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I Just Wanted to Help

August 15, 2016 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

I Just Wanted to Help

It was shortly before one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. I was sipping a cold cup of coffee while reading the news on Facebook, a habit I find pleasurable despite the incessant reports of violence and corruption. The daily phantasmagoria reminds me that, while the world might be losing its way, at least my moral compass still points north. I’ve also become rather addicted to iced coffee.

My wife was busy chopping bell peppers for lunch, and I was doing my best to ignore her, when she suddenly yelped.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked, not looking up from my iPhone.

“Nothing,” she said in a labored voice. I heard a clink as she set down the knife, and I looked up to see her grimacing as she rubbed her left hip. “It’s just this sciatica pain. It’s bad this time.”

This will be my wife’s fourth and final child. Her previous pregnancies were uneventful, besides the giving birth, of course, and even that was over and done with in one push. But this time my wife has had every pregnancy related malady in the book. (There is a book, by the way: What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Spoiler: Don’t expect anything good.) I’m not sure if it’s her way of cashing in on all the sympathy she missed out on the first three pregnancies or if she really is experiencing chronic discomfort, but she does seem to experience it most often while I’m relaxing.

I took a slow sip of coffee, returning to the news. “Why don’t you take some ibuprofen?”

“I can’t. If we had Tylenol, I would take it, but we keep forgetting to pick some up. It’s really bothering me, though.”

She meant I keep forgetting. She also meant that she would like for me to stop what I was doing and go purchase some Tylenol for her right now. But she’s been terribly oblique and moody this pregnancy, so I didn’t push it. I sighed, took one last drink of coffee, and pushed back from the kitchen table.

“I’ll go pick some up for you,” I said resolutely.

She protested, but only halfheartedly, and soon I was lacing up my shoes. She thanked me and kissed my cheek, which helped relieve my annoyance. But it was Sunday, after all, and I didn’t really have anything else to do. Anyway, I was hungry, and the idea of choking down another bell pepper salad made my stomach clench.

A few minutes later, I pulled into the Smith’s parking lot. I took out my phone and texted my wife:

At Smith’s

Let me know if you need anything else while I’m here

The sidewalk leading to the Smith’s entrance was filled with outdoor swings and hundreds of clay pots in a Southwestern style. When the pots were first set out a month ago, they were ridiculously overpriced at forty dollars a piece, but now each one boasted a 70% OFF sticker, making them only completely overpriced. They aren’t worth half of what they’re asking. It’s just another marketing scheme, another greedy company looking to shake down the American people, another compass pointing south.

When I reached the point on the sidewalk where the pots and outdoor swings forced foot traffic into the street, I became delayed behind an old woman with diaphanous white hair, bent nearly double, pushing a walker with tennis balls on the feet, moving at negative speed. I couldn’t pass her by way of the street because of an enormous pickup that was slowly cruising through the pedestrian crossing.

That’s why you don’t go out when you’re this old, I thought. Doesn’t she have family or a caretaker to run her errands?

After what seemed like an hour, the truck passed, and I skipped around the woman, muttering a sarcastic apology.

As I rounded the last of the outdoor goods, I saw a collection of images that triggered an instant understanding in my mind. A greasy sign made from the side of a discarded cardboard box; deeply tanned skin under filthy, nondescript clothing; a rusty coffee tin set out on the floor with a scrap of paper taped around it — taken together, I knew I was about to encounter one of life’s more pathetic constituents: the homeless beggar.

There were two of them, a young mother and her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than ten. They were both too thin, and the little girl wore a vacant expression that made my stomach feel cold and hollow, the way I imagined the inside of one of those overpriced pots felt.

I reached for my wallet, knowing I had a few dollars on me that I was willing to part with, but then I removed my hand. I waited until I passed in front of them, until they saw me, until the mother said:

“Please, sir. We are hungry.”

Then, I made a show of it. I took out my wallet, grabbing all the bills without looking, and handed over my money with a most saint-like expression on my face.

