The Ill-Advised Adventures
of Jim-Jam O’Neily

by Channie Greenberg

Table of Contents

© Erika Cleveland Click here to enlarge the image.

Chapter One: Ralph’s Blemish

Ralph had a spot. His unhappiness had grown at the tip of his toboggan-rider proboscis, that is, on his nose. That red and sometimes pus-filled dot drove Ralph to seek the less than best intentions of his cousin, Jim-Jam The-One-and-Only Ariel O’Neily.

Jim-Jam, who was known to be savvy in the fixing of busted trombones, perms gone crazy, and math tests with scores well below the Antarctic, was busy wiring an umbrella to a discarded personal computer when Ralph ducked into Jim-Jam’s Make-It-or-Break-It-That-Will-be-Fifty-Dollars-an-Hour-to-You-Mister workshop.

Ralph smiled, almost, his pale lips morphing like those of a camel that was confused as to whether it was sitting down or rising up; the rims around his mouth half hunched this way and half slumped that way. Ralph noticed the shelf behind Jim-Jam’s head. On that pine board, the one supported by cement castings, by a broken baseball bat, by odd atlases, by a dented pot and by a dead lizard, Jim-Jam had perched an elephant tusk, a large globe formed from rubber bands, a trumpet’s bell, the better part of a dirt bike, a map of a subterranean railroad, and a days-old sandwich.

Directly over young Master O’Neily’s noggin, a crane, derived from coat hangers, clothespins (the type with springs), part of a deck of cards, a bit of chewing gum, and a child’s bow and arrow set, supported the heft of a raccoon’s skull and a paper mâché dormouse. Beneath the paper dormouse, hung a spider web, the most perplexing architecture in Jim-Jam’s entire whimsical domain.

Brushing away the sandy-colored hair which ebbed over the craggy precipice of his nose, Ralph cleared his throat. Once more, he glanced at Jim-Jam’s habitat. A gyroscope sat next to a metal folder, which rested atop a calculus book. A ninth grade grammar book, already covered in some green sort of slimy, gooey stuff, which invited touch, sat next to the numbers text. A folder of French verbs and a small Russian-German-English dictionary sat by Jim-Jam’s feet. A kitten of questionable lineage batted at the aging sandwich and a dragonfly hovered, fleetingly, over the language lessons.

Yet, Jim-Jam The-One-and-Only Ariel O’Neily noticed neither the fauna nor his homework, so intent was he upon matching the ends of some plastic-coated runners to a large battery and to a stepper motor. He adjusted the angle of the umbrella propitiously and banged on the small computer.

Ralph cleared his throat again. “Got a problem,” he offered as his means of greeting his cousin.

Jim-Jam lifted one silt-filled eye up at Ralph. “Pass that dodad,” he muttered, motioning in an unseen direction.

Ralph turned and looked behind himself in the direction indicated. Exhaling rancid mayonnaise poorly disguised by cinnamon breath mints, Ralph shrugged. Behind Ralph towered pieces of a sink, actually pieces of many sinks, of many dishwashers, of washing machines and of clothes dryers, of ranges, of refrigerators, of carburetors, of percolators and of toasters and of what originally might have lived as a flat iron. “Huh” grunted Ralph. “Jim-Jam, I came here to talk to you about a problem. Scooter said you could help me.”

“Over there,” gestured the seated young one whom had begun to fidget with his magnifying monocle, “behind the six-gauge socket, past the wrench, wedged by the bird bath. Or maybe it’s over here, beyond the turtle shell, over the tin whistle. Is his hair still blue? I told Scooter I was sorry. Are you here for me to fix your toe shoes?”

Raymond Charles High School’s bb-shooting titleholder, aka Ralph, shrugged. He understood sporty guns, bowling, and cross-country running. He was the school’s star baton passer and its best discus thrower. He was also a ballerino, practicing every Tuesday at Miss Kay’s School for Dance and Drama, but only Ralph’s sister, Marina, whom had been sworn to secrecy, at great risk to her hamster’s life, was supposed to know.

Ralph, who could torpedo not only an iron ball of considerable weight, but who also could make ballast out of unwanted woodchucks, squirrels, and kindred pests, had no inkling about the disparity between a flat-head screwdriver and a Phillips. He was not interested in gradations of sandpaper, nor did he care much about the sound a disc drive made when it was “happy.” Ralph cared about his spot. He frowned as he watched Jim-Jam again adjust the center ball spring on the umbrella.

