Jones God The Devil And I

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9930452-1-9
Verlag: Distributed via Smashwords
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 3548 Seiten

God, The Devil And I is a memoir/biography of Jack Jones. A Christian book at it's heart. God inspired. An epic journey and extraordinarily incomprehensible life alchemy experiences. Born an orphaned runt, mute, and into poverty. Unaided and lacking in support. Left abandoned. An underdog in every social situation. Has been called by God to fight as a warrior, as David did with Goliath. But appointed by the Devil for death and destruction.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jones, Jack

Leseproben

 
’82
White Blank Page
We grew up with the telly. First thing in a morning: on. As soon as we had walked through the door after school: on. Babysitters: on. The main focal point of the living room and family life. Left on our own: on. Transfixed. An omission of dialogue and discourse, as the TV took centre stage. Attempting to express myself but informed,  
“But we’re watching this! But we can’t hear it!” “But Dad is trying to listen to this programme!”  
Even better at Christmas, when the grandparents and relatives came over. After Christmas dinner; five solid hours of silence. Glaring into space. Either James Bond or Doctor Zhivago. Void of stimulus that would yield us an environment to flourish or discover our inner talents. Left with the TV for entertainment. Although Josh and I were once ushered to the local Boy’s Brigade, again before our time. Unsupported, social, moral or otherwise. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t last. Unconnected or had the self-esteem or confidence to socialise.  
Christmas was crap. Fair enough, receiving everything requested. But absent people. Annulled of personal input; indifferent with our games or toys. You played alone. Visitors speaking between themselves. The customary dutifully written cards like all the bygone years. But missing companion or friend to share Christmas.  
Jack had migrated from Junior school to Secondary; comp. Bringing with him everything gleaned and weaned: knowledge, experience, conditioning, culture, and etiquette. Doubt, fear, worry, paranoia, and confusion. Friends, absent. Migrating alone. Jack put into ‘Disc’ group and Josh ‘Over’. Naturally gravitating towards the other child delinquents of the cohort. Fatherless, bed-wetters, sourced from other dysfunctional homes and social depravity. Seemingly, an attractive option, given the other spectrum of ‘Swots’; respectably attired, well spoken, intelligent kids. His potential unrealised. A paradigm shift or universal about-change exists in the ethos from Junior to Secondary school. His precious hidden traits subdued. In an environment unrecognised by name or looks, notwithstanding deep-rooted abilities.  
During P.E, a volunteer support worker addressed me as ‘Jeff Bridges!’. Familiarity taught me to receive any spoken word as callous, slanderous, insulting, or abusive. Notwithstanding the shock of being ‘seen’ momentarily. Stunned: unable to compose myself.  
Who the hell is Jeff Bridges? pelted across my mind in desperation to qualify this assertion. An elephant man type figure? An ugly hunch-back of a Notre Dame figure?  
Thoughts whizzed back and forth in my consciousness, endeavouring to avail of ridicule yet again. Assuming the worst, yet another dig. Disparaging, diluting, and denigrating. My ignorance or naivety led to interpreting or receiving negatively; thinking someone else wants to have a pop at me. Unthinkable he might have been charismatic, good looking, a highly revered global actor with innumerable accolades and commendations to his name.  
Rare glimmers of potential unobtrusively surfaced but went unnoticed. Having invested effort and succeeded delivering a comprehensive piece of work then to have modest approval didn’t cut it to motivate further. If there is little or no reward for effort, then what’s the point?  
My school report would depict me as a ‘day-dreamer’, in a world of my own. Lost, staring. A dearth of enquiries; how I felt or thought about anything. The desire to discover the underlying problem. This was the Eighties. A view reinforced with the incident with Mrs Fraser, the history teacher. So lost and perplexed, who and what I was doing here: what it all meant in a world of my own. When Mrs Fraser, not known for her subtle pedagogical approach, came at me like a bolt of lightning. Knowing what was coming the moment her facial expression altered, became red-faced bubbling with rage. The rocking of my chair on two legs was the offending occupation. My head had pre-empted and fantasised that I’d be rebuked for using two legs instead of four. However, in the midst of being disillusioned with life, lost in my head, my response was what it was.  
