Sundown on the Savannah River

By Jeff Crawford

It had taken a little while after graduation for him to find his way, and then a while after landing a job to find where his interests and talents lay, but eventually Jackson Moffett settled into his niche and began the upward climb. Work was his passion and his focus until he met her. Together they were the poster kids for ideal marriages. Fill

• Language: English
• Publisher: EC Publishing LLC
• Release date: Jul 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781953821270

Book preview

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Copyright © 2021 by Jeff Crawford.

ISBN 978-1-953821-27-0 Ebook

ISBN 978-1-953821-26-3 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-953821-25-6 Paperback

ISBN 978-1-953821-28-7 Audiobook

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1st.....

2nd.....

3rd.....

4th.....

5th.....

6th.....

7th.....

8th.....

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10th.....

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12th.....

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16th.....

PART TWO

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Part Three

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50th.....

1st.....

For the time of year, it was probably too cool for the temperature setting he had the room programmed to, but it had felt comfortable when he’d done it a few hours earlier, now...not so much. He’d been a little warm from the drive, and to be honest his nerves being frayed had a lot to do with it also. It would be as simple as getting up from the bed he was lying on and holding the button down on the digital wall control pad until the setting had risen by ten degrees. It wouldn’t take but about thirty seconds to do it and probably less than ten minutes before he’d start to feel the difference in the rooms temperature, but he simply didn’t feel like moving from where he lay. He could pull the blanket over himself, but his mood suggested that suffering a bit was the way this should play out.

It wasn’t a suite in the ritziest of hotels, but it was a nice enough room. He’d been in the exact same room a few years prior, actually he’d stayed in the exact same room on numerous occasions the latest being less than a year ago, and after a little cajoling he’d been able to talk the lady at the registration desk into letting him have it again. So far as he could tell it was just as it had been the last time he’d stayed here. Well almost the same, one thing...the most important thing was very different.

There wouldn’t be frost on the window glass when sunrise finally came, but for this area it was definitely cooler than usual. This was not the time of year he usually came to stay in this particular room, under normal circumstances it would have been a few months from now. Usually he looked forward to coming to this town, this hotel, this room. Like kids look forward to ice cream trucks meandering down sleepy suburban streets, like grandparents look forward to seeing grandchildren on Christmas mornings, like fat boys look forward to their free pass day during their diets when they get to hit the buffet with the same gusto and enthusiasm as Hammering Hank used to hit baseballs or Neon Deion went after interceptions, that was how he used to look forward to coming here. However, this time the drive and more specifically the long walk from the elevator to the room allowed him to know what the guys on the row about to ride the lightning felt like. Not sort of might have a somewhat grasp of how they felt, he knew exactly how they felt, and he didn’t like the feeling at all. This time he’d dreaded coming because he’d known it was going to be bad, going to be just awful, and he knew he’d be right.

The woman was of middle aged years so far as he could tell, but what did he know. She might have been ninety and just looked favorably upon by nature, or maybe she was in her thirties and had had a hard life for most of them. What he did know was that she was of at least partial Hispanic descent and that she was one of the maids for the floor he was on. Her cleaning cart had been parked across the hall from his room when he’d arrived. Just after adjusting the room temperature, he’d thrown the television remote device into her trash bin and walked back into the room without her ever having known he’d made a deposit. He had no intention of yielding to the temptations of the idiot box on this trip. He’d thought for a moment then decided that if things got too rough the set could still be worked manually, so after pulling the power cord from the wall he pulled it from the television set, folded it neatly, and placed it in the garbage cart alongside the remote control. Only then did he lie down on the bed where he hadn’t moved in hours. He needed to put the Do Not Disturb sign out, but it was getting late and he wasn’t likely to be bothered tonight. The chore could wait until the next time he rose to take a piss. He would still afford himself that basic necessity, after all he might be here a while and he wasn’t going to stay in room that reeked like a kennel cage from peeing in the bed.

His phone lay on the nightstand beside his glasses, keys, room card key, pen, wallet, and pocketknife...the phone was switched to the off position. He should call or at least send a text to the company he worked for, used to work for, and let them know he had resigned his position. It was only courteous to do so. By now they would be flipping out after him not being there a whole day and not sending word in someway. He didn’t just not show up for work, never had before, that just wasn’t him but he wasn’t feeling very himself just now and hadn’t in quite some time. They had always been good to him, and he owed them that much respect at least, but he made no moves to retrieve the phone. Relaying the message could wait until tomorrow or perhaps the next day. He needed to do some thinking, but he couldn’t think all the time, so sending a text might be the break he’d be needing in a day or two. It’d be something to look forward to, God knew there wasn’t anything else on the horizon.

