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Tee Time Speech

February 24, 2014 by Caleb Jacobo 1 Comment

Speech Feb 22nd

Tee Time Speech — Feb 22nd

The following is the script I composed for the speech I delivered on my uncle’s funeral, February 22nd 2014:

Before Uncle Clay died I told him he would be well spoken after… In the months before his hospitalization we had the opportunity to develop a long latent relationship that challenged as much as it benefited both of our characters which, at one point, seemed so different in my eyes. But for whatever reason, our reason, week after week, we carried on our awkward dance, stomping over the other’s toes towards a unified goal of adult friendship. I learned a lot about my Uncle Clay over those few short months, perhaps the same things that many of his family and friends here today may already know him well by.

All of us here knew and loved William Hutter, Uncle Clay. Some of us knew him as a father, as a husband, a brother… But as much as we knew him in our individual way, we also knew a communal Clay, that we passed around, mouth-to-ear; and it is this common Clay; the Clay that belongs to the story, to the family, which define the characters in our group.

Every family has its stories that define its character’s; the sentimental aunt, the strict uncle… the smelly cousin with the scraggly beard. An old Indian saying suggests that a family without its stories is no more than wind passing through the Buffalo grass.

The Uncle Clay I knew growing up would be anxious not to arrive a good three hours early to local flights; relentlessly challenged his son to feats of manhood, which I had no practice in with my own absent father, that were often sweetened with a bet; and he kept his domain so clean and organized, that I felt like Pigpen walking into a white cartoon panel every time I visited his obsessively clean house with my circus of a family.

The story I want to share is important to me, not only because it illuminates these old assumptions about Uncle Clay and exemplifies his appropriate virtues, but also because it taught me a valuable lesson.

It was Uncle Clay’s turn to pick the task. I had just taken him shooting for the first time and after, at lunch, I had mentioned something about never having been golfing; something I normally wouldn’t have brought up so directly, but that was me and Clay and this time; putting ourselves out on a limb for each other and going for it. So the next week I get the invite to go golfing and I can’t help but feel a pain of anxiety run down my spine. I loved my uncle very dearly, but I believed my lifestyle was to abrasive for him because of the sort of man that I knew he was; because of the stories that we all know and repeat. And while I wouldn’t have put the time or effort into building a relationship with my uncle if I did not care, I made the task harder for myself with the amount of thinking and anticipating I did in the hours before he picked me up. How would I act this time? What would I say? It felt like elementary school all over again. And I got the distinct feeling it wasn’t just me. I’m sure I’m not the sort of man my uncle had a history of friends with, and in his retirement, with his kids moved away, beginning a new life, I can imagine the beginning of our relationship being something very much like elementary school for my Uncle Clay as well.

Well, I couldn’t take just sitting around and waiting, so I ran an errand with the kids on the afternoon Uncle Clay was to pick me up for Golf. He was to pick me up at 2, and it was 1:40, but the store was just down the street, and anyway, I couldn’t sit still. By the time we arrived back at 2:15, Uncle Clay had been sitting in his car for half an hour, waiting for me, and I was gripping my buzzing phone in my pocket and complaining that the lights weren’t changing fast enough. I knew he would be annoyed. Now I was embarrassed and reluctant to face an awkward hour of golf after being so rude. I pulled up to my house in my big muddy truck that he was always telling me to wash, Uncle Clay is waiting in a little white sedan. My palms start to sweat when I see him; “Why is he still in the car?” I mumbled. “Isn’t he hot?” “Oh man, he’s going to be so annoyed.” “I should have just stayed home and waited.” “This is going to be rough.”

I wrangled the kids into the house. I even had to ask my uncle to wait, while I changed my clothes, settled the family, and even smoked, the white plumes vaguely visible from his VW on the street just out front…

When I finally slipped into the sedan, I couldn’t look my uncle in the face. He shook his head at me. Yup. He’s pissed. I thought.

Then I felt a hard Whap! on my shoulder and heard a soft chuckle. “Eh, How’s it goin’ there Bubba? Tee time was at 2:15—Ehh,” he waves his hand, “but they can change it.” And just like that, my Uncle Clay reached down, turned the ignition, and I was off to my first round of golf.

When we arrived, I was still surprised about Uncle Clay’s reaction to my slight to him, but my anxiety about the game being too awkward had lessened somehow. Since I’d never played the game, my uncle took me to the driving range first to teach me how to hit a golf ball and hold a club.

Do you know how to hold a club? Let’s see if I remember; now, the most important thing, if I remember, he said was to keep the elbow straight and locked. Link the pinky and the forefinger like this; line the thumbs down the shaft of the club; take a nice seat (he was a little more colorful with his metaphors for illustrating this part for me, it was actually very helpful), take a nice partial seat; and you want to keep that stoke. on. a straight. plane. you see? Because if I angle the head of the club here or here, the ball is going to be cupped by the club and go whizzing away. So let’s put this all together… And swing! And I missed… Oh! “You have to keep your head down,” my Uncle Clay said, “stop thinking about where the ball is going to go, and keep your head down…” That was the most important thing. And on the second stroke, Smack!

