Searching for Jack

I'm walking home.

I'm taking the long way.

It's a bright and beautiful day, but still cold enough to see my breath in short white puffs and the wind is just enough to make my ears burn with sharp red cold. I've got a certain bounce in my step as the sunshine makes me forget about the rain storms of the past week and makes me feel that I'm-so-lucky-to-live-in-Vancouver sort of feeling. One has to take inventory of that feeling as it can quickly change into the I-can't-believe-it's-been-raining-for-28-days-straight sort of feeling on little to no notice.

Thus my ever-present, dysfunctional relationship with my city continues. On any given day it ping-pongs between love and hate like a junior high love affair. Today, however, I've checked the box marked “yes” on the do-you-like-me-yes-no-maybe note in my locker and the photo scotch-taped to the door is of blue skies and snow-tipped mountains with it's arms around my waist.

I come up to the block of heritage houses on West Tenth Avenue and Ontario, the one that boasts “Most Beautiful Block 2006” and I wonder who makes that decision and if that is their sole job, judging real-estate beauty contests. The oak-lined street is centrally located between two schools, the hospital and the park where hobos like to trade their treasures found in back alleys and the junkies like to trade their dirty needles for crack rocks and things wrapped in tin-foil.

The tall majesty of the brightly painted houses make me wish that I had been alive in 1910 to see the wealthy ladies come out of their homes on Sunday mornings in their church-attending best and their cleverly designed hats balancing gingerly on their heads, pinned at impossible angles follwed by their young husbands in tails and whatever those things are called that protected their shoes from getting dirty. Instead, young couples with volkswagons, baby-gap clad kids and internet money are neighbours to old people who would've never dreamed their property would one day be worth so much one day. The young and the old chat over their picket fences in their manicured front yards and sweep the fallen leaves off their renovated front porches

As I walk, I hear a call in the distance, a rather distressed sounding call. It cuts through the afternoon drone of cars and city life like breaking a glass in a restaurant. Everything kind of stops for a split second then continues on as if nothing happened. The call continues and gets closer as I round the corner onto West Eleventh, which boasts nothing but a burnt down church and corner store with a broken window.

The call is coming from a girl, well, a woman really, around my age, although I never refer to myself as a woman. She's walking behind me, shaking a small package of dry pet food.

-Jack! Jack! Ja-aaaaa-ck! and the sound of the food shaking in it's bag.

As if by reflex, I immediately start looking around me for any sign of a cat or dog, rabbit perhaps....maybe a child even. Maybe the kid has run away and it's a of bag of candy she's shaking because that's the only thing the fat little guy responds to. I survey the road as i walk, my pace quickening.

She's turned up the same street as me. The food rattles like a...well...rattle.

-Jack! Jaaa-aaaaa-aaaaack!

Then a change of tactic

-Jackie! Jackie! Jack-iiiiiieeeeee?

Nothing. No Jack. No Jackie.

But I notice I'm walking even faster. Almost at a butt-waggling speed walking pace, my trick knee snapping and cracking every second or third step. I keep checking behind me and she's right there, getting a little more anxious with every rattle.

Is she following me?

Am I taking the exact route that her beloved pet or fat little boy took?

Is she chasing me with the intention of following me home and kidnapping my own pet to fill the void she now has, as she can probably tell that I'm a 20something single girl who is the bitter owner of a small, over-weight cat , quickly on her way to becoming a bitter 40something year old woman with 5 or 7 cats?

Does she think I took Jackie? Have him stuffed in my bag like so many Yaletown shoppers with miniature dogs wearing pink sweaters and gold plated collars? All that's in my bag is six copies of my resume, a novel I've been reading for four months and an empty coffee cup.

She's almost right behind me, calling for Jack, her voice cracking with concern that's bordering on panic, and I'm walking a quick step that's bordering on a sprint.

I realize mid-stride that not only am I trying to escape her and her rattling but more profoundly, I'm trying to escape her life.. Trying to remove myself from her despair, her fear, what could end up being the worst day of her life. It's painful to hear every “Jaaaaa-ck! Jaaaaaackie!!!” as I know somewhere in my heart that it's all in vain.

Jack could be anywhere. He could be with someone who's always admired him from afar,curled up in front of their fireplace enjoying a back-scratch and a kind word. Or maybe he's lost in a strange neighborhood just beyond his fenced reality, wandering around looking for a familiar landmark or a smell to guide him home. He could be in a cold urine-soaked cell at the pound trading his collar for cigarettes or he could even be one of four or six of himselves scattered under or on the front of some fast moving vehicle traveling toward the border.

-Jaaaaa-ck!

I must escape this woman's story. I must get out of this woman's tragedy.

But then again what if i found Jackie?

What if only my keen eye could see his cold and scared body huddled under a low bush or shrub.

What if my knack for finding well-hidden objects makes me the hero of this particular story?

Maybe a reward would be in order, a token of undying appreciation for my good samaritan-ness? Like a Starbucks gift card in the mail or a promise of servitude. It could happen.

I start scanning my surroundings with a more cautious eye, heighten my hearing to that of a bat, or dolphin as I understand they have amazing hearing abilities, but theirs is no doubt reliant on underwater sonar or some such thing so the similarity is probably unjustified. However, I'm looking and listening hard but still booking it uphill toward my house.

-Jaaaaa-ck? JACK!!!! her voice quivers and I glance behind me to see her crest-fallen, the bag of food hanging off the ends of her hands which seems to have gotten heavier from sadness.

Should I say something?

Ask her she needs help?

Offer to shake the bag of food while she calls out?

See if she wants to use my cell phone to call her husband or boyfriend or roommate or same-sex life partner for help or support, check to see if Jack has come stumbling home with stories of his own, a new scratch on his ear or a rattle-snake tattoed on his back leg?

Then I remind myself that it's well into the 21st century and everyone and their grandmother has a cell phone and she may find it strangely insulting if I offer such a service as she pulls out her own phone which is undoubtedly nicer than mine and has a cool ring tone.

So I'm running again, more like a brisk jog, looking at my watch, making it look like I'm an important person maybe late for a meeting, but in a camouflage sneakers and backpack, I'm really not fooling anyone. I'm not even wearing a watch. In fact, I don't even own a watch. The only one I ever owned was given to me by my ex-boyfriend for our anniversary, even though I asked for a bracelet. He couldn't stand the idea of a gift that had no practical usage. After we broke up, I let the batteries die and gave it to my sister.

-Jack!

I bet she has a watch.

A cell phone rings. It's not mine. It plays a top-forty song expertly composed in beeps and high pitched tones. The kind you buy off the internet. She answers it.

-Ok, I'll be home in a second.

She sighs a sigh that can only mean releif. I look behind me, she's smiling, we make eye contact that silently says:

-I'm happy you found Jack.

-Thank you for your concern

I watch the woman round the corner in a half-jog back down to West Tenth Avenue where she probably owns a house with whoever called her on her fancy internet-singing phone. We're probably born in the same year, but for some reason I figure she's got a real job and some sort of promise ring on her left hand.

My pace has slowed back into a stroll and I notice my shadow in front of my feet, clouds have covered up the sunshine and there's the familiar scent of rain in the air. I pull up the collar of my jacket and walk with a new urgency. The rain is coming and my cat is waiting for me to feed her