss Jan's Baby Center. Wedged in between anupper class area and an aspiring, middle class town called Gopher'sGlen, Miss Jan's Baby Center was a rough-hewn kindergarten, baby-sitting venue not unlike many others, and I survived those early yearsphysically unscathed. Over time, however, Miss Jan and the BabyCenter changed, and I didnt realize how much and in what ways untildecades later. Im not even talking about the changes that occurredwithin myself Why jump off a big cliff?

Today her Baby Center is an eclectic collection of corn-fed, raw-boned baby bruisers as well as spoiled brats wearing designerdiapers with sterling spoons welded into their mouths like cleft palatesfor the privileged. This stream of little darlin's is routinely dropped off


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by a procession of gleaming SUV's driven by slim hipped, botox-lipped, golden haired parents sporting Prada purses, fat wallets andhuge egos. They are Human Hummers and like the Hummer wouldeventually be discontinued, but for now they ruled.

Due to a genetic quirk of nature and just plain "luck", Miss Jan'sschool enrolled an unusually high percentage of red-headed childrenmaking them easier to spot during the frequent melees and mini-riotsthat were commonplace. On any given day, one could drivepast the Center and see Miss Jan's "Enforcer", Magnus "Slag Heap"Wilson, slogging through the recess crowd with pistoning fists,leaving scores of bobbing, red-headed tykes in his wake like a bullmoose in a cranberry bog. Oh, to be in New England!

To say Slag Heap was a down-to-earth fellow was anunderstatement. Slag Heap was such a prodigious beer drinker thata Budweiser truck picked up cases of empties every two weeks and,not surprisingly, he needed a mirror to buckle his belt or look at a pairof feet he hadn't seen in decades.

Years ago, when still a young stripling, he found himself before ajury of his peers enmeshed in a murder trial during which his DNAprofile was introduced as evidence. Three independent labs foundSlag Heap's DNA was most closely related to that of an EasternEuropean root vegetable called a rutabaga. With a plea based ondiminished capacity already a foregone conclusion, the Heapsterskated on what is now known as the "Vegetable-Head Defense" andwas completely exonerated from any said charges simply because aturnip cannot premeditate, let alone plan, the most sophomoric ofmurders.

Dumb and as tasteless as a hydroponic tomato with a boiler thesize of a blimp, Slag Heap bulled his way through a dismal, dirty life

like a crippled Yeti in a rotting peat bog. A truly formidable man, if hetold you he wanted ham and eggs for breakfast youd lay an egg andrun out and butcher a hog. His bad breath and worse attitude madehim ideally suited to be Miss Jan's enforcer. Who's gonna argue witha six foot root vegetable?

Like the U.S. Marine Corps, discipline was harsh at Miss Jan's


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Baby Center. Looking back I realized they got their hooks into meearly and deep as they tried to tear me down and build me up, butsomewhere along the way the method wasn't in synch with themadness. I barely rememberedSlag Heap Wilson, and though theCenter endorsed tough love, I was still taken aback when I ran intoMiss Jan 35, 40 years later in the grocery stores soup aisle.

Jackie Acker is that you? yelled Miss Jan. I turned and saw MissJan in all her glory framed against countless Campbells Soup cans. Iglanced into her cart and espied a big slab of head cheese wedgedbetween loaves of Day-Old bread and No-Name salami that hadgobs of fat in it the size of silver dollars.

Just pickin up some supplies for the Center she said with an evil

twinkle in her cold blue eyes. You remember the Center dont yaJackie?

Oh, I remembered the Center all right. Though invisible to MissJan, fear and regret roared from that sunset of memories, as molten,golden tears ran down my face and through my hands to swirl downthe sewer of time. There I hung ( in the middle of a soup aisle!),suspended from a rainbow, looking upward at beauty but feeling thesearing heat from below to where I was surely destined. Yeah, Iremembered the Center.

All I really recalled was the slogans and sayings they drilled intoour pithy heads.

Spare the rod and spoil the child, Cry Babies need not applyand Panty-wastes to the end of the line were more than mottoes atthe Center. My memories of the Center were mired in remorse asblack and inky as the La Brea tar pits, and like the extinct Woolly

Mammoth, I struggled still to extricate myself from this suffocatingmetaphysical quagmire. I pulled myself out of this drowning pool offond reminisce and somehow found my voice.

Hey Miss Jan, how ya doin I lamely replied. Are you stillrunning the school the old way style you used to endorse? I asked.


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I didnt really want a response. My enthusiasm for continuing thisconversation was tempered by an incredible urge to flee or fight;and the flee response was predominant.

Jackie, dont gimme any of that Who shot John rhetorical crap. Ifyou recall, you know damn well how I ran that Center and you can betyour nipples I still do.