The last thing I remember on that day was also the most moving for me. We were probably halfway through the game. I had made several mistakes that Uncle Clay had observed and mentored with grace and patience, but golf is the most deceivingly relaxing game I’ve ever played. Because of my delay’s we built up a line of players behind us. I don’t know if this has ever happened to any of you playing golf, but it so happened that on one of the holes I was stuck in a particularly sandy sand pit and I’m down there, whacking away. Sands flying up in big “V”s. I’m sweating and huffing. And my Uncle Clay is standing over me, not even bothering me with his stare, just, taking in the rest of the course, wholly unbothered that I managed to turn a day of golf into a strange sort of baby-sitting and dog training. I’m telling you, If I was anxious or self-conscious about making a connection that day, it was peaked when I looked up from that pit, all sticky and gross and lopsided and pathetic, into the disapproving faces of the three men that I single handedly had been delaying hole after hole.

I heard Uncle Clay shout “get out of there!” so I scrambled out and came trotting up to my uncle, head down in defeat. Then he asked me. “Where’s your ball?” I held it out to him. He shook his head at me and picked up the score card. “I didn’t say get out of there, I said knock it out of there! Now I’m going to have to put you down for double par. But that’s better than what you were racking up.”

“But, what bout the golfers?” I asked pointing to the men in the tee box.

“They could have waited. Next time, keep swinging, alright? Just keep swinging, okay son?”

“Okay, I said. I understand.” And we finished the rest of the game, I lost several more balls, Uncle Clay knocked one into the lagoon, and In the end he won the game, and beat me something awful.

But Plato said we’d learn more from a man in an hour of playing a game, then in a year full of talk…

I learned that not all the stories I know about Uncle Clay weren’t wrong. They just weren’t complete. And this applies to the stories our families holds about all of it’s beloved characters.

It was the Jewish Philosopher Martin Buber, that inspired Martin Luther King Jr., that proposed no man can look another man in their entirety, and not see themselves. And I think Uncle Clay and I were able to accomplish this together. We were able to put ourselves aside, and look at each other for who we were, and in that, create a real connection, a lasting relationship.

And So I offer this little story to Clay’s family, to all our families, in honor of a noble man, in order to complete his portrait and reform the Clay we knew of the past with the Clay that was his present.

May we all find strength in ourselves, and accept love between us, Amen.

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Filed Under: Nonfiction, Public Oration, Uncategorized

Observations on responding to violence with nonviolence

February 11, 2014 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Hello you.

First, I’d like to apologize for the delay in free reads; I found a gold mine of learning material that I have been studying over the past few weeks. Since learning has always been the goal of this public writing journal, I took the opportunity to absorb the information because I believe you are intelligent readers that deserve quality contemporary material that’s both entertaining and thought provoking.

Second, I wanted to share something new with you, so here is a recent excerpt from my meatspace (physical world) journal:

[…] Violence is attracted to violence, but when violence comes into contact with innocence combined with nonviolence—meaning there is no cause or reciprocation—there is no impetus for the continuation of the violence. If one is slighted by accident but does not reciprocate, the violence is defeated by the pity one feels for the victim and the humility shown. Just as one cannot beat a dog that bows its head and lies at your heel. But if that same dog were to snap and bite at your knuckles? Just as if the one slighted by accident, in anger, takes violent action against their abuser, then violence is inflamed; it metamorphoses, evolves, to a committed, pestilent violence that signals danger not only to the combatants, but to their affected environments as well. What’s worse, this reciprocation can be only seeming rather than actual or intended and the inflammation will still occur. —Caleb Jacobo Feb. 11, Observations on responding to violence with nonviolence

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Filed Under: Journal, Justsayin, Quote, Uncategorized

One Flew Over the Food Court

September 27, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Yasmin and I took the kids to the Shopping Mall on Saturday after our workout. We promised Adam to buy him the latest Blox constructible. It was still morning; the food court scuffled with cuckoos and stirred with the stale stench of the dying; but my gut moaned and the family agreed; lunch must come early.

We sat at a small circular table with the double stroller parked in place of the fourth seat, with Yasmin, Adam, and I in the other three, laughing, and playing our way through lunch. Even little Mikey had awakened to nibble the husk of his corn dog and join in some of the festivities. Sissy, on the other hand, would have none of our tomfoolery and slept through yet another meal.

All consumed, not only were the wife and I dressed in gym rags and sweating pyramids down our backs; we were splotched in bright mustard and ketchup stains; whole globs of fried beans rested on my left shoulder, a bit of blueberry pie smiled across my chest. She missed the worst of it, but still wore a dainty crown of noodles, à la me, paired with designer bean-cuffs.

