Storiesonline.net ------- Bunny Rocks the Boat by Openbook Copyright© 2005 by Openbook ------- Description: This is the twenty fourth story in the Caddymaster saga. Jackie's cousin finds herself cast adrift by her jealous boyfriend. Jackie trys to heal the rift or mediate a workable separation. As usual, life interferes with his simple plans and hopes. Codes: no-sex ------- ------- Chapter 1 It was almost five thirty in the morning on a cold December day. I was wrapping my ungloved hand around a plastic thermos cup as I shakily poured out another cup of the wonderful coffee that Ellen had gotten up to make for me. She was back home, in our bed, snoozing away once again, and I was sitting in my near freezing truck cab, waiting for Billy to load me up so that I could take my order over to Providence. I'd just turned thirty years old two weeks before, and I was getting damned tired of getting up every morning at three thirty or four and driving over to Billy's farm. I was especially tired of doing it in a surplus Army truck when the heater didn't work, and I'd have to freeze my ass off the whole day long. Billy was really pissing me off too, since he was out there in that sub freezing cold without even a pair of gloves on, driving his loader, and trying to act as if he were as comfortable as if it were Indian Summer out there, instead of about five degrees Fahrenheit. He was wearing that new thermal underwear, but I didn't spoil it for him by letting on that I knew about that. I was planning on getting several pair for myself as soon as I got the time, and an opportunity to do so. I was gratified, when Billy came over to the truck window and told me that I was loaded. Gratified that I could leave and get on the road, and even more gratified to see that his big, red nose was dripping, and looked close to being frost bitten, and that those bare hands of his were turning a little blue. Billy and I had played oneupmanship games for all of our lives together, and I was happy to see that one of his little psychological victories over me was costing him some discomfort at least. I knew he was dying for me to leave so that he could run back into his house, get warm at the stove, drink some of Theresa's hot coffee, and get himself a scarf, hat and his thick winter gloves. I stalled him for five more minutes, talking about nothing, and watching him trying not to squirm in discomfort. Somehow, when I left, I was feeling a little bit better. As I was making a turn to get out to the road, my brother Ray pulls in with his empty truck, so I turn my truck off and hop out to shoot the breeze with him while he waits to be loaded. This had the added benefit of keeping Billy out in the freezing cold, and I'd get to sit in Ray's heated cab for awhile. I was enjoying the thought of Billy's extended misery right up until the moment I jumped into Ray's cab.His face was all red and covered with small cuts and scrapes. He had iodine on some of the cuts, and some swelling under the eye that I could see. "What the hell happened to you Ray, Sandy finally catch you doing something you shouldn't have been doing?" Ray was a legend in his own mind, when it came to extra-marital hijinks. Ellen had told me that Sandy didn't care, but I can't say that I'd ever believed that was true. I figured she'd laid into him and that accounted for him being so marked up. "No, it was Sam Crocker, that big asshole. I was only trying to do a favor for Bunny, and he went off on me before I knew he was serious.He threw me off his porch and I landed on my face in the ashes he'd spread on the pathway. I got cut by the cinders and my face is hurting and all raw." Sam was my cousin Jean's live in boyfriend. We had all called her Bunny since she was a little girl, but she preferred Jean or Jeannie, now that she was an adult. She was my Uncle Sonny's youngest kid, and since his death, she'd had a pretty tough time of it. Most of her trouble was of her own making, but she should have gotten more assistance and guidance from her brothers and sisters. Being the baby, everyone had spoiled her and let her do whatever she wanted to do. I'd met her boyfriend several times over the past year, and I didn't much care for him, or any of his buddies either. Sam and two of his brothers had a fishing boat that they worked, doing long hauls, and porting out of New London. He was usually out to sea for a week to ten days at a time, depending on the season, and where and how the fish were running. Sam was the oldest brother, and he ran the boat as it's nominal captain. The boat actually belonged to Sam's father, and the brothers all worked for shares of the catch. "Well, what did you say or do to make him mad at you?" "Nothing much that I can figure. I told him that Bunny asked me to pick up some of her things because she had decided to stay with Butch for a few weeks, and figure out where to go from there." Butch was Jean's brother, and lived in Groton with his wife and two kids. Jean and Sam had been having some relationship problems ever since Sam started worrying about what Jean might be getting up to while he was out fishing on his boat. Jean, to be fair to Sam, wasn't the kind of girl that liked to spend her time sitting at home by herself and watching the television. I hadn't heard anything about her getting up to something, but it wouldn't have been a shock to any of us because she did have a wild side. "Sam said to tell Bunny she could come over and get her stuff herself, and that he wasn't about to let any of the rest of us in to go through all his stuff. Right after he told me that, he opened the door all the way up, and came out and heaved me off the porch. By the time I got up and was ready to get a piece of him, he'd gone back inside and shut the door." Sam was my size, and the only way that Ray would have gone after him is with a machine gun, and a whole platoon behind him. "Have you talked to Jean yet about what happened?" "Yeah, last night when I got home. She says she'll take care of it." While we'd been talking, Billy had snuck on into his house and changed into a hooded, fur lined parka, and was wearing his gloves. I tried hard not to laugh when I climbed down from Ray's truck. "Okay Ray, I'll talk to you later. Get your delivery done early and come over to the house after. Tell Nanook of the North over there to quit wasting time sitting by his stove and get some damn work done around here." Billy took his glove off long enough to flip me the bird, but I noticed that he hurried and put it right back on. His nose was still red and running, and I smiled as I hurried back to my truck. I didn't get back from Providence until almost four that afternoon, and when I walked in the door, Butch and Jean were both sitting down at the kitchen table, talking to Ellen. Ray was nowhere around. "Hi Jean, hey Butch. You guys waiting for Ray?" I liked my two cousins, but we weren't very close. I had been closer to Uncle Sonny, but they were still family, and that meant a lot where I was brought up. "We're waiting for you Jackie. You heard about Ray and Sam last night?" I nodded at Jeannie, letting her know that I had heard. ""Well today, Butch and I went over there and he wouldn't let me in to get my things either. He told Butch to get the hell away from his house, and threatened me if I ever come back there. All of my things are in his house Jackie. Everything I own. It isn't that much, but still, he's got no right to keep it from me. He's gotten so jealous and he's starting to believe everything he's thinking might happen. I can't take a pee without him coming to the door of the can and listening to see if anyone's in there with me. I can't live with that kind of crazy jealousy, I had to get out." Jean was about twenty or twenty one years old, only five one or so, and kept her blondish hair short and combed back. She was built pretty good, but she already drank too much, and didn't do much to keep up her looks. Even as young as she was, she was starting to look soft and out of shape. Her skin was