Jared - Life on Argon Street part 5

Current mood: cranky



Life on Argon Street



Jared



Of all the things that happened in the 18 years of life on Argon...none could compare to that small segment of our lives that were impacted by Jared.

That's why he gets one chapter all to himself. He even outshines John Michael; and considering what HE will do to our famly in the coming years, that's saying something!

Jared lived in the Bates Motel across the street. One of Seven, caught in the middle, he exhibited a lot of the classic symptoms of the middle child. His mom would comment once to me that Jared was still nursing when she got pregnant with Nathan, and she had to force wean Jared from the teat before he was ready.

It explained a lot.

Jared was a troubled child. Already delinquent at a very early age, it was not unheard of for him to hurt small animals and harass other children in the neighborhood. He always struck me as someone looking for love, usually in all the wrong places. I was still young enough myself, that I didn't recognize the warning signs like several of my neighbors that pulled up stakes and moved on. Jared the troubled child would become Jared the teenage terror. I won't go into all the sins of Jared. They're lengthy and get quite boring after a while. To this day I hear new stories from previous neighbors, some more shocking than others, of his past transgressions with some of the other families on Argon. And I wonder...Why the Hell didn't we bring a class action against his parents for everything the little bastard had done? But I digress... Suffice to say that both he and I were well known by the Mesa Police Department. To the point that the operator for the MPD knew my voice and would usually greet me with a cheery "Good Afternoon, Mr. Gervasio...and what has Master Jared done THIS time?".

Why this kid got under my skin the way he did is a mystery even to me.

The constant harassment toward my family on his part, the multiple home invasions/burglaries he commited against us, the constant vulgarities he would use against all the women in my family, whether it was shouted across the street or whispered on the phone in an obscene call. (This was in the very early days of caller ID...which I used to my advantage in contacting his Proby. The calls stopped after that...) Jared was a very lucky young man in several respects. Fortunate that I was still so young myself, and had not gone through as many trials and tribulations as were waiting for me in my future. I still had some patience and compassion for this kind of bullshit in my personal make-up.

Jared finally crossed the line with one of the neighbors, picking a fist fight with the guy in the middle of the street. The neighbor had the good sense not to touch Jared, as he was still a minor, and the law would weigh in his favor, no matter that Jared had started the fight. For once, we got a young, cocky policeman with a bit of an attitude toward punks like Jared. He promptly arrested the J-man in front of most of the neighborhood, to the resounding cheers and adulation of all of us that watched as Jared finally got some come-uppance.

Now Jared is one of those lucky individuals who can fall into a pile of manure and come up smelling roses. When his court date arrived, a good portion of the neighborhood showed up to watch the proceedings. Jared, if I haven't mentioned already, was a good looking teen. Charming when he wanted to be, and smart enough to know how to work the system. Raised in any other environment, he might have become quite a successful human being, maybe done great things or been a productive member of society. Instead, he was basically a punk who was a bit too smart for his own good. Even to this day, he has failed to surprise me with how he turned out as an adult.

And so Jared used his charisma with the Adjudicator. Convinced her that the bad man had called his mother vulgar names, and that he was merely defending her honor. I was surprised. I had personally heard Jared call his mother a whore to her face...perhaps that was just a term of endearment in their household. (sort of like in the DaNita household) Anyway...it worked. The Adjudicator let him off the hook. We would later find out that Jared's family line had also come into play several times to get him clear of his multiple legal entanglements...He was related to one of the founding Morman families in Mesa. Boy, Michael, that good ol' boy network in the Mesa Government is a handy thing to have when you have a sociopath for a son.

So Jared had quite an impact on me and my family. It was a strange situation in some aspects. His little sister, Sara was my daughters Best Friend. She had become quite close to our entire family, and Cathy and I thought of her as one of our own. Perhaps this was part of Jared's animosity towards us. We opened our home and our hearts to several of his siblings. And once again, he was shut out in the cold. Once again told that he wasn't good enough. Once again, reminded that he wasn't loved.

That can surely play with your mind. Part of me saw a bit of a kindred spirit in the kid. I had to fight for acceptance in some corners of my life growing up, but not to the degree that I watched Jared dealing with. I should have been far more sympathetic to this kid then I ever was. For some reason, I wasn't.

And so we endured his teen years, right up to his 18th birthday, when, smart lad that he was, he turned over a new leaf. He knew he had lost his status as a minor, and that he would be held accountable for his actions as an adult. Things got a lot quieter on Argon. If Jared was still dealing drugs, at least he had the good graces to stop selling it through his bedroom window where we in the neighborhood could watch on a daily basis. (The tales I could tell you about working with the Narcs in MPD trying to catch the little bastard...slippery as an eel!)

I learned quite a lot from my years with Jared. I watched as he played the system. I watched as he made one clever escape after another. I learned that you can use anger to your advantage. I watched as he manipulated his parents (often playing them off of one another), and I marveled at how well he could walk away from just about any situation better off than he began. I studied how his attitude could be used in a polite society, shocking behavior that would often result in exactly what he wanted in the long run.

And for the first time in my life, he taught me something I thought I already knew.


He taught me how to hate.


Since I posted this blog, I have had the chance to talk to several of my readers about it. I would like to clear up any misconceptions that may have been perceived. I do not currently hate Jared. On the contrary, I am somewhat grateful to him for the life lessons he imparted upon me over the years. I seriously doubt that I would have been prepared for the brouhaha with the Post Office without his influence.

So with that in mind...I will say "Thank You" to Jared. You had a purpose in my life, and although it was not pleasant at times, it served its purpose. I only wish that I was the man that I am today, back when you were a kid and needed someone to look out for you the way we looked out for several of your siblings. I would have handled everything with you completely differently.

We might have even ended up as friends.