Storiesonline.net ------- In the Family Tradition by Openbook Copyright© 2005 by Openbook ------- Description: The seventeenth story in the Caddymaster saga. Jackie gets led by Ray into a new business venture and into exploring some of the family traditions. Codes: MF cons cheat ------- ------- Chapter 1 It was sometime in 1966 that I started getting the strong feeling that my father was very disappointed in me for not joining one of the armed services. He didn't exactly say anything to me directly, but he had made several comments when I was around him, knowing that I had to have heard them. He had served in the Navy for twenty years, being loaned out to the Army for most of World War II and the Korean Conflict due to his photographic skills and experience as a combat photographer. He was proud of his military service, and had very little respect for the men who'd chosen to sit the War out and who had spent the War safely at home. With Viet Nam getting bigger and bigger, he couldn't understand why I wasn't just itching to get into the Navy or Marines, and get my share of the family glory. My father had been badly injured in World War II, and his brother, my Uncle Paul, had almost lost his leg when he got stitched with machine gun fire in the back of his right knee in Korea. Uncle Ray, my mom's brother, had died while in the service during the Second World War, in a freak, drunken accident. Uncle Donald and Uncle Sonny were both in the army and saw action in the second war too. I wasn't interested. Ellen and I were visiting with Lenny and Clara one day when it all came to a head with my father. Of course, he'd been drinking before he stopped over to give my Aunt Betty a message from my mother. Seeing me there, I guess he was starting to worry that his comments about shirkers and draft dodgers had been too subtle for me. "Yutch, when in the hell are you going to step up like a man and enlist to fight for your country?" I just looked at him, not really wanting to get into it with him, but not content to just sit there and let him give vent to his displeasure at my lack of patriotism either. "I figure you and Uncle Paul and Uncle Ray did enough for the family already, pop. I don't think I'll be signing up anytime soon." "You think you're too damn good to serve your country? I've got two healthy sons, both of an age to serve, and neither one so inclined. I never thought I'd see the day when I had to wonder if I'd raised a couple cowards." "I wanted to join up Uncle John, but mom and Clara said I couldn't. Because of my father and all." Lenny spoke up, hoping I think, to diffuse the tension that he could sense building between my father and I. Clara came over and put her hand on his shoulder, knowing that Lenny was sensitive to confrontations, and easily upset by them. "Sure Lenny, I knew that you'd want to do the right thing, but you've got to take care of a wife and your children, not to mention your mother. Your cousins don't have any children to worry about, and their mother has me to take care of her." "Pop, do you really think this is the right time and the right place to be getting into all this? I've never made any secret of the fact that I don't have any plans for joining up. I'm registered for the draft, so if they want me or need me, they know how to get in touch with me. I'm not going to volunteer though, no matter what you say." "Yutch, I'm disappointed in you. Military service is a family tradition with us, on both sides of the family. In time of war, we serve. We don't wait to be drafted. We volunteer." "John, my Ray was drafted, that's why he enlisted in the Navy, to avoid the Army. Sonny and Donald were drafted too. Didn't your brother get drafted too?" Aunt Betty had always resented losing her husband like she had. She was certainly no fan of military service for her son or nephews. "Well, yes, Paul was drafted, but he was already planning on joining the Marines when he got his draft notice, so he went ahead and enlisted. Still, military service is a family tradition, drafted or enlisted. I expect both my sons to serve their country." "I don't think they'd even take Ray, pop. Remember he lost his spleen that time? I think you've got to have all your body parts for them to take you. Maybe not your tonsils or appendix, but everything else. I think I'm classified as being in an essential industry too pop, so I don't think I'll be called up. If it makes you feel better going around calling people cowards, you go right ahead and do it. Of course, that name calling usually works both ways you know?" "Are you saying that I'm a coward Yutch? Because if you are" "No pop, you're certainly no coward, that's for sure. But you are something of a lush, and I'm sorry to see you getting all liquored up like you are right now, and then going around making an ass of yourself. As for me being a coward, well I don't think I am. I guess we'll just have to accept that we have a difference of opinion about that unless you want to continue calling me names and see where that leaves you?" Aunt Betty stepped between us right then, and Ellen and I left. I never was able to just disagree with my father. It always seemed to have to escalate upward until it finally boiled over into a mess. It was certainly as much my fault as it was his. I think it had to do with the bad memories I had about having to always back down and knuckle under to him when I was a kid. I don't remember there being