“God bless you, sir,” the woman said in an accent I couldn’t place. It might have belonged to any of those far eastern countries that no native-born American could identify on a map with confidence. It was an exotic, dangerous accent, and I suddenly felt like I understood everything about this tragic pair’s life.

God bless me indeed, I thought. I don’t believe in God (how can I, the way the world is headed), but it must be uplifting for two degenerates to encounter a man who just wants to help. I replaced my wallet and strutted off without a second glance at them.

When I entered the store, I found a woman engaged in a desperate struggle to separate two small shopping carts, which had become entangled together. She became so agitated that she actually lifted both carts several inches off the ground and brought them back down with a metallic crash. This obscene gesture gained her nothing except a few turned heads from passersby. I shook my own head at the display. Some people just don’t know how to act in public.

I had watched this battle for several seconds, patting my thighs and willing for this woman to either triumph over the carts or to give up so I could collect my own cart, when a young couple, who had just finished their shopping, came up behind me to return their cart.

“I’ll take that, thanks,” I said, grabbing the cart and directing it toward the sanitation stand.

I pulled out several wipes and cleaned the handle bar. I placed the other wipes in my basket, just it case (it truly is disgusting what people do when they think no one is looking). Then I went on my way, leaving that silly woman and her struggle behind.

As I ambled up and down the aisles, I couldn’t stop thinking about the beggars. I wanted to congratulate myself on my benevolence, but now that didn’t seem right. My initial sense of complete comprehension regarding their lives had faded, replaced by an uncomfortable doubt.

Were they really so desperate, or did they make more money at begging than I did at web development? Was it all a scam? Had I been a fool to give them money?

My mind was so distracted with these thoughts that I spent a half-hour touring the store with nothing in my cart to show for it. This won’t do at all, I thought at last. And so I decided that their authenticity didn’t matter. Should I avoid every good deed because of doubt? That kind of attitude is exactly what’s wrong with this country. Who was I to judge? If they were gypsies, so be it. If they were truly in need, then all the better. Anyway, it was only three dollars.

My thoughts turned to my stomach as I spotted some yogurt on the shelf. I lifted a large tub of Chobani to read the label, but the tub was slick, and it slipped from my hands before I could catch it. The top burst open when it landed, and thick globs of yogurt spewed onto the floor.

I glanced around, hoping no one had seen my accident, but saw that I was alone in the aisle. I quickly picked up the tub, replaced the lid, wiped away the excess yogurt from it, and placed it back on the shelf with the others. Then I decided I wasn’t in the mood for yogurt and moved on.

After a few more rounds through the store, I settled on a large baked chicken and a cold soda. I began checking out at one of the self-service kiosks and found myself wondering if my three dollars would actually help that mother and her little girl. I would hope, if it were my wife and daughter, that someone would be as generous as I had been — more generous, in fact. After all, was three dollars really enough? How many people stopped to give them money?

I felt that disturbing, pot-like chill in my stomach again as I fed the machine my money and took my receipt. I left the change (don’t you hate the feeling of change in your pocket?), grabbed my bags, and headed for the exit, leaving my cart abandoned near the kiosk. But before I left the store, I saw the mother and daughter through the sliding glass doors, still standing there with their sign, and I stopped.

As I watched, three people walked by without so much as a turn of their heads to acknowledge them. I felt an uncomfortable heat replace the chill in my belly. I really am too optimistic about the human race, to think that anyone would stop and help. 

I remembered the hot chicken in my bag. I could give it to them, give them a warm meal to go with the money. But no. What if they didn’t eat chicken? (Can a beggar afford to be a vegetarian?) And, also, what would I eat? I looked back into the store, considering. It’s only six dollars for a whole chicken, and it wouldn’t take me long to get it. But as I looked, I saw that old woman, the one with the walker who had blocked my path, standing at one of the registers, making a horrible face and lifting her hands out of her reusable shopping bag with a look of bewilderment.

