Well. The fact is that I am a professional procrastinator – in other words, an very lazy person.

Jordan Thurlow to Ivette Yonce

Jordan Thurlow is a character in Always Visible (Another Prayer for the Dying Horror Genre). He’s a grown man who works as a culturologist in Portland.

Throughout the course of the story, his path crosses with the Yonce family, in particular with their daughter Delia, in which he finds his closest friend. Ironically, it was this connection that led to the death of first the girl, and then Jordan Thurlow himself. He is the main character of “Uma Moldura Quebrada” and plays a major role in “Que Difícil é Ser Escravo de Deus!”. Jordan Thurlow never appears in “Tempo De Construção Novamente” and “Qualquer ou Uma Grande Recompensa”, but is often mentioned by other characters.

Appearance

Jordan Thurlow is a a man of approximately twenty-something years old with a name of Hebrew origin. He has short and unruly hair of an indescribable color and brown eyes. He describes himself as a dystrophic and thin person..

He usually tried to maintain a formal dress code, but when he stained his suit with flour, Jordan Thurlow had to wear a T-shirt and shorts from his teenage days, which made him look like he was overgrown.

In zero act of the work Jordan Thurlow is described as a modest and educated man, and in act two his weak-willed character and, to put it mildly, strange fetishes are revealed.

Personality

It’s not so much about the money. I went down the path of a culturologist solely because, so as not to spend a lot of time at work.

—Jordan Thurlow explains his choice of profession

He never traveled outside of his native Portland, which, given his homebody personality, was not surprising. Jordan Thurlow himself is not distinguished by a strong character, almost all his neighbors in Parkrose Neighborhood consider him a hedonist who deserves only contempt, and he does not even try to challenge this, because of which one can judge that he does not care about the opinions of others.

During his school years, he loved the German language, which eventually led to him obtaining through an acquaintance the book by the Strugatsky Brothers “Hard to Be a God” (in German translation), which he then read to his young neighbor. At the same time, he hates esoteric books, and when one day a crazy psychic hands him the “The Book of Light”, Jordan Thurlow burns it without hesitation to please Delia Yonce.

Jordan Thurlow is unpretentious in food, but at the same time he once takes offense at fate for constantly slipping him chicken meat and chicken eggs. He often forgets to feed his Belgian Malinois, Buffalo, on time, but this is forgivable, given that he is often away for work for a week or less. Jordan Thurlow is distinguished by a strange fetish – when Delia spits on him in anger, he does not wipe off her saliva for a long time, but on the contrary sniffs the spit, which indicates that he has deviations from the norm of development. Considering that he grew up without a father, we can decide that his mother could not raise her son properly on her own, unless these were hereditary problems.

He is very weak in mathematics, which is why he is often cheated, in addition, Jordan Thurlow really dislikes physical work – he does not play sports and does not work in the garden, although when he is asked to pull out weeds, he copes with this task quite well, from which one can judge that in fact Jordan Thurlow can easily bear the load, but he is just lazy. Jordan Thurlowp has a strange laughter disorder, due to which he begins to laugh in the wrong situation, which is why those around him often make comments to him or threaten him with violence.

Biography

Jordan Thurlow was born in 1965 in Portland, Oregon into a single-parent family because he never saw his father, he ends up taking the surname of his mother, who raised him alone until her death in 1984. He continued to live in his grandmother’s house, occasionally going to work in the center, where he chose the profession of cultural studies because such work gives him a lot of free time.

In August 1989, into the house of his neighbor Harris Sherwind moved the family of pharmacist Yonce, the female half of which immediately struck up an acquaintance with him. Delia Yonce, their daughter, immediately finds a close friend in Jordan Thurlow, but when the girl starts her period in mid-September, her parents attribute this fact to Jordan Thurlow taking their daughter to visit his friend, and mister Yonce himself ends up shooting the neighbor’s dog to the dead and almost kills Jordan Thurlow himself, but the police team led by inspector Pharqraut manages to arrive in time to put Jordan Thurlow behind bars.