pallid, and a little pasty. She didn't look healthy or wholesome, especially in the winters. "So what's your take on all this Butch? What do you want to do?" "Jean's staying with us Jackie, but she needs to work and pay her way too. She needs her stuff. How's she gonna get work if she doesn't have clothes and her stuff? Sam won't even let her have her cosmetology license and her certificates, she'd have to get all new replacements, plus all of her scissors and equipment. That could run into big dough which she doesn't have. We were hoping you could go talk to Sam and make him see what's right." "Jean, what's the phone number over there?" I figured it wouldn't do much good, but I thought I'd call him and let him know that things would go smoother if he let Jean have her belongings. She gave me the number, but she didn't look like she had much confidence that I would succeed in talking Sam into changing his mind, especially over the telephone. I dialed the number and he answered after a couple of rings. "Sam, hi, its Jackie, Jean's cousin. She's sitting here in my kitchen Sam, and she wanted me to call you and find out what would be a good time for us to come over and get all her things tomorrow." "A good time? How about never Jackie? I'm through with that lying, two timing bitch, your cunt of a cousin. She better stay the fuck away from me, and my house, if she doesn't want more trouble than she can handle." "Sam, she needs some of her things, at least enough to start a new job. How's she supposed to eat otherwise? Let her come over for fifteen minutes and clear out her things. You two might talk later and smooth over your differences. Sam, all she wants is her stuff, that's all." "Why don't you come over here like your brother did, Jackie? I'll give you the same message I gave him. Yeah, you come on over and maybe you'll convince me to give you her things." I was listening to all his big talk, mostly thinking that he better not be thinking that he can push me around like he did with Ray and Butch. I hadn't matured fully, at least not to the point where I was turning away from those kind of challenges. I saw Ellen watching me closely. She could read my face like it was a second grade primer. she always told me that my face was like an open book to her. I knew she wasn't having any trouble reading what I was thinking right then. "That'll be great Sam, I'm looking forward to it. What time do you want me there?" "Suit yourself dick breath, I'll be here all morning." "Will you be up and about by eight?" "I can be if that's what you want." "Good, I'll see you about eight then. Good night." I hung up the phone and told Jean that Sam was going to let me have some of her things. I asked her to make me a list of what she really needed to have. She spent about twenty minutes making her list. I had to go over it with her when she got done, since she spelled everything phonetically, and her penmanship was undecipherable. I walked Butch and Jean out to Butch's car and came back into the house. "The phone call went well Jackie?" "Sure hon, he's pissed at Jean, but he doesn't want it to get too ugly in case they reconcile someday." "You can't lie to me Jackie, what did he really tell you?" "He said that I should come over and we'd discuss it." "I'm going with you then, and that's final." "Okay Ellen. I'm leaving at four in the morning though because there's stuff I need to get settled with Billy before the driver's pick up their loads in the morning. You can visit with Theresa while he and I are talking." "You taking Billy with you tomorrow morning when you go see Jean's boyfriend?" ""No, why would I? Besides Billy's too busy with other, important, stuff, and I can load Jean's things by myself. You going to shower tonight or in the morning?" She gave me her look, the "I see right through you" look and went back to fixing our supper. "Dinner's in ten minutes Jackie. Go get cleaned up, and then come set the table. I'm going tomorrow Jackie, so don't think I'm going to want to sleep in." I went and got washed up, cursing myself for the ten thousandth time for ever being so dumb as to marry a woman smarter than me. We had Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and creamed corn. There was a savory wine flavored mushroom gravy for the meat and potatoes. I thanked myself for the twenty thousandth time for having the good sense to marry a woman who really knew how to cook. That night in bed, Ellen wanted to pretend that I was Sampson and she was Delilah. The significance of her choice wasn't totally lost on this Philistine. She didn't get the chance to cut off any of my hair, but I managed to chew a few of hers shorter. We both slept well until the alarm woke us at three. I jumped out of bed first, and used up all the hot water with a long shower. When I got out of the bathroom, proud of myself for having out thought Ellen, she was already dressed, telling me, very casually, that she'd gotten up after I fell asleep and had taken her shower. Ten thousand and one. We pulled into Billy's yard about four thirty, and, in less than a minute, Billy came outside to greet us. Trying to get to his farm earlier than Billy got up was almost an impossible task. I managed it a few times, but only if he'd gotten plastered the night before, or when he was sick and Theresa wouldn't allow him to get out of bed. Billy was as healthy as a horse, and seldom got sick, even for a day. We used to joke that the only way to keep Billy from working was to shoot him. Billy could never see any humor in us saying that. Theresa and I thought it was hilarious though. "Didn't expect you here this morning Jackie. Something up?" "Hi Cuz, no I just need to ask you some questions about scheduling the deliveries for next week. I'm thinking of sleeping in a few days, and wanted to see if we couldn't double shift a couple loads so everything was covered." "You bring your wife just in case I needed some help with the real work?" "No, she wanted to come over so she could time Theresa in her new rapid fire pistol practice. She claims Theresa can draw and fire six shots in less time than it takes a man to turn and jump off a porch." "Fuck you Jackie. Aren't you ever going to stop bringing that up to me?" "All I was saying was why Ellen came over. Excuse me for not knowing how sensitive you've become." Ellen went into the house to look for Theresa, and Billy and I had a little conversation about Sam Crocker and the situation with Jean. Billy had already talked to Ray about what Sam had done, and I told Billy about my phone call with him. Billy wanted to go with me, but I told him that with Ellen insisting on coming along, nothing much would be happening anyway. I also told him that he had to get everyone loaded up and on the road. "Billy, if Sam continues being an asshole, which he probably can't avoid, it might come down to a few of us going over there and keeping him and his buddies at bay while Jean gets her things out of the house. Until then, let's not go asking for trouble okay?" "Jackie, you're going to kick his ass today, with or without Ellen being there. You just don't want to admit it. You afraid I'd do something to spoil your fun? I can be all through here by eight thirty and the two of us could take a ride over there and leave Ellen with Theresa and the kids." I knew that Ellen wouldn't go for that deal, so I told him to just let it develop naturally. He didn't like it, but he went along anyway. He made it a point though to tell me that he wasn't going to call me either, the next time something came up, and that he'd go ahead and handle it alone. I just laughed, knowing that Billy was like a big disappointed kid who hadn't been allowed to ride on the big red firetruck. It really gnawed at him knowing that there might be some action and he was being left behind. It was all anti-climactic anyway, because when Ellen and I pulled up in front of Sam's old house, he had taken four big fifty five gallon leaf burning barrels, and burned all of Jean's clothes and possessions. It was