Page 10 of The Broken Places

Episode from podcastThe Fringe

Host of podcast, Jamal Whitaker

“Hello, welcome toThe Fringe. Jett.”

The young man nods and takes a drag of his half-smoked cigarette before leaning forward and putting it out in the ashtray on the coffee table in front of him. “Yeah. Jett or J.D. Some people call me J.D.” His gaze darts around. “We don’t gotta give last names here, right?”

“No, of course not. Did you grow up in San Francisco, Jett?”

“Nah.” Jett shifts. His obvious lack of health—sallow skin marked with sores, severely underweight—makes his features look droopy and gives him an almost cartoonish expression of sadness. Even so, it’s obvious he’d be a good-looking guy if he wasn’t so haggard. “I grew up in Kentucky.”

Jamal tilts his head. “Kentucky. That’s quite a ways from here. How’d you end up in San Francisco?”

Jett shifts again, bending his leg so his ankle rests on his opposite knee. “Hopped a bus, man. I didn’t know where it was going. Rode it until I ran out of money.”

“That’s pretty brave.”

Jett laughs, but then the laugh dies quickly, and his expression morphs into confusion, as though he knows the statement was a joke but doesn’t understand it. He runs a hand through his greasy, overly long white-blond hair, and then his hand flutters in the air for a moment as if he’s not sure what to do with it. “You got another smoke?”

Jamal nods to someone off camera, and when Jett is shown again, he has a lit cigarette in his hand, and a portion of it has been smoked. Obviously, the scene has been edited to move forward slightly.

“Why’d you leave Kentucky, Jett?”

“Because there wasn’t shit to do there.”

“So, boredom?”

Jett shrugs. “Boredom. Disgust. I was sick of that shithole.”

“So home wasn’t great.”

“Wasn’t great.” Jett lets out a sound that’s sort of a laugh but mostly a snort as his face twists. “You might say that.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Home? Shit, man, I don’t even know what that means.Homewas a backwoods slice of hell. I got out of there the minute I could.”

“Did you have both your mom and dad at home?”

Jett takes a drag of the cigarette and then snuffs it out even though—again—it’s only half-smoked. He shakes his head as the smoke fills the air in front of him. “I was raised by my grandparents.”

“Mom’s or dad’s parents?”

“Mom’s.”

“Where were your mom and dad?”

“My mom took off when I was a baby and then died of an overdose when I was ... I don’t even remember when. Maybe ten or twelve? I never knew my dad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What were your grandparents like?”

Jett lowers his leg and puts both feet on the floor and then bounces his knees, a jerky, uncoordinated movement. “My grandma was mostly a shell. My grandpa was the devil himself.”

“There was some abuse?”

“Some abuse.” Jett makes that strangled chuffing sound again. “Yeah, there was some abuse.”

“Physical or sexual?”

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