THE BOLAN CHRONICLES: Reading #1

1. Approximate Minutes Reading (AMR): 5

Introduction to Characters:

Charles and Nancy Bolan (Jake’s Parents)

Jake Bolan (A Main Character)

THE BOLAN CHRONICLES

Chapter 1

Jake and Donna

**Young Jake and His Dream**

Charles Bolan and Nancy Mayfield were married in February of 1959. Ten months later, they had a baby boy, and they named him Jake. Mr. Bolan was an investment banker in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He’d expected that his son would follow in his footsteps and had gone to great lengths to teach Jake the benefits of the wise use of money. A set of chores had profited Jake from age five. And from day one, when he had taken his first bag of garbage out the back door and to the large tin can outside of the house, he had been forced to give up half of his income to his father. By age 10, Jake had a savings account of nearly a thousand dollars. He would learn to respect the almighty dollar, by god, was his father’s words, and though his mother often worried about the prospect of a young miser, she dared not say a thing. 

Mr. Bolan was a very hard man.  

He arrived home from work every weekday by 5:30, with rare exception. He then spent thirty minutes on the phone with brokers with whom he had direct connections. His wife never asked about his work. He insisted that she stick to household chores and promised that he would respect her work privacy in return. He would never ask about her day; what she did, how things went. This deal wasn’t particularly what she’d wanted, but she dared not question his demands.

Their young son Jake, though unafraid of hard work and certainly willing to accept the benefits of that work, wasn’t the least bit interested in banking. To Jake, banking for a living was a shameful waste of a life. For Jake, law enforcement was it. From the day he’d watched his first episode of  ‘Dragnet,’ he was hooked. And he was determined to become a police officer. The idea that “The story you are about to see is true,” fascinated Jake. “Just the facts, ma’am,” was a phrase that he picked up, used and misused. His mother decided that enough was enough when one day twelve year-old Jake asked her why he wasn’t permitted to go across the street to his friend’s house. She’d begun to give him a detailed answer about how by the time he arrived it would be so close to dinnertime that it would hardly be worth the effort. She hadn’t said half of what she’d intended to say, when Jake interrupted with his “Just the facts, ma’am” cliché. She rarely reprimanded Jake, so when she abruptly stopped him before he’d had a chance to finish, he was a bit taken aback.  

“Geez, Mom.  Don’t be such a spaz!”

She throttled him by the collar and replied, “Don’t ‘geez’ me, young man, and don’t ever use that ridiculous Dragnet phrase again! Not with me, Jake! I’m sick and tired of it!” Jake was speechless.  He pulled himself from her grip, straightened his collar, and walked into his room, slamming the door behind him. He stood facing the door, two middle fingers accompanied by a few choice phrases silently mouthed.

In December of 1972, Jake turned teen. And while most of his peers were spending their spare time collecting Hot Wheels and trading baseball cards, Jake was reading True Detective magazines that he’d stolen from the local Grand Union Supermarket.  When his mom had one morning found them under his mattress, she’d temporarily lost her breath. The cover of every other edition portrayed a young woman, usually a half-dressed blonde, tied up or holding a knife over her would-be rapist.  When she confronted him with the soft porn rags, Jake claimed that he had found them on the side of the road in an old grocery bag. His mother believed him. He informed her of how he spent hours reading about detective activities and learning about the profession and that he would someday do some of the things that the detectives did. She let him keep them, with the exception of one: Strange Detective. April Edition.  The cover was of a bent over brunette with only a pair of panties on, the nipples of her breasts barely covered by the letters of the subtitle: CHORUS GIRL FORCED TO DO MORE THAN SING—24 HOURS IN THE NUDE!   

Jake’s obsession with cop television shows increased with the availability of so many of them on prime time throughout the seventies. He spent a good part of each weekday evening in front of the television, worshipping the likes of Lt. Ryker of The Rookies, and Officer Pete Malloy of Adam 12. Jake had collected posters of police shows since he was five, and his walls were covered.  He pictured himself as one of his heroes. He would lie on his bed and stare at his S.W.A.T. poster, replacing Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson with himself, and imagining the attention he’d get when he was one day considered a hero. It was his dream—his passion. He was just sure that he was going to be the best cop in the world, by god, whether his father liked it or not.