JOCKO'S EXPLODING EXORCISM by Greg Lammers
Dara put the last of the dishes in the cabinet.
“Mommy, the old lady looked at me real mean and pointed toward the door. She said my room isn’t my room.”
“Well, that wasn’t very nice of her. She should learn some manners and be nicer to people.” Dara replied with a stifled chuckle.
Emma followed Dara around the kitchen telling her about the latest antics of the old lady that appeared in her room and was not very nice to the 4-year-old occupant.
“Mommy, her eyes glowed. It was scary.” “Oh gosh!” replied her Mom in mock horror, “How do you think she managed that?!” “Oh, she’s from the other side,” replied the little girl.
Dara stopped and looked down into Emma’s face, “From the other side? Where did you hear that?” She eyed the girl suspiciously, her patience growing thinner.
“She told me. She said she was from the other side and she told me to get out and take you and Daddy with me.”
“Okay Emma, that’s enough. The old woman isn’t real, the other side isn’t real, and you, me, and Daddy aren’t going anywhere.”
“But Mommy I…”
“Hey Dara, how about another beer?” The booming voice intruded from the door leading from the kitchen out to the porch. Jocko’s request was intended to achieve two goals: 1) to obtain another drink and 2) aggravate his friend Travis’s wife. He knew Dara didn’t like being asked to fetch drinks, so he took great pleasure in making frequent and loud requests.
“You know where it is, get it yourself!” She yelled, mouthing the word “Asshole” at the end of her reply. A few years earlier, before Emma, she would have yelled every part of the reply, including the asshole.
He laughed and walked through the kitchen, making a playful grab for Emma’s shoulder, which the little girl easily dodged with a squeal of delight.
Jocko grabbed a beer out of the fridge, opened it and took a long gulp. He grabbed another with his free hand and walked to the door.
“Thanks, for nothing,” he called to Dara over his shoulder as the door was closing. She rolled her big brown eyes.
She finished up and grabbed herself a beer out of the fridge, “C’mon Emma, let’s go hang out with the men.”
Emma and Dara walked out onto the porch to find Travis leaned back in his oversized camping chair, his head tossed back about as far as it would go, laughing at the story Jocko was recounting.
Dara immediately recognized the story. She’d heard it now she reckoned about 40,000 times, give or take. It involved copious amounts of alcohol, a strip club, and a bucket of frogs newly liberated from the river.
Jocko took a drag on his Marlboro, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth with his right hand, exhaled and continued, “The tall brunette, the one that never moved much, Man she was headed out toward the door with those frogs hopping after her!”
Travis was nearly choking with laughter at the remembered story. Dara could see the tears rolling across his face, out from behind the edge of his Oakleys.
Jocko was waving his right hand between himself and Travis, illustrating the movement of the tall brunette in flight. Dara’s animal-mommy vision zeroed in on a spark falling from the end of his cigarette in slow motion.
The cardboard box with the fireworks was sitting at Jocko’s boot-clad feet. “Buy One Get Four Free!” He’d yelled when he arrived earlier that afternoon carrying the box and a 12 pack. Dara watched the slow-motion cherry land in the box.
“Shit!” She yelled continuing the slow-motion motion theme as she grabbed Emma and lit toward the yard, not caring in that instant if the little girl repeated the word later.
“Oh it won’t catch!” Jocko laughed at his friend’s wife. He glanced down into the box to see the fuses for the roll of 2,000 firecrackers burning.
“Shit!” He yelled at Travis. They were both out of their chairs in an instant, following Dara and Emma.
The firecrackers began popping and then picked up speed, rapid firing for what seemed like an hour, though it was a little less than that. Then the pops slowed and stopped.
The 4 stood between Jocko’s and Travis’s trucks. Emma cried a little but quieted down when she was told it was okay. She’d been around fireworks before.
Then a fountain caught fire. Sparks showered the box and the newly stained porch decking around it. This caught a number of bottle rockets which took off in all directions.
It was one of these bottle rockets that Dara watched sail up over the porch rail and make what seemed to her an unnatural turn toward Emma’s open bedroom window. Dara’s mind raced to the prospect of a fire in the house, the old farmhouse that she and Travis had spent so much time and money fixing up. There wasn’t a jury in the county, or any surrounding county that would deem her guilty of Jocko’s murder if her farmhouse burned.
There was a cacophony of booms and explosions. Then Dara saw something strange.
Covered in flowing black rags and long gray hair whipping every which way, it flew head first out of her daughter’s bedroom window. It flipped in midair, landed on unseen feet, turned and glowered at her with angry red glowing eyes, screamed and vanished.
The house didn’t catch fire. There was no damage at all besides a few marks on the porch and a mess to pick up.
Dara yelled at Jocko. His apologies upon leaving were sheepish and profuse. He returned the next morning before the family woke up and picked up the yard.
He didn’t come around much for a couple of weeks. One Friday night Travis told Dara that he was headed into town to meet his childhood friend Jackson – the one he’d nicknamed Jocko when they were little – at a bar.
She looked at him for a long minute and then sighed. “Oh hell, ask him to come out here,” was her reply.
Later that night, after plates of barbecue and cans of cold beer and a few of the tamer of the old stories, told in unusually muted tones, Jocko again apologized for the firework incident. Travis shrugged it off and mumbled something. Dara said, “Let’s forget about it.”
Jocko smiled at her, “Thanks Dara, that means a lot.” Then he paused before continuing, “So who the hell was that old lady?”