any one specific time when I decided not to take any more abuse from him, but, by 1966, I was certainly in a low tolerance frame of mind about taking any more crap from him. Ellen gave me a hard time for the entire drive back home. She held the opinion that I went out of my way to bait my father rather than ignore what he said and avoid getting him upset any further. I told her that my experiences had taught me that it would just keep escalating if I just ignored what he was saying. My father wasn't a man to back off when shown no resistance. Ellen's only frame of reference was her own father, a man who didn't like verbal arguments, let alone physical confrontations. She had never seen my father out of control before, so she didn't understand what was potentially involved with this latest fixation of my father's. A few weeks later, Ray got his notice to appear for his draft physical. The timing seemed suspicious to me so I called Mr. Bennett about it and he told me that my father hadn't come to him about anything having to do with the local draft board. He told me that he could talk to a couple people and probably get Ray deferred if that was something that Ray wanted. I told him I'd let him know after I spoke again with my brother. I went over to see Ray and Sandy that night. Ray had already been visited by my father, and been ordered, in no uncertain terms, to do everything in his power to pass the physical and serve his country. In the end, my father pulled some strings and Ray was allowed to sign a waiver, giving the Army a hold harmless, releasing them of any responsibility for anything that might come out of him not having a spleen. It was the old boys network at it's finest, and in November, Ray raised his right arm and was sworn into the Army. He went to basic training in New Jersey and then went to a technical school to become a radio operator. In May of 1967 he shipped out to Viet Nam. My mother had somehow come across statistics concerning mortality rates for Army radio operators in Viet Nam right after Ray deployed, and she was very upset with my father. Ray spent his whole tour in Viet Nam playing poker and trading in Kennedy half dollars and Levi's. He would have big boxes of small sizes of Levi's delivered from Travis AFB by military cargo plane and then he'd sell them in Saigon. He paid $3.80 per pair and sold them for $12 to $15 per pair. He did a brisk business in Kennedy half dollars too, selling them for $2.00 each. After he got back home, he would keep everybody laughing for hours with his outrageous tales of things he'd either done or seen in Viet Nam. He was attached to a rear echelon post near Saigon, working in a communications center. In spite of all the money he made in the Army, when he got discharged he was flat broke and in need of a job right away. I put him to work driving for me. I paid him more than my other drivers, even Lenny, because he needed more money. He was an operator, always on the lookout for a get rich quick scheme. Most of his schemes wound up costing him money for some reason. He worked as a driver for two years before he discovered something that he was good at and that would make him money. Like my father, Ray had an eye for the ladies. The ladies also had an eye for Ray, also like my father. I'm sure that both of them had compartments of some kind that they kept separate from the rest of their life. Ninety per cent of the time Ray was a true blue, faithful husband. Ten per cent of the time he was pure alley cat. For some reason he always seemed to gravitate towards married women. One of these women, Alice Prescott, was a real estate broker in Groton. She was successful in her business too. It was 1971 when Ray started seeing her professionally as well as socially. Alice needed a dummy buyer for a property that she wanted to double escrow for herself. The land in question was a six acre parcel out west of Poquonnock on a dirt road. It didn't look like anything special, unless, and until, you knew that a major road was going to replace that dirt road within two years. Somehow, Alice was privy to that information, and chose Ray to be her dummy buyer. Ray's affair with Alice had been going on for about a year. They would manage to get away together about twice a month when Ray had one of his "overnight" deliveries. I never gave Ray an overnight delivery, and knew nothing about Alice or any of the rest of his little stable of married women. Ray opened escrow as the buyer for this land, and everything would have worked out as planned if Alice's husband hadn't gotten suspicious about her involvement with Ray. She told her husband that Ray was simply a client of her firm and then told Ray that he'd have to handle the land purchase by himself since she was unwilling to risk having her marriage dissolve over a little fling that she had enjoyed. This left Ray with about thirty days to raise $6,000.00. It was an all cash deal and Ray had no cash, and hadn't written any contingencies into the offer. Alice declined to make him a loan. He was in trouble. "Jackie, I've got something that's going to make the two of us rich! Instead of being like you and hogging it all for myself, I'm going to let you in on it. We'll go 50-50 on this, split it right down the middle." In the two years Ray had worked for me, he'd brought me an average of one can't miss opportunity every single week. So far, none of them hadn't missed. I'd invested in none of them either, since I was a little skeptical about Ray's judgment in that area. "Thanks Ray, but you keep it all. I've already got mine like you said. You and Sandy can use more dough though, so you take it all, okay?" "If you're sure then, all right, I'll keep it all. I'll need to borrow a little from you for a few months though, just until I sell the thing and make my money. Don't worry though, because it's a sure thing." "I'll take you over to my bank tomorrow morning and introduce you to the manager. I'm sure he'll be happy to give you a loan on your sure thing. In the meantime, you better get over to Billy's and pick up your load. Unless you don't need a paycheck from me anymore?" "Jackie, this time it's different. This time I already signed the papers. If I can't come up with the money, I'm in real trouble. You've gotta do this one for me." After I told him that I wasn't interested in his real estate deal, I could see he was really getting nervous. A couple days later my father came over to see me, asking me to help Ray out as a favor to him. "Yutch, if it doesn't work out the way Ray says it will, you can pay yourself back from the money you and Billy give to your mother each month." This was the first time my father ever acknowledged that Billy and I were still sending him his cut from the furniture wood business we'd started several years before. "Pop, we're talking $6,000.00 here. If it doesn't work out that will put a serious dent in your lifestyle, yours and mom's." "I already discussed that with your mother. She's the one sent me over here to see you about doing this for Ray. If you can afford to do this, we'd both appreciate it. Ray needs to get something going for himself financially. He seems to think this real estate thing might work out for him. Your mother and I want to see him bettering himself. You, Annie and Joan, you're all doing well, own your houses, and have dough sitting in the bank. Your brother has nothing. Even his car is hocked to the finance company. Sandy tells us she thinks she's finally pregnant. I don't like coming to you like this with my hat in my hand Yutch, but I'm here, and I'm asking. So what do you say?" "Sure pop, I'll loan him the money. I hope it works out for him. If it doesn't work out, we'll just chalk it up as a loan that Ray owes to me. I'll get it back when he finally finds his niche in life. I don't want to mess with that other thing with Billy, you and I, because that's working fine, let's just leave it like it is." "Thanks Yutch, you're all right. I don't care what the rest of the world says about you." So Ray got his money and closed on the deal. Six months later he sold the property for $27,000.00 and I got my loan money back. Ray paid off all his debts and bought a new car and rented a bigger place for him and Sandy and for the baby that was almost ready to be born. He was broke again in a month, and back driving for me part time. The rest of his time he spent looking at properties in the area. He started cultivating married real estate ladies, for his own personal reasons, and in the hopes of making another financial score. "Jackie, I've found another great deal, and it's absolutely perfect for us. There is a house on a lot and another sixteen acres adjoining it on a separate lot. It's just outside Ledyard, and we can get the whole thing for $9,000.00. We can sell the house for $9,000.00, with just a little work done to it, and have the sixteen acres free and clear." I went out with him to look at the property and thought it was a pretty good deal. By the time we closed on it, we were in the deal just over $10,000.00, and then we spent another thousand getting the place fixed up good enough to sell. Ray took care of anything he could do himself and we got other relatives to handle the rest. We sold the house for $10,000.00, netting out about $9,000.00 after costs and commissions. We had the sixteen acres free and clear and I was only owed $2,000.00 from the original outlay. Ray sold the land to a builder for $39,000.00, with a down payment of $8,000.00 and a note for another $31,000.00 at six per cent interest per year. We had to be paid off before he could develop the land, no subordination of our interest. He paid us $300.00 a month for about eight months and then got a construction loan and paid off the note. Ray got his half and bought a small house that made Sandy really happy. He bought it from an estate sale and got all the furnishings too. By the time we got our money from that deal, Ray had three other small land purchases that he wanted us to make.He quit driving about then and started looking at real estate full time. Through Ellen, I found out that Sandy was aware of at least some of Ray's shenanigans with the ladies. Sandy had told Ellen that her father and brothers were the same way, always running around seeing what they could get. Ellen said that Sandy was convinced that all husbands fooled around on their wives when they got the chance. Ellen also mentioned that Sandy felt like sex was an obligation she owed her husband, not necessarily something that the woman was supposed to enjoy doing. I told Ellen that it wasn't any of our business, and that I'd rather not discuss Ray's sexual proclivities. "That's fine with me Jackie. You just make sure that you don't pursue that particular family tradition yourself. I'm not like Sandy in that regard. I expect you to keep it zipped unless you're right here at home with me. Did I tell you that Theresa and I are taking pistol firing lessons over at the sheriff's station every Wednesday night? She's getting to be a lot better at aiming now, but I'm way better than her. I hope you never make it necessary for me to give you a demonstration of my skills with a pistol." I suppose I should have made some protests of innocence about then, but I was too busy wondering about why my dick was shrinking and my balls were trying to withdraw back inside my body. Ellen and my mother are the only two women who were ever able to scare me. Ellen is always serious when she makes a threat. I wish I'd listened to her when she gave me that very direct warning. I blame both my brother and my father for drawing me into that damn family tradition. ------- Chapter 2 It soon became obvious to all of us that Ray had indeed found his true calling in business. Over the course of the next year he and I bought and sold several more properties, all for more than decent profits. It was at the end of this first year that I began telling Ray that he should go out on his own since he was finding all the deals and doing most of the work. All I contributed was the purchase money, and he didn't really need me for that anymore. I even told him that I'd help him with the financing of deals for simple interest, but he'd have none of it. "Jackie, you're lucky. Whatever you touch seems to turn out good. If you come in on a deal with me, I'm always sure it will turn out to be profitable. Besides, it's a balancing thing for me. I know that you're going to examine everything carefully, so I make sure that I have done all my homework and that the deal is as good and as tight as I can make it. If I just had to run it past myself, who knows how careful I'd be. This thing is working out real good for both of us, why change anything?" My father told me the same thing more or less, not that I was a lucky charm or anything, but that Ray had greater self-confidence when I was in things with him. Ray tried many times to teach me what he looked for in a property, that intangible something that made one investment stand out over another. I caught on a little bit, but I never approached Ray's expertise in the field. He had an eye for values, and seemed to know exactly where the path of progress was heading. One day in March of 1972, my father, Ray and I were driving over to look at a small farm outside of Norwich that had come onto the market. Ray had heard about it from one of his lady real estate friends. My father came with us just to give him something to do outside the house. He was apparently on the outs with my mother for something or other, and thought that getting out with "his boys" would soften my mother's heart again towards him. We visited the farm and took the whole tour from the listing agent. None of us were impressed with the deal being offered, so we decided to pass on it and started back towards home. We were all hungry so we decided to stop in at this little diner on the way back and get a bite to eat. It wasn't much of a diner, and the food was only just passable. What the diner did have though was two sexy waitresses that turned out to be the owner's daughters. The owner turned out to be a long lost 'special friend' of my father's. We were all digging into the homemade Irish stew that our waitress had recommended to us. It wasn't very tasty, the meat being chewy and obviously something of a lesser cut. My father thought it might have been horse meat. The bread was homemade, and not bad at all with the thick slabs of butter that we all favored on it. They didn't serve any beer or alcohol, so we were all drinking cream sodas. Ray was flirting with our waitress rather shamelessly, and she seemed to be enjoying it too. Her name was Janet, and she was probably about twenty two years old. It might have all ended right there with us paying for our meal and leaving, if Lois Manning hadn't picked that time to come walking in the front door of the diner. My father almost spit out the food he was chewing on as soon as he saw her and recognized who it was. "Spud, is it really you? I can't believe it, it really is!" "Johnny, you big handsome bastard, how'd you ever find me again?" In half the time it takes to tell it, he was standing up, and she was pressing herself all over him. She was about forty five years old and had dark brown hair. She might have been a looker at one time, but that time had definitely passed by. She looked like a bar fly to me, one of those women who hang around bars during the daytime, waiting for some poor bastard to get drunk enough to start thinking they looked good to them. They were touching each other all over their faces and arms, I thought they were like a couple carnival hustlers trying to guess each others weight or something. "Jackie, Ray, this is Spud Kennedy, an old friend from before the Korean War. Her brother and I flew back home together in 1952. Spud, how is Frankie? He still stringing wire for the phone company? Spud these are my two sons. They've grown a bit since the last time you saw them." "John nobody calls me Spud anymore, not for years. And it isn't Kennedy either, not since I married Frenchy Manning when Janet and Cindy were still little girls. Hi boys, you don't remember me, I'm Lois. I've known your father since the two of you were in short pants. Janet, go get Cindy there's someone I want you to meet. John, Frankie's