When he opened his eyes and blinked away the murk he could see that the lights on the bridge that spanned the Savannah River were illuminated. It had grown dark outside while he’d been processing some of his thoughts. Pulling memories from the mental file where he kept them neatly organized. So many of them in such a relatively short amount of time. He’d retrieve one and study it in detail then carefully return it to where it belonged. He had photos of that bridge, both night and daytime photos, until now there were nothing but good memories associated with that bridge. The first time he’d come here he hadn’t asked specifically for a room with a view of it or the river, getting one that had it had just been a bonus. Now he couldn’t imagine ever being in this town and not seeing the giant metal structure rising, bending, and descending. Before this time there had been several things he couldn’t imagine not seeing in this town...but guess what.

He rolled to his side, the one where he wouldn’t have to face the window, and hugged himself as he lay very still. He could have risen and closed the drapes, but that would be like snubbing the bridge or even blaming it when the bridge had done nothing wrong. This whole thing was somehow his fault not the bridges, and he intended to think about it until he understood what he’d done or hadn’t done. He figured it might take a week or two, and that’s why he’d paid upfront for a two week stay. If it took longer than that he’d auto book himself again via his phone app, if he was still able to care and function. He’d come to this place of so many special memories with the sole intention of never leaving it again...at least not under his own power. It would have been easier in some ways to have done as he was doing now at home, but it didn’t seem right there. Here was where everything good had officially started, so it must be proper that it end here as well. All of this probably only made sense to him, but if it did then it was the only thing that did anymore.

With reluctance he made himself get off the bed and drink one then a second glass of tepid water from the tap, remove his clothes, then climb under the covers. Despite the coolness of the room he smelled strongly, probably stress sweat. That was always worse than perspiration worked up from physical activity. He had no plans to bathe over the next two weeks or however long he was a guest here. Drink water, piss, and lay here and think was what was on his agenda, nothing else. It was no wonder the admission attendant had looked at him curiously. It’s not everyday that someone checks in for two weeks, but has no luggage. He hadn’t even brought a toothbrush.

He buried his face in the pillow and cried for a few moments, it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, just the first time here. It wasn’t that he was afraid someone in one of the rooms that sandwiched his might hear him in his despair, it was that he couldn’t stand hearing himself. It was a huge reminder that he was considerably more fragile than he’d ever thought himself to be.

He wiped his eyes and nose with the pillowcase and lay there feeling the dampness against his cheek. Tomorrow he would go through his mental files one by one and take as much time as he needed to until he found some indicator for why things are as they are. But tonight was all about getting some shit out of his system that he couldn’t tolerate.

The moon was painting the Savannah River silver as he lay with his knees almost to his chest and his eyes closed, but not sleeping.

2nd.....

Jackson Moffett had been like most every other boy at C. B. H. Williams High School when he had attended it he supposed. He disliked his classes, enjoyed playing ball, and adored cheerleaders. The problem was that he wasn’t very good in class so he had to force himself to focus when there, his skills in sports didn’t parallel his enthusiasm for sports, and the cheerleaders tended to only like the smart boys who were also proficient in sports. Three strikes and you’re out to use a metaphor from one of the sports he liked but wasn’t very goo d at.

It wasn’t that all he did was ride the pine when it came to his social life, pine riding was almost exclusively reserved for his position on the junior varsity baseball team. Nearly finished with his senior year and never had made varsity. No, his social life wasn’t...he wasn’t really a wallflower, he just never had gotten what you might call pick of the litter. Nice girls all and some were going to grow into their looks. Twenty years down the road at a class reunion he’d likely chide himself for his lack of vision. Now every Saturday night, or enough of them to feel like most of them, he could have a date if he really wanted one. Sure they might have more than their fair share of freckles, or glasses as thick as railway insulators, or a noticeably drooly lisp owing to a retainer; but they also had a pulse and a sweater full of chesticles that were just begging to be squeezed by a damp nervous hand. Hands that threw sliders and knucklers on the varsity team were never damp or nervous.

