Forever Elwood

A Blues Brothers Fan Fiction

By Ella Roberta Reamy

© 2002

Disclaimer: I do not own the Blues Brothers and any related characters or original storylines.

It hasn't been long enough, and yet it's been too long. Too long for me to dwell on it any longer, yet still not long enough for me to grasp the reality of it. I wonder if I ever will.

They should have told me when it happened. Keeping it from me was such a chicken-shit thing to do. I bet it was all a setup. They didn't tell me because they were afraid I'd do myself in; hang myself with my shoelaces or ingest a gallon of floor-cleaning bleach (although, I don't think it would be strong enough to kill a person, especially since it doesn't even begin clean the floor).

No, they had to squeeze every second out of my sentence before throwing me out on my ass, so killing myself was the last thing they wanted.

The day I got out, I stood outside the gate and I waited. I hadn't heard from Jake since about a year after he got out. Letters weren't his thing, and he only visited to deliver my share of any gig money, and from the lack of visits, I derived that the band hadn't played in awhile (or they'd lost the money before they earned it).

But Jake knew when I was getting out.

I waited all day, searching for his face in every car. But not in the drivers' seat. Jake hadn't had a driver's license since the juvy division revoked it after he stole that car when he was sixteen.

I waited so long that I started to get angry with him. I cursed him silently as the sun beat down on me.

{You son of a bitch. I always picked you up on time. I'd get there early, even. But no, that's because Elwood's always the dependable one}

and I got angrier as it began to set.

{Sure, if I had made you stand here all day, I'd get yelled at, but you do it and I'll just keep my trap shut, just like I always do. Because that's the way it's always been}

The crickets chirped and the twilight was gorgeous, even for a Chicago summer, but I barely noticed.

My legs ached; I hadn't sat down once. And I remained standing all night long. I wasn't tired. I was used to getting little or no sleep. In the band's glory days,

[Too long ago, El.]

I'd drive the Bluesmobile all night, or all of us would stay up all night partying,

[Too old for that now]

drinking,

[can't hold the liquor anymore]

and/or fucking,

[what girl would want you now?]

raising hell, and god knows what else.

The sun rose, traffic began to pick up again, and my hope renewed with the dawn, though I was still rigid with anger.

{I'm giving you one more chance, but if you're not here by six o'clock tonight, I start walking, you hear me?}

Then the door to the watchtower opened. I remember the rest with lucid fuzziness. The warden approaching me, telling me that Jake was dead; had been dead for some number of years now. Then he was walking off before I could ask questions.

{When? How did it happen? What did they do with him? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? }

My head swam,

{Jake's dead? He can't be dead. Jake can't die! Who's going to look after me? }

but before I could dwell on it, that little red sports car stopped at the gate. Blindly, I walked over and got in. I didn't care if it took me to paradise or the gates of hell. I just wanted to leave.

Matara. Sweet girl. Pretty, too. What an angel she was. She came just when I needed someone, before I had a chance to go ballistic.

Willie sending for me, now that was a shocker. I always thought that Willie hated me. But then again, Willie always seemed to hate just about everyone.

But then Matara said that Willie had a job for me.

Job? A straight job?

[Jake'll call you down for that. He always did call you that if you took a straight job.]

No way was I going under that easy.

[But Jake's not here to do that, so what do you care anymore? Jake's gone; you're your own man now.]

I asked her to drop me off. I didn't want to have a mental breakdown right in front of someone that I'd just met.

[For once in your life, you're your own man.]

I barely remember the gas station. I tried to put Jake out of my mind, and I looked through the phonebook. I needed a car more than anything. After finding a place, I walked the whole forty some-odd blocks and waited all night at the front gate.

I didn't want to spend another evening standing, so I sat down on the sidewalk, dug my harmonica out of my briefcase, and began playing. I pushed all thoughts of Jake or the past out of my mind,

{Repress emotion. No feelings. I am stoic. Stoicism is part of the image. Emotion betrays the image. }

and concentrated on the music.

{The Music changed my life. The Music is my life.}

But before long, my mind began to wander, and I

began to banter back and forth with myself.

[Think of all you sacrificed of yourself]

(Like what?)

[Like your sense of style for one. The suit; you look the same all the time. So did Jake and Curtis. That's all people know you for is the suit.]

(So what?)

[Do you even remember a time when you wore normal clothes?]

(Yes. Not well, but I do.)

I stopped playing. I rested my head against the brick wall.

[And what about a decent life? You could've had that. You wanted that, didn't you? You did. When you were little, you wanted to be a policeman. Now you run from them.]

I got up, pocketed my harmonica, and began pacing back and forth along the section of sidewalk.

(All right, I admit it. I wanted to be good. Wanted to be decent. I wanted to. I wanted as normal life a life as possible. I wanted to grow up right, go to college, get a normal job. Get married, maybe have kids. Just to be normal.)

[And you never really got a say in anything that you did. Except after Jake left the orphanage. You were happy then. You got to do whatever you-]

{SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! Jake did a lot for me. }

[Like what?]

