Seventeen

In the aftermath of Jeremy’s death, many of Jack’s friends and coworkers felt an outrush of pity for Jack Barron. Among these was Patty Bednarczyk, who had after all introduced Jack to Irene only a few years earlier.

In addition to his railroad interest, Jack was a dedicated fan of the country singer Wynonna Judd. Judd’s harmonic mixture of country ballad and modern music appealed to Jack. As it happened, Patty Bednarczyk was good friends with the president of the Wynonna Judd fan club. After Jeremy died, Patty had contact with the president of the fan club, who then personally brought Jack’s plight to the attention of the singer herself.

Soon Judd was on the telephone to Jack, expressing her condolences at his recent losses. Jack later boasted to Denise Call that Judd had stayed on the telephone with him for more than two hours. During the conversation, Judd arranged for Jack to attend one of her concerts in California, the Feather River Jam. Jack went to the concert, leaving Ashley behind with Roberta.

There Jack posed for a photograph with Judd backstage. Judd gave Jack two more backstage passes for a future show in Reno, and told him to make sure that the next time he brought Ashley with him. Jack did.

Meeting Judd was a major event in Jack’s life, it appears. Later, neighbors and friends would remark on how all the photographs of Irene at the Southbreeze house and been taken down, and how they had been replaced by those of Wynonna Judd. At work, Jack boasted that he and Judd were dating, and dropped suggestions that they might get married.

Later, Jack’s co-workers and relatives would remark upon Jack’s seeming fascination with the country music star. Few believed Jack’s assertions that Ms. Judd had a romantic interest in him; to them, it seemed incredible.

But then, some thought, that was Jack: teller of tall tales, always building himself up, trying to make himself look larger than life.

Denise Call recalled the way Jack gushed over Wynonna.

“He went on and on about how beautiful she was,” Denise said. “How down-to-earth she was, that she was a real person, not a big star. Or how he got to eat with her, to be with her backstage, and how she was so nice to Ashley. He sent me a copy of the picture that they’d taken with him and her and Ashley.”

Denise wasn’t sure quite what to make of all this talk from Jack. Why would Jack be going around boasting about his relationship with Judd? When she thought about it, Denise concluded that this was all due to some desperate need in Jack to be the center of everyone’s attention.

And upon recollection, Denise remembered nights playing cards with Jack and Irene. Jack took it all so seriously, she remembered.

“When he won, it was, ‘I won, I won, you lost!’ He’d gloat and gloat and gloat,” Denise recalled. “When he lost, he’d get mad.” Once when the Barrons and the Calls were playing penny-ante poker, and Jack lost, he threw his cards down, told Irene, “We’re going,” and they walked out the door.

Eventually Cliff and Denise suspected that Jack wasn’t above cheating at card games. Denise told this to Irene, who said it couldn’t possibly be true. Denise told Irene how Jack was doing it, and the next time the couples played cards, they caught Jack. Steadfastly, unemotionally, Jack denied it, although even Irene was convinced that Jack was lying.

To Denise’s mind, it was as if Jack couldn’t stand being what he really was, that it wasn’t good enough. Always there had to be some sort of saga, some drama, in which Jack played the starring role. That was what the Wynonna Judd interlude showed, she thought: Jack’s need to be someone, to be seen as powerful, as worthy, as worth the interest of a famous star. He was, she concluded, a little boy trapped in an adult’s body, his psychic needs for domination and control at the forefront of his personality, spiraling out of an appalling lack of self-esteem. And when she thought even deeper about it, she could see how Irene had accepted Jack for what he was, how she had made allowances for him.

Irene, Denise thought, always had cared for the weak and the defenseless; and at heart, that’s what Jack was, a little boy terrified about what it meant to be a man.