* * *

As the french-fry foreman at Deli Deluxe, it was impossible for Ralph to have a blemish. Just the other day, Mac and Doris, the Giskin twins, had hassled him about that facial mark. They had asked Ralph if the spot had been emboldened by the ketchup or by the chutney.

In answer, Ralph had exhaled so deeply that the wee bits of stubble, the dark briars that perched on the otherwise sandy beach of Ralph’s face, had almost popped off into the twins’ sandwiches. Ralph’s eyes, simultaneously, had erupted like a self-contained experiment of Jim-Jam’s gone bad; lots of smoke, but no conflagration. Ralph had pressed Deli Deluxe’s busboy into service and had slipped outside of the eatery to look up into the trees. He wondered why he had never accepted Henry P. Smith’s invitation to take up smoking.

The next day, at Raymond Charles, Ralph’s situation deteriorated. Ralph’s spot had gained the attention not only of the Giskin twins, but also of Lynnie Lola. To Lynnie Lola’s consternation, Ralph’s spot had become more interesting, to the greater part of the student body, than Lynnie Lola’s manner of dress.

Lynnie Lola was Raymond Charles High School’s fashion queen. All of the girls took notes, literally, on their poodle or frog-decorated journalist pads, whenever Missy L. L. wore something new. A week to a month following the creation of such meticulous notes, depending on each of those teen communicator’s individual ability to wheedle and whine, those fledgling fashion reporters arrived at school wearing the same thing as had Missy L. L. Meanwhile, Lynnie Lola had moved on to some other high fashion, thus effecting, to Missy Lynnie’s pleasure, the perpetuation of the cycle.

Lynnie had arrived, that morning, to Raymond Charles High School, decked in a sweater and a simple skirt. On her head, however, she sported the most impracticable leopard-print headband, which, in turn, was adorned with a few inches of pink ribbon, the type used for wrapping birthday presents for five-year olds. Such a sensation was rare even from Lynnie’s closet.

The girls oohed and aahed but then turned to Ralph. Their school’s honky-tonk king of the plastic pins, sharp shooter of three-holed balls and elsewise self-pronounced shark of the bowling alley had a bright red dot beaming on the tip of his face. Quickly, the girls swung out their reporter books to make notes.

Missy Lynnie Lola tapped her foot, impatient for her customary deference. She coughed. She made monkey faces. None of her tricks were to any avail. Some of the girls were even drawing Ralph in profile, his great sandy-colored brows appearing like two vast swathes of wire wool, projected over the cliff of his nose, on whose edge perched the most remarkable of anomalies.

Then Missy L. L. strode directly up to Ralph and whispered into his ear: “You idiot in a tutu. If you do not get rid of that spot, I will tell everyone what you do at Miss Kay’s.”

Although there was neither tulle nor lace in Ralph’s existence (male ballerinas train in the likes of gym pants and t-shirts), Ralph’s downy cheeks blazed the color of his blemish. That afternoon, he planned to murder a hamster.

In the meantime, he had to stifle that exceptional public speaker, Lynnie Lola. “Free fries if you shut up till tomorrow,” forfeited Ralph.

A small, coldblooded smile, accentuated by her braces and reflected by Lynnie’s thick glasses, covered the fashion queen’s face. “Just till tomorrow,” she shrilled.

A few buttons punched on a momentarily silent cell phone sent Mac and Doris the directive to take Lynnie Lola to Deli Deluxe after school. They owed Ralph for a chocolate and for a strawberry milkshake, respectively.

* * *

The threat of making the world’s tiniest mittens from hamster fur, during Ralph’s quick, not so hushed, call to his sister, found him directed to Jim-Jam’s workshop. Marina, in consultation with her boyfriend, Scooter, had suggested that The-One-and-Only O’Neily, first cousin to Ralph and Marina, might be able to help reduce Ralph’s cherry-colored glow. Ralph thought that vivisecting a small rodent would better ease his pain.

Nonetheless, it was in that place of mop handles and snails, of modified keyboards and recycled plastic wrap that Ralph found himself answering Jim-Jam, saying, “I don’t know about Scooter’s blue, it’s this red that worries me.” Ralph ignored the ballet reference and directed his index finger to his nose.

“Can’t see the contrast between a hazel nut and a deadbolt,” reprimanded Jim-Jam. He looked up at the wide-pawed athlete, sighed and shook his head. His cronies were such babies. Just a year ago, Lynnie Lola Jones had been a gawky new kid. A session or two with Doctor Jim-Jam, Expert Social Director, had recast her into popularity, changing her rank forever on the school’s register.