“How many legs does that chair have?” she yelled. “Two Miss!” “How many?” The volume and tone increasing, fused with anger. “Two Miss!” I responded fearfully sheepish. “How many?” The volume and tone increasing even greater, tempered with further anger and frustration.  
By this time it crossed my mind all was unwell. A quick wake-up call and the error was revealed. “Errr—four, Miss!”  
Viewed as the class idiot, stupid at best. But no teacher, parent or pupil would know my mental or emotional state. Void of feeling. Numb, passive to the extreme, lost and unknown by any human-being. The very class that Josh and I shared the same teacher and subject. Mrs Fraser marking the homework of the previous week in front of us during the current lesson. All of a sudden she pops up:  
“What’s this all about? I’ve just read this once!”, she questioned, indignant with rage, sifting through all the previous books she had just marked.  
“Who’s been copying?” It was my book she was holding up. “Jack, this is yours. Have you been copying?”  
I knew full well I hadn’t. Granted, prevalent issues with envy and jealousy; thinking everyone did everything better, spoke, wrote, sung, drew or played. But an innocent copier. The identical copy was Josh’s. He exhibited an embarrassing grin on his face. Then rapturous laughter took over the whole class by the contemporary pupil bystanders. The conspiracy exposed; guilty for seeking my book out at home clandestinely: copied it word for word. Too obstinate to ask for help. Unwilling to do that. Too proud to submit, experience vulnerability, and request for a legitimate need to be met. No. Had to avoid and commit the act incognito and surreptitiously.  
Within weeks of attending, Jack was smoking with the other smokers, sharing identical broken homes. That’s what happens. Two damaged, lost, broken individuals find each other. You feel more at home mirrored by someone of a similar ilk. Attending the proverbial rear of the ‘bike sheds’, for a fag at break—although a newly built sports centre with ‘Astroturf’. Spending his dinner money to buy a pack of ten. Through the smoking acquaintance, introduced to a wider ‘gang’. His dad asleep on arrival home from school: Mum at work. So a quick bread-and-jam sandwich then off out. Having accepted the position in life as orphaned runt, his role and purpose in life based on that. Lost in a group. Unattached and aloof. As the other attendees had issues and were also vying for their place in the world or role in the gang. They would keep him submissive and inferior for their own self-preservation. A daily routine to mock, insult, and verbally abuse. Find the smallest of error, most trivial scope for culpability, to justify condemnation. All he knew and would passively accept as his role. Physical kicking and punching would compound an already indisposed being; when it suited.  
One day having a fag behind the sports hall the deputy headmaster walked around to catch everyone. Absent cigarettes on me neither was I smoking. Cash-less or no means to acquire any. Standing vacant, while the others more innovative puffed away. He asked to turn my pockets out. A lighter revealed. Confiscating and noted if I wanted it back I should go to his office later that day. Twelve years old and naive the intuition didn’t save me this time. The worst mistake I had made. He threatened me physically, that if he caught me again he’d knock me from pillar to post. Sending a letter home to Mother on what was happening. We used to go home for lunch. We had keys. Josh knew I had torn it up and put it in the bin. But wasn’t an ally. Gloating with glee, knowing he’d get me into more trouble and couldn’t wait for the suffering and punitive correction. The inevitable happened. Informing Mum. She punished by preventing me from going out with the gang anymore. Missing any other acquaintances, that was it. My life over. Remaining in the house every evening until I left school at sixteen. An omission of compensation, consolation, or alternative stimulus to meet anyone else. To join a club or get involved in an activity, hobby or interest that I enjoyed. She would write back to the deputy headmaster and tell him the story. He would then punish some more. Josh wallowing in his gleeful euphoria; I had suffered once more to his credit. The irony—none of them actually knew anything about me. Who I was, abilities, views, skills, intrinsic traits, or life experiences. All missed it. Hook, line, and sinker.  
Fishing had become my thing. At every given opportunity I’d want to be fishing. Whether the solace, peace and quiet, nature, or just people-less. We weren’t given money for anything. If I wanted a fishing licence, bait, floats, line, and hooks, I’d have to find it myself. This motivated me to keep going down to the bakery as stand-in van-lad. Despite my reservations of being uncomfortable in a predominately male working-class environment, whereby pilloried, ridiculed, and disparaging references made towards one were the norm. The fishing I...