One girl, her name really was Blossom, had already asked him to the prom. Three months away and she’d already asked...twice. She was sweeter than candy and smart as a cricket, and it was nearly a sure thing that she’d be valedictorian or salutatorian at least, but there was all that extra that went with the package. She was also head of the yearbook committee, so she was always darting around here and there with a couple of clipboards and exploding manila folders tucked in amongst her text books and notebooks. Darting around as best she could for a girl that was configured the way she was. Someone once whispered too loudly that Blossom was as tall lying down as she was standing up. Being a bit of a mouth breather didn’t obscure some of the less than desirable features either. Also she wasn’t bashful about how much she enjoyed mealtime, she normally went to the next class wearing some of her lunch on her cheek or on her blouse. Jackson knew he ought to say yes to her, then just close his eyes and think of England. One day she’d probably end up as a head knocker at some place like I. B. M., and his waking up every morning to a fifty under the juice glass wouldn’t be bad, but he just couldn’t do it. One, she was too nice to take advantage of, and two the thoughts of being alone with Blossom all evening made his neck shiver and his sphincter pucker. She’d wear a peach colored dress to the prom, she hadn’t said so but he knew she would all the same. He’d spend the whole evening feeling as if he were drowning in the yogurt his mom liked to eat while watching her afternoon stories.

Years later that was about all he really remembered about high school with any clarity. After graduation he drifted for a time. Drifted from the breakfast table to the public pool or the mall or the bowling alley where they had the best array of video games in town. It wasn’t a bad life, and he’d pretty well gotten the hang of being a waste of skin when the big surprise came one night between the meatloaf and mash course and the cherry yum yum course. It was the kind of surprise that you should be let in on while sitting in the study as Brubeck played softly through the well camouflaged speakers. Not with a spoon full of yum yum halfway to your mouth. Mom sitting across the table dragging on a Benson & Hedges with a knowing and expectant look on her face told him that the score was already two to one. It was a rigged game, and the fix was already in.

Jackson’s dad golfed occasionally with a man that was nice enough, but had the worst combover Jackson had ever seen. Until that night at the dining table Jackson had no idea what Mr. Lippranzer did for a living and had always been fine with being in the dark, now apparently it was important that he know. After informing Jackson that Mr. Lippranzer was head of personnel at G&L Tool and Die and was expecting him in his office the following afternoon to interview for a position, Jackson’s dad slipped him a tenner and told him to get a haircut before going. And wear a button down shirt, not one of those rocky rolling ones you seem to prefer now he’d said before finishing his yum yum. That was the end of the discussion. Dad took coffee to the den to watch Wheel while mom stubbed out her B&H and began to clear the table. Jackson went to his room, slid in a Red Rider tape, and picked out a shirt to wear the next afternoon.

It had been a fine house to grow up in with a generous portion of freedoms and Jackson had no complaints, but a democracy it wasn’t.

Jackson parked his compact truck in the visitors space and eyed the front door that he was expected to walk through in less than three minutes. He briefly considered firing the blue beauty up and heading it toward the bowling alley. He could tell his dad that apparently his nerves had gotten the better of him and he’d really butched the interview up but good. It wrapped up with a handshake and a don’t call us, we’ll call you. Given Jackson’s nature it wouldn’t be so far fetched as to be implausible, but here was the hitch. Mr. Lippranzer and Jackson’s dad were amigos, brothers conceived at the 19th hole. Before Jackson ever finished his first soda a call would have been made asking why his son had never shown up for the interview, which was really just a formality because the job was already his. He placed his sunglasses over his visor and walked to the door marked Visitors Entrance.

Jackson Moffett began his vocational journey the following Monday as a machinist gopher. A position where you do nothing except what you are told to do. Move this, fetch that, sweep there, sort and organize those for nine and a half hours a day for thirty cents over minimum wage. Keep your nose clean, jump when someone yells frog, don’t lay out unless you really do have the shivering fits and after a year you might find yourself in an apprentice program.

It was dirty greasy monkey work that any halfwit mope could have done and Jackson hated it...for about the first three weeks he hated it. As he became more and more familiar with what the machinists needs actually were, he became something of a self starter and that shifted drudge to interesting. It wasn’t something he’d worked toward, it just sort of happened. Sort of an osmotic thing. Having jobs done and needs met before he was asked to do them not only made his job easier, it also gave him more time to absorb the work that was going on all around him which had become quite fascinating to him. This was not what he would have imagined thinking just a month earlier.