all still smoldering when we got out of my truck. That mean spirited bastard was nowhere to be found, and I quit knocking on his door after ten minutes of constant pounding, and a little bit of kicking, after my hands started to get sore. Ellen and I drove over to Butch's place and told Jean what Sam had done. She cussed him up one side and down the other, but after she cooled off a little, Ellen took her shopping for some new clothes and that seemed to cheer her up. Ellen took her over to a beauty supply house and Jean was able to get a real good deal on a whole set of used beauty operator gear. She told Ellen that it was better stuff than what she'd owned, so she was okay with the substitution. Why wouldn't she be? All told, it came to over three hundred dollars, and Ellen insisted that it was our present to Jean for starting her new life. I guess it was a new life warming present or something. I made a special note to myself to collect every cent of that money from Sam Crocker the next time I saw him. ------- Chapter 2 The next two weeks passed by quickly. I was busy setting up for Christmas, and doing my best to catch up on the business paperwork that I needed to take over to our accountant. Jean had gotten on with a beauty parlor in Groton, and seemed to be be comfortable enough, living at Butch's place, and helping them out with their expenses. All of Uncle Sonny's kids were satisfied with just getting by, financially speaking. They didn't try to save up for their own houses, or put anything away for emergencies. They were nice people, for the most part, but none of them were what I'd call ambitious, or driven by any need to excel. Most of them envied my mother and father's lifestyle, and my parents lived in a subsidized housing project for the working poor. They didn't often ask for anything though, and were always grateful for any help they received. On several occasions Billy or I had put one or more of the kids to work during the summers when they wanted to make some extra money for school clothes or something. Butch was a good, hard worker, but he had quit school in the tenth grade and would always be casual labor at Electric Boat. In a good year, he got in about a thousand hours of work for the company. The hourly rate was pretty high, but half time work isn't ever enough for a man with a wife and a couple of kids. Butch was the best of Uncle Sonny's kids though, in terms of being steady and reliable. It was a week before Christmas when Sam Crocker drove over to Groton, mad as he could be, and wanting to tear into Jean in the worst way. Sam had just found out that Jean and one of his brothers had been fooling around together during the time that Sam was out on the fishing boat, and his brother had been laid up back in port with a broken arm. Butch was home that day, when Sam came over, and he tried to help pull Sam off of Jean when Sam was slapping her all around right in Butch's living room. Sam turned on Butch and the incident turned into a big brawl, with Diane, Butch's wife, running next door to get a neighbor to call the police to come help Butch. Butch wasn't hurt that bad, more his pride than anything else, but Jean got smacked around pretty good, and she wasn't that big to begin with. I found out about it when my mother called and told me that Jean was staying with her and my father for a few days, until she would be able to go back to work My father went over to New London, but Sam and his brothers had already put out to sea for at least a week of fishing off of the northern banks. My dad then went over to Sam's father's house and told him what he thought of a man who'd beat up a woman, and of a man who raised a man who'd beat up a woman. Sam's father heard him out and didn't offer any challenge, either to my father, or to his words. At fifty two, my father would certainly have been a heavy favorite to whip Sam's dad, but I didn't think he'd have been able to make out very well against Sam. My mother decided that I should be the one to tell my father that he was now too old, and too slowed down by smoking and drink, to be out picking fights with younger, stronger men. I started in trying to explain that to him, but he just stopped me and made an offer to kick my ass, just to show me that my mother and I were both wrong. When I saw the look my mother got in her eyes, I realized that she'd set me up again, and I just backed off, refusing to give her the satisfaction. Ever since the time I'd gone over to New London, many years before, and whipped my father's ass in a bar over there, my mother had been trying to goad him and I into having a rematch. She loved me, of that I'm positive, but she idolized my father. She somehow got it into her head that he'd have to whip me before all of the family honor would be restored from that earlier incident. She was a little bit crazy about things like that. She was Irish, and the Irish seem to have some pretty strange ways of dealing with father/son relationships, at least where it concerns the oldest son. My father believed, at least until the day before he died, at eighty one, that he was still a big favorite if he and I had another fight. It is a source of some pride to me that I never gave him an opportunity to find out any different. I knew that it would be better if I handled some things before my father got another chance to actually speak with Sam, and to share with him his low opinion of him. Billy had several friends who fished for a living, and he got in touch with a couple and asked them to pay attention, and let him know when the Crocker's were headed back to port. Billy found out that they were due back on Christmas Eve, and he and I both decided that it could wait until after Christmas for us to pay Sam and his buddies a visit. My father must have had his own fisherman contacts, and not been as sentimental about Christian holidays, because he was down at the dock when Sam and his brothers pulled their boat in to unload and fuel up at the cannery dock. One minute after Sam jumped down on the dock to go see what my father was shouting at him about, Sam was laying stretched out on that dock, unconscious, and with a jaw broken in two places. It happened so quickly that nobody who was present, really saw the fight, or remembered much about who the guy was who floored Sam and then walked away. At Christmas dinner the next day, my father was in a particularly jovial mood, and my mother was beside herself, personally standing by his side and choosing to serve him portions of all the assembled delicacies. Her serving, while the rest of us ate, was nothing new or remarkable. The fact that she served nobody else that day, well that was unheard of. It was almost a week later before Billy and I found out what my father had done. The word we got was that Sam's jaw was wired closed, and that he was eating his meals with a straw. No one had heard him making any threats about retaliation, so we all thought the incident was closed. I was even willing to forget about the more than three hundred bucks that I had decided Sam owed to me. It probably would have all been forgotten if Jean didn't decide to get even with Sam for his slapping her around, and with his brother, for telling Sam about their little indiscretions. Jean freely admitted having slept with Sam's brother, and insisted that his other brother had been after her too. Jean got herself a jerry can with five gallons of gasoline, and torched the Crocker's boat right at the dock. The boat burned down to the waterline before anyone even knew that it was on fire. Jean had stayed right there to watch the whole thing. She was too drunk to answer any questions that night when they arrested her. She was booked for felony arson and five or six other charges like endangering a commercial dock, and having an open flame too close to a fuel depot. If convicted on all counts, she could have received over twenty years in the women's prison. My mother and father both came down to the jail and started the long process of getting her a