“All right you little monkeys,” said Yasmin with a sigh, standing and brushing dry beans and chip flakes from her lap, “let’s get you cleaned up.” I grinned involuntarily as I watched Yasmin gather up the kids, including the sleeping Sissy, and cart them off to the restrooms. My heart filled with pride and I relaxed into my chair. I watched until Yasmin’s back was about to turn behind the tiled corridor of Guest Services, when in swung a huge black figure, blocking my wife and the rest of the food court from view.

This person stood so close, I had to slide my chair back several feet just to give my knees a chance enough to stand up, but can you believe this man, this beast? When I did slide my chair back almost three feet; the brute stepped the three feet with me! So I slid the chair back again. And he follow me again! I slid again, he followed again! I slid agai—but my chair had reached a cemented pillar and would slide no further.

The figure’s heated stench gripped me in on all sides; I couldn’t move.

Slowly, I looked up to see my attacker’s face, to know what death looked like; but was surprised to find the portrait of serenity and kindliness there instead. He was a broad, thick-necked gentleman, with a full-deck underbite, dark-red skin and a long pear-shaped nose. His hair was short and well trimmed; laid smooth against his tiny skull and shone pleasant, white stripes against the fluorescent food court lighting.

When I saw the man’s face I was able to speak and I said in a shaking voice, “You’re in my way.” It was ruder than I meant, but not ruder than I thought my wife would have liked, so I didn’t retract it.

The hulking man just smiled on; invading my knees and my nose and not saying a word for several minutes. Then, he suddenly pushed out his rear, stooped to push his swollen nose to my nose, looked me eye to eye with his foggy, jade-colored eyes, tickled my chin with his fore-finger or thumb, and said, “You know my secret.” Then, quick as he had stooped, he snapped up straight, then returned to the small circular table where we had met, pulled up a chair, and sat looking in my direction; lips pursed and wrinkles at the corners of each eye.

I’d like to mention here, that it was now that I noticed that every time I looked around for help; looked around at the faces of the couples, the elderly or young, or any of the new shoppers that filed in by the dozen now; they all acted completely oblivious—not just to my existence, but seemingly to the existence of the entire dimension that held not only me and this insane gorilla man, but also this small area that we somehow dislocated from the rest of the food court. But that is neither here nor there.

I looked in vain towards the empty restroom corridor for my wife, then crossed the court to the table, and took my place across from the strange man. “You know my secret,” repeated the man, grinning to one side with his great coconut mandible. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I surely didn’t know his secret. I glanced toward the restrooms. The man laughed. The sound warmed my skin from the toes up. He reached out a greasy hand and covered mine on the table. I could not remove it. “Love,” he whispered.

“Love?” I asked in a whisper. Why was I whispering? I withdrew my hand. “Love? That’s it? I actually thought you might have something to say.”

“Love is something to say,” said the man, rubbing his hands and raising his shoulders.

“Yeah,” I said, “when you’re tired of taking her on dates!” I laughed and took a drink of my liqueur.

The man watched me through a furrowed brow. “What is that you’re drinking?”

“Musakkar,” I said.

“Is it good?” asked the man.

I checked the man’s eyes and lips to see if he was playing at something. “It’s good,” I said. “Haven’t you ever had liqueur before?”

“No,” said the man.

The man and I talked while I finished the last few drinks of my liqueur. I learned his name was Noor. He was an out of work immigrant living with his mother in Sijin. I asked about his oddities, but he was quick to avoid them. I found him checking over his shoulder more often than I. The next minute I found out why. The most incorrigible woman I’ve ever met in my life approached our table and touched us both on the shoulder.

“Excuse me sirs,” said the incorrigible woman. “Are you two ready to go then? Twelve o’clock okay then? Time to round up okay then? Oh my goodness, you haven’t been drinking then, have you? Sir? Oh my goodness, Noor, have you been drinking then, Sir? Where are you supposed to be, Sir? Sir, who are you sir, you are a mess you really must come with me,” at which point she produced a small black brick that she began requesting backup from, “where did you get the liqueur sir? Which establishment served you this liqueur—”

I waved my hand in front of her face, but using only two fingers, she took my hand, removed it from her face—without giving it so much as a look—and continued her line of questioning. “Just a second now!” I said.

“Sir!” Said the incorrigible woman. “We are going to have to find a place for you immediately.” I told her I would find a place for her, but she would not hear me. Besides, she then realized Noor was no longer next to her. “Noor?” she called. Apparently Noor had not appreciated the incorrigible woman’s interruption to our secret meeting on love and disappeared into the thickening crowd of the food court. “Noor!” She called again. “You stay here sir,” she said, pointing to me. I held my hands up and nodded, and the woman was off to find the strange beast, Noor.

When the she was gone, I laughed to my self at the thought of such a ridiculous conversation, and the idiocy of that mall woman mistaking me for a loose cuckoo, just because of—well… The gym clothes didn’t help. The food stains, the sweat, the hair, the grease; where the heck were Yasmin and the kids?