He knew he was risking a label he might not shake. Being tagged as someone who walked around with his nose up someone’s ass, but he didn’t care. At least once a week he ate lunch with his foreman and picked at him for information. At first the foreman, who was ex military and strictly no nonsense, thought Jackson was shining him. Thought it was part of a bigger scheme to make it appear that the shovel was really moving even though the hole wasn’t getting any deeper. However, it soon became obvious that Jackson was the peg that fit the G&L hole to a tee. Weekly the foreman would choose a different department in the company and explain in fair detail its role in the overall picture.

After five weeks of lunchtime tutorial, Jackson was called to the foreman’s office just before sign out time. For another hour they went over every offering that the local community college had and with a yellow highlighter marked the ones that would serve him well in his guaranteed advancement within the company. Three weeks later Jackson began attending night classes on the company dime. The weekend following Jackson’s first week of classes, Jackson’s mother made pineapple yum yum. She only did that on special occasions.

3rd.....

His own desk in his own private office complete with his own name etched on brass on his own door didn’t come along quite as quickly as it had for a few others, but it came much more quickly than he’d have ever imagined, if you’d asked Jackson to ponder the notion on that first day as a gopher. All the opulence of his office, minus the opulence of course, hadn’t just been gifted to him because he’d won a raffle. He’d hustled, and worked, and learned all he could whenever he could. Not as a machinists apprentice, he’d given that his all, but it was obviously not a good fit. No, Jackson’s talent lay in his ability to immediately see the big picture with only scant information to work from. The way a great battlefield general separates himself from a merely good one in that he can instantly recognize the better ground to wage an assault from by just scanning it with his binocu lars.

His natural gift to recognize the needs of the journeymen machinists before they themselves knew them was a tell to his foreman, who to his credit as a loyal employee and company man, did not keep the gift locked away in his own department and squandered. He cited example after example of Jackson’s talent to his peers and superiors. It was the latter who believed him enough to sign off on Jackson’s furthered education. After three years of night classes without ever taking less than two classes per semester and never missing a days work except for a Friday to have two wisdom teeth removed, and a couple of days to be with his father continually as they laid his mother to rest after the B & H’s caught up with her, Jackson was called into a meeting.

He knew the production manager well enough to be on a first name basis, but had never been in the man’s office before. It might not have been president of the C & L Railroad nice but it wasn’t none too shabby either. A large walnut desk sat on one side of the room with well organized stacks of papers in a couple of moderately high columns atop it. On each front corner in proud display was an enlarged photo of his family in heavy brass frames. Paintings of Labrador retrievers sitting in pirogue boats were tastefully hung on all the walls. A pair of stuffed mallards were mounted to the wall behind his desk. At the other end of the room a sofa was backed up against the richly paneled wall with four padded captains chairs in a semicircle in front of it for comfortable and serious discussion.

When Jackson arrived and was invited to enter after knocking, he found the production manager, his own foreman, Mr. Lippranzer the head of personnel, and Mr. Leland Grise the general manager of the facility already seated and waiting. Mr Grise was the third generation Grise to be in charge of the show at G&L Tool and Die. Grise’s father was still the CEO, but he was ninety four going on a hundred and twenty four, and only came in a couple hours a week to putter around through the carpeted offices and pass gas either unknowingly or uncaringly. G&L had a workforce of more than four hundred employees and Mr. Leland Grise made it a point to know something about each person on his payroll. Not because he wanted something to be able to hold over them, but so he could have a conversation starter when he walked up with his hand out for a shake at least once a week. Leland Grise was a boots on the ground type of leader.

