Bed-time Story for Children

By Jack Loudermilk

Once upon a time, a little boy named Jackie moved to the big city of Atlanta with his mommy and daddy. The year was 1955. In those days, it was still safe for children to play in the streets unless their parents disapproved.

Jackie was very young so his mommy made him stay on the sidewalk. Jackie’s parents had rented a small, converted upstairs apartment in a big house between Georgia Tech and Coca-Cola, so it was hard for Jackie’s mommy to watch him all the time.

Once, Jackie disobeyed his mommy and was caught playing in the street. When his mommy caught him, she was so angry that she uprooted a nearby stop sign with her massive mommy-strength and beat Jackie until blood flowed from his ears. Then she threw the stop sign at a motorist who had stopped to complain about the way she was beating Jackie.

After the motorist sped away and Jackie's mommy went back into the house, Jackie crawled from the hot sidewalk onto the cool grass and fainted. A few minutes later, the neighbor's dog found Jackie and pulled him to a cooler spot under the front porch. By the time Jackie woke up, the dog had licked away most of the blood and was chewing on Jackie's left arm. Jackie screamed and the dog ran away.

Surprisingly, Jackie survived his first few years and was eventually old enough to go to Kindergarten at a place called Lucky Street Elementary. Jackie was anxious to play on a real-dirt playground with other children. He wanted to hurl real dirt in their eyes, as he had always dreamed of doing to his mommy.

Jackie was adjusting well to Kindergarten and living in Atlanta. There were so many things to see and everything looked enormous to Jackie. He was happy when his mommy and daddy took him to eat at the fancy fast-food restaurants nearby. His favorites were the "Yellow Jacket" and the "Varsity" because the girls who worked there all wore roller skates when they carried food trays to the car. He told his mommy that he wanted roller skates, too.

Jackie saw his first movie at the Fox Theatre. It was amazing because the inside looked like the outside of a castle at night. There were little lights on the ceiling and, when they dimmed the main lights to start a movie, the ceiling looked like the night sky.

Coca-Cola eventually bought the house where Jackie lived so they could expand their parking lot. From that point on, Jackie and his family bounced around the suburbs before settling into their own house in Doraville, Georgia. Although it was only 25 miles from the new Coca-Cola parking lot, it felt much further. Doraville was country.

Jackie did not like Doraville at first. All of the kids in the neighborhood were dirty little rednecks. Jackie was afraid of becoming just like them.

Time continued ticking and, in 1974, Jackie joined the Army. When he arrived at Fort Jackson, S.C., for basic training, he was shy because he had picked up the accent and habits of his childhood friends. However, one day Jackie overheard some of the other soldiers talking and it made him happy. The other soldiers were dirty little rednecks themselves.

Jackie rarely talked but he proved to be a good soldier and volunteered to go overseas and kill people who looked and sounded different from Americans; and who had a lot of corn and oil.

Jackie soon discovered that he enjoyed killing. He loved it so much that he stayed in the Army and became a professional killer. His officers were proud of him because of his willingness to take on difficult assignments. Jackie was sent on missions in East Europe, North Asia, the Middle East, and a few very secret assignments in the good-ole’ USofA.

One day, Jackie went to northern Alaska to track down Russian soldiers sneaking across the ice from Siberia. Unfortunately, no one had told local natives of Jackie's mission and Eskimo Scouts soon captured him. Jackie was very unhappy as a prisoner so he killed the Eskimos and disappeared into the night. Now Jackie could never again go home because even Eskimos are Americans. He had to run to avoid facing a firing squad.

Jackie's mommy and daddy do not know what happened to Jackie. They do not know what he did. They do not know much at all. Nevertheless, according to Eskimo legend, Jackie still creeps through the night, killing dirty little Eskimo boys who play in the street and who enjoy Coca-cola. He kills their dogs too.

Some people say that Jackie is a maniac, but others believe he kills 'just for the taste of it.'