I stopped and thought about that for a moment.

And then it came to me.

I remembered how Jake taught me to read.

I wasn't quite sure why I had thought of that specific thing, but it was there, having popped into my head without warning.

I was four years old; Jake was in the second grade. At seven years old, Jake was the god of the big kids in my eyes, and he liked to show off his academic, athletic, and other such skills to me.

We had been inseparable from the day I was brought to St. Helen's as an infant. Jake had overseen everything in my life. We were each other's only friends; the other kids thought that Jake was too bossy and that I was weird because I never talked. They say that opposites attract, and it's true; we were the primary example of it.

Early on, it became Jake's life mission to teach me everything he knew. He taught me how to play a two-player game of foursquare (which he claims to have invented), how to play solitaire, and he also taught me how to read.

Jake gave me his old first-grade primer and taught me to read from it. He taught me the alphabet and how to put the letters together to make words, and that, for reasons unknown, sometimes there were letters in words that didn't make sounds when you said them, but not to ask him why because he didn't know either and that's just the way it was. He was a one-of-a-kind educator, but his style of teaching suited me just fine.

I learned the stories of Dick and Jane and Mom and Dad. I learned that the words "sister" and "mother" weren't just courtesy terms for nuns, but for relatives that kids in normal families had.

I read that book all the time, determination fixated upon my toddler's countenance. I read it all day long, except during meals, when the nuns wouldn't even let you talk to one another (not that I minded, as I didn't talk to anybody anyway).

I read the primer more religiously than the priests read their bibles, and soon, I had finished the whole book by that Christmas.

Jake was impressed, and when school started again in January, he "borrowed" a second copy of his reading his book from his teacher's bookshelf.

And, being the quick learner that I was, I quickly made my way through the book until I was at the same place as Jake's class.

But I kept this to myself.

I kept it from the nuns because if they had known I was at that reading level, or much less that a four-year-old could read such advanced material, they would have sent me to one of the schools for gifted kids and primed me to be some sort of prodigy. It would have been the ultimate social nightmare. I saw what happened. All the smart kids would get called "egghead" and picked on all the time.

Now, I was a loner by choice, but to be driven out of the circle was another matter, and one that I didn't want to risk experiencing.

So when the nuns would ask what I was doing with a big kid's book, I said that I was looking at the pictures.

And the sisters would smile, nod, and maybe pat me on the head. They thought it was adorable.

And I soon learned one afternoon that I had to keep it from Jake.

I was sitting alone on an overturned crate during outdoor playtime, reading to myself. My eyes flitted across the pages as I ran my finger underneath the words and sounded them out under my breath.

Just then, the doors burst open as the big kids were released from class. After a minute or so, Jake pushed his way out, books underneath one arm, descended the stairs with his usual hop-step, then plodded quickly towards me.

"Hi Elwood," Jake greeted. He dropped his books to the ground. I scooted over to make room for him to sit on the crate.

"Hi," I said. I had a rather deep voice for a little kid, which was one of the reasons that I barely talked.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Readin'," I replied.

"Lemme see where you're at," Jake said. I handed him the rather cumbersome book. He looked at it, did a double take, then looked at me bewilderedly.

"Are you sure this is where you're at?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered, confused. He looked at the book, then at me, then back at the book, then back at me.

He suddenly shoved the book at me with a scowl.

"You didn't read it," he declared. "You can't have read it because we're not that far in class yet, and you can't be ahead of our class." I could tell he was getting mad because he was turning red and had that set look on his face.

{He had such a quick temper; pleasant as pie one minute and blistering mad the next}

"Why not?" I asked innocently. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he was getting mad. I hadn't done anything wrong.

"Because little kids like you aren't supposed to read anyway!" he shouted. "Because you're stupid and probably can't understand it anyway and. . .because I'm older than you and I said so!" With that, he jumped up from the crate, picked up his books, and stormed off around the corner of the building.

I stared after him. I was thoroughly perplexed. What did I do wrong? If I was too young to read, then how come I knew how?

I sat thinking for about twenty minutes. Stuff like this had happened before. I'd do something that I thought was perfectly fine, something that had been fine a million other times, but for some reason I didn't know, it would make Jake mad.

It was usually when I'd do something better than Jake, like when I'd win a game we'd play, or recite the simple bible verses the best in Sunday school. I didn't know the rhyme or reason for it happening, but all I knew was that I had to get Jake "un-mad" again.

I hopped off the crate and trudged after Jake as fast as my little legs would carry me, the book tucked firmly under my arm.

Just as I had suspected, Jake was in his usual brooding spot, on the first level of the fire escape in they alley.

"Jake!" I called up, craning my neck to see him. Jake pretended not to hear me and stared off into space.

"Jake? Talk to me!" I demanded.

"No," Jake called down.

"Jake, I'm sorry. I was just reading part of it and looking at the pictures," I lied. "There's some big words I don't understand."

