Pickford estates Chapters 9-11

The Black Angel


The year was 1917 and some famous French guy was called to one of the oldest gravesites in the region to do a sculpture. This French guy was commissioned to the “Old Burying Grounds” to mark the grave of Ruth Ann Dodge, who was the wife of Civil War Vet and engineer of the Transcontinental Railroad, General Grenville M. Dodge.

Story goes is that this French guy who had also done other famous works around the United States, was given strict instructions on how this statue was to be erected. The daughters of Ruth Ann wanted this statue to be in the likeness of the Black Angel their mother saw in three visions shortly before her death.

Apparently Ruth Ann Dodge had 3 visions shortly before her death and she told her daughters about her visions and about how she had been visited by an angel; and that this angel came through the mist in a small boat, baring gifts.

The angel held in her two hands a bowl which carried water, but not just any water, water that would give her everlasting life.

And as thirsty as Ruth Ann was in her first vision she told her daughters that she refused to take a drink and then she shortly woke up. Same thing in her second vision.

But in the third vision Ruth Ann told her daughters that the temptation was too much and she took a drink, and right after waking up to tell her daughters about it, she died.

The sculpture was finished in 1919 and located just outside the entrance of the old Indian burial grounds where it stayed until 1960. Then it mysteriously disappeared.

All sort of rumors were out there. Some people said the Black Angel flew away one night and never came back, I also heard that the Black Angel was destroyed by some towns folk because the Black Angel statue would actually cry real tears and this was somehow the work of the Devil.

Regardless of how it disappeared the fact was that it was gone and nobody knew for sure what really happened. The only thing that anybody could agree on was that in 1917 the statue cost around forty grand, and since this was one of the sculptor’s finest works by his own confession, this piece today could net just as much as the Minute Man in Concord, or the Lincoln Memorial statue in the nation’s capital.

Mrs. Teach believed that the key I held was the key to finding this Black Angel and all its glory. She was convinced that the Black Angel was sort of like the Fountain of Youth and that the owner of the Black Angel would hold the secret to immortality.






Blue Tickets to Paradise


It was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that even if I did find the Black Angel, the immortality thing obviously didn’t pan out. But still I got the sense that more than half the people in that courtroom would’ve killed me twice just for the chance at being immortal.

Bub was even curious enough to ask me, “Did you ever find the Black Angel? At least look for it?”

I couldn’t really look for anything at first. All I had was a golden key that said Ange Noir on it. My search for the Black Angel couldn’t start until I had more pieces to the puzzle and I didn’t get the next piece for quite some time.

I was in 5th grade in Mrs. Pedagogue’s class. By this time Filthy was done with gay porn and transferred from St. Albert to Wilson middle school, my mother and Freddy had gotten a divorce but then remarried, Frankie and I were still best friends, and Raymond fucking Roper the third was head of the school patrol and he was constantly busting my balls for jaywalking.

If I recall it was about halfway through the school year when Mrs. Pedagogue made the announcement, “Attendance, good grades, penmanship! These are all admirable traits that I feel should be rewarded.”

Her plan was to hand out tiny blue tickets to any child who went above and beyond. Then at the end of the month Mrs. Pedagogue would bring in some random item to be auctioned off to the student with the most blue tickets.

Since attendance, good grades, and penmanship were all factors; I figured the only way I would ever get a tiny blue ticket was if I stole one. So that’s what I did, I stole any blue ticket I saw!

Before I knew it I had 210 blue tickets which was twice as many as the Chinese girl Goodie Tu Shoo who was head of student council.

I had so many tickets the other kids in my class started to complain. One kid shouted, “How does Jimmy have all those blue tickets? He carries a D average!”

Then Kurt Curmudgeon piped up, “Yeah! Jimmy also has chicken scratch for handwriting! I hate grading his papers!”

Kurt always complained though, what surprised me was when my own best friend Frankie sold me out, “Don’t forget that Jimmy also missed a few days of school last week and he’s constantly tardy!”

Mrs. Pedagogue jumped to my defense, “Now class Jimmy worked really hard for those blue tickets and he deserves the prize!”

That statement sparked a nationwide phenomenon! This was the first time a teacher had ever been accused of sleeping with one of their students. I guess Brian Scrivener a kid from my class, went home and told his father about the blue ticket incident. Brian’s father who was a news reporter broke the story, “I’m here at Franklin Elementary where apparently one of the 5th grade teachers is having an affair with one of her students!”

I was caught red handed! I had to let people know that my teacher was not giving me blue tickets for sex favors, that in fact I had stolen them.

But with the bad publicity I guess Mrs. Pedagogue felt guilty and gave me the prize anyway. It was a piece of parchment that said, “There is a bird without wings that would chirp and would sing, that is until a cat from the alley clawed pawed and sadly, put that damn bird to sleep!”

Mrs. Pedagogue informed me that if I had any hopes in finding the Black Angel I would have to figure out this riddle. When I asked her about the parchment and where it came from she told me that she found it when she was a kid buried under some rock at Lake Manawa.

So now that I had another piece to the puzzle I could start piecing things together, but like the old saying goes two heads are better than one; and I took my best friend Frankie on as a partner even though he sold me out. Soon after teaming up we began trying to decipher the parchment. We tried to figure it out for at least an hour and came up with nothing!

But what can I say; we didn’t have a License to Drive, we weren’t in Puppy Love, oddly enough neither of us knew a Doctor Jones, we didn’t attend Notre Dame, we didn’t have a Summer Rental, we didn’t have True Grit, and we didn’t live in Perfect Harmony!

In other words we were 5th graders, not the fucking Goonies! With no idea what the parchment meant I just stuck it in an old shoebox with the golden key and shoved it under my bed.

When I told the courtroom that I had put everything into a shoebox, I had to retract my statement because it wasn’t an old shoebox. It was a candy bar box from a fundraiser.





Six Dollar Chocolate Bar

Towards the end of my 5th grade year the school forced the children against their will to sell candy bars for some stupid fundraiser. They didn’t make it easy on us either by charging six bucks a candy bar!

I fucked up and accidentally left my box of chocolates outside and they melted. If it wasn’t for Frankie eating his entire box, I would’ve been in major trouble because I didn’t have $120 dollars and I couldn’t ask my parents for the money because they would’ve charged me interest.

So Frankie and I hashed out a plan, a good one! We decided that we would become the first bookies to open up shop at Franklin Elementary. We would take bets on everything from foot races to spelling bees, but our major money maker was the games of four square we planned. We had a fool proof system.

If it was obvious that a kid should’ve cherry bombed instead of double touched, we would pay him to do the opposite. This worked really well until we went against the grain and took a bet from somebody you never take a bet from; a cop!

Why don’t you take a bet from a cop?

Think about it.

If a cop places a bet and wins, he expects payment immediately and will bust your balls! If a cop places a bet and loses, he doesn’t have to pay and bust your balls!

That lesson was learned when I took Raymond Roper the third’s bet! He immediately started complaining when he lost, “What kind of crap is this? Everybody knew that kid should’ve backstopped and he bubble gummed!”

The next day our hustle was shut down by the principal Ms. Dean, but not before we made enough money to pay back the loan for the candy. Besides getting shut down was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it meant me and Frankie could open up somewheres else.