Fiction: The Story of One-Eyed Jack
Being a kid, you can get away with a lot of shenanigans. Such was the case as I filled the metal hopper to the brim with the luscious yellow custard that oozed out of the opened can. I jammed the fresh donut on the spigot and pumped away, filling that treasure so full it was ready to burst, which it did as I opened my mouth as wide as possible to take a bite. Thick custard rolled down my chin, where I dabbed at it with my left forefinger, wiping up and then down into my mouth. That combined with the smell of fresh baked bread was a kid’s heaven.
Such was my state back in July of 1962, when the bakery bell rang, signaling a new customer entering through the thick wooden door. Up to the counter shuffled an old man, hump-backed, with a head of hair almost indistinguishable from his full beard. In the middle of that mop was a large-angry looking black eyepatch covering half his visible face.
I approached the counter, wiping down my slippery chin as I came forward to ask the old man what I could get for him.
Bread was his need, a donut his desire. I fetched two loaves from the wire shelving and, not having encountered him in town previously, I asked his name as I scooped up a nice full jelly donut from the glass case.
He one-eyed me warily and told me he was Jack, Jack Chase.
“Hello, Mr. Chase, and where do you hail from?” Other than up the Copper River, I meant, and he understood I was looking for history, not his present location. He was obviously from way out of town, somewhere past the Copper Delta, probably near the Kennicott Mine area of the Wrangells. That was where most of the old timers panned for a meager pouch of nuggets.
“I was from back East, a town called Dale in Western NY”, he said. “Not a place anyone knows.”
As he said this I thought maybe he was going to spit a ball of snuff on our wooden floor, as he was chawing pretty hard on something other than that jelly donut. But he held back.
As he gingerly put his prized baked goods in his worn leather backpack, I was cognizant of the visual I must have presented to him… I still hadn’t cleared my shiny chin of that run of custard. I carefully swiped again at my face as he handed me his $2 in cash and turned to leave.
“I know Dale,” I said to his back as he reached for the brass doorknob. “I had a great-great-grandfather who homesteaded there, purchasing land from the Holland Land Company .” His last name was Chase too!”
I was sure anxious to hear more about the old geezer, but he turned that knob, walked through the door and down the long dark corridor to the packed dirt street, turned left, and disappeared without so much as a look back or reaction to my revelation.
It was almost two years after, to the day, when I returned to my hometown in NY. where I was able to talk to my beloved grandfather about his days as a merchant marine in WWI. Eventually I came around to asking about a Jack Chase from Dale who lived in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere outside of Cordova.
“Did you ever know a Jack Chase from Dale?” I asked him. “Might he have been a relative?”
“Hmmm,” he mused. “I do remember an uncle by that name. I met him when I was a young 18, just before I left for the Great War in 1918. All I can remember was that he was an old guy then, must have been pushing 80, and everyone in the family all called him “One-Eyed-Jack”. We always wondered where he ended up!
Such was my state back in July of 1962, when the bakery bell rang, signaling a new customer entering through the thick wooden door. Up to the counter shuffled an old man, hump-backed, with a head of hair almost indistinguishable from his full beard. In the middle of that mop was a large-angry looking black eyepatch covering half his visible face.
I approached the counter, wiping down my slippery chin as I came forward to ask the old man what I could get for him.
Bread was his need, a donut his desire. I fetched two loaves from the wire shelving and, not having encountered him in town previously, I asked his name as I scooped up a nice full jelly donut from the glass case.
He one-eyed me warily and told me he was Jack, Jack Chase.
“Hello, Mr. Chase, and where do you hail from?” Other than up the Copper River, I meant, and he understood I was looking for history, not his present location. He was obviously from way out of town, somewhere past the Copper Delta, probably near the Kennicott Mine area of the Wrangells. That was where most of the old timers panned for a meager pouch of nuggets.
“I was from back East, a town called Dale in Western NY”, he said. “Not a place anyone knows.”
As he said this I thought maybe he was going to spit a ball of snuff on our wooden floor, as he was chawing pretty hard on something other than that jelly donut. But he held back.
As he gingerly put his prized baked goods in his worn leather backpack, I was cognizant of the visual I must have presented to him… I still hadn’t cleared my shiny chin of that run of custard. I carefully swiped again at my face as he handed me his $2 in cash and turned to leave.
“I know Dale,” I said to his back as he reached for the brass doorknob. “I had a great-great-grandfather who homesteaded there, purchasing land from the Holland Land Company .” His last name was Chase too!”
I was sure anxious to hear more about the old geezer, but he turned that knob, walked through the door and down the long dark corridor to the packed dirt street, turned left, and disappeared without so much as a look back or reaction to my revelation.
It was almost two years after, to the day, when I returned to my hometown in NY. where I was able to talk to my beloved grandfather about his days as a merchant marine in WWI. Eventually I came around to asking about a Jack Chase from Dale who lived in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere outside of Cordova.
“Did you ever know a Jack Chase from Dale?” I asked him. “Might he have been a relative?”
“Hmmm,” he mused. “I do remember an uncle by that name. I met him when I was a young 18, just before I left for the Great War in 1918. All I can remember was that he was an old guy then, must have been pushing 80, and everyone in the family all called him “One-Eyed-Jack”. We always wondered where he ended up!