I suddenly felt chilled with sweat, like I had a fever, and I looked to the people sitting at the tables nearby—in the other dimension—who were so blind to my food court just minutes before. But now I see a young couple staring directly at me from the next table over. They look away and start chatting when I see them. And the table beyond them; the grandpa holding his two grandkids, looking over his glasses at me; he meets my look and his eyes are full of bold indifference… And the table beyond him; the best generation of high school boys, too scared to stare directly, but still too cool not to smirk a little and nod my way; and beyond and beyond—and oh! I felt such isolation then. Such penetration from just those few seconds passing. I gripped my ears and my stomach ached and I tasted acid in my mouth and I—

“You ready dad?!” This was Adam’s voice beside me. I looked up to see my family smiling to see me. “Blox store dad! Come’on! You ready?”

I look back to the food court; not a face, not an eye, everyone is minding their food and their families, and their friends, and their phones.

I twist in my seat in time to see a group of drunken adults stumbling out the glass doors. At the back, the black shirt and slick hair of Noor. He turns and his underbite is full and real against the sunlight. I took a deep breath, tickled my boy and stretched my back. “Yup,” I said. “Let’s go buddy. I’m ready.”


Hello you! I hope you enjoyed this quick scene sketch. I put this together for you this morning, I apologize in advance for any errors, I write and post these in the same morning, but I try to do my best with advanced editing software, my own eye, and family! Thank you all for reading; I am working hard on bringing you full length professional grade projects for next year!

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World's Heaviest Chili Dog

July 18, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

World's Heaviest Chili Dog

World’s Heaviest Chili Dog

The diner was a long, yellow train car, permanently set into a cement slab, with a little caboose at the back where the cooks worked and white smoke rose from a tin-hatted vent on its roof, perfumed with grease, salty warm breads, and rich sauces. The middle-aged mother and teenage son tilted their heads to read the crooked railroad sign out front that read, ‘Velma’s — Home of the world’s heaviest chili dog!’

“I’m dieting mom,” said Sudama, “what am I supposed to get here?”

“Maybe they will have salad?” his mother said, clomping up the metal steps to the diner. “I want to sit down for a while, I’m beat. Come on, it looks sweet.”

The walls were lined in faded wallpaper, columns of flowers in alternating powder-blues, mustard-yellows, and dirty-reds; torn and peeling in the corners and above the tables where kids had clawed and scraped at it for years. At each booth hung a photograph or caricature of a different celebrity that had graced Velma’s with their presence: Jay Leno, William Shatner, Wayne Brady, Someone Sudama Didn’t Know.

The host greeted the mother and son with a dimpled smile. “Just the two?” she asked. She led them to a booth under a large, signed portrait of Lucille Ball, across from an old man with a yellowing-white mustache and thinning-white hair held with a rubber band at the base of his neck. Sudama eyed the old man as he settled onto the stiff cushions. The old man removed his sunglasses. He wasn’t watching at the son—he was watching his mother. “Hello there,” he said.

Sudama’s mother did not hear because she was busy digging through her purse. Sudama frowned at the old man, but either the old man did not see Sudama, or he was acting tough. He just smiled that mossy, crooked smile and returned to his food, taking a deep bite out of his Chili-Onion Dog Special. Sudama attempted to choose something from the menu, but he couldn’t concentrate through the slosh pumping past his ears. He slid closer to his mother and said in a low voice, “You see this jerk?” he said.

She swished her hair to the opposite shoulder and sat up straight, like his grandmother always nagged her about; she glanced up—expertly, and in an instant had evaluated the old man. She read her menu and grinned. “He looks like a happy guy,” she said, “what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with you today?”

Sudama leaned back into the cushions and sighed aloud as the cold sweat on the back of his shirt chilled his spine. “Just—uncomfortable,” he said. “Sweating. I’m hungry, feel like I can’t eat anything.”

“Are you eating enough calories?” his mother asked. “A salad isn’t enough, son, you need real food. Why don’t you have a chili dog? Don’t laugh. Why not?”

“I just can’t,” he said.

“Does this have to do with that girl—what’s her name? That little hugger-muffin of yours?”

“What are you talking about?” Sudama covered his face, leaning on his elbows. “Please, just stop talking.”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “The girl you went to SeaWorld with, who you yelled at me on the phone over.”

“I can’t let myself slip,” Sudama said. “Everything has changed since I lost the weight. Everything is new now, and I don’t want to mess that up.”

“You’ve gone through a big change,” his mother said. “It will be very different. But remember that different is not always better. Sometimes it’s just different.”

“Wow, thanks ma . . . but it’s easy to be different; best to be new. No one cares about bringing back the old stuff, the new stuff is always the best—you know?”

“Sure son. Your mother isn’t just a crazy old lady. You could learn a thing or two from your elders.”

