JackRM8

IGN: JackRM8 RP Name: Jackson William Hawkes Age: 76 Backstory: Born Jackson Henry Smith in the summer of 1952 as the son of a carpenter in a rural town in Arizona, Jack’s life was modest. He was an average student and took an interest in woodworking as had his father before him. His life would change dramatically, however, in the spring of 1968, when a then 16 year old Jack was introduced by his older brother, David, to the world of narcotics. On days off from school Jack would hang out with David and his friends and smoke marijuana or whatever else they could find. It was Jack who first proposed the idea of selling their excess cannabis to his classmates, which they would do until the year of 1970, when a then 18 year old Jack and his brother, David, were drafted into the Vietnam War. Both brothers would survive their time in Vietnam, but neither would leave unscarred. They lost many friends, both old and new, and bore witness to atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict. Jack was shot twice by a Vietcong Kalashnikov and his brother was horrifically disfigured when a grenade left attached to a door handle killed several of his squad mates and tore up the left side of his face and torso. Neither brother was the same after their service. Both were affected deeply, but the hauntings of dead friends and a number of body image issues derived from his scarring would cause David to start abusing the narcotics the brothers once dealt in. Jack would find his relief when an old farmer he knew offered to teach him to fly a Cessna 188 AGwagon. In return, Jack would aerially applicate, or ‘crop dust’ the farmer’s fields. If he did a good enough job, he may even earn some cash on the side. Under this arrangement, in the fall of 1972, Jack would take his first flight. Only two years after his first flight, Charlie, a friend of David’s, would propose the idea of smuggling illicit goods across the Mexican-American border by air. They had been sourcing goods in Mexico and distributing them in the states even before Vietnam, but an aircraft of their own would allow their operation to scale exponentially, and with the increase in scale would come the natural increase of money. Money the son of a carpenter could not dream of earning legally. This promise of wealth would overwhelm Jack’s sensibilities and he would agree to fly his first shipment across the border in 1974. Jack would continue flying product for several years. Sometimes, he flew with company but most flights he flew alone. The solitude of these flights would give him ample time to develop misgivings about the course his life took. He had never been in a serious relationship which he greatly regretted and would continue to regret until the spring of 1978, when he met and fell for a woman by the name of Elizabeth Margaret Mackenzie, who he would marry in July of 1979. Seven months later in February of 1980, Elizabeth would give birth to their first and only son, Frank. Jack had been growing increasingly aware of the danger inherent in his life, this worry turning to fear in 1981 when his brother would pass away in a shootout with a prospective distributor. Jack took his family and fled first out of state and then out of country, moving five times between the years of 1981 and 1993. A final tragedy would strike in the fall of 1993 when a then 39 year old Elizabeth would pass away under mysterious circumstances in a car crash, causing Jack to take his son on a final move under new names to the relatively obscure country of Himera, where they both could be free of his past. Description: Jack Hawkes stands at 5 feet, 7 inches. His face is old and his hair is faded but his eyes remain keen. He walks slowly but steadily, favoring his right leg slightly. His eyes seem locked in a perpetual half squint, perhaps looking for something, perhaps shielding them from the sun. His hands move slowly but steadily when he works, never rushing. If he were to lift his shirt an onlooker might see two purple blotches on the front and back of his lower left abdomen. He has a thin mustache but the rest of his face is cleanly shaved.