I had understood every word of it, but I needed a convincing argument. "You can help me with 'em if you want," I added.

"No," Jake repeated.

"C'mon Jake, please?"

Jake sat for a moment, then got up and started back down the ladder. I smiled at my success. I liked it when I could get him un-mad again. I was the only one who could do it.

And from that time on, I pretended to be just a little bit behind Jake. Jake was prideful. He was proud that I learned to read, and proud that he had been the one to teach me. But it killed him to know that I could take it and do ten times better than him.

{He was afraid that if I did too well that I wouldn't need him anymore and he was proving his worth to me but I already knew his worth and I was always prove myself to him and oh if only}

I stood with my fists clenched at my sides. I felt my face burning and I shuddered fiercely, struggling to contain myself. I wouldn't let my emotions get the better of me. I couldn't let them. . .

{but it's too late and now I'm the one who feels useless and I shouldn't have thought all those horrible things about him and now he's dead and WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO DIE}

I lost it.

I let out a guttural cry; filled with rage, misery, agony, everything that I was feeling. I blindly kicked over my briefcase, then kicked the brick wall repeatedly. I whirled around, looking for something to try and obliterate. I found nothing.

Overcome with every miserable sensation that swept over me, I slumped against the wall, then slid to the ground;

{OH JAKE WHAT DO I DO NOW YOU'RE GONE I'M ALONE AND I'M AFRAID}

I drew up my knees, crossed my arms over them, and buried my face in my sleeves.

I let the tears come. I didn't give a damn if anyone saw me. Empty street in the middle of the night. Let them come. I didn't care.

I cried soundlessly, the tears streaming endlessly from behind my shades, fiery against my skin. I cried for myself, I cried for Jake, and for the all the things I had always wanted to say to him but had never had the courage to say.

I wanted to crawl in a hole and die myself. I just wanted the world to go away. I wanted my brother back.

At some point, when my river of tears had desiccated, I lifted my head and dried my eyes and cheeks with the back of my hand.

I happened to glance over at my overturned briefcase. A white envelope had flown from the side pocket when I had kicked it over. I reached over and picked it up.

It was a letter from the Penguin. I had gotten it a few weeks back, but had never gotten around to reading it. I slid my forefinger under the flap and tore the envelope open, then removed the folded piece of paper.

She said that since I was getting out soon, she asked if I would please come and visit her. She had some sad news; the orphanage had been closed down the previous year. She stated that she had many other things to tell me, but she was quite busy at the moment and had no time to write it all down, but would tell me when I dropped by.

I looked at the front of the envelope. Our Lady of the Annunciation Hospital.

A minute earlier, I had wanted to end my life. Now I realized what I had to do.

The show must go on.

So I visited the Penguin. Only to find out that Curtis had gone on as well. Just as I was about to sink to the depths of despair, she gave me hope.

{Curtis? Had a son? }

And then there was Buster; the poster child for troubled orphans. He reminded me so much of Jake. He reminded me of myself too. He was the perfect combination of our personalities.

But at first, I didn't want to take him. I didn't want him to end up like me. But I could tell that he was too old and too far-gone to turn back to the mainstream, so I took him with me. I became to him what Curtis had been to Jake and me. A father of odd sorts.

And there was Cab. Cab, Curtis' illegitimate son, who had grown up with a mother and a man he thought was his father, with the normal life I had wanted. He was a policeman. Commander of the Illinois State Police.

And here he was, rigid and repressed.

I could tell by the way he perked up at my invitation to join the band that he had once possessed a definitive wild streak in his younger days, but it had been overridden by society and it's unyielding standards of normality. But all of the odd new information plopped in his lap by myself had frazzled his reasoning, and he did what he had been conditioned to believe was right. Threw me out of his office and pursued me feverishly, hell-bent on delivering me into the hands of justice.

But I was sure glad of the turn-around, however divinely orchestrated it may have been. Mysterious ways, I tell ya.

There was, of course, Mack. A sheepish working stiff, bartending for bucks, turned into a soulful entertainer. Blues-singing, law-dodging. He is my protégé, my partner in crime. I'm quite proud of the big lug.

I lost a brother, but gained a whole new family. They're great. . .

But none of them can replace Jake. I've learned to live without him. I try not to think about him much because the emotions hit me like a tsunami off the coast of Santa Monica.

It's hard for me. I miss him.

I still regret not saying all the million things I wanted to. I guess that's normal mourning, but it seems harder for me.

But life goes on. The show goes on. What's that line I heard in some country-western song? Oh, it's "the road goes on forever and the party never ends."

Jake lives on.

{I never told you, did I, Jake? I never told you that I loved you}

In my mind. In my heart.

THE END

A/N: OMG, that was, I felt, the best thing I've written yet. I was getting all vaklempt just writing it. *sniffle* You all HAVE to review this and tell me what you think! I have to know! Pretty please? I'll love you forever and I'll email you a chocolate cake, ok?

BETA-READ BY JENNIFER HUBBARD AND REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, SEPTEMBER 2003.