The Things I Know

THE THINGS I KNOW

Welcome. I’m glad you could stop by. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m your host or, as they say in literary circles, the narrator. Unfortunately, I can present no proper name where I have the privilege of capitalizing the first letter. You can just call me ‘narrator’, which will serve. I have thousands and thousands of stories to tell from all genres. Each one I have studied thoroughly and have familiarized myself of all the details. And at times, I must respectfully admit, I know more than I tell. All these stories I happily share with anyone that takes the time to pick up a book. This particular story of Mr. Jack the janitor will be brief and will be told with a certain amount of sadness, and reluctance. You see, this is a story of someone that loved books, so, we spent much time together. I know you, and everyone else for that matter, think of the narrator as an impersonal unemotional voice, but this is not true. We narrators rarely, very rarely, show our personal side, but, we do have feelings and in this case, I must say, Mr. Jack had become a close friend. He opened a book so often to visit me that I come to know him well.

Day before yesterday, February eighth nineteen-seventy-six, the spark of life left the body of Mr. Jack the janitor. He was only fifty-six. Burial followed the chapel service. There were only a few attendees. Principal Myers was there, of course, along with a couple of teachers and the four students Mr. Jack had taken an interest in. Or was it the other way around and they had taken an interest in Mr. Jack? That is a little issue that I must explore farther. I didn’t realize I had missed it. Omitting a fact is a rarity for narrators, but, you understand, I’ve been a bit upset since I got the news… Mr. Jack’s landlady and her sister also attended the service along with three alumni from Harrison High School. Bill Shackleford graduated thirteen years ago and is now editor of the local newspaper. Dr. Tim Dixon graduated ten years ago and works as a research scientist for National Laboratories. Larry Freese, owner of the Ford dealership, graduated fifteen years ago. All had known Mr. Jack and were part of the privileged few that had learned from the stories he told. Now, Mr. Jack the janitor will visit me no more, and I will miss that, so, in a way, this is the end… I can, however, tell you a little of his life although he wasn’t a very interesting person, a bit of a recluse really. His life wasn’t one of drama or adventure, kind of boring actually. But, Jack was my friend, so I’ll tell you his story. It’s the least I can do for a friend, and telling stories is what I do.

I’m not going back to Jack’s childhood except to say he was an active and bright kid with lots of friends. After high school, he began work as a draftsman apprentice for a manufacturer of automobile parts. The foreman said he was a hard worker, quick to learn and would go far in the company. With a steady income and a bright future, he married Kathleen Dodson in May of nineteen-thirty-nine. He was nineteen and she was eighteen. Like everyone in those days, they were concerned about the threatening and escalating war. In September of nineteen-forty Jack was drafted into the army and Kathleen was three months pregnant.

Jack was sent to England then to France in an effort to push back the advancing German army. It was March the twenty-sixth when his commanding officer brought the news. Kathleen had died giving birth but his son was doing well and being cared for by Kathleen’s sister. Captain Hollis explained orders from the high command that terminated all leave, even for such tragic event. Jack wrote letter after letter but return mail was extremely slow getting to the front lines. On April twenty-fifth a bloody battle claimed most of his unit and the survivor became prisoners of war.

The captives were taken to a terminal and stuffed into closed rail cars with many others. They rode for two days without food, water or sanitation. Arriving at a prison camp in northeast Germany, they were unloaded like cattle. Sixteen soldiers were found dead. Their bodies were removed from the train cars thrown like feed sacks onto a truck and hauled away. The prisoners were then ordered to put their hands behind their head and were marched into the camp. They were led past a heap of bodies stacked like railroad ties in a train yard. The stench was terrible. Jack’s brain was in shock and incapable of thought or response. He simply stared. Two days later, the bodies were soaked with diesel fuel and set on fire. The German guards laughed and joked as the fire burned and the half-alive prisoners watched. Smell from the fire was sickening and the sound of burning bodies was cold and chilling. It was unlike any sound you have ever heard.

Back in the U.S., Jack’s sister-in-law, his only family, was notified that he was missing in action and presumed dead. Meanwhile, in the German prison camp Jack survived on minimum rations and rarely spoke. His mind had become numb as he watched without emotion or repulsion the atrocities, the inhumanities and the murders of hundreds of men. His flustered brain chronicled everything as a surreal dream, a nightmare from which he could not awake. During this time something started to change inside Jack’s head. Everything he saw, heard or read stayed in his memory. Even months and years later, he could recall every event and every word as if it had just happened. Jack’s mind was deeply disturbed although it never reached the point of complete insanity.