lawyer, and having bail set. My father got in to see her and told her not to give any statements to anyone. "God damn Bunny, you might not know it, but what you did last night might just cost you all of your youth. Arson is a serious crime. People get killed all the time from fires that weren't supposed to hurt anybody. That whole dock could have gone up in flames if the wind had been blowing in. We're getting you a good lawyer, so don't say anything to anyone until you talk with him. You listen to Uncle John now, and just keep that mouth of yours closed. You understand me?" Jean looked at my father and nodded her understanding. "Say nothing to no one, okay?" Again she nodded. An hour before her new lawyer could get in to see her, Jean made a full, written confession, to the two detectives that came over to question her. There wasn't that much anyone could do after that. Mr. Bennett knew people who had some influence here and there, so Jean got as small a sentence as was politically possible, but she still got five years, and wound up serving almost three of them. My parents were the only ones who ever went to visit her during that entire three year period. All of her brothers and sisters were too busy trying to survive with their own families to be able to take a whole Sunday just to drive up and visit with her for an hour or two. When Jean got out of prison, she went right back to her old ways, not having learned anything from her ordeal. There's a lot more to the story though, and I'm getting ahead of myself by telling you about what happened with Jean. Sam, having lost his fishing boat, and his father, not having had any boat insurance that he could use to replace it with, filed a lawsuit against my father, Billy and I. The lawsuit was for the broken jaw, and for the losses that they had both suffered as a direct result of that injury. They claimed in their suit that Sam would have been on the boat, and out at sea, if he hadn't been laid up with a broken jaw, and thus no damage to the boat would have been possible. They named Billy and I because they were trying to show that the furniture wood business was somehow an asset of my father's, and that Billy and I were conspiring to hide that fact from the Internal Revenue Service as well as any present and future creditor's that my father might have. The whole thing was laughable, except that none of us were laughing. My father had written out a bill of sale for his third of our business venture after our run in over his drinking and expense account, but Billy had somehow misplaced it. It was further complicated because there was a direct link between the furniture wood business and the money that I took over to my mother every month. The attorney that we hired told us that it was possible that we could lose the case and be liable for any damages awarded. It was ridiculous, but even with a best case outcome, it would still cost us several thousand dollars to defend ourselves from their claim. A week later, unknown to any of us, Butch went over to New London and turned himself in for the assault on Sam Crocker on the Christmas Eve just past. He claimed that he did it out of a motive for revenge for the earlier incident at his place, and that Sam was going after his uncle, only because he had the deeper pockets, and could be forced to pay damages if the Crocker's were successful in their lies. It was a three ring circus for awhile, the Crocker's all claiming that it was my father who broke Sam's jaw, while at the same time, Butch is busy making a deal to plead guilty to the crime of assault in return for simple probation and a fine of one hundred dollars. Butch never spoke with any of us before doing this. He did it all on his own, and out of a sense of family pride. He didn't want anybody to suffer for trying to help out his sister. The plea bargain was accepted, with some background help from Mr. Bennett, just to see that things went according to Butch's agreement. Butch got the probation and fine, and was back working the following day. Everyone just assumed that the lawsuit would be dropped after that, since someone else had plead guilty to the incident that was the basis for the suit in the first place. Everyone was wrong, because the lawsuit was still going forward. The attorney wanted more money, while telling us in the next breath, that the case was now impossible for the plaintiffs. Billy and I both told him that we'd rather not pay him any more, and just wanted to have him appear with us at the trial for an hourly sum of sixty bucks an hour. He started talking about how much research he'd have to do in order to come into court prepared, and so we just fired him and left. We both figured that we'd get somebody right before the case came to trial and pay a fair price then. That was when we were noticed for depositions, all three of us. We all had to go over to the Crocker's attorneys office and swear an oath and let their lawyers ask us questions. They had a court stenographer and everything. Billy and I both had it easy. We knew nothing about the assault and both testified, under oath, that my father had no ownership in the company, and that the money we gave to my mother was a voluntary payment made in appreciation for the good will my father had brought to our business during the time that he worked there. We were in and out in less than half an hour each. My father spent two hours being questioned, claiming that he no longer owned any part of the wood furniture business, that he hadn't assaulted Sam Crocker at any time, and claiming to have only met him on one or two occasions when Sam came to some family events accompanied by Jean Murphy, his niece. Sam was there at the deposition, and had to be told repeatedly to quit talking and making statements contradicting my father's deposition. My father enjoyed himself, kept his temper and composure, and felt that he'd made a very credible witness. The lawsuit still proceeded. Just the fact that they kept calendaring through the various stages was a source of concern for Billy and I. My father really had no assets that could be attached, or impounded and sold, but Billy and I both had a lot. Jean was convicted and started serving her sentence. All of us felt bad for her, but she had made a long series of poor choices, and we all felt that maybe this might serve as a wake up call for her to stop, make some necessary changes, and begin to take charge of her life. Theresa finally found the paper that my father had written, selling us his share in the furniture wood business for one dollar and the Ford Mustang. Billy had used it as a place marker in a book that had pictures of all the different types of plants and trees in New England. We had a photo copy made and sent it off to the Crocker's attorneys. Still they continued with their lawsuit. Billy and I got ourselves another attorney, and this time we filed a counter suit against the Crocker's claiming that they had added us to the lawsuit maliciously and for the sole purpose of bringing psychological pressure upon my father. We asked for a forfeiture of both houses owned by the original plaintiffs and our attorney filed a complaint to the Connecticut Bar Association complaining about some of the methods being used by the Crocker's attorneys. He told us our suit had as little merit as theirs did, but that when both sides stood in fear of losses, things usually got down to some serious negotiating. They answered our suit and kept going forward with theirs. Our attorney bills were mounting, and there was no reasonable end in sight. Butch was brought in to give a deposition by the Crocker's legal team. That got our attention and worried us. Butch was a good guy, and he had meant well by what he did. He wasn't used to lying under pressure though, and the three of us who were, well we worried about how he might mess things up for all of us. I asked Butch and his family over to our house a few days after the deposition, and he and I had a talk by ourselves, out in my back yard. At