Jojon, Not Jones

Chapter Two

Next the paper said, "Masters of the New Jazz: " then in the middle of the flyer was a blurry picture of the man I have a real good suspicion about. I've never met him, but I have a pretty good feeling that this guy must be my father.

In the picture he's standing next to a giant fiddle that's taller than him. It looks like it's real heavy 'cause he's leaning up against it trying to hold it up. He looks like he's been doing this for a long time and he must be tired 'cause he has a droopy, dreamy look on his face. There are two men beside him, one playing drums and the other one blowing a horn.

It wasn't hard to see what the guy who must be my father was like just by looking at his picture. You could tell he was a real quiet, real friendly and smart man, he had one of those kind of faces. Underneath the picture someone had writ with a black fountain pen, "One Night Only in Flint, Michigan, at the Luxurious Fifty Grand on Saturday June 16, 1932. 9, Until ?"

I remember Momma bringing this flyer with her when she came from working one day, I remember because she got very upset when she put it on the supper table and kept looking at it and picking it up and putting it back and moving it around. I was only six then and couldn't understand why this one got her so upset, she kept four others that were a lot like it in her dressing table, but this one really got her jumpy. The only difference I could see between the blue one and the others was that the others didn't say anything about Flint on them.

I remember this blue one too 'cause it wasn't too long after she brought it home that I knocked on Momma's bedroom door, then found her.

I put the blue flyer back in the suitcase with the four older ones and put everything back in its place.

I went over to the big chest of drawers and took my other set of clothes out and put them in the suitcase too. I tied the twine back around my bag, then went and sat on Tom's bed with him. Tom must've been thinking just as hard as I was 'cause neither one of us said nothing, we just sat close enough so that our shoulders were touching.

Here we go again.

***

THERE COMES A TIME when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.

I was having this thought because Todd Amos was hitting me so hard and fast that I knew that the blood squirting out of my nose was only the beginning of a whole long list of bad things that were about to happen to me.

Todd's next punch crashed into the side of my ear and I fell on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest and crossed my arms in front of my head like a turtle in a shell. I started scooching toward the bed hoping I could get under it.

Todd started kicking me but his slippers couldn't hut me near as much as his fists had. The bedroom door opened and his mother, Mrs. Amos, came in. It seemed like she was having a hard time figuring out what was going on because Todd's right leg got tired from kicking me and he switched over to his left one while she watched.

Finally Mrs. Amos said kind of soft, "Teddy?"

Todd looked up, fell on his knees and put his hands on his throat. He started huffing and puffing with his eyes bucking out of his head and his chest going up and down so hard that it looked like some kind of big animal was inside of him trying to bust out. This was my chance to get under the bed and pull the covers down so they couldn't see me.

Mrs. Amos ran over to her son and fell on her knees. She put her arms around his shoulders.

"Teddy? Teddy boy, are you all right?" She looked over to where I was peeking from under the bed. "You little cur, what have you done to Teddy?"

Todd coughed out, "Oh, Mother..." He took in two jumbo breaths. "I was only trying to help..."he was sounding like a horse that had been run too hard in the winter... "and... and look what it's gotten me."

Todd pointed at his jaw and Mrs. Amos and me could both see a perfect print in the shape of my hand welted up on Todd's blubbery cheek.

With one quick snatch she had me from under the bed and out on the floor laying down next to Todd.

"How dare you! This is how you choose to repay me? Not only have you struck him, you have provoked his asthma!"

Todd said, "I just tried to waken him to make sure he'd gone to the lavatory, Mother. I was just trying to help." He aimed his finger dead at me and said, "And Look at him, Mother, this one's got 'bed wetter' written all over him."

I'm not bragging when I say that I'm one of the best liars in the world but I got to tell you, Todd was pretty doggone good. It seemed like he knew some of the same things I know, the things I think of all the time and try to remember so I don't make the same mistake more than seven or eight times. Shucks, I've got so many of them rememorized that I had to give them numbers, and it seemed

like Todd knew Number 3 of Jojon Crichton's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.

RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 3

If You Got to Tell a Lie Make Sure It's Simple and Easy to Remember.

Todd had done that. But this wasn't really a good test because Mrs. Amos had her ears set to believe anything Todd said. In her eyes Todd's mouth was a prayer book.

But I can't blame Todd for lying like that, having someone who likes you so much that they think everything you say is the truth has got to be a liar's paradise, that might feel so good it could make you want to quit lying. But maybe not, 'cause Todd hadn't quit lying since the second I came to his house.

What had really happened was that I woke up from a good sleep because it felt like a steam locomotive had jumped the tracks and chug-chug-chugged its way straight into my nose.

When I'd jerked up in bed and opened my eyes Todd was standing next to me with a yellow pencil in his hand. He was looking at it like it was a thermometer and said, "Wow! You got all the way up to R!"

He turned the pencil toward me, crunched up against the headboard. I saw TICONDEROGA printed on the yellow wood.

The whole room smelled like the rubber from the eraser and I was winking and blinking my left eye because it felt like something had poked the back of my eyeball.

Todd laughed. "I've never gotten it in as deep as the N on any of you other little street urchins. I just might enjoy your stay here. Who knows what other things you could be number one in, Jones?"

I'd already told him twice that my name was Jojon, not Jones.