“Excuse me, sweet heart.” It was the old man again, this time speaking more forcefully. He had to have been eighty—at least, and deeply browned from scalp to sandaled toe from too much time exposed. His shirt hung unbuttoned and the reflected light of a swinging dog-tag danced on his knotted chest. Sudama wondered who that old man thought he was fooling. His mother had heard the old man already and was smiling politely. “I just had to say,” the old man went on, “you are loveliest looking young lady I’ve seen in years and years.”

His mother giggled and covered her mouth. ”Well,” she said, “that is extremely sweet of you, sir. What is your name?”

“I love your beautiful hair,” said the old man.

“What’s that?” she said.

“I love your hair,” he said.

His mother flipped her hair and patted the cushion next to her, “How sweet! Would you like to scootch on over here and talk with us for a while?”

“Yes, yes, I very much would,” said the old man, standing with a groan from his booth and hobbling over to slip into theirs. He glanced at Sudama, “Oh, how are you son?”

Sudama just raised his eyebrows; he had enough to worry about without someone trying to pick up on his mother. The old man blinked and offered a half-nod, then he put his elbow on the back of the bench, his right hand just close enough to brush her shoulder if he extended his fingers, which he did first thing; he said, “You know what it is?”, pointing to the picture on the wall, “You remind me of Lucille Ball. That’s it!”

You’ve got to be kidding, thought Sudama. This old schmoozer. Maybe his mother wasn’t as unique as he figured, she idolized Lucy, even had a few dusty tin plates with colored paintings on them in the garage somewhere. But no, this old guy knew it somehow, he said, “I’ve never met a woman with such decency. Kindest woman a man could know. And, I would know, I’ve met the best and seen every secret these continents have to offer!”

“Have you?” she said, “Were you in the military?”

“Navy,” said the old man, “yes ma’am.”

The server passed by, noticing the man at the table. Concern twisted her brow and she made eye contact with Sudama. She mouthed: ‘Is he bothering you?’ Sudama rolled his eyes; he hadn’t thought about it. He looked at his mother, then at the man, then his mother. The server finished with her other tables and came for their order. Sudama was so busy with the old man, he did not choose a meal. “Ma,” he said. “What are you getting?”

He nudged her shin with his sandal; his mother turned with widened eyes, “Um, I don’t know right now hun, hold on okay? Go ahead and order what you want.” Then she looked him straight in the eyes and he saw tears in them.

Sudama’s breath felt expanded in his chest as he looked to the old man, still molesting his mother with his eyes and grinning—grinning. “Hey!” he growled; the old man did not notice. It was his mother’s turn to kick him in the shin, She didn’t want to make a scene about it, she didn’t know if it was dangerous. Sudama knew. He looked back up to the server with a pleading look and she understood.

“We’ll take care of it,” she said, “do you know what you want yet?”

He snatched up his menu and started scanning for the healthiest plate he could find. There was Chili burgers, hotdogs, burgers without chili, polish dogs, French fries, cheese fries, chili cheese fries, tuna melts, quesadillas, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla shakes, ice cream bars, chocolate monkey tails and—

”I’ll have the small green salad,” he said, “please. With balsamic?”

The server frowned, pouting her lip. “We don’t have balsamic,” she said.

“Of course you don’t have balsamic,” Sudama said. “Just bring whatever your lightest dressing is.”

The old man talked with wide hand gestures. He gestured slowly and controlled; a man who didn’t care whose time he wasted. The old man became so engaged in the conversation, that he slid his hips a cushion seat closer to Sudama’s mother. So close that she blushed and had to move away.

That’s when Sudama saw it; his mother’s fear, until then he was not sure, but now he knew. She looked at him and blinked slowly, not a regular blink, a slow signaling blink like this—the lids contracting smoothly. But it wasn’t just the blink; when she turned to look at Sudama, she struck him hard with one knee; a clear signal of distress! Sudama’s adrenaline leaked into his nerves from his shoulders and he involuntarily shook his head like a dog.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore, all he could see was his flapping lips and his smooth glances at him that made sure to keep him quiet and in his place. Then he did it, he slipped one of his gestures into an approach and rubbed his mother’s golden locks through greasy, gnarled fingers, then laughed too hard when she was just too afraid to move away, breathing onion in her cool face—the young man smacked the table, rattling silverware; nearby tables gasped.

“Get your old hands away from my mom dude!” said Sam.

His mother shrieked, “Sudama Jujhar!”

The old man uncrossed his legs and folded his hands over his lap, shaking his head, mouth groping for defense, absolute surprise in his eyes. “Oh, my goodness, I’m sorry, I—I wasn’t. I just thought—,” he tried to say, but then he was being tapped on the shoulder by another server, this time a tall, well built man with dark features saying, “Hey George, let’s leave these nice people alone, okay?”

His blood surged; Sudama was ready for anything . . .

“She reminds me of my daughter. I didn’t mean for . . .”

“Sir,” said the tall server, “Sir, now, we’re going to have to ask you to go please, now.”

The old man sputtered. “I’m sorry, I was just—”

Suddenly, like she just then could manage the breath, his mother stood up and cried, “No, please stay!”