Because the meeting started immediately after Jackson had been asked how he was and told to sit down, Jackson knew it was not going to be a nonchalant type of chinwag. He doubted that many of those occurred within these walls. Leland ran the conversation, the others were just there to show that they knew what was going on and were in agreement. Jackson should have been as nervous as a woman of ill repute in a house of worship, having been called in on the carpet as he’d been, but for some reason he wasn’t. He wasn’t necessarily comfortable, but he wasn’t terrified either. Leland started by letting Jackson in on something that the younger man had always assumed, heck it only made sense. That G&L held weekly meetings where the sole purpose was to develop ideas and strategies that would streamline the company, reduce any friction and make it more productive easier in order to increase its viability so it’s future could be more assuredly sustained giving a more secure future to its employees. Groceries on the table and something put away each week for college in each of the households in the G&L family was an important thing to the Grise clan. This is where we’ve all decided that you can play an important part Leland said to Jackson without smiling. The expression on Leland’s face told Jackson that he was putting a lot of importance on their decision as well as Jackson’s performance.

Many, if not all towns of any size, have a shop where you can go for tool and die needs. Every town used to have a blacksmith who would make you what you needed, tool and die was just the next step in the evolutionary process. Jackson listened as the plant manager’s voice softened. The man was speaking wistfully, as if there was a romance to be gleaned from the nostalgia he was wanting everyone in the room to experience.

We used to take every job that came through the doors, that was how we managed to limp along and eventually grow in size and in reputation. As we expanded, our focus became fixed on larger jobs where we could try to better utilize our capacity and make our resources more cost effective. It was a fine idea, it still is and I think it’s the direction that makes the most sense for us, but the efficiencies have never fallen in step with the capabilities. We land lucrative contracts then spend all our time rushing around chasing our tails and trying to put out small idiotic fires that should never have started. Rushing around with no real identified direction is wasted motion and wasted motion does not make us stronger and more solid. What it does is it make us susceptible to being rooted out of the trough by those that work smarter and much more efficiently. These men seated around you and that I have endowed with enormous amounts of my trust, tell me that you are the person who can take this facility to that next level. You are the one who can make the G&L dream a reality. Because these men believe in you, I will also believe in you Jackson, although if I’m to be honest handing this much responsibility to someone your age is a concern to me. I am going to give you a month to formulate your game plan, these men will fill you in on all the details after I’ve left. I know I’ve painted with a wide brush, but they will make things much clearer for you I’m sure. I will not hover over your shoulder, but I will expect a detailed assessment of how things are progressing once a week. Leland said before shaking Jackson’s hand and leaving the room.

As the three men led Jackson down the hallway to his new office, he wasn’t sure whether to be excited at seeing the pot at the end of the rainbow or dread going into the room where he’d be strapped to a chair to ride the lightning. He felt it was fifty fifty which one was accurate. He wanted to be sick when it occurred to him that they both could be. The men showed him to his desk then huddled around it until they’d each put their knowledge of what would be required of him out there for him to digest. Two of them finally left, but his foreman, the man that used to be his foreman, remained behind and took a seat across the desk from G&L’s newest star of the moment.

Leland doesn’t give out trust or control easily. the man told Jackson. You should be proud of yourself, and at the same time highly mindful of the position you now find yourself in.

Jackson looked up from his desks surface with a quizzical expression on his face. That sounds kind of ominous, what do you mean? he asked.

If you attack this new assignment the way you’ve tackled all you’ve been asked to do prior to this as I know you will, then you will make everyone here very proud of you. However if you let this position go to your head and start phoning it in instead of really putting your shoulders into it, a lot of people could get hurt, the company itself included...perhaps beyond anyone’s ability to repair.

What are you talking about? Jackson asked. His voice sounded more angry and nervous than he’d have liked it to. I’m going to try as hard as I know how, but if I fail they can demote me or shitcan me as is their right and no one will ever hear a word of argue out of me because I will have deserved it. Then they can put someone else in my chair or just go back to way things are now and mark it all up as a fine idea that didn’t pan just like the plan for the flying car or parachute pants.

You haven’t grasped it all yet have you? the foreman asked.

Grasped what? Jackson asked.

If you fail, I’m not talking about making mistakes like stealing second on a pop fly with two outs. That’s just a bonehead dumbass human error that everyone does more often than anyone likes to admit. I mean if you really screw the pooch, because of the investment and outlay this will involve, the only thing left to do after the smoke clears will be to lock the front door and walk away. Hundreds of people who only know how to do this type work will be suddenly out of work. Generations of sweat and devotion on the part of the Grise family will have been for naught. Until all of this solidifies and begins to operate as if we’d done it this way since the beginning, all the guys with carpet under their shoes are going to be sweating like dogs passing peach pits. The ramifications of each suggestion you make will be too scary to think about and too large to think of anything else.

