For Shelly O'connor

By Jackson Cole, Jr

For Shelly O’Connor

Reeling in the aftermath of his best friend Shelly’s death, Jonathan sees nothing but darkness ahead of him. Following her funeral, he finds himself plagued by visions of those who have left him behind: Shelly, who died from a heroin overdose, Cassie, an ex-girlfriend, plus a former prostitute known as “Marielle”.

Facing an unclear present, where memory, illusion, and reality coalesce, Jonathan embarks on a wild, kaleidoscopic trip––confronted by the living and the dead, caught between visions of his past and the delusions of his present. Over the next twenty-four hours, his psychosis worsens and threatens to overwhelm him.

Guided by the presence of his younger sister, Maggie, Jonathan journeys into the deepest recesses of his mind, hoping to find meaning and enlightenment in a world increasingly devoid of either.

The East End Series

The East End Series follows the interconnected lives of the outcast denizens of Long Island, New York––exiles, visionaries, and pariahs, seeking connection and community where none can be easily found.

For Shelly O’Connor (volume 1) follows Jonathan as he comes to terms with the death of his best friend, Shelly––her death by heroin overdose plunges him into a psychotic spiral, where he is forced to confront the failures of his past and the uncertain path ahead of him, adjusting to living in a world now absent of people he once held most dear to him.

Atropa Belladonna (volume 2), set four days before Shelly’s death, focuses on the relationship between her and Jonathan over the course of one life-changing day and night––painting a picture of the events leading up to her tragic demise. It also explores the life of Jonathan’s friend Mackey, and his relationship with a notorious local biker gang: The Bombers.

A Song of Seasons (volume 3, part 1: “The Cronies’ Chorus”) is a coming-of-age story which sees Jonathan and his friends coming to terms with their tumultuous teenage years, first facing the obstacles commensurate with their place on the social ladder, which will later come to characterize their unhappy lives: addiction, suicide and a desperate search for hope amidst the poverty of their backgrounds.

In the volume’s second part (“The Bombers”), we explore the biker gang’s wide-ranging criminal influence over the atrophying town of Seaville, NY––running a local strip club and prostitution ring based around the trafficking of young Hispanics. One of the girls, known as “Marielle”, will come to be a formative influence on the younger Jonathan, haunting him throughout the rest of his tortured existence.

Unsparing in its honesty, and told in dizzyingly immersive prose, The East End Series offers a unique insight into the underbelly of Long Island, with an unforgettable cast of characters––all trying desperately to fight against the hand life has dealt them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jackson Cole, Jr
• Release date: Apr 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005184414

Jackson Cole, Jr

The East End Series follows the interconnected lives of the outcast denizens of Long Island, New York––exiles, visionaries, and pariahs, seeking connection and community where none can be easily found.For Shelly O’Connor (volume 1) follows Jonathan as he comes to terms with the death of his best friend, Shelly––her death by heroin overdose plunges him into a psychotic spiral, where he is forced to confront the failures of his past and the uncertain path ahead of him, adjusting to living in a world now absent of people he once held most dear to him.Atropa Belladonna (volume 2), set four days before Shelly’s death, focuses on the relationship between her and Jonathan over the course of one life-changing day and night––painting a picture of the events leading up to her tragic demise. It also explores the life of Jonathan’s friend Mackey, and his relationship with a notorious local biker gang: The Bombers.A Song of Seasons (volume 3, part 1: “The Cronies’ Chorus”) is a coming-of-age story which sees Jonathan and his friends coming to terms with their tumultuous teenage years, first facing the obstacles commensurate with their place on the social ladder, which will later come to characterize their unhappy lives: addiction, suicide and a desperate search for hope amidst the poverty of their backgrounds.In the volume’s second part (“The Bombers”), we explore the biker gang’s wide-ranging criminal influence over the atrophying town of Seaville, NY––running a local strip club and prostitution ring based around the trafficking of young Hispanics. One of the girls, known as “Marielle”, will come to be a formative influence on the younger Jonathan, haunting him throughout the rest of his tortured existence.Unsparing in its honesty, and told in dizzyingly immersive prose, The East End Series offers a unique insight into the underbelly of Long Island, with an unforgettable cast of characters––all trying desperately to fight against the hand life has dealt them.

Book preview

FOR SHELLY O’CONNOR

The East End Series: Volume 1

Jackson Cole, Jr.

Copyright © 2021 by Jackson Cole Jr.

Cover art and design copyright © 2020 by Valerie Damen

www.pixelsandrelish.graphics

Edited by Dominic Wakeford

Formatted by Polgarus Studio

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information @jacksoncolejr on Instagram

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

AUGUST EIGHTH, 1995

I will

I’ll follow

I’ll follow you

I will

I’ll follow you into forever she said.