first, he told me that he had stayed with his story, but after a little while talking to him, I knew he was lying, and so I had to get him to admit to me what he actually said. It turned out that the Crocker's had found a witness that was prepared to identify my father as having been the man he saw punch Sam Crocker twice in the face. They read that man's deposition to Butch and then told him what the penalty for perjury was in Connecticut. I now knew that the Crocker's had my father perjuring himself under oath at the deposition that we had all attended. He was well and truly fucked, and I had no good ideas about what I could possibly do to help him. I told Butch not to worry about things and to go ahead and tell the exact truth if they called him up to the witness stand. We went inside and all sat down to a nice family dinner. Ellen really loved Butch and Diane's two children, and was always going over to Butch's and taking them to parks and playgrounds for a few hours so that Diane could have a little break for herself. After Butch and his family left, I filled Ellen in on what Butch had told me. Naturally, her first concern was for Butch's children. My father might go to prison, Billy and I might both get trapped in the middle of this and lose everything we had, but she was worried about a three and a four year old who were in no danger that I could see. "Ellen, don't worry. I told Butch to tell the truth if they call him to the witness stand. He's going to be fine. All of them will be just fine. You and I, well we might wind up living over in the projects, sharing a duplex with Billy and Theresa and the kids. Maybe we'll get my folks old house after he gets sent off to prison, they have that nice water heater and all. At least you can take comfort in knowing that Butch and them will be just fine." "That's good Jackie, I feel better now. Thanks." I looked at her, trying my best to gauge whether she was pulling my leg or not. That's the thing with Ellen, you never really are sure. She's just that good. I guarantee you that having Ellen under a deposition wouldn't have worried me in the slightest. I got in touch with my father and Billy, and we all went over to the lawyer's office the following day to discuss this new development. "This isn't good news for our side gentlemen, not good at all. I suggest that you authorize me to open settlement discussions with opposing counsel in order to forestall any future criminal proceedings." "Fuck that! Just because someone says they saw me hit that dimwit, that isn't proof of anything. Butch did what he did for whatever reason, I don't know. He didn't ask me before he did it, and if he had of, I'd have told him not to. I never believed for a single minute that Butch could have done that to that big bozo. Just because it wasn't Butch, that doesn't automatically mean that it was me. I'm prepared to walk into any courtroom in this state and swear, under my solemn oath, that I didn't hit that kid." My father was having himself a good time. I had no doubt that he would stick to his story no matter what it wound up costing Billy and I. I also knew that Billy and I would not abandon him in order to save our own selves. "Mr. Norris, hold off on doing anything for a few days. Let the three of us have some time to consider all of our options before we make any decisions. We'll phone you by Monday and let you know what we've decided." He agreed to that plan and the three of us soon left and headed over to Billy's farm. Theresa made us a big pizza and a nice pasta salad, and then she took all of the kids and left us all alone to work out what we wanted to do. It was almost like when Billy and I had been kids, except this time he and I were playing the parent, and my dad was being the recalcitrant child. "Pop, if we keep fucking around with this, you're liable to wind up doing some time somewhere because of it. I think we should let Norris talk to Crocker's lawyers and see what they want to make it all go away." "Uncle John, you know I'd like to just go over there with you and beat on all those fuckers, especially the lawyers, until they beg us to let them drop their damn lawsuit, but Jackie's probably right this time. Let's find out what they want before we decide whether it's worth paying them or not. If they ask for too much, we can always do things your way later. They might not want that much more than the lawyer's gonna cost us if we have to go to trial." "I'm disappointed in the two of you, I don't mind telling you that either. The first time things start looking a little bit gloomy, the two of you are fighting with each other over which one gets to raise the surrender hanky. If I'd had the likes of you with me in Europe, we'd all be speaking Kraut right now. In life, you can't just roll over every time you get hit. Fuck those Crocker's, every last one of them! That's your cousin Bunny sitting in that women's prison. You know why she's there? Aside from the fact that she's a certified scatterbrain? Well, it's because she decided to share a little of her goodness with two of those assholes. Now, why she'd ever want to do that, don't ask me, but two of them Crocker's fucked her, one of them then ratted on her, an the other one decided to use her for his personal punching dummy. You do what you want to, but I'd rather be dead and buried than give any of those assholes the sweat off of my balls, let alone any of your money. I've got more respect for what she did to pay them back than I could ever explain to the two of you. If she was the size of either one of you boys, she'd have gone out after the two of them, and just kicked their asses for what they did to her. Since she's just a little bitty girl, she did what she knew she could manage. Yutch, you come on and drive me home. I'll put a stop to this shit, once and for all time. They think they've won? We'll just see about that." I did what he asked, and drove him home. He didn't speak another word to me for the half hour that the drive took. When we got over to Bill Avenue, he jumped out and then he slammed my car door, and walked over to the house, never looking back towards me. I was driving home right after, thinking to myself that the whole situation kept getting worse and worse. Ellen listened to everything I had to tell her, and then surprised me by taking his side in the argument. "Jackie, Jean needed to do something. If you hit me like that I'd sure do something, and I love you. Theresa loves Billy, but she did something when he hurt her. If you give those men money, it would be the same as telling them that it's okay to treat Jean the way that they did. I hope you don't give them anything." That didn't shock me, after I was able to see her reasoning and viewpoint. It surprised me that she condoned what my father and Jean had done, two violent acts, but it didn't surprise me that she thought that Jean had a right to retaliate somehow. A couple of years before all of this happened, friends of my father's, war buddies actually, had contacted him about possibly coming to work with them in Washington D.C. They were in the process of streamlining the consolidation of Federal drug agencies into a single agency that later became the Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA for short. At the time this all took place with the Crocker's, it was being called The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, (BNDD), and it was not nearly as prominent then, as it is now. Nixon was the country's President, and there was an ends justifies the means bias throughout Federal law enforcement at that time. My father was always ahead of the times though, because he'd had that particular bias for his entire adult life. If you were his enemy, or he thought that you were, he'd go to any lengths to defeat or destroy you. My father was a dangerous man, far more dangerous than the true believers surrounding Nixon at the time. My father didn't need any justification or idealogical belief for what he was willing to do. For my father, it was