Jackson had paled and was sitting back in his chair. He was deep in thought and beyond funeral home quiet, the foreman was almost positive that the next words out of the young man’s mouth were going to be words of resignation.

I’m going to need a drafting table and a supply of 1 by 1 grid paper as soon as I can get it. Jackson was talking as much to himself as he was to his former boss. Should I go to purchasing or research and development?

4th.....

After becoming chummy enough with a local pharmacist to be on first names foundation, the pharmacist began selling him antacids and headache tablets in the big bottles that the general public seldom knows exists. He bought them two containers each at a time and kept one each in his bottom desk drawer, the others in a kitchen cabinet. The smaller off the shelf sized bottles were in the glovebox of his vehicle. Jackson wasn’t an addict, but he was a frequent user now. There really wasn’t room in his office for the sofa that was in there, but Jackson had bought it and moved it in anyway. Not to be showy in any way, but out of necessity. At least two nights out of five he ended up sleeping in his office. He came in earlier and stayed later than anyone else, and sometimes his ass was simply dragging too low to haul it out to his truck so he just camped out at work. Would get up early enough to wash himself in the men’s lavatory then change into some of his spare clothes he always kept folded neatly away in a drawer of his filing cabinet. Only himself and the facility guards knew he did this as far as he knew and they’d promised not to rat him out. They’d probably cleared it with the G. M. After the first time, but it’d never been brought up, so it was business as usual for Jac kson.

Work life was a fair bit easier to deal with a year after getting the promotion, but it still took considerable efforts to get the job done. Enough that he’d been tempted often to ask for an assistant, he was sure the powers that be were smart enough to know he needed one already. But they hadn’t mentioned it and he was managing so far, so until things got bigger and more harried he’d keep kicking and gouging by himself. They’d likely authorize two assistants if that’s what he wanted. The maiden position that had been created and he’d been given had turned out to be more of a game changer to the positive than anyone would have imagined at its inception. It wasn’t simply a task of pre-kitting. It wasn’t just knowing the bill of materials on the next work order and making sure that they were on hand when the need arose. It was far more complex than that, and it had been Jackson’s brainstorm to make it so. Jackson had reinvented the wheel and settled for nothing less than the precise execution by the floor that equaled the way he’d seen it in his head weeks before. Under the brass nameplate on his door someone had attached a second plate that read home of the two minute drill. Jackson liked that and left it where it was.

The jobs the factory now put in bids for and often times got, were not jobs that the facility would have been comfortable tackling before Jackson sat down behind his cluttered desk. These were high volume, efficiency intensive, and undeniably lucrative. The problem is a simple one he’d exclaimed in the first meeting he’d sat in on after being appointed, the solution however isn’t and the growing pains are going to hurt both in the back and in the wallet. The much older men listened attentively and respectfully. All in the room knew that Jackson wasn’t spouting some horseshit he didn’t understand but had picked up in one of his college courses. He knew the floor, he knew the facility managers dream, and most importantly he knew what was expected of him. He’d done the homework and had the details and numbers to support what he was preaching. Until now, for every job that’s come through our doors, we’ve made the work fit our facility and capabilities. From here on out we are going to make our facility and capabilities fit the job. That may seem to be a simple one hundred and eighty degrees from what we’re accustomed to, but it’s much more drastic than that. Unbelievably more drastic.

There had been a lot of murmurings and shifting about in seats after that pronouncement.

Look, you want the work, so go tell the customer what he wants to hear and we’ll figure out how to do it after you’ve gotten the job. he told them.

There were more murmurs and words like feasible and doable drifted out above the whispering and from behind dour faces.

For more than an hour he explained the brave new world he felt if not prepared for then at least willing to chew the way into. There had been the requisite scoffs and notes of dissension as expected, this was an older facility with leaders who were deeply rooted in tradition. A let the customer adjust to our way of doing things or keep traveling type attitude, and it was going to take more than one presentation by a pup just out of short pants to sway them. But Jackson had been given the task of making this vision a reality, not to garner the blessings of some of the old guard. More than short sleeved dress shirts and wide knot ties were going to have to change. As for the rest of the room, a noticeable rise in the excitement levels bolstered Jackson’s confidence.

When the more vocal of the Negative Nancy’s