Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“When are we getting to ‘A Song for the Lonely’?”
“Patience, power top…patience…I have a very good feeling about this road trip.”
I DJ for a few songs, singing at the top of my lungs…basically serenading Jackson. He keeps glancing at me like he’s trying to figure me out. But he laughs and smiles a lot too, and when I seem to shake his mood a bit, I turn down the volume.
“Was everything okay last night at work?” I ask.
“What? Yes. Why?”
“You seem…off. Don’t worry, Daddy. You can be weak and vulnerable with me, and you can still top. I would never make you bottom.”
I earn another laugh. I wait as his serious expression returns, and he says, “It was a rough night at work.”
This is usually when I would step in and make a play off his use of rough, but I hold back because I won’t interrupt him potentially sharing something very serious with me. Normally, that’s totally what I’d do, but I don’t imagine Jackson is the type of guy who talks to a lot of people—who really opens up. And I know what that’s like, and it can be nice to have someone to talk to.
“Sometimes, in my line of work,” he continues, “shit gets real. What do you think the most tragic thing a paramedic could experience is?”
“Someone dying on your watch?”
“That’s a good answer. And it’s horrible and tragic and fucked up. But you wanna know what’s worse? Having to see the person who just lost someone they love. Last night, I watched a woman lose her husband, and it shook me to my core. Every time I see something like that, I think of what I’d be like if something ever happened to Zane or Steph. How hard that moment would be. It’s unbearable even thinking about it, and if it happens, I honestly don’t know how I would bear it.”
His words strike a chord with me. Remind me of my fears—my worries about Uncle Randy.
Because it’s something I know is coming—something that’s concerned me since even before he was diagnosed. That one day I’ll have to let him go, and I’ll be left grieving the only person who was there for me when I needed someone most.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I didn’t actually lose anyone. I was just witnessing it, so I have to admit that I’m pretty fucking lucky to still have the people I love in my life.”
“They’re lucky to have someone who cares about them so much,” I say, reflecting on my family. I feel like there are so many kids that if something happened, they’d hold a funeral out of obligation more than anything else. “I guess you have to watch that kind of stuff a lot with what you do.”
He nods. “You think you’d get used to it after a while, but at least with me, I never do. Sometimes, you get lucky and save someone’s life. Sometimes, you lose people.”
“Why do it then? If you know you’re going to have to see that again and again, and then to keep going through that trauma?”
It’s not that I don’t think he should be doing his job. I’m genuinely curious because something obviously drew him to this career to begin with.
“Because of those times where I’m lucky and I can do something. The times when things do work out. At least, I know I can do something to help someone.”
And here it is. I might have just discovered one of the things about Jackson that I can’t wrap my thoughts around—something that separates him from a lot of the guys I’ve met over the years. So many of them fought their way through school and jobs to get to some high paying career…for the sake of money. It’s rare to meet someone who actually wants to help people.
It’s something I really admire. Something that makes Jackson so much more than this hot daddy who’s sitting beside me.
“Anyway,” he says, twisting the radio knob again. “I think I might need one of those happy-go-lucky pop songs you like right about now.”
“Coming right up.”
I keep DJing, shifting the conversation to gossip about a few of my clients. Funny stories that’ll make Jackson laugh. I think, between talking to me about some of the shit he experiences in his line of work, the stories about my clients, and this ridiculously happy music, he’s starting to shake some of the tension from last night, and I’m happy I could help.
When we arrive at Panola Mountain, we grab Jackson’s bags out of his car and carry them along a trail. He leads me to a spot he says he’s climbed several times before. At the top of a rock, he sets up what he calls a top rope anchor, throwing some rope down the side of the rock when he’s done. Then we hike to the base.