enough that he wanted to do it. Through all the years that I was around him, that was always reason enough for him. While I was sitting in my kitchen talking with Ellen, and Billy was outside, sitting on his loader, moving firewood around on his farm, my father was sitting in his kitchen hatching a plan that would forever change the way that I thought about him. You think you really understand someone after thirty years of being around them. This is especially true if those thirty years were spent in close proximity. I'd always known that it wasn't a good idea to piss off my father, not for me, and not for anyone else. When you have him pissed off at you, and in addition, make him disappointed in his family because of something that you've caused, your life is about to get quite unpleasant. ------- Chapter 3 Don Hoskins had served with my father since before the Second World War had begun. Both had been in the Navy, but were loaned to the Army for the duration of the war. My father was a combat photographer and also did something in intelligence. Don worked strictly in military intelligence, and had taken part in several covert operations in Europe. He and my father were drinking buddies, and Don would sometimes fly his own private plane to Trumbull Field and spend a weekend with my parents. All I ever really knew about him, was that he and my father were close friends, and that they had been in the war together. Don had another friend, Robert Howarth, who was a European refugee that worked with Don in Washington D.C. Both men had some connection with the BNND, but I was never sure how official their connections were. Don carried a gun in his airplane, and I saw him put it in his coat pocket when I went with my father to pick him up at the airport when I was younger. I went over to see my mother about something a couple of days after I dropped my father off after our little blowup at Billy's farm. When I walked in the door, my father was sitting at the kitchen table with Don Hoskins and Robert Howarth. I recognized Don and said hello to him, and he then introduced me to Mr. Howarth. The man appeared to be about thirty five years old, and he looked fitter, and somehow more military in bearing, than either my father or Don did. I'm not sure why I thought so, but I remember thinking that Howarth acted deferential towards both my father and Don. He acted like he was Don's subordinate. I finished up my business with my mother and left shortly after that. I didn't think anything in particular about seeing Don again. Like I said, he came up once or twice a year to spend time with my father. It was only later events that caused me to have questions or concerns about the presence of those two men in my parent's kitchen. It was three or four nights later that my father called me at home and asked me if I'd read that evening's newspaper yet. "Check inside on page three Yutch, down at the bottom on the right." He sounded like he'd been drinking more than usual, and appeared to be in an extremely good mood. The first thing I noticed was an ad for a sewing machine sale, but I knew that couldn't be what he was calling me about. Searching around some more, I noticed a three inch column right above the ad, which was a news report saying that while acting on information supplied to them by Federal authorities, New London city police and the Connecticut State Troopers, had made three drug arrests, accompanied by the seizure of more than eighty pounds of marijuana, from a residence in New London. The three people arrested were the Crocker brothers. I had just finished reading the story when my father spoke again. "So, do you think that might keep them busy for awhile? Long enough I'll bet you." "Pop, did you have something to do with this?" I could hear him chortling in the background, to the point where he started choking and coughing. "What could I possibly have to do with that? You think I'm in the drug running business Yutch? It isn't that unusual for fishermen to smuggle things. I guess they were trying to make some money to get themselves another fishing boat. They just happened to get caught is all." I had a bad feeling about the timing on this. First he tells Billy and I that he'll take care of things, and then the drug arrests. Too pat for my tastes. "Did you call Billy?" "I thought I'd leave that for you to do. I'm sure Billy will be as happy to see that bit of news as I was. Well, good night Yutch, let me know what Billy says when you tell him." He hung up the phone before I could tell him that I would. I took the newspaper out into the kitchen and showed the article to Ellen. "Is that good for us Jackie?" A very good question. I didn't see any way that the two events could be connected in order to help my father out. His perjury was a separate issue as far as I could see. Maybe if none of the Crocker brothers were available to testify, but it wasn't something where their testimony would necessarily be needed. "It can't hurt, but I don't see where it helps us either." I called Billy. He listened to me read him the article, and then his first question was whether I thought that my dad had something to do with it. I told him what my father had said about not being in the drug running business. Billy said that he thought it was a good thing, because getting arrested would cause the Crocker's to have something more important to worry about than suing the three of us. I went to bed that night troubled. I hoped that it was just a coincidence, but that wasn't my gut feeling about it. I felt like my father might have had some hand in that business, but I couldn't figure out how he could have managed it. Three days after the initial arrests, acting on a search warrant, the authorities recovered three additional forty kilo bales of marijuana from Sam's father's tool shed behind his house. Sam's father was also arrested after that find. The newspaper was declaring this arrest to be the cracking of a major drug ring. They were listing various kingpins in organized crime, and speculating that the Crocker's might have ties to either the Boston or Providence crime families. The story was even being carried on the nightly television news from New York City. This time my father didn't call me. I guess he figured that I couldn't miss hearing about it this time. This new development was even more scary to me. I was wondering how long it would be before the police raided the law offices of the Crocker's attorneys and found five or six more bales of marijuana there. While all of this was going on, the lawsuit was close to a time for being heard. We were waiting for news that a court had an opening for the case to be called to trial. That day finally arrived, and my father, Billy and I found ourselves in Superior court defending against the Crocker's lawsuit. The whole case took three days in court. The Crocker's were all out on bail and Sam and his father were seated at the plaintiff's table with their two attorneys. Our attorney was able to get Billy and I both dismissed from the lawsuit, with prejudice to prevent a refiling, after he presented the bill of sale from my father to the judge and told him that he could call three witnesses who would testify that they had heard from my father that he had sold out his interests many years before. When asked to comment, the Crocker's attorneys admitted that they had no one who could refute our contention and the paper supporting it. Once we were released from the case, they made Billy and I sit back in the spectator seats. My father sat through the whole presentation by the plaintiffs. They had a witness who identified my father as the man who had punched Sam on the dock. Sam also testified that my father had been the one who hit him. They called Butch to the stand, and he admitted that he hadn't been the assailant, but claimed that he said he was because he had wished that he had been the one who'd done it. The attorneys made a pretty fair case for the Crocker boat not being in port to be burned down by Jean if Sam