In this case, Jon Parker

Character Wiki: Jon Parker

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“Hey — what’s Mark Salling doing on this page??” Oh, sorry. Mr. Salling is here because he looks roughly like the Jon who lives in my head. Jon has a little more hair, though (but not much).

Jon Parker is the narrator of The Portal & the Panther (Guardians of the Portal, Book 1).  At the beginning of the first book, he is seventeen years old.  Here’s a more extensive, spoiler-free Wiki all about Jon.

Early Life

Jon was born in Ozark, Arkansas, as Jonathan Raymond Parker on September 30, 1997.  His parents are Ellen Lee Evanston Parker (b. 1970, d. 2003) and Raymond Andrew Parker (b. 1968).  His mother was a Registered Nurse who worked at the Ozark Regional Hospital; his father was a history professor who specialized in military history and the Civil War.  Ray Parker taught at a community college outside Fort Smith.

Until the age of six, Jon enjoyed a happy family life with his parents in the small town of Mecksville, AR, which is located roughly 40 minutes south of Fort Smith and 30 minutes west of Ozark.  When Jon was a little over a year old, his family moved into a two-story Victorian-style home that bordered a state park.  The young family quickly made friends with another young family, the Krulls, who had a daughter about Jon’s age by the name of Kristin.  Kristin and Jon became playmates and then good friends as they grew older.

Ellen’s Car Accident

On a rainy winter night in 2003, Jon’s mother Ellen had a fatal accident that took not only her own life but also the life of her unborn daughter.  Jon and Jon’s father were both devastated.

Jon’s paternal grandfather had been an abusive alcoholic, and Jon’s father Ray had always had a difficult relationship with alcohol.  While Jon’s mother was alive, Ray controlled his drinking and focused on being a good father and a good husband.  After Ellen’s death, Ray drinking gradually increased.

For the first year after Ellen’s death, Ray moved through life as almost a mute ghost, barely speaking to Jon and barely maintaining control over his drinking.  During this time period, Jon relied heavily upon his friendship with Kristin Krull, who provided the only real emotional support available to him.  When he could, he avoided his father and spent as much time as possible with Kristin.  Kristin, too, had good reason to avoid her family:  Her younger brother, James Junior (JJ) had been diagnosed with autism.  She became virtually invisible as her parents struggled to cope with their new reality of having a special needs child.  Jon and Kristin found a refuge in each other that kept them away from their increasingly dysfunctional families.

Ray’s New Career

When Jon was eight, Ray Parker appeared to have turned over a new leaf.  Declaring that he was finished with alcohol, he quit drinking completely.  He also quit his teaching job at the community college to pursue his dream of writing popular history books.  Always a bookish man, Ray had protected himself from his own dysfunctional family by escaping into books and history; he now wanted to give that experience to others.

Deciding that he and Jon no longer needed their large Victorian home, which he and Ellen had bought with the expectation of an expanding family, Ray sold the house and moved with Jon to a small brick ranch outside Mecksville’s city limits.  Set on four acres of land, Ray planned to spend his time writing and farming.  He turned the house’s shed into an office for his writing and set about his new career.

Within months, it became apparent that Ray’s dreams were no more than that — just fantasies.  After a year and a half of running through his savings, it became clear that he needed to get a regular job again.  He also resumed drinking around this time and, as before, his bad habit was on the rise.

Jon continued to seek solace in his friendship with Kristin during this time period, typically going home with her on the bus instead of to his own home.  He also got involved with sports, joining his friend Ryan Turkle’s baseball team and later a Pee Wee football team.  Naturally athletic, Jon excelled at both sports, but his true love was football.  His combination of agility and strength made him an invaluable player.  He channeled his confused emotions about his deceased mother and his semi-alcoholic father into football.

By the time Jon was 10, Ray got a job at a food processing plant. Although he loved and supported Jon, he never quite got over his depression over the loss of his wife and the failure of his writing career.  He would always remain emotionally distant from Jon.

Jon’s Middle School Years

When Jon entered Mecksville Middle at 12, he was already well-established in the “popular crowd” from his years of playing sports and hanging out with his friend Kristin.  He became a star football player in the middle school and also joined the “Run for Fun” club, where he and some of his football friends ran on the high school’s cross country trail between football and baseball season.

What set Jon apart from the other “jocks,” however, was his good heart.  Because of his own painful experiences, including the loss of his mother and his unreachable father, he had a capacity for compassion unique for a boy his age.  For example, when his childhood friend Ryan “Turk” Turkle became the target of school bullies — bullies like Rob Curtis, who was a good friend of Jon’s — Jon refused to participate and even succeeded in forcing other boys to back off.  He also protected Ian Samuels, a boy Jon didn’t know well but who suffered from embarrassing seizures.  Thanks to Jon, Ian’s seizures remained a secret.

It was also during middle school that Jon’s feelings for Kristin grew to something more than friendship.  For Valentine’s Day in seventh grade, Jon brought Kristin daisies — daisies he had pulled from school grounds.  Recognizing the flowers as being a part of the school’s own garden, Kristin embarrassed Jon and laughed off his romantic overtures.  Thus snubbed, Jon pushed away any feelings for Kristin that went beyond friendship, even while the adults in both their lives joked that the two would certainly marry one day.

Instead, Jon transferred his affections onto Ashley Turner, a friend of Kristin’s who became Jon’s first girlfriend and first kiss.

Jon’s First Two Years of High School

Jon’s life was going well by the time he entered high school.  Still dating Ashley and enjoying his status as part of the school’s “elite,” Jon was a starting player on the Junior Varsity football team, playing cornerback on defense and occasionally wide receiver on offense.  His freshman year went well, and, unlike many of his football teammates, he maintained A’s and B’s.  Although he occasionally spent time with Turk, most of his social life began to revolve around the football team and other kids in Mecksville’s “in-crowd.”  He was good friends with the other JV stars, including Dave Bramlett, Dave’s best friend Rob Curtis, Jaden Jones, Quentin Perraut, Xavier Roberts, and the team’s two “Mikes” — Mike Callahan and Mike Abbot.  He stopped dating Ashley in the fall of his freshman year, and went on to have several successive, brief relationships with other girls in his year, including Hannah Rutledge, Nicole Hastings, and Betsy Sears.

Trouble started brewing during pre-season football training his sophomore year.  Inexplicably, one of his friends started spreading untrue rumors about him.  Despite insisting that the rumors were false, one-by-one his social circle turned on him, first excluding him, then bullying him.  This even extended to his oldest friend, Kristin, who unexpectedly rejected him when the rumors were at their peak.

And that’s about where book 1 picks up.

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