“Mom.”

“Shush Sudama Jujhar, you—Ugh!” she said, then to the old man, “Please. What’s your name sir? I do want to talk with you, my son is just,” waves a hand at him, “he didn’t mean it.” But he is nearly out the door in the server’s guiding hands.

The old man looks confused and feeble and can only say he is sorry before being ushered out the door.

Their server set down a limp salad, smothered in a thick white unguent, in front of Sudama. “Sorry about that,” she said. “He’s just an old regular, been coming here since they opened, I guess. How does that dressing work for you?”

The young man imagined the look on the old man’s face; his shame; his embarrassment. He wished his mother said something, but she sat still; tight lips and real tears on her cheeks. And Sudama wanted to cry, he wanted to eat. “What is it?”he asked the server.

“House dressing,” she said, “it’s the lightest we have.”

“Ranch?” Sudama said. The server nodded then returned to her other duties. That’s around six hundred calories, Sudama thought. He poked at his salad three times, then laid the fork in the dressing, pushed the plate away, and said, “I’m not hungry.”


This has been a practice scene I wrote yesterday into today. It was taking too long to finish and I had to cut editing short, so please excuse any errors. As always, thanks for reading, I write for you!

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A Game of Flap-Dragon

May 20, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Hard soles clop along the sidewalk stirring up gasoline vapor and sweet oak. A pair of once-black leather bootees with no laces, their vamps deeply worn, shuffle along the cement. A pewter mug, tied through its handle by silk thread, rolls and flops against the holed sides of a gray wool coat with each sway of the hips; its contents shake like a lazy maraca.

Six steps up from the sidewalk, a group of three young men recline at different levels. The highest of the men pushes his palm into his eye socket and rocks his head; he groans. “Will you two shut up about the damn bet, it’s payday now, we’ll settle it tonight.”

The percussion of the walking man slows with his gait; then resumes tempo a moment later.

The men on the lower steps curse and the bigger of the two cracks the other on the knee with a plump fist. “Screw that! Not waiting until tonight; I already beat this punk, I’m not spending any more on drinking games.”

This time the shoes stop. One brings up its toe, taps the cement twice, then returns to grind debris into the ground. The shoes turn about. The small man wears a greenish hunting cap, whose earflaps peel up and button on top, revealing the most outlandishly large sideburns the Newberry Townhome residents had ever seen. The rest of his face is bare and smeared with dirt; a pair of thick ovoid glasses teeter on his crooked nose; behind them: yellow eyes. He pulls back his cracked lips to offer the young men a yellow smile. “You boys say something about ‘debt’?”

The men, no younger than twenty five, but comparatively infantile to this ancient apparition, hesitate. But after checking with each other’s expressions, the man on the top step tosses his chin at the old man. “What’re you lookin’ at bro?” The other two laugh.

“I’m sorry I thought I heard someone talk about paying ‘debts’?”

“What the hell? You spying on us? weirdo, get out of here!”

The old man takes two gentle steps to reach the base of the stairs. He caresses his chin with a knob-knuckled hand, adorned with three crudely made rings and sooty fingernails that jut irregularly, and three heavy rings that could have been gold. “Oh, I’m afraid you have it wrong, boys. You see, I’m somewhat of a game man myself, and a bit more of an authority on settling debts. And it sounds like you fellows are in need of…impartial council?” Another yellow smile.

The men check ranks again. The large man stands and chews on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, alright, I just want to make this clown see that he’s beat this time.” He begins with the name of the game, ‘flap-dragon’, in which the players must peck flaming raisins from a cup of brandy and hold as many in their open mouths as they can before having to extinguish the fire. The other two interrupt with explanations and corrections as he speaks.

As they explain, the old man dips his fingertips into the cup at his belt and draws them out, fingers powdered red, then rests the hand in his lower back, thumb hooked through the belt. He creeps a foot up the first cement step. “Yes, fine, fine, that’s all fine my boys, I don’t think we’ll have a problem here. No sirs, I believe we’ll end this before noon—but! there are just a few ground rules we need to go over before we do…” Now he did not smile.

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Filed Under: Adult, Magical Realism, Prompt, Scene sketch, Uncategorized Tagged With: fiction, Magical Realism, Prompt, short story, story sketch, writing exercise

But now I depart from the comfortable realm of earthly reality into dizzying insanity…

April 25, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo 4 Comments

Here is a scene sketch I put together for you this evening. Enjoy, and thank you for reading.


I saw a young girl in the center of Tulan Square just before midnight. She had black horse hair, knotted into braids on either side of her round olive face. Her eyes flashed silver in the light of the street vendors and their carts. She held what looked like the black leather bible that you can get at Giffords for twenty bucks—the one fashioned with gold filagree inlays and red gem stones—that stuck out a foot on either side of the girl. The cobble road was wet-grey from the Nascorne rime that’s slicked the streets for weeks.

