The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER TWENTY

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While Jasper Watkins was gone to feed his dog Duke his wife and his brother continued their endless sparring. "Tell me something will you?" he asked her from the door of the guestroom. "What's that?" she asked. "Have you always been so compassionate?" "Before you got here I was a regular Clara Barton." she sneered. "Clara who?" he asked with a look of confusion.

"Well make that Florence Nightingale." she snickered. "Am I to assume this Clara Barton broad was a nurse?" he asked icily. "Bingo!" she laughed.

He turned back into the room and had a seat on the bed and was preparing to put on the shoes. As he reached for the sock of the right shoe he heard her grating voice yet again. "Now you tell me something?" she said. He put the sock back into the shoe and wearily rose up from the bed and stood in the door frame once more. He poked his head around the corner of the door. "Yeah and what's that?" he asked.

"What is your real name...I mean how did you get the nickname J. B. and June Bug ?" He waved his hand at her. "Why do you care?" he asked. "Because I have never heard anyone say why you're called that. "And like I said, why do you care?" he said again.

"I'm just curious that's all–just curious." she said. He smirked turning about. "It's not my real name–honest it doesn't stand for anything really." he called to her. "That doesn't make sense–there's got to be a reason for such a strange nickname–why are you scared to tell me–it can't be that bad." Faye now said. "That's where you're wrong." he said once more at the door of his room. "Then tell me." she responded. "I been called that since we wuz kids." He confessed.

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She had a hard time repressing the need to burst out laughing. "Why, what did your folks really name you? I mean who wants to be called June Bug or even J. B. for that matter " she said with a laugh. Jasper had never called him by another name. Remembering this made her laugh all the harder. "So what if they had actually named me that?" he asked his voice tinged with anger and embarrassment. "It just seems no one would really name a kid that." she said.

Momentarily he went to the hall entrance. "Believe me its not my real name. Didn't I tell you that?" And the disgust he had for her was almost palpable. She looked at him with confusion and he returned it with one of bitter intensity. She could see how this probing was getting to him. At last she broke the cryptic silence. "Well?"

"Well what?" he snorted. "Well what...what...what's your real name then, your Christian name, your real Christian name, all I ever heard Jasper or anyone for that matter refer to you as is J. B. or June Bug ?" she said with a degree of tenderness now feeling somewhat sorry for the creep at this moment.

"No I'm not saying." he said turning back and going back into the bedroom. But before he sat back on the bed she pressed the issue. "Why...it, it really can't be that bad can it?" she said.

He filled the door way once more. "Believe me it can be." he said with a soft laugh of his own. "What, what could be worse than having June Bug for a nickname?" she asked now caught up with him in the humor of what he was about to tell her.

"Algernon!" he now said and then he was griped with outrageous laughter. She almost guffawed herself. "Algernon–Algernon? You can't be serious? Where in the world did they come up with a name like that?" she asked with seriousness and something akin to sympathy.

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"Who knows, mama liked it for some reason. But mama liked daddy and that right there proves she had damn poor judgement. Actually I think it was from some book she once read. Anyway she hung me with that moniker before the old man could sober up and correct the mistake. They had it down on the books by then and so my daddy just looked for other things to call me...like rug rat...that wuz one of his favorites, rug rat this, rug rat that." he said and he seemed quite sad as he recounted it.