Meet Jack Ryan

In the beginning I was born. Well, actually nine months before that my mum had been dating this really wonderful guy and they had fallen in love. One of those really corny stories, I know but I think its sweet. So, as I was saying…
In the beginning I was born. My mum is a wonderful woman. You probably have heard of her. She’s about forty-two now but when I was born she was about thirty and half way through filming “Sleepless in Seattle.” We used to live in the glorious and glamorous Hollywood Hills but now my mum acts on Broadway. Funny that, you go from theatre to film and then back again.
I was born on October 27th. Today is the 20th so there is just one week until my birthday. Can’t tell you how excited I am! My party will be something spectacular. As usual there will be all the Hollywood A-List stars. All the biggest names in showbiz. Jack wont be there though. He’s probably out in the Mid-West in his 18-wheeler. You see Jack’s my dad. His last name is Keller, like Helen Keller. I think they might have been related but I can’t remember these things. My mum’s surname is Ryan. I’ve met my dad. Usually a lost dad is just that, but when Jack came back to see me and I got to tell you, it was wonderful. I was ecstatic.
Back in 1998 when mum was filming “You’ve got mail,” Jack took me out in his big rig. We went all across America. God this is a great country. So much variety. We went from Seattle to DC, then south to Miami and West to Houston. Finally we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and watched the sunset from the observation gallery at the Liberty Tower. It was beautiful. Just like one of those mushy moments at the end of a movie. Dad called me JJ, for Jack junior. Sounded like a rapper’s name. It was totally cool. He was the one who taught me how to burp the alphabet, click my fingers and drive the truck! One scary bit was where the trailer skidded and nearly crushed a police cruiser. Luckily the office was from LA and we chatted for an hour about the smog, the gleaming towers and my old school. Turns out his son went to my school.
After that Jack disappeared. No more phone calls, no more emails, no more letters. I never saw him again. I don’t really understand what happened to him. Mum said not to worry because it was probably that he had gone on holiday or the IRS was after him. I’m not really mad at him. He was a great guy and truckers are always away for months so I guess he’s just away on an extended trip.
I go to this school in mid-town. It’s apparently one of the best in the world but I really don’t see what is all that great about it. Just another school to me. Anyway it’s called the UN School. We’ll call it the UNS for short. The UN runs it and they do a pretty poor job of it. Stuyvesant already has fancy whiteboards that correct spelling mistakes. Really impressive stuff and we should so have those. I can just imagine seeing Mr. Fisher writing some long word on the board to show off his vocabulary and getting the spelling wrong! Now that would be an awesome moment. Anyway, so about my school. It is right next to the big UN Building, the one that looks like a matchbox. It’s an expensive looking area but the school is pathetic. The teachers are okay but the area and the grounds are awful. I guess I can expect too much as real estate is going through the roof. Well, that’s what my friend John M told me yesterday. So yeah, I had lots of friends. A couple of girls like me too; I guess it’s my fantastic looks. What can you expect, my dad’s athletic and my mum, well you’ve seen her on the big screen so you know.
October 27th is a Wednesday this year. Mum said that I should have my birthday party on the next weekend, which is cool with me. There are going to be about 200 people there. Around 50 are my friends from UNS and neighbourhood kids. 150 will be mum’s guests. Usually there is some fancy caterer for the party but this year, mum, Jessica and me are going to cook lasagne and cake and pizza for all the people coming. I can’t wait! My flat is one of the swankiest pads in the city. I wouldn’t say it is decadent because it really isn’t. It’s quite tastefully done. I like my flat. There are two of them on the top two floors. One belongs to some Wall Street tycoon who’s now in jail. His place is rented out to this bachelor who’s working at Cantor Fitzgerald. They used to have offices just south of where I live but now they’re in a temporary place until this soaring new tower is going to be built. I live in TriBeCa. I love this part of the city because it is so vibrant. Every day there is some new concert or play or something. The area near the old Pan Am Building and the old AT&T Building is great, especially the park but this area is so upbeat and modern that I like it more.
Of course, it has its downside and that would be the view looking south. It’s an amazing view. On a clear day you can see the smoke plumes of vast ocean liners like the Queen Mary 2 that I went to see earlier this year. What a ship, biggest in the world! So, as I was saying, you can see the smoke plumes from ships sailing near Canada! From my flat you can now see the Statue Of Liberty. You know it’s officially called Liberty Enlightening The World? What an old fashioned name. It should officially be called Cool Green Lady with Torch of Gold. Three years ago you would not have been able to see Lady Liberty from my bedroom window. A vast complex of steel buildings and a couple of fantastically tall towers used to stand there. I bet you know what happened to them.
