Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“You think you can let someone on my property without my permission, boy?” his grandfather yelled as he shook Milo’s body like a rag doll. The child was limp, his face purple.
Jett was frozen with fear, with horror, his head fuzzy, everything spinning and buzzing and swelling and receding. Jett dragged himself to his feet, using his hand to brace himself on the wall, reaching for Milo even though he knew he was already dead. Tar dripped from Jett’s eyes and into his mouth, trapping his tongue as it dried and hardened. “Look what you made me do!” his grandfather yelled. “Get out!”
And so Jett did, tripping over the threshold, slamming the door, shutting out the sight, another mass of flies rising in his body, scratching and biting the underside of his flesh.
A gust of wind sprang up, and Jett was whipped around, and he saw the little boy that was him running away, away, away. He couldn’t help Milo, not now, and he hadn’t then. He hadn’t then. Oh God, he hadn’t then. And so he ran after the little boy that was him, the one that had been wrapped in the safety of his body but had fled at that long-ago sight burrowed into the recesses of his twisted mind.
He ran and he ran and he ran, the rain coming harder and harder. Soaking. Pounding. Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud thud. His fingers caught on the little boy’s shirt, and he grabbed him and pulled, wrapping him in his arms, both of them falling to their knees in the mud and the rain, sobbing and clawing and finally dissolving into one another. He landed on the soft earth, his arms wrapped around nothing, drawing himself into a ball, the soft brush of feathers drying his tears. Back, forth, back, forth.
“There you go. There you go. You’re okay, now. You’re okay. I’m here. I’m here. And so are you. So are you.”
Yes, he was here, not there. There was fabric beneath him, and the whisper of voices around him and the whir of a machine, and the scents of flowers and coconut and mint and coffee too. This was now, and that was then, and oh God, that was then. He felt the tears sliding down his cheeks, and he remembered the then. He remembered Milo.
He lifted his heavy lids, the watercolor now clearing, the faces around him taking shape. Concerned. Smiling. “Hello, sweetness,” the woman said. Her name was Maisie. He’d met her in the before.
A man approached. Dr. Sweeton. He knew Dr. Sweeton. He was the man who’d tested him, and evaluated him, and asked him question after question after question. The doctor smiled and took his hand. “How are you feeling?”
How are you feeling? He took in a breath and let it out slowly. “Tired,” he said. His voice cracked. His muscles felt weak, like he’d just run a marathon.
“I imagine you do.” The doctor took out a small light and shone it in his eyes. It was bright and caused him to squint and look away. “Do you know what today’s date is?”
He thought about that. He’d signed the forms, and he’d sat in the reclining chair where they’d put a sticker on his skin with a wire that led to a machine that monitored his heart. He’d said he was ready even though he didn’t know for sure if that was true or not. He couldn’t really remember what he’d been thinking then. It seemed blurry and unclear, another life. But it wasn’t. It was . . . what had the doctor told him? The therapy would take seven days. So that would make it . . . “April seventeenth,” he said.
The doctor smiled. “That’s right. And what is your name?”
Jett.
But that wasn’t right. That was just a word a prostitute named Maria had called him when he’d rebuffed her advances for what must have been the tenth time and turned away. Always running off, she’d insisted. Jettin’ here, jettin’ there. Can’t stand still enough for a ten-dollar, three-minute blow, she’d said with a mucous-filled laugh. I’m gonna call you Jett!
The thing was, she’d been right. He couldn’t sit still. He wished he could. Not that that would have made him take her up on the ten-dollar blow. He’d turned back toward her and tossed her the last of a pack of cigarettes for some reason he couldn’t explain, because he usually didn’t give things away. Her eyes had lit up like she’d won the lottery, and she’d held that pack of cigarettes in the air and let out a whoop. And when he’d jetted out of the hotel, she’d opened the door behind him and shouted to all the drug addicts and pimps and prostitutes milling about the street, “That’s Jett right there. I call him Jett cuz he’s always jettin’ off somewhere. But he’s all right! That dude is all right.” And someone had remembered that and called him Jett later—or, less often, J.D.—and it’d stuck, and so that’s who he’d become. But Jett wasn’t his name—not his real one, anyway. “Ambrose,” he said. “My name is Ambrose DeMarce.”