hadn't been recovering from his beating at the time. After the plaintiff's rested their case, the lawyer put my father up on the stand. Once my father had identified himself and taken the oath, his lawyer asked two questions. Did he assault Sam Crocker? Did he know who did? My father answered no to both questions in a firm and unwavering voice. Our attorney then said he had no further questions for his client and sat down. For the next thirty minutes or so, the plaintiff's attorneys would ask my father questions and our attorney would object, on the grounds that it wasn't covered in his direct questioning or something like that. My father had to answer about ten questions in all. The plaintiff's were able to introduce some of my father's previous history of violence in front of the jury, and it was quite an extensive list. When the plaintiff's were through with my father, our attorney stood up and said that he believed that if the jury had a right to learn of previous allegations of violence concerning my father, then they should also be allowed to learn of some of his other accomplishments, especially his military accomplishments. The other attorneys objected claiming it was irrelevent, but the judge conditionally allowed it. The attorney called a Chief Petty Officer from the Submarine base, a man who handled the military records for retired Navy personnel living in the area. The next fifteen minutes was taken up with reading only from the written information that accompanies military citations and awards. My father had received three purple hearts, a silver star and a bronze star with an oak leaf cluster. He had once single handedly captured a German machine gun nest and had taken seven Germans into custody as prisoners of war. When the man read the citation that my father had received at Anzio Beach, after he'd had almost all of one of his heels blown off by German shrapnel, and then had managed to hold out for three more days before finally being captured, our attorney had stopped him and then asked if he would characterize my father's service as being ordinary or above ordinary. The man had looked at my father and said: "I'd be very honored to have the privilege of shaking the Chief's hand." The jury had five men on it who had prior military combat service, and three women who had lost loved ones in the war. Once all the summations were completed and the judge had given the jury their final instructions, I could see by their facial expressions that my father had nothing to worry about from that jury. It may be hard to believe now, but in the past, military service in wartime meant a great deal to others. People understood and appreciated the sacrifices that the veterans had made. That isn't to say that they overlooked his past violent history when they deliberated, just that they attached a lot of weight to his military service as well. At no point had the Crocker's attorney presented enough evidence that it was my father on that dock, at least that is what the juror's all said after they had decided in favor of my father. They were in deliberations for thirty minutes, and it was unanimous that he was not liable for any damages arising out of that incident. I believe he would have gotten that same result without any of the rest of it. Sam Crocker and both of his brothers were convicted on drug charges, and were sentenced to the state prison. Sam got an eight year sentence, and each of his brothers got four years. I guess the judge figured Sam was the ringleader of the three of them. Sam's father got off on a paperwork technicality, having something to do with the date on the search warrant. The lawyers were able to get all the drug evidence taken from his shed suppressed, and the senior Mr. Crocker had the charges against him dismissed. After my cousin Jean was released from the women's prison and had gotten back home to Groton, my father helped her get her beautician's license reinstated, and then he took her all around town trying to get her hired on at a beauty parlor. She was on parole so she had to disclose that information as well as what she was on parole for. Arson is a scary offense with some people, and it was difficult to find a place for Jean. He finally found a woman who was willing to overlook Jean's past and give her a fresh start. Jean repaid her kindness by getting drunk and stealing all of the money in the salon's cash register and going on a three day bender. My father next got her work in the cafeteria at Electric Boat, but she was fired after two months for excessive absenteeism. He finally got her a job at the Sub base, working in the out processing department as a filing clerk, but Jean wasn't too sure of her alphabet, and never put any real effort into improving. Even with my father's good offices, she lasted less than one month. My mother told her she could have a job over at the old folks poor house changing bed pans for the elderly people, but Jean turned that opportunity down. My parents gave up after that, and Jean bounced around for the next couple of years, living with different people for a month here, and a month there. She was able to get new boyfriends pretty easily, but she wasn't able to keep them for long. In the end, Jean wound up back in prison for writing a lot of bad checks all over the state. When she was again released, my mother and father went up to get her and bring her back home to Groton. Butch had found her a live in job, caring for an old woman in New London who needed assistance with her house, shopping and all the rest. Jean lived with her for a couple of years, but her drinking just got progressively worse. A few months after that old woman had died, Jean was living in a boarding house over in New London. One night she just fell asleep, or maybe passed out, with a lit cigarette burning. The room caught fire, and Jean died of smoke inhalation. It was fortunate that no one else was killed or injured. She had a hard life, but brought almost all of her troubles on herself. My mother and father were living in the caretaker's cottage at my brother's house by the next time I saw Don Hoskins. I was over visiting with Ray and Sandy, and my father came in to borrow some of Ray's whiskey. "Hey Yutch, I didn't know you were here. Come on over and say hello to an old friend." I went over there, to their little cottage, and saw Don sitting at the kitchen table. He looked good, even though he was in his late sixties at least by then. He was retired from all work, he said, and was living on a combined civil service and Navy pension. I sat with he and my father, having a couple drinks and listening to them catching up on old times, and on old friends who had died. Robert Howarth was one of those old, and dead, friends it seemed. He'd died in some freak accident over in Europe while on a vacation. It turned out that he had been allowed to return to Europe, and to live in his native Romania, even after he was under a cloud of suspicion because a considerable amount of marijuana was discovered missing from a drug bust in Florida that he had helped make. "Really, Don, that's interesting. How much was missing?" My father was looking at me as he said that, his grin of anticipation spread across his face. "I believe it was about one hundred and sixty kilos John, wrapped up in four of those waterproof oil cloth pouches. Yes, I'm pretty sure that was it, if I remember it correctly." The two of them were laughing and grinning over at me, obviously waiting for me to join in their glee. "Luckily, Robert was able to catch on with a very good position in Romania soon afterwards, and he was reunited with his family over there." I got up and said good bye to Don right after that. I looked at my father and nodded as I turned to leave. He followed me outside, as usual, his limp was more pronounced after he'd been drinking. "Yutch, you have a problem with something?" I turned and looked at him. I almost said nothing, but, in the end, I felt that I should tell him how I felt. "No, it's not really a problem