The girl held the book at arm’s length with elbows slightly bent and I could see by her fluttering lips she was reading from it. It was an odd thing, reading a fancy book in weather like that, but then again, you would have to be blind not to have seen this was no ordinary book. Even so, my proclivity for all things strange and exciting, the sight of the pair glued me to the spot.

But now I depart from the comfortable realm of earthly reality into dizzying insanity… But bear with me; I’ll tell it how it appeared to me; you will determine its truth.

I noticed that the evening shoppers, in their heavy wool coats and fat fur hats, did not seem to take any notice of the girl whatsoever. They flowed around her sides effortlessly then reunited behind her. But that was not all. The frost itself would not touch the girl. It hung in the air around her and stuck to the people like cobwebs, but did not touch her. Moisture danced and tumbled along her silhouette like river water does off the back of crocodiles when they growl.

She looked into my eyes then and I could not tear my eyes from her’s. I wanted to walk on, I knew there was nothing more about this vibrating girl that I needed to see. But I could not stir.

Her reading grew loud enough to hear over the metal clinking of utensils on grills and the late night buzz of the city folk. It grew so loud that the honking horns and street drummers no longer existed. Her voice was low and gurgling and the language sounded to me like Ogni, or Purtére, but it was not.

The next moment, a bubble of white light inflated from the pages of the book and expanded so fast and bright that I thought the girl had blown us up like my grandfather in Nagasaki. But as soon as it burst out, it was gone, and when I saw the girl again, the book was no longer in her hands, but floating a foot above them, held aloft by a golden mist. She was screaming the words now, screeching like hot steam through a kettle.

And then all at once she was gone.


Image courtesy of oldtownpaul.

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Filed Under: Middle Grade, Uncategorized, Young Adult

60 second prompt: Metro

April 19, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Image courtesy of oldtownpaul

Image courtesy of oldtownpaul


On the metro, the five-line, I hit a cool breeze, seven-foot tall and made of fine china. I meet a diva, a goddess, something outside the line, outside the cement and the metro.

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Filed Under: Adult, Prompt, Timed, Uncategorized, Word Tagged With: quicky

A clear package of tomatoes fell and scattered in all directions. "You know I wasn't at work."

March 23, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo 1 Comment

Loaded by oldtownpaul.

Image courtesy oldtownpaul.

I sat on the couch with a glass of two-dollar Cabernet. Sheldon came in at twelve forty-five with his shoulder’s rolled forward and back facing me. His head hung to one side as he fumbled at the lock. I didn’t cry, crying ends it before we can begin. I needed him to hear this. And like it or not, the drink might help. I asked him how work was.

Sheldon pawed through the refrigerator, a clear package of tomatoes fell and scattered in all directions. “You know I wasn’t at work.”

I held a sip in my mouth and tested my endurance against the tannic juice. If I looked at him now, I would cry. But I wasn’t going to cry. No Phyllis, you aren’t going to cry. “I thought maybe you stayed to tutor some students or maybe pick up a detention?”

“I told you that I’m not doing that monkey work. Let the first year teachers take it.” Sheldon entered the living room with a plate stacked six inches tall with red turkey meat, and two silver beer cans balancing on its edge.

“I thought you said it was an extra fifty or sixty dollars?”

He collapsed into the opposite corner of the couch from where I sat. His upper-lids swelled and I could not see his emerald eyes. He unbuckled his pants and turned on the television. “When are you going to have time to do that? Yesterday I had to drive all the way to the store, waste my time, just to have a normal dinner.”

“Please don’t be angry Sheldon.”

He snapped open a beer and drank. “Stressed enough with this damn job’s slave wages, now with the baby.”

“Maybe my paintings can bring in extra money.”

“Haha… What do you want me to do with that? You want me to get a second job?”

“That’s not it.”

“It is. We don’t make enough that my wife can be happy. I don’t provide enough for my wife to be happy. Christ Phyllis! if our son is anything like you,” he held up his hands and stuck out his lip, “I’m in for it, oh boy, I’m through!”

“I just wanted to ask you if I could get the money to buy the URL and stuff.”

“And stuff?”

“Well I can explain m—”

“That’s your business plan? and stuff? So wait. This whole thing was about you asking me for money? after you’re telling me that we are so fucking poor.”

“Sheldon—”

“I need to work harder apparently; I need to get another job to pay for daycare so my wife can play entrepreneur!”

“Maybe if I finally got my work out there, someone would recognize it as something worth—something!”

He muted the television. “No one cares about buying art, especially not the kind of art you do.”

“Sheldon.”

“What? People don’t want, they don’t want, well whatever the hell it is you paint—grotesques?”

“They’re the human figure. My work was never for shock. And you know what, Molly down the street sells custom craft buttons online and she makes enough extra money for yoga classes. I just—honey you won’t have to worry about the dinners. You won’t have to worry about Jack. I promise. I’ll take care of it all, just the same. Please, Sheldon.”