Her hands were covered in white goo. A phlegmy moan rattled in her throat as she complained in a trembling voice that the yogurt she had just purchased spilled all over a greeting card she had bought for her daughter. The cashier rolled her eyes. She picked up the bag with two fingers, holding it at arms length, and picked up the phone to call a manager. The people in line behind the old woman groaned and rolled their eyes, too.

On second thought, I didn’t need to go back for a chicken. Beggars do alright, otherwise they wouldn’t be begging. I gave them a lot of money — three dollars is a lot to someone with nothing. Yes, there was no need to worry any more about it. All that was left to do was to smile and nod at them as I left, reminding them that there were still some good people in the world. Maybe their gratitude would help ease my mind about the whole thing.

But as I left the store, the mother, in that same slimy accent, said:

“Please, sir. We are hungry.”

I stopped. A man, who had followed me outside a little too closely and had to yank on his cart to stop from colliding with me, sighed his annoyance as he pushed his cart passed. At first I thought the beggar woman must have been addressing him. I stared at her, wanting that to be true, wanting some gratitude in return for my good deed. But in her face, there was none. She was… holding out her hands… to me, looking me straight in the face without a hint of recognition.

“Please, sir,” she repeated, gesturing with her upturned palm.

The heat inside me, which rose a moment ago in pity, flared up in anger. I shook my head and smiled mirthlessly. “No, no, you see, I already gave you money.”

At my negative reaction, the woman waved her hand as if to shoo me away, saying something in her own language that sounded vile. As another customer left the store, she looked past me and delivered her same plea to them.

I wagged a finger in her face, forcing her attention back to me. “I gave you money,” I said, my voice unsteady. “You remember? I gave you three dollars.” I demonstrated with three trembling fingers.

She only flashed her black eyes at me, and then she was asking the next passing customer for money.

I repeated myself, stepping closer to her. She spat at my feet.

Something inside me twisted, a polar flip, and I felt my heart pounding in my chest. This ungrateful, stupid woman. No wonder she had to beg for money. No wonder she was dirty and poor. No wonder she subjected her daughter to such a contemptible life. She didn’t even have the sense to remember her benefactor. She was broken — completely broken — just a shell of a woman, no more human than the chicken in my bag.

“You listen to me!” I said, coming within a foot of her, inhaling her stench. “If you won’t be grateful, then I demand my money back!”

She scowled at me. Her daughter did the same, the expression on her young face no longer vacant, but exuding a hate I wouldn’t think possible in a child so young. I held out my hand, mocking the mother’s gesture, and demanded my money again. She slapped my hand away and began spewing a series of unintelligible imprecations at me, waving her arms hysterically.

I was blind to the world around me, to everything but this hateful pair.

“You worthless bitch!” I yelled, reaching for the coffee tin, intending to retrieve my three dollars by force. But before I could touch it, something closed tight around my wrist and tore my hand away.

I turned to see a huge man, his muscles bulging under a dainty shirt, bald, with a thick goatee and tattoos up both arms, looking down on me in disgust.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Leave that mom and her kid alone or I’ll fix you up.”

I wrenched my arm from his steely grip and stumbled back. I felt all the heat that had occupied my belly rush to my face. Tears blurred my vision.

“I—” I started, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Then I noticed the small crowd that had stopped to watch me, among them, the old woman with the walker and the woman who had battled the carts. Their arms were crossed, their eyes narrowed as they shook their heads and muttered their disapproval of my behavior. They looked at me like I was the problem, like I was the filth. It was too much to stand. I was so embarrassed and indignant that my mind went blank, and I couldn’t do or say anything to defend myself. All I could manage to do was turn and run.

When I reached my car, I yanked open the passenger door and threw in the groceries. I smacked the window with my hand and cursed. I glanced back at the group. They were still huddled around the beggars, pointing my way, probably wondering how someone could be such a heartless monster. But they didn’t know anything. They were the problem. Not me. They’re just too lost to see it.

