On a warm summer night, Jack staggered through the door of the one bedroom shack quietly, or as quietly as the fifth of whiskey would let him.  He hung up the pail on the peg in the mantle over the fireplace and turned to the bedroom.  It was nearly pitch black and he had to remember where his ten-year-old son, Jack III, usually left his toys, but it was hard in the dark with his blood pumping straight whiskey straight to his brain.  He reached for the knob of the bedroom door, not noticing the sliver of light coming from underneath, but when he saw his wife, Jill, sitting up in bed, he wasn’t surprised.  This is how it always was. 

            Jill, with one eyebrow raised, asked for an explanation.  But Jack had given up long ago.  She was much better at reconstructing the events of the night without his help.  He stood there, his head back and his arms outstretched as if to say “I’m ready.  Let’s get it over with.”

            “Let me guess.  Tonight it was the dwarves.  They came by the distillation center, offered to take you out for a few at Beast’s Tavern.  I can tell.  I can smell the whiskey, and you only drink whiskey with miners.  I should have married one of them!  A steady job pulling diamonds out of the earth.  They didn’t get caught up in the fairy tale of fame. They had their moment and went back to work, and now they’re all millionaires.  Well, the pigs must have come by too and talked you into eating cheeseburgers out of the trough.  As usual, you can’t do it right and you get slop all over your clothes.  Then you got rowdy and Beast himself had to throw you out.  Don’t try to deny it!  I can see the scrapes from his claws.”

            Jack was still standing with his arms outstretched, taking it, like every night.  He turned his right arm towards her to show off the wound on his elbow from Beast where the oaf had grabbed him.  Jack reasoned that Beast was always angry on account of losing his looks and losing his girl.  Rumor was she ran off with another prince to some place called Hollywood, but it sounded like that place was made up.  Everybody in town always said they felt sorry for him, but then he would come out of the back room of the bar to check a receipt or to talk to a customer or, in Jack’s case, to bounce someone out, and everybody took one look at his face and remembered why they hated him so much. 

            Jill wasn’t finished.  She said haughtily,  “Where’s your pail?”

            “I hung it by the fire.”  Jack’s voice was almost growling as he slumped into bed.  Why couldn’t she just leave it alone? he thought.  Every night it was the same damn story with her. 

            He laid down next to her and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  She started going on her usual tirade about his behavior.  His mind began to drift back to the good times. 

            Jack couldn’t remember what life was like before he met Jill.  He supposed he did the normal things like playing with friends and tipping cows.  His father, Jack the First, had been a rich man.  He climbed a beanstalk and tricked some giant out of his gold.  Wound up with a good bundle, but he lost some in a settlement with the three bears who held him responsible for dropping that giant on their house.  But Jack’s dad had plenty left over and their family lived pretty well off compared to the rest of town.  In fact, he remembered, his father never had to work after that.  Jack Sr. went out every night around town telling the story of how he had beaten the giant.  It was a much better story than any other; way better than the one told by the girl with the red riding hood.  (Red Riding Hood was still around, no longer little, drinking every night, telling that same pathetic story, the riding hood now looking dark gray from years of wear.)  In the midst of a boring story, Jack Sr. would walk through the door of Beast’s and everyone would turn their attention to him.  The way they lined up with offers to buy him a drink.  And eventually he’d tell the tale.  Jack Jr. never tired of hearing it.  It was all he could remember of his childhood.  Well, that and the pail. 

            Jack forgot when and where he had found the thing and had no memory of his first trip to the well.  It seemed like something that had always been in his life, and when he was young, he had thought that was all he would ever do.  But then he met her. 

            Jill was a distant niece of Cinderella, and therefore still under the jurisdiction of that same fairy godmother.  This made her quite interesting among the girls in town.  Jack had noticed her, but hadn’t thought much of her.  But a funny thing happened when he was about twelve.  Some call it fairy dust, others believe it’s something called puberty.  After that, she became Jill. 

            Jill quickly became the woman of his dreams, replacing Snow White.  With those bouncy braids and freckled cheeks.  Oh, how he wanted her. 

            When Jack Sr. threw a party, most of the town was there, including Jill.  Young Jack watched her from across the room, wondering what she thought of him, whether he was good enough for her.  Jack’s mother, Goldilocks, asked him to take his pale up the hill for some water.  Goldilocks, who was always very perceptive, suggested to Jill that she accompany him.

            Nervous as he was, Jack felt ready to make the trip up the hill he had made over a thousand times.  They both held the handle of the bucket as they went up, not saying a word.  He walked very stiffly as he thought of a suave comment, something Jack Sr. would say.  What did his father say to his mother when they met, Jack wondered?  “How do you like your chair, how do you like your porridge …” and then added with a lascivious grin, “how do you like your bed?”  He could say stuff like that because he was Jack Sr., the giant slayer.  Jack, on the other hand, was nothing yet.  Suddenly, he remembered this new story he had heard, one about a land where things called machines do all this menial work for you and people sit in their living rooms all day watching a glowing box that told stories, and the people who lived in this place never had to worry about anything except getting pieces of paper with letters on them, and this place was called “college.”  Jack made up his mind to ask Jill if she had heard about college once they reached the well. 

            But they never made it.  Jack tripped over a glass slipper and fell down the hill.  Hurt like a sonofabitch, Jack remembered.  He never admitted it when he told the story, but falling down and hitting all those little rocks had been more than he could bear, and since that time he’s never gone up another hill.

            At the bottom of the hill on that fateful day, Jack lost his senses.  He knew he lost his senses because he said something like, “Ouch!  My aching crown!  I think it’s broken!”  It didn’t sound like him to use an archaic word like “crown.”  He was apt to say, “Oy!  My bleedin’ brainpan!” 

            Still dizzy, he felt a weight on his body and breath in his face.  Opening his eyes, he saw Jill, dazed and groaning, on top of him. 

            A decade later, as Jack stretched out in his bed, he smiled to himself as he thought, And that’s where the term ‘knocked up’ comes from. 

            “What are you smiling about?”  Jill was still there, still ranting about the same thing. 

            “You’re not thinking about that old story again, are you?  Jack, that happened ten years ago!  Nobody cares!  You walk into Beast’s with that pail every night, but does anybody ask you to tell the story?  No!  There is no story!  We fell down a hill!  Millions of people fall down all the time!  You think you’re famous because you fell down?  You’re not even that good at falling down!  You only did half the job and gravity did the rest, but you can’t accept it, can you?  Every night it’s the same thing . . . “

            Jack had become a master at falling . . . asleep.  Sleeping to the sound of her crazy talk.  “You’re not famous!”  “Nobody cares!”  “Throw the pail out!”  Sometimes she raved about this “gravity” stuff, one of her wacky ideas.  But he knew.  Just like his father, Jack was a living legend.  Whenever anyone in town fell down they thought about Jack, and Jill too, even though she didn’t want any of the attention.  Fine with me, Jack thought, as he slipped into sleep.  He dreamed of the box with the colored images telling his story, things called posters and t-shirts and merchandise, and a thing called “Disney.”  And he felt happy, as he always was, and as he always would be.