“Heh!” He turned up the volume, “Fine, you know what? here you go. Put it on the card. Show me the checkout screen before you pay, hear me?

“I hear you Sheldon.” I took the wallet he tossed across the couch and pulled out the bank card. I rubbed the stiff braille of the card under my thumb and finished my wine. “Now,” I thought, “we’ll see.”

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Filed Under: Adult, Dialogue, Image, Literary fiction, Prompt, Uncategorized

Cypress boughs creeked in the dim…

March 9, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Cypress boughs creaked in the dim; their pale green leaves danced with broken moonlight conducted by the insect ballad. The warm air lifted the smell of rot and damp wood. Montgomery sat at the edge of the buoyed pier, with his nose just above the opaque water. Behind him, orange lamp light pulsed from the porch of a wooden shack, white and grey with age; tied down here and patched there where the swamp had started to creep in. The sound of boots made Montgomery turn. A man in dripping knee high rubber boots crouched beside him and shook his collar with scratches.

The two fellows looked to the water and soon their breaths fell in sync and man and mutt waited together, silent and still. They looked and looked and at some point the man had to blink and rub his eye lids. “Too dark.”

Montgomery lied down and said nothing.

The man raked at his peppered beard. “It’s tonight old boy.”

“…”

“Thirteen dead.” He spit, “Jesus save their souls, countless others maimed, and tonight this som’bitch’s going to meet his match.”

Scrish! Montgomery’s tail rose, his nose worked faster, the man’s eyes tightened. “Shh…” They waited. Nothing but croaks and paper insects and rolling water and—

Inside the cabin, the man climbed a wood block and retrieved a rusted double-barrel from its mount above the front door. He held the lamp over a scaled bag and pulled out a handful of purple shells. The pockets on the man’s green canvas overalls bulged and jutted with lead weight as man and dog waded through the knee-high mud. Montgomery half swam to keep up. Soon they came to a pass between the knees of a bald cypress, which the man may have crashed into were it not for Montgomery colliding with them first, scrambling for a better foot hold. They both paused to breathe. The man shook the sweat from his eyes.

Cak-cak-cak! broke through the swamp song; Montgomery gave a short yelp.

The man tugged on his leash, “Don’t lose your nerve now boy! We never let one of these slimy beasts beat us; we can’t afford your nervousness, got it? It’s a woodpecker’s all. Keep it together.”

Montgomery lowered his chin and said nothing.

“Good. Good. This croc is near. Let’s give these city boys something to gab about. I can feel’im.”

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Filed Under: Adult, Uncategorized

Marvin the Protector

March 4, 2013 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

I am a strong boy. Mama tells me I’m strong because I don’t have the same head as the other boys, but I has the strength more than them. I go to school at Windsor Elementary. The teachers are nice. The principal is nice. The kids are not nice all the time. I don’t like to always sit by myself, but since Steven said so, none of the other kids sit with me. Some of my friends still sit with me, but it is Mrs. Holland and some more kids from my classes.

Mariella and John are my friends. Mariella has a chair to go in. John uses a silver walker. I don’t need something special to go places. But sometimes I wish I could close my eyes for the day like Mariella. The other kids make fun because I don’t go to their regular classes. I don’t care about going to those classes though. They are very loud. And fast. And when the teacher says something, faster than anyone could hear it, half the kids have their hands in the air. No, I don’t like that. I don’t want them kids to look at me and the teacher pick me to answer but my brain doesn’t work fast enough and I just start yelling.

I have three special recesses a day. At second recess, the normal kids are still playing, and that means Steven was playing. Steven played ball in the chalk squares near the sand box. That day, Mariella went to the nurse’s office when she got to school so John and I played alone on the swings. John dug in the sand with a plastic water cup and I tried to swing as high as I could without moving much.

“What are you idiots up to?”

Steven wore a green shirt with fancy letters that spelled ‘NOTW’.

“What are you staring at slobber jaw? You like this? Means I’m going to heaven. Means I’m saved. Where are you dummies going when you die?”

John gave a low groan and dug faster into the sand. I stared at Steven’s nonsense shirt.

“I asked you lumps a question. You too dumb to talk?” He looked around, saw Mrs. Norris sipping her coffee with Mr. Yasuki, then walked up to John. “What are you building? You digging to China?” He spit in pit.

John lowered his brows and leaned in to see the jelly water pool at the bottom of his well. I stood up from the hot plastic seat.

“What do you want?” He laughed. “Freak without the gear huh? Your friends were happy they didn’t have to eat with you idiots anymore.” He crouched down to John, who still watched the sand suck in the spit. “Here let me fix this.” He spread out his arms and cupped two mounds of sand in each hand and filled in the hole.

I didn’t look to see if Mrs. Norris was looking before I jumped on him.

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Filed Under: Adult, Literary fiction, Prompt, Uncategorized

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Caleb Jacobo

Welcome! My name is Caleb Jacobo and this is my public writing journal. Read More…

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