exactly, pop. I'm just a little disappointed is all. It doesn't seem right to me for us to use the government to even up the score with our personal enemies, that's all. It just smacks of something I find pretty distasteful, I guess." "That's too fucking bad then Yutch, that you feel that way I mean. I worked for that government, that you're so worried about me using, worked for it for one hell of a long time Yutch. I always stood up and did whatever they said needed doing. That time, it was just my turn to have something done for me. Family takes care of family, and friends take care of friends. Robert was just going to kill the lot of them at first, but Don and I talked him out of it. Robert needed to get back to Europe, and he was willing to do just about anything to be allowed to go back home again. Don was one of only a handful of people who were in a position to make that possible for him, and, in the process of helping Robert, Don decided that he wanted Robert to return the favor and help me out with my little situation. If you feel that sorry for them Crocker's, think about your cousin Bunny, dead, and buried in a pauper's grave. Do you think those Crocker's are worried about how her life turned out, at least in part, because of them? You worry me sometimes Yutch. I have to wonder if you've forgotten where you come from now that you have all that money. There was a time when you wouldn't have hesitated to do whatever needed to be done, especially if it meant protecting or avenging someone in our family. You think those Crocker's are one bit better than that fucking Kevin Hartigan? They weren't to me, I can tell you that. I never for a single minute faulted you for him, so don't you go faulting me for them. It matters to me what you think Yutch, and I can't say that about too many people." There was a slight note of desperation in his voice when he spoke that last sentence. I knew that it had cost him something to admit that. I was still troubled, but I knew, with absolute certainty, who's side I needed to be on. "Pop, maybe I said it poorly. It was just us using the government to set those guys up that was distasteful. We should have handled it by ourselves, not gotten outsiders involved in our business. I don't feel a bit sorry for the Crocker's. I guess I'm kind of glad that you didn't let them be killed though. You explain to Don that it wasn't that I felt bad about what happened, just about how it happened, that's all. I do think of Jean, and how her life ended up like it did, but I'm afraid things would have turned out the same with or without the Crocker's. She just always did whatever she wanted to, and she never listened to good advice. Good night pop, and don't worry about it, nothing is going to change the way I think about you." A few mornings later I went over to Billy's early and told him what Don and my father had told me. "I don't see any problem with it Jackie. I think you looked at it the wrong way is all. We were at war with those bastards, and all's fair in love and war. Isn't that what they taught us in school?" I looked at Billy and had no answer for him. I once again thought about how convenient it must be to think like Billy does. There is no gray in his world, it's all black and white. Later that year, on what would have been Jean's thirty fifth birthday, Billy and I got drunk at his farm and went over to New London looking for the Crocker's. We didn't find them, but we made enough noise, and went to enough places that they were known to frequent. Wherever we stopped, we made it a point to tell anyone who'd listen what shit head's the Crocker's all were, and how much we were looking forward to kicking their asses. We were both in our mid forties, and as drunk as we were, we wanted to find someone else, other than ourselves, that we could blame for what happened to our cousin. In the end, resigned to the fact that there were no Crocker's for us to punish, we drove over to Ray's house and got my mother and father up out of bed. When I told my parents where we'd been, and how we'd been out looking for the Crocker's on Jean's birthday, my mother just shook her head and went back to her bed. My father stayed up with us though, and he happily joined us in our drinking and talking about poor Bunny, dead at so young an age. It was about four in the morning before we finally ran out of steam and went to sleep in their living room. I got the couch and Billy took my father's recliner. In the morning, my mother called Ellen and Theresa to let them both know that we were there and were hungover but okay. I still keep a picture of Jean on my mantle at home. It is one that was taken on a Halloween night when she was six or seven years old. Uncle Sonny had brought all of his kids over so that all of the cousins could go trick or treating, as a big group together. It's the only picture I've ever found of her where she looked happy. She was dressed up as the Easter Bunny that Halloween, and she was standing next to my sister Joan who was dressed as a nun. Joan was a junior in high school that year, and had borrowed the nun's habit from someone at her school. The two of them both died so terribly young, but they led such different lives too. In a different set of circumstances, Jean could have been any one of us, or we her. I've never wanted to forget that fact, just because I had been lucky. If I had gotten Jean's breaks instead of the ones I did get, who knows how my life would have gone? I remember sitting up with my father the night he received word that Don Hoskins had died. My mother had died the year before, and he looked almost as sad about Don dying as he had when she died. Ray was so worried about how my father was acting that he had called me and asked me to come over there. There is a bond that men forge during extended times of great stress, times such as being together in combat, when no one knows whether they'll get through it alive or not. My father had felt closer to Don Hoskins than to his own brother, Paul. I got him talking about it after a time, wanting him to talk his way through some of the pain and his deep sense of loss, hoping that afterwards he could finally get some sleep. "When Don, Charlie and I were hiding away for three days and four nights in the sand and the brush, we were just trying to delay our getting captured. I was sure that we would somehow pull through it if we could just stay together. I believed that even when I was watching the maggots eating away at the stinking and rotting flesh on my blown up heel. I bet each of us wanted a thousand times to stand up and try to surrender to the Italians or the Germans. I just wanted whoever got us to see if they could get me help with my foot. I didn't suggest surrendering though, because I didn't want either of those two guys to think badly of me. They felt the same way as I did too, and that's why we held out for as long as we did. If any of the three of us had been out there alone, we'd have surrendered on that first day. You never forget things like that Yutch. We found out later, that for the first two days, it was the krauts who were on the part of the beach where we were hiding. If we had of surrendered, well not many of their prisoners from that beach were ever seen alive again. When we finally were captured, it was by the Italians, and they weren't as vicious. They knew their part of the war was lost, and they just wanted to survive through it until the end came. The krauts were different. They would have just killed us before they withdrew." He fell asleep soon after that, but he had a tough time getting over that loss. As I was putting him down on his bed, he looked at me and said: "They're all gone now Yutch, Don was the last one." I left him that night thinking that he wouldn't be around for much longer, but he surprised me and he hung around for seven more years. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2005-11-04 Last Modified: 2008-01-30 / 08:07:16 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------