Then I noticed a small scrap of paper pinned under one of my windshield wipers. I was enraged by its presence and irrationally attributed it to the beggar woman and her daughter. I tore the note free and read:

Hey, you dropped your phone by your car. Couldn’t find you in the store. Put it on the front passenger tire. Be careful. It’s a nice phone. Have a nice day.

I stared at the note, wiping the tears from my eyes so I could be sure I had read it correctly, confused and somehow more infuriated than ever. I turned it over. There was no name or contact information, just the note.

I checked the tire and there was my iPhone 6 plus, a little dent on one corner, but otherwise unharmed. I gripped the phone so hard that I heard the eighty-dollar case groan. I kicked the tire, painfully tweaking my toe. How dare they touch my stuff! They should have let it be. They had no right! I bet they wanted to steal my phone, but couldn’t crack my password, and now they’re trying to pass off their failure as a good deed.

I dropped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. I gripped the steering wheel, placing my forehead on it, trying to slow my breathing. Then my phone buzzed in my hand. It was my wife:

Don’t need anything else. Thanks for getting the Tylenol. You’re the best!

I let out an intense scream from my gut that would have sent those beggars and their sympathetic morons running had they heard me. I threw my phone against the passenger window. I beat the wheel with the heels of my hands until they went numb.

I had forgotten the damn Tylenol. But it wasn’t my fault — It was that stupid woman and her stupid little daughter! God damned gypsies! I should call the police on them, I thought, on all of them. I should do something. But what was there to do?

Once someone’s compass is broken, what can be done to fix it?

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Filed Under: Adult, Literary fiction, Scene sketch, Short Story, Story sketch Tagged With: Caleb Jacobo, creative writing, Literary fiction, scene sketch, story sketch, writing journal

The Mystic Mexican

December 23, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

The Mystic Mexican

Yesterday, after taking a break from Christmas shopping for my wife, I stopped to grab a bite at a Mexican food restaurant. After, I wrote down the following story because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This isn’t a story sketch so much as a recording of this event so I can reference it for future stories. I do this whenever something happens to me that sticks in my head.


I’d been wanting to try that Mexican food place on Antelope, so I stopped in today while I was out shopping.

I walked in and there was nobody to be seen. The “OPEN” sign was lit up outside and I could hear someone cooking in the back, but the host was missing from the host stand and the tables were all empty. It was too early for the lunch crowd I guessed.

It was a warm, adobe style place, the kind of place that’s too much of a restaurant to serve legit Mexican food, but it was cold out and I was hungry, so it would do. I stood there for about five minutes before calling out, “Hello?” There was a brief pause in the sounds of cooking coming from the back, but no one responded. I looked around the host stand and found the menus and utensils.

I helped myself and browsed a menu. It had pictures of every food item; I liked that. My stomach rumbled violently. I really hoped they were open. I called out again and almost as soon as I did, a man came waddling around the corner on my right. He was a short, light-skinned Mexican, like my father. He looked like the owner or a manager. He had clean-cut hair, black, and greased to one side. His white button up was clean and pressed. There was something wrong with his mouth. It had almost no lips and he held it to one side. There was evidence of scar tissue on the skin stretching across the hollow of his left cheek. He greeted me with, “Hello my friend.”

“Are you open?” I asked, trying to hold back a tone of annoyance in my voice. The sign hanging behind the host stand reminded me, “WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE,” and I was too hungry to leave now.

“Yes, of course, of course. Please, sit here.” The man gave a small bow, gesturing with an open hand to a table near the entrance. “You are from California?” The question came out more like a statement. It caught me off guard and I slowed a little as I lowered myself onto the bench seat.

“Yeah,” I said, “I am.” I wanted to ask how he knew, but I was trying to puzzle it out for myself in case it was something obvious.

“What part?”

“So-cal. Southern California. The Orange Country area.” I hadn’t been living in Orange when I moved, but it was more recognizable and less embarrassing than admitting to living in the Inland Empire.