I, nor any of the townsfolk had to recall anything, it was searedinto our memories forever.

To this day, Miss Jan runs the school with an iron fist and is knownto walk softly and carry a big stick. But she trundled on, fleshing outher mission statement, a female Jim Jones in the soup aisle withKool-Aid for brains.

"We really don't like to coddle these kids," she seethed. "A lot ofthese brats are sniveling, self absorbed rich kids who need a littleattitude adjustment. I come from a long line of beer-swillin' self-righteous, dogmatic folk that love a good fight and never swerve fromtheir God-given duties. If a child needs to be reprimanded you canrest assured we're equipped to do it."

I stood still as stone, staring at a can of Cream of Mushroom soup,praying this one-sided, maniacal conversation would end. I fear not.

Steamrollering on, Miss Jan boasted about the school's"holding-pen" that was being enlarged to accommodate morechildren, especially during the holidays when "disciplinary problemstend to mushroom." She assuaged my fears by adding that parents

need not worry as her crack staff had completed accredited coursesin the use of Tasers and stun-guns.

She also informed me (like I didnt know) that the Baby Centerhas plenty of things to keep the little ones distracted, like a scaled-down version of a Tyrolean castle complete with towers and (duringfloods) a real moat. With seven reportable accidents last year, two


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cases of food poisoning (peanut butter salmonella) and one(possible) case of Legionnaires, she assured me her Baby Center isfairly safe and working hard to improve.

I was incredulous. Unfazed by my stunned silence Miss Joancontinued her spittle-sprayed tirade and reminisces.

Lemme tell ya Jackie, that thing years ago with the raw chickenthighs was way overblown" said Miss Jan, 'sides that, we've kindagone that 'beef's for dinner' route at the Center last decade or so;nothin' but beef corn dogs on them sticks from here on out, and ifthey don't like it they can bake their own noodles."

I shuddered recalling various "upgrades" at the Center Id

recently read about like the installation of an "Invisible Baby-Fence"containment system. I had to ask.

Whats this BCS (Baby Containment System) program Ivebeen hearing about Miss Jan? I asked.

Jackie, we're gonna fit all the kids with those electronic collarsyou see on dogs and bears and other pets she sputtered. Bears?Who had bears as pets?

Course, its for their own protection," she continued. "Cashdiscounts for the school year will apply with each collar issued to helppay for the BCS program.

She rambled on saying, Slag Heaps got his hands full with theselittle hellions, hes been a little edgy lately, and itll take a lottapressure off him once we got the got all the kids fitted with themelectronic neck-nibblers.

As she looked up at me with a crooked con-mans smile, Irecalled the school also boasted a "Petting Zoo" that had to be seento be believed. It was common knowledge parents had to sign awaiver exonerating the Center from any and all potential disasters,but admission was "free" with enrollment and snake-bite kits weresupplied at wholesale prices. Donkey rides, rabbit-shaving andsimulated "hayrides" were a Halloween tradition and holidays were


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never complete without an annual visit from a cardboard-cutout-talking Santa.

I recalled Miss Jan pitching my parents hard for my re-enrollment, years ago around Christmas time, desperately extollingthe virtues of the Center.

"We can't splurge on a live rent-a-Santa," said Miss Jan, "but afriend of ours said he MAYbe able to get his hands on a couple 'amidgets we can toss around the ole Yule tree or at least set 'em upon some goats with fake antlers pullin' a sled." That year's Christmasparty featured amateur Mime Karaoke, a cash bar and free slices ofstale carrot cake with a valid in-state I.D. How could anyone forgetthat?

I vaguely recalled other school improvements throughout theyears that included a "mud-room" complete with a flexible spray hosefor those "messy" diaper accidents, and the eventual installation offire alarms and smoke detectors (imminent as usual for the pasttwelve years, as yet uninstalled).

Finally, just as I was about to melt into a pool of human gruel,Miss Jan said, Well Jackie, ya look stronger than ya did at theCenter. If ya wanna stop by and chew the fat a bit more Id love it.Fridays are good, Fridays after school we have Spam Jam Crisco-Kid night, she beamed.

What? I muttered.

Thats right, you heard me she replied. Yall bring a liter of wineor a case of beer and the vittles are on us. Crisco fried spam and

jugged hare with squirrel sauce. Damn Jackie, how good can it get?

Well Jackie, again, its been a pleasure but I gotta run. I have topick up Slag Heap to attend a court ordered Anger Managementclass. Can you believe it?

With a squeal of the shopping cart wheels and the faint, greasyodor of head cheese still in the air, she was gone. I was not onlystupefied but soupefied and stood there awash in her toxic wake,


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now mesmerized by a can of Ox Tail Soup. Could they really fit thetail of an oxinto that little can?

jaywalking with jesus

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