Enough nostalgia for the moment eh? Guess how old in turning this year… ill give you a hint, the digits add up to three, and its not 21. Or 201. Or 102. Or 200,000,001 or anything stupid like that. I’m going to be 12! To most kids this is a big thing because you’re meant to gets lots more freedom at this age. It isn’t to me. Mums a really busy woman so I get all those privileges and more just to get around the subway. I can even take taxis to Connecticut or Massachusetts if I want to, well need to but I’m good at convincing mum what I need when I only really want it. Like this one time when I saw the new silver PS2. Maybe I should stop rambling actually. Lets talk about school again (how exceedingly boring. Exceedingly. Now that’s a word that Mrs. Cannes would be impressed by.)
It really is a bit of a trek to get to UNS. First you take the 1, 2, 3 or 9 to Times Square and then you take the Cross Town Shuttle from 42nd Street to Grand Central Station and if you haven’t been mugged by then, get on a bus to the UN Plaza. From there it’s a fifteen-minute walk. Or, get a cab and get stuck in traffic on Lexington, or Madison or even Fifth Avenue. It’s all the same. The city is a gridlock in the morning. It seems the only person who gets to school on time without getting up ridiculously early is Jason Scott Stevenson. Son of the US Ambassador to the UN. I hate that kid. Every morning at exactly 8am his limousine roars past me spraying muddy water into my face. I come out of the subway, or the bus and go to cross the street. The sign switches to Walk and just that second the motorcade races past. Two blacked out SUVs and a Cadillac DeVille armoured limousine. Like the one Dubya has. What I really don’t get is why the limo is armoured. Sure, many people roll up in limos at UNS but armour plating seems a bit ridiculous to me. Aint nobody gonna drop an H-Bomb on him or something!
It’s a regular Tuesday morning. Ms. Hewitt writes the date on the board, calls out the register and then talks about something really boring for fifteen minutes. Then we go to our classes. I have English first thing in the morning. It’s a double so I sleep through the first half and write in the second. Mrs. Cannes is actually quite a nice lady but that subway journey takes a lot out of me. Anyway, today we have to write a creative piece similar to Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger. I just write about my life and about Jack and mum and my birthday and about having to write this essay.
Next is PE. Ms. Hewitt teaches PE. She’s about 25 and wants to be an actress. Boy if I had a nickel for every woman I met who wanted to be an actress. Actually she is pretty good at acting. Not that it matters because to get into that business now you have to know someone. Probably why my mum meets her so often to discuss my progress in school. I don’t care anyway, Ms. Hewitt is really pretty and it isn’t like I’ve got a crush on her or anything, it’s just that she’s pretty. After PE it’s lunch. Well, not exactly but I bet you don’t really care about hearing the preterit tense of “hablar” or why rivers meander. (Geography and Spanish for the slower ones reading this.) My school is mixed and thank God for that. I would die in a same-sex school. A couple of guys and I are the cool ones on the basketball team. Loads of girls think that’s cool. Well, if they think its cool I have no problem with that.
I have a girlfriend. That’s actually pretty impressive at 12. Her name is Jessica and she’s gorgeous. Imagine the prettiest girl you know and scale that up by ten. You’ve got a mental picture of my Jessica. Unlike most of the people at the UN School, Jessica is normal. Her dad is a journalist and her mum is an IT genius at American Express. I like her parents. They are surprisingly cool and are good friends with my mum. They’ll be there at my birthday, which is a little annoying, but I don’t mind them that much.
Tuesday ended well. I went home, watched TV and did too little homework. Doesn’t matter, ill do it on the subway tomorrow morning. It’s now 1.59am and I have to finish this English essay. The one I started this morning about my life. You remember don’t you? Look up a couple of paragraphs if you’ve already forgot. Anyway I’m writing this essay and I just can’t find a good way to end it. So I think ill go walk out onto the balcony of the flat. You have to go up stairs to get to it but I don’t mind. It’s a cool October evening and the lights of the city are shining. I’m looking north and I can see the towers of mid-town. This city is a real jewel in the nighttime. Especially the Chrysler, it looks fantastic. They turn the lights off at 2.00am because of some stupid electricity conservation policy.
The church bells at St. Peter’s just rang. It’s two am. The city that never sleeps really lives up to its name. I wish you could be up here with me, what a fantastic sight. I turned around, walked to the other side of the flat and looked south. There was Lady Liberty, her torch shining brightly.