He asked me if I was visiting family. I told him I had recently moved to Utah.

“Really? I’m from California, too. San Diego.”

“So you’re from the far south,” I said. He smiled, said some other friendly things, told me my server would be with me soon, then walked away.

Hm. He was from California too. That’s how he knew… No. That didn’t make sense. Did I smell like California? Was I wearing my California hat? No. I looked at my reflection in the window to my left. I was wearing a jacket I had purchased in Utah after I arrived. Did it give me away? Was it because I was wearing shorts in the snow, my Nike shoes, my hair, what? By the time I decided I wanted to ask him how he knew I was from California, he was nowhere to be found.

I ate my meal quickly. It was the Burrito Grande, the restaurant’s namesake. It was decent. It came smothered in sauce (I usually can’t stand restaurant burritos on their own; where were my California hole-in-the-walls?) and came in a portion that was certainly grande. I think I liked the hot sauce more than the food.

After my last bite, it suddenly came to me. My car! I still have California license plates on my car. While I was calling for someone to come serve me, he must have looked out the window and seen the plates. Ha! Got you, you old charlatan.

I paid my bill and thanked my server (the service was eager to the point of annoyance, but I left my usual twenty-percent). As I was leaving through the second set of double doors I noticed something that made me feel uneasy. My car wasn’t in front of a window. The plates wouldn’t have been visible, especially not from where the man had emerged on the other end of the restaurant.

What was I supposed to think? Did this Mexican man have mystical powers? Was I missing something? My satisfaction at finding out how he had known where I was from with a single glance vanished. I slumped into my car and pulled out of the parking lot, back into the mad rush of Christmas shoppers. Damn.

The next time something like that happens to me, I need to remember to speak up. It’s driving me nuts.

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Filed Under: Experience, Journal Tagged With: Caleb Jacobo, California, experience, Mexican, mystic, writing journal

Themes to Write On

December 22, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Themes to Write On

I like to write down themes in my writing journal so I can refer to them later when working on a new story. The following are some themes I wrote down yesterday along with a brief note on thought.


Themes to write on:

  • The role of the teacher
  • Tolerance as an intellectual covering for intolerance
  • Division as conflict: as long as there is a division between observer and observed, there is division and so conflict
  • The observer as the observed: I am not separate from my anger, I am anger
  • Thought as pleasure
  • Thought as something dead, the past
  • Thought giving vitality to something that is dead: possible raising the dead metaphors here
  • The conflict created by the me and the not me
  • Love and relationship as the destruction of dependence, ambition, and comparison
  • The deceptive nature of desire
  • The selfishness of desire
  • The violent nature of living: consuming other living things, overcoming others to get what we need, etc.
  • The deception of perception
  • Objective happiness versus subjective happiness
  • Humanity’s capacity for change
  • Mind over body
  • Accepting what is
  • Helping oneself
  • Personal inquiry

Note on thought: Thought sustains and gives nourishment to pleasure as well as to fear. Fear of the present, the future, death, the unknown, of not fulfilling, not being loved, wanting to be loved — there are so many fears, all created by the machinery of thought.

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Filed Under: Journal, Story Tagged With: Caleb Jacobo, writing, writing journal, writing themes

What Is a Story?

December 18, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

What Is a Story?

When trying to define something, one is categorizing it, taking a set of elements which are present in one or more things and grouping them with a label. So in order to define what a story is, I must uncover the set of elements which are present in all stories, from the daily stories we tell ourselves and others to professional stories.

Like songs, stories are easier to recognize than to define. They are such a common part of our lives that we have learned to identify them without being consciously aware of how this identification happens.

[Read more…] about What Is a Story?

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The Faceless Woman

December 16, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

The Faceless Woman

The following is an observation I jotted down in my Evernote after witnessing an intriguing family at the grocery store. This entry is direct from my personal journal.