The Nazi forces were defeated and a barely alive Jack was taken to an army hospital near Berlin. Three weeks of good nutrition started the physical healing. However, the curse was he couldn’t forget or blank out the horrors so his brain could begin healing also. Jack was brought home to a veteran’s hospital in Maryland. The doctors worked with him for four months and assumed he was ready for return to a social setting. They know so little about the human brain.

Jack was returned to his home town but failed at the simplest of jobs and was unable to care for himself. The human brain can heal its self to a certain extent, but this is done on the brain’s time table and not the doctors. The mind must analyze, scrutinize, re-analyze, assemble, disassemble, file and re-file all the visions of horrors in an attempt to find an acceptable explanation. If a tolerable result is not reached then the brain must continue the process again and again and again until a bearable key is found. The result is rarely a return to normal, but merely one that puts the mind at rest enough for practical social functions. Jack’s brain still had a lot of work to do.

A doctor at the local clinic made arrangements for Jack to return to the veteran’s hospital in Maryland. After four months, he was transferred to another veteran’s hospital in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. There he spent the next three years. After passable progress, a Veteran Assistants program found him a job as janitor at Harrison High School. Here he was furnished with work uniforms of tan pants and shirts. Above the left shirt pocket, stitched in blue thread, was his name “Jack”. This was the beginning of his twenty-six year career as janitor of Harrison High School. Before long, the students and teachers referred to him as “Mr. Jack”. No one ever thought of inquired about his last name and that was all right, “Mr. Jack” was good enough. Seniors graduated and moved on never to be seen again, for Jack’s world was small, very small. New students coming in became aware of the name “Mr. Jack the janitor” and this cycle continued as year followed year.

Harrison High School was a utopia for Jack. There were books in every classroom; there were shelves and shelves of books in the library. This virtual paradise of books would last a life time. Reading was his passion and an escape for his troubled mind, and he remembered everything.

Students went about their schedules basically ignoring the janitor. Jack returned the favor and ignored the students. A rare few would speak to him politely and with respect and he would respond likewise. Jack would engage in a quiet and limited conversation with these few by saying simple things like, “What do you think of the new history teacher?” or “I’ve read that geography book and can help if you wish.” Jack would gather this small group of three or four and tell stories highlighting the subject at hand, be that, geography, history, algebra, english, geometry and so on. This was Mr. Jack’s only talkative time, and on occasions, his narratives rivaled my own. Facts and figures are far easier learned and remembered when presented in the form of an interesting story. Jack’s stories came from a compilation of books and were interwoven around intrigue and adventure. The one and only talent of Mr. Jack the janitor was his stories told for the benefit of a selected few, and this selected few excelled in their grades. The story telling activity also allowed Jack’s struggling brain to escape the horrible memories of war, so, it was to his benefit as well.

As your narrator, I must remind you at this time that I have stepped away from my normal modus operandi. As I said earlier, I have chosen to merely touch on the key events of the life of Mr. Jack the janitor, and not delve into the details in my effort to be brief. But, in the future, I may present a full and detailed biography, if there is enough interest, of which I seriously doubt.

Earlier today, at the funeral service, the three alumni that had befriended Mr. Jack the janitor during their high school years approached the coffin. Random memories floated through their mind as they looked at Mr. Jack in reverend respect. One bewildered man backed away and sat down on the front pew of the chapel. His mind raced as he tried to make sense out of what he had just seen. He dropped his head and covered his face with both hands. After a moment, Dr. Timothy E. Dixon stood a returned to the coffin. He looked hard at Jack and could see a slight familiarity in the bone structure and facial features. He then looked to the sign near the head of the coffin that read – JACK EDWARD DIXON Aug. 1920- Feb. 1976. Timothy Edward Dixon looked back at the face of his father as a tear formed in the corner of each eye and dropped to his cheek.

During Timothy’s high school years, did the disturbed mind of Mr. Jack recognize the fact that this was his son?

I’m just your humble and grieving narrator and I know the answer. However, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t always tell all, but, yes, I know. Oh, the things I know.





The End