The Madness of Jake Caulder chapter 8

Chapter 8

Summer 1994

​Middletown, Ohio is a town of about 50000, give or take. It is located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern section of the state, and is home to a wide variety of businesses and industries.

​It has the distinction of having been chosen for the All-American City Award, a prestigious honor to a city’s citizens working together, identifying and taking on community-wide challenges and managing to overcome them.

​It was just outside Middletown that Jake and his mother lived on a small property. The time was early July,1994.

​“Jakie, come in for dinner before it gets cold.”

​“Okay mom I’ll be there in a minute.”

​Jake Alexander Caulder, or Jakie as his mom affectionately liked to call him, was ten years old and on summer holidays. Even from an early age, Jake didn’t talk much and never made any friends at school. He was a loner even in childhood.

​He looked down at the small bird with the broken wing. He hadn’t meant to hurt the bird, merely catch it and look at it. However, when he found the nest with the bird in it waiting for food, in his excitement, he had grabbed it a little too quickly and torn the wing almost from the body, so that it hung on with no more than a feather or two holding it limply in place.

​The bird cried a heart-wrenching cry, its pain obvious. A tear came to Jakie’s eye as he poked the bird, thinking that this could fix the damage already done.

​“You shouldn’t have struggled. All I wanted to do was play." He started to cry. 

Then, as if someone had thrown a light switch, Jakie’s mood seemed to turn dark and ugly.

“You’re a stupid, little bird. All I wanted to do was play with you, but you just had to go and move and hurt yourself. Now mommy is going to be mad and beat me. I hate you. I’ll show you” and with that, hegrabbed the bird, snapping its neck.

​He held the limp body in his hands for what seemed like an eternity. A tear formed at the corner of his eye, but he absently wiped it away. He threw the bird into the nearby creek, wiped his hands on his coveralls, and ran to the house for dinner. By the time he had finished eating, he had all but forgotten about the small bird.