[Read more…] about The Faceless Woman

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Filed Under: Journal, Observation Tagged With: Caleb Jacobo, writing journal, writing observations

The Talker

December 12, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

The Talker

Starting a new story can be difficult, especially if I have no idea who or what I want to write about. Sometimes, to generate ideas for a story, I start an impromptu conversation with myself. The goal of this exercise is to discover a character or an attitude that intrigues me. I like to do this if I have no ideas for a story, or if I want to find out more about a character or attitude I’ve already started developing.

The following is one of those exercises. It is a conversation with myself, a search for intriguing ideas.

[Read more…] about The Talker

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Filed Under: Journal Tagged With: Caleb Jacobo, character interview, starting a new story, writing journal

Behind the Story: Evening at the Bus Stop

December 10, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Behind the Story: Evening at the Bus Stop

Yesterday I posted a story sketch “Evening at the Bus Stop” about an old man and a distressed woman having a conversation in which both are unable to really listen to each other. Today I want to go over some of steps that I took to complete that sketch.

It all started with an idea. I knew I wanted to write a story sketch. I hadn’t written one in a while and they are, in my opinion, the best kind of practice a creative writer can do. The initial idea, the spark that got me going, was the Buddhist parable of the mustard seed. You might have heard it, but if not, you can read a version of the story here.

[Read more…] about Behind the Story: Evening at the Bus Stop

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Filed Under: Behind the Story, Journal Tagged With: behind the story, Caleb Jacobo, story sketch, writing journal

Story Sketch: Evening at the Bus Stop

December 9, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Story Sketch: Evening at the Bus Stop

It’s six o’clock in the little town of Layton, Utah. The sun has already set and the sky is covered with a seeming endless coat of dark clouds. On Main Street, at a small bus stop, sits a woman in a purple windbreaker. Her short, curly hair is newly dyed the blackish-red color of old blood. She is nearly elt

ifty, bent forward, looking down at her off-brand sneakers, wrapping herself with her arms and rocking back and forth. An old man with seventy-five years and a heavy, goose-feathered coat on his back, carrying a small present wrapped in golden paper, tied with a thick, red bow, slowly lowers himself onto the damp bench beside her.

[Read more…] about Story Sketch: Evening at the Bus Stop

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Filed Under: Journal, Story sketch Tagged With: bus stop, Caleb Jacobo, story sketch, writing journal

Why Do We Tell Stories? – Part 2

December 8, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Why Do We Tell Stories? – Part 2

Yesterday I spent some time on the question of why we tell stories. I started by going over the functions of story outlined by professor Harvey. Today I wanted to break from her list and start listing some functions of story that I observe, note any overlaps, and examine these functions more closely. I would also like to try and identify which functions of story are most important for socially impactful creative writing, since this is what I am most interested in.

I’ll start with a divergent thinking technique. I’m going to make a list, as long as I can make it, of all the things that a story can do. Remember, in divergent thinking, one does not go for quality, but quantity. Some of the items in the following list might seem silly and many will overlap, but bear with me.

[Read more…] about Why Do We Tell Stories? – Part 2

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Why Do We Tell Stories?

December 7, 2015 by Caleb Jacobo Leave a Comment

Why Do We Tell Stories?

“Let’s start at the very beginning / A very good place to start” 
—Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

Today, as Julie Andrews suggests, I want to go back to the beginning and explore a basic question: Why do we tell stories? Not only in creative writing, but in daily life as well.

A couple of years ago I listened to a lecture series by Professor Hannah B. Harvey, an Adjunct Professor in the Storytelling program at East Tennessee State University, on the art of storytelling. While Harvey focused mainly on oral storytelling, nearly all of her lectures are also applicable to creative writing. In the beginning of the series, Harvey lists some of the functions of story. I would like to use this list as a starting point for my own investigation into the reason we tell stories, what functions they serve, then in later entries explore what story is.

[Read more…] about Why Do We Tell Stories?

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Caleb Jacobo

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

Recommended Reading

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