* * *

Six or seven months after Jim-Jam had settled the Jones case, the twins, Mac and Doris, had stooped under Jim-Jam’s crab shell, bird nest and dried leaves mantel. Those siblings had been sufficiently worried about their parents’ threat to ground them for disrupting familial peace that they had come to Jim-Jam’s shack with all manner of offerings, including: chocolate, an unbroken moth cocoon, a ticket to the Raymond Charles intramural basketball playoffs, and a wad of money.

Jim-Jam relieved them of the chocolate, the cocoon, and the money in trade for his referring them to a local boxing studio and for his supplying them with a table etiquette videotape, which highlighted the proper use of fish forks. Satisfied that he had lucratively reset Mac and Doris’ equilibrium, Jim-Jam further offered to rent his services to each of them, for a mere twenty dollars a day, going forward into the unknown future.

Weeks after the twins had pilfered from their mother’s two purses and from their father’s wallet, Jim-Jam was visited by Scooter. That punk-faced ferret of a boy sought romance, scholarship, and a page or two of excuses that could mollify his parents when he was out past curfew.

Jim-Jam did not believe in mixing it up on the wrong side of house rules, nor did Mr. Problems-Solved-in-Exchange-for-Most-of-Your-Bank-Account know any way to prosper in school other than studying. However, Jim-Jam did know a ninth grader, Marina Dupas, who was his cousin. He urged Scooter to romance her and to help her fortify her hamster’s cage.

In the wake of those successes, short of the incident involving Scooter’s blue hair, Jim-Jam built up a reputation for doctoring relationships. He likewise began to advertise his availability for tutoring Civics and Biology.

* * *

But pimples! Spots were as natural as freckles and moles, as nose and ear hair, as fingers and as toes. Jim-Jam sized up Ralph of the clean-except-for-the-dried-blood-beneath-the-nails cavaliers. He asked his cousin whether or not the blood was mammalian, given its hue.

The shaggy-haired, heavy-lidded teen before him, son of his father’s brother, teen best renowned for his competence at the deli grill and on the football gridiron, was easily worth twenty or thirty dollars. “For forty-five dollars,” intoned Jim-Jam as he opened the door beneath his table’s surface and pulled out a small, velvet box, “your spot will become difficult to see.”

Ralph, hot-dogging burrito buster, frowned as he calculated hours and wages. He had passed Algebra One and had a good shot at passing Algebra Two. In Ralph’s mind, the hamster fur mittens had already been lined with cotton and wrapped as a Mother’s Day gift. Marina’s big brother smacked a fifty dollar bill onto Jim-Jam’s table, temporarily unsettling pink and blue puffs of an unknown, effervescent substance. He sighed.

Jim-Jam held the bill up to the light, turned it and then held it up again. Nodding, Ralph’s redeemer folded the money into an origami sort of bird and placed the bird on the shelf below the ledge bearing the elephant tusk.

For a moment, the gape, which had been Ralph’s mouth, rivaled, as a natural marvel, the red spot at the end of Ralph’s nose. Quickly, Ralph pressed his lips back together as he took in the magnitude of goats, sheep, cows, and horses, which were made of the same stuff as the newly folded bantam. There was easily hundreds of dollars sitting on his cousin’s ledge, all disguised as farm animals.

Jim-Jam opened the velvet box. He reached in and removed a tiny, stamp collector-sized, opaque envelope. “Apply this over your nose, and Lynnie Lola will leave you alone. Also, don’t skin the hamster. His name is Family Boy and Lynnie Lola’s younger brother’s best third grade buddy owns his mother, Zu-Zu.”

Again, a wide hole appeared on Ralph’s face.

Jim-Jam shooed his cousin out, into the yard. The tree under which Jim-Jam’s workshop had been built spit leaves at the sandy-haired track star. Jim-Jam checked his watch, but only after bolting the door. He had two pages of differential equations to complete, a mailbox to repair, and a sonnet of three pages to compose all before dinner.

* * *

Reflexively, Jim-Jam again tilted the umbrella. He twiddled with the top notch and the ferrule. For the briefest of moments, his computer screen glowed anew. Just as abruptly, it darkened. Jim-Jam shrugged and returned to his homework. He had to make it to the kitchen in time for dinner since his mother had threatened to personally disassemble his shack if did not appear at the family table.

In the interim, beyond Jim-Jam’s realm of robin eggs and owl pellets, past the boy genius’ kingdom of topographical maps and broken pieces of European crystal, Ralph bellowed. Upon tearing open the small, nontransparent envelope, Ralph had discovered a band-aid.

Proceed to Chapter 2...

Copyright © 2020 by Channie Greenberg