Ain't No Jacks! - an original story by Andy Loughney (2008)

“A great garden tool knows that it is a product of the minerals and elements of the Earth and rightfully feels no better than when it has been reconnected with its giver through the understanding hands of an appreciative gardener.”      --Davis H. Shobscrank

They say to start at the beginning, but this is a tale about men who are only interested in immediate satisfaction.  So the history, as is too often the case, winds up neglected and only resurrected for its canvas, not its picture.

There was a garden spade, seemingly like any other, but liberated by the knowledge that Shobscrank supposed some of them must surely possess.  He was correct in his intuition, as he most often was.

This tool shone so brightly, in fact, that two occasional gardeners, spurred on by the recent solstice, happened upon it concurrently in their local hardware store, each recognizing it as something magical that could be used to further each of their causes. Their hands grasped the spade at the same time and would have surely torn it to pieces had it not been aware of its origins, a realization that made it infinitely stronger than the ones that it shared the dusty bin with.

Leonard D. Greensquash and Mickey "Muffin Face” Runtip each sorely desired to be sole controller of the services the spade had to offer.  Unable to settle their argument verbally and fearing that a direct physical confrontation would draw unwanted attention to them and the spade, the men decided upon a game of "jacks" where the outcome would determine unquestioned ownership of the spade.  Of course, this agreement was based on the absurd supposition that such an item could be possessed, and so was bound to fail from the moment they shook hands.

On a murky July night that was thick with anticipation and promise, the two hustlers convened in the mysterious Tool Shed of the Crescent Moon to settle their debate.  They had agreed on meeting there because each knew that it was a place where grievances could be aired without the threat of death at the hands of another man.  Multiple sharp and shiny instruments - meant for nurturing life but surely capable of taking it - draped the walls surrounding the Shed’s visitors, begging to be used in some way, any way.  But even as the keeper of this tantalizing atmosphere, the Shed emitted some sort of calm which permitted arguments to escalate yet never tempt that irreversible fate.  Thus, it was the only locale where both men would agree to meet, each justifiably wary of the other's intentions and supposed schemes.

Unfortunately, the culture barrier that existed between the North and Southwest sides of town, where Greensquash and Muffin Face lived, respectively, proved an insurmountable obstacle in the quest for resolution.

Greensquash brought the benign children’s game with the bouncy rubber ball and metal satellites.  Four times throughout the summer, the North would hold colossal jacks tournaments that brought the people off

their suburban porches in droves, all eager to display the skills they had been developing over the harsh winter.  Lenny was sure that this was the game they had agreed to play and, as a three-time previous victor in

his town’s event, was supremely confident of his chances to acquire the spade.

Muffin Face arrived with a deck of cards and a six-shooter loaded with one bullet, the only game piece necessary for the suicidal theatrics of Russian roulette.  Drawing the Jack with the knife at his head would not only mean losing the spade, but also, slightly possibly, one’s life.  The Southwest was ultimately defined by its rough-and-tumble ways, much to the chagrin of a sensitive man from those parts, as Muffin Face unabashedly saw himself.

Perhaps he drew upon that self-image when the thought crossed his mind that he had a loaded gun and could end the argument immediately, a notion which he quickly dismissed as excessive.  If their upbringings had been reversed, however, and the downtrodden Lenny had been familiar with the Southwest version of jacks, he would likely have been the one with ownership of the gun and the tale might end here.  Lenny had an indomitable will and a lust for ego that might have been enough to overpower the serenity of the Shed, a confrontation which, thankfully, never came to fruition.

Each man looked at the other incredulously, wide-eyed and slack jawed, clearly disgusted by the other's interpretation of the game and exclaimed in unison, "AIN'T NO JACKS!!"

The ruckus disturbed Gram Ana, the widowed caretaker of the sacred Crescent Moon property.  As if it weren't enough that her twelve cats insisted on being in contact with her body when she slept, condemning her to a stationary sleep that vibrated with midnight feline energy, now she was going to have her silence disturbed by a couple of knuckleheads?!?

She launched herself out of bed by grabbing a suspended harness that dangled just within arms’ reach.  This was a method she'd had to perfect so as not to disturb the sleeping animals. Once she was out of bed and turned back towards the scene that she had left behind, she saw her body shape outlined in a perfect figure of tails and fur and whiskers and it was always marvelous to her no matter how many times she witnessed it.  She supposed that maybe it wasn't so bad to have them all around and wondered if that was why she had taken the precautions not to wake them in the first place. 

All the while, the shouts and clatter were seeping out of the numerous nooks in the Shed and disrupting the rhythm that the crickets and wind had spent the twilight hours establishing. Ana knew that too much disturbance would make for a misty morning and it was very important that she have a clear view of the Western sky on the morrow, for reasons which no one neither knew nor doubted. Yanking the Shed door open with a ferocity that belied her age, she had both punks by their ears before the first cat even noticed that Ana had departed.  With one deft move, employing a learned dexterity from her time with her feline troupe, Gram Ana had both ruffians silenced and spread out on their bellies.

Muffin Face's nose hovered just hairs above the Earth while Lenny's proboscis penetrated the crust and alarmed the nightcrawlers, reminding them of stories they'd heard their grandparents tell about those who were snatched up in the dead of night, headed for the insufferable cruelty of the “Hükenchomp". Nightcrawler grandparents, who had amazingly survived long enough to become so, felt no responsibility towards discretion while educating the youth about the horrors that could possibly await them.  They still believed, as Lenny did, that fear was a powerful motivator.  And so it was that Lenny's nose smelled all these happenings and passed along its insights to the electric boss in his head, where synaptic firings were rapidly translated and disseminated to his mouth in a medium which let Muffin Face Runtip know that Lenny was relinquishing his claim on the spade and letting Muffin, so to speak, off the hook. 

It may appear that neither man had the upper hand at this juncture, and so is foolish to say that one could be in a position to let the other off the hook. But a nose in the dirt, even for a split second, can tell a man a lot about what lies beneath his own surface. With his beak mimicking the role of the tool he so desperately craved, Greensquash experienced a tiny olfactory piece of true association and understanding, a frightening experience for someone used to being drunk on the noxious perfumes of power and pretension.  It surprised him and empowered him.

Freed from Gram Ana’s grip when she realized his concession had ended the dispute, Lenny leaped to his feet, dropped his jacks, and stomped them into the ground where he'd come face to Earth with some enlightening inhalations.

The jacks, interestingly enough, put the final touches on the modern living space that the sophisticated 21st century worm had admired in the quarterly Better Homes in Gardens.  He would have had to save up his meager salary for months just to make a down payment on one piece, and here were five at once, seemingly a gift from the heavens above.

The bouncing ball found its way to Lenny's pocket, becoming a satellite of Lenny as he habitually shifted it from one pocket to the other, first in front of him, then behind his back.

Lenny found his way home with the help of the light reflected from both the moon and his stellar revelations brewing within.  Sometimes, he would put his nose back in the dirt on his own, hoping for, but never expecting, some other remarkable insight.

The spade found its way to Mickey "Muffin Face” Runtip's devoted grip to serve as an instrument whereby Mickey could demonstrate the compassion he felt within.

Muffin Face found his own way under Gram Ana’s tutelage, learning how to use the tool to encourage cherry tomatoes that tasted like sun and stimulate cucumbers that cooled the soul. 

Gram Ana found her way back to bed, where the cat that had been alerted of her absence had been wise enough to not inform the others, feeling it wasn’t worth interrupting his brothers' and sisters’ slumbers.

Rewarded for its patience, the cat found his way to Gram, who had returned to the position that was still outlined for her, miraculously undetected by the eleven others. The lone conscious cat curled up in the enviable post atop her chest, a position that only became available in the very deep night, purring deeply and preparing for dreams to be shared with the woman.

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Author's note:  I challenged myself to write a story based on an anagram of a person that I knew, circa 2008.  This is what came out.