University of Northern Iowa

JackAuthor(s): Nathaniel ScottSource: The North American Review, Vol. 288, No. 3/4, Annual Summer Fiction Double Issue(May - Aug., 2003), p. 53Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25126996 .

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N A R

NATHANIEL SCOTT

Jack

I never saw him with a girl named Jill. Giant beanstalks weren't really his thing. But every summer my uncle would haul

His shiny blue speedboat up to the lake

And laugh at our skinny little asses

Skipping across the water, smooth as stones.

He wasn't nimble. Wasn't quick.

Only once did he come nipping at my nose.

But after dinner, out in the yard, He could sure make a whiffile-ball dance

And there wasn't a kid on the block

Who could handle his high hard heat.

He split the rent with Mr. Daniels.

Shared the stage with Jumpin' Flash. He had his boxes, his hammers

And his cold steely knives. He had a knack for all trades,

Triple cherries, twenty-one.

So when the cancer finally caught him Out there on his Harley, his silver hair

Shining under the Motor City moon, I like to think he smiled politely, Lit his last cigarette, and said

Damn, you don't know Jack.

BETH SIMON

"Eight Years Probation, Ten Days In Jail"

?overheard at a penalty hearing

Let's say this is the start. Not do-overs, all?e in frees, not a second chance, a rebirth, a first day of the rest of your life,

a new beginning. This is the beginning. Sincerity, summer school, out the window.

The promise to stop writing bad checks? Forget it, and furthermore that business of regaining trust is irrelevant.

There is no revelation, sudden and blinding, that the glass in hand is, after all, half full. There is no after all

and there is no need. This is dawn. Not one thing has been permanently named.

Pocket change is pure silver and countless.

No one has been introduced.

You don't calculate. You go.

You do. You are god. Seduction

is without dimension. Flight is glide, steering, stars and stars are for the taking. Moon is a knife, a cut,

a curve, but not like a cheese or a child found safe. No mirror. No hunger. Everything tastes good. Dig in.

May-August 2003 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 53

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