I studied her fingers and they did not look like hers. A paler white then I ever seen, with blueish spiderweb cracks around the nails. Ma came back. Wait, she said and put extra money in my front pocket. She brushed the hair off my eyes and said, A pack of Barclay’s. One pack. Now, go. I’ll be waitin’ for ya right here when ya get back, okay? Go ahead now, go. The field hissed at me the deeper I got inside of it. The tangled-up thorns rasped against my shins. I looked back at Ma and waved, but I could not see her. The light blotted her out and the sun burned my face like a fever. I could hear my blood and nothing else. I could see the shapes dancing across the part of the casket that covered her legs. There was a flower in a white vase on top of the casket. I put another flower in it. Then I looked at her. The wrinkled lids sunk into her skull, like she had no eyes. Her face was a cup of milk with clumps of powder floating around at the top. There was just too much of it. There was just. Too. Much. Mackey screamed and fell to the trees. I looked where he pointed at, the body folded over a log; the head caved in like a rotted pumpkin. I stayed staring and could not look away.

Ya never followed me—Shelly whispered then fell back dead again. Maggie came at me like a dream and everything around me went the same way. Maggie tugged at my shirt and said, I-I think we… I think it’s time we go now.

Okay.

My mouth said it. I didn’t say it at all. I just looked away then pulled off a piece of the lace frill around Shelly’s collar. Her dress was purple, and it whispered when she moved. Light hit her tiara and filled the room. Oh she see’s everything now like some kind of evil witch. Like she got within her what it takes to be a legend. She will bleed for you and you will love her for it.

Mr. O’Connor waddled around, shaking his head, crying, shaking everyone’s hand or hugging them. Mrs. O’Connor came shuffling along into the sunlight. Her eyes were like two dark crevices in a rock. She did not cry. She sat down in the front row and stared up at Shelly with her head to the side. And that’s where it stayed for the entire time, I looked at her.

Faces I never seen before came and went looking down at her, shaking their heads. Some I knew from the sweet-sixteen, some I never seen before. But they didn’t say nothing to me. They just kept on going around her casket like vultures, and some even came back for seconds, and thirds. Maggie came at me again.

My froat hurts. Wu-where the bathroom’s at, Maggie said. I gotta be sick.

I looked up and followed the strands of smoke to the sky

Where she at! Mackey said

I dunno can’t see nothin’

Where’s Victor?

I’m over here but can’t find no one else

Shh! They comin’ up, Chris whispered

I heard the grass and the wind

The swings they rocked and creaked in the wind.

Where’s the door at? It hurts, Maggie said pointing to her throat.

There’s too many people here, I can’t see where it’s at.

I pushed through the crowd and smoothed along the wall until I finally found a door and went inside. I lost her in the dark bright shapes of the room. I began to breathe fast and hard and my chest, it hurt. I grabbed the door handle to hold myself from passing out. I could only see dark, swirling shapes. The chains kinked up, creaking against one another, and I heard their voices. I saw her through the fog and she screamed I was trying to say and trying, and the dark shapes were punching again, and I tried to get out. I tried to get it off my neck, but dark shapes were going again. They were goin’ up the playground the wrong way and I tried to cry. But when I breathed in, I couldn’t breathe out again to cry, and I tried to keep from falling with it around my neck or I’d be hanged, and the swirling shapes closed around me till there was nothing.

The wall cracked like an egg and a big guy stood black in the door.

You can’t be in here, ya gotta go, he said.

I’s just lookin’ for a bathroom—

Bathroom is right across the hall, here. Just watch your step, we’re in the middle of renovations.

The sun hit my eyes and made everything I saw into electric dots. The fluorescent lights hummed like they had bugs in them. I gagged on the tubes up my nose and wanted to cry but when I breathed out it hurt, and I tired but I couldn’t say, I tried to but couldn’t say. She held my hand. The skeleton makeup melted around her eyes like a couple of candles burnt down in a birthday cake. I’ll wait with ya don’t worry, Shelly said. Her breath smelling like candy.

You’re a little wobbly. You feelin’ okay? He asked me.

I’m alright, I told him.

Like I said, be careful. We gotta lotta stuff goin’ on around here. I don’t need anybody gettin’ hurt.

I stiffened up a bit and shook out my legs.

Last thing I need is a lawsuit, he mumbled as he went to the room at the other end of the hall, I heard him say and I did not like his voice.

Maggie walked by me and went to the bathroom.

There were two guys painting the walls. One looked at me then back to his partner and laughed at something. I sat on a leather couch covered in plastic with drops of paint on it. I could’ve been there forever waiting for her. Must’ve been some piss building for the past hour. How many times must I need you here? How many times must I need you with me instead of staring blank as shit at two bathroom doors, sticking to plastic sweating up my legs that the thing that got my eye was a lady shifting her tits and the nipples see through the blouse she caught my stare she caught me and made it like she was working a video camera trying to say she caught me staring when I shouldn’t be, so I just flicked my tongue at her like a snake. She older than my mom with that leather-faced tan.

Pussy probably rotted anyway, I said to her. Must be what that foul smell is around here.

The only thing rotted ‘round here is sittin’ right before me, she said.

I looked at her and smiled. Once a cunt, always a cunt, what I say.

I watched