Jordan Thurlow is tried along with his friend, but in the end only he is sentenced to prison, and he ends up serving an 18 year sentence in Columbia River Correctional Institution, where he is visited by inspector Galbraith, who asks the prisoner to tell him his facts from his communication with Yonce family. After this, the policeman tells Jordan about how he investigated the suicide of Ivette Yonce and also adds that Delia Yonce herself died in the Randall Children’s Hospital. Hearing this, Jordan Thurlow asks Galbraith to avenge the child and after he is taken to the cell, he dies from lack of oxygen, which was caused by throat cancer progressing in his body – an illness uncharacteristic for such a healthy young man.

Quotes

  • “After the death of my mother, I needed to pay off her debts. I had to sell almost all of her things, and this was the only income at that evil days.”
  • “All my adult life I tried to delay the moment, when I have to start working for a living. When I was younger, I lamented that society was not able to easily give benefits to everyone and everyone. But, as you understand, the cornucopia is just a utopian symbol, and therefore, with a heavy heart, I had to agree with the foundations of our imperfect world.”
  • “I believe that a person should not live only by labour. I hated the idea of becoming some kind of salesclerk or steward – because others will treat you not as an individual, but only as a screw in a social structure. Such work deprives me of the possibility of self-expression, and my nature does not accept this.”
  • “Hard to give answer. I never claimed to be an outstanding person. Parents tend to idealize their children, but the child wants to be himself first and foremost, and I was no exception.”
  • “Trust me, I am in total agreement with you! I’m getting sick and tired of this esoteric nonsense. I would never pick up a book like this, if on the street I had not been forced to take it by one whacky. By the way, I was wondering, why do you think this book is “stupid junk”, as you put it?”
  • “You’ve never laughed like this before. Agree, because it great – to burn the books?”
  • “I’m not saying that this applies to all literature. Those who can really teach something should be cherished as height of luxury, and they should not be burned at all.”
  • “What, you’re afraid that the young lady will get bored and remember you as a rare bore? Wrong, mate – Delia is a serious girl, loves to talk about literary topics, we recently read the Brüder Strugatzki with her, and she liked it very much.”
  • “Open it up, dormouse, the bear has come!”
  • “Do not mix, mate, these foodstuff. They need to be eaten with a break of at least an hour, otherwise the beans will kill the flavor of the meat.”
  • “Just think about this, mate, this author has a representative of the feudal class became sympathetic to the leader of the oppressed people. Don’t you find that this is some kind of prerequisite for mutiny, a overturn?”
  • “Japh, It’s already difficult for Delia to describe her feelings, and you’re pestering her with your questions. That won’t do, mate.”
  • “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want them to think that you heard a some baloney from ajussi Japh.”
  • “What kind of nonsense am I saying. I collided with the eyes of an unfamiliar girl and, pardon me, almost died on the spot. I’m completely went limp!”
  • “I hate rottweilers, Japh! I hate ’em!”
  • “No, mister inspector Galbraith, there was no affection that evening, and where would it come from? Then, standing on the outside of the Yonce’s fence, I was scared. I felt like I had been shot with a bullet laced with poison.”
  • “I want Delia not to feel abandoned in the next world. Do you understand me, mister inspector?”

Trivia

  • Jordan Thurlow is very loosely based on Josephine Thueson from “Omen IV: The Awakening”, played by Ann Hearn. Basically, their only similarities are their similar names (Jordan Thurlow – Josephine Thueson) and the fact that they both knew the titular character and die midway through the story.
  • If in the film a character named Jo treats the title character with distrust and dies as a random victim, then Jordan Thurlow, on the contrary, loves Delia Yonce and dies after her own death, and in Jordan Thurlow’s dying dream a girl similar to her comes to him to relieve him suffering.
  • In the third act, mister chief inspector Schaeymoure tells Galbraith that it is very likely that Delia Yonce and Jordan Thurlow are related, which is a reference to Delia York’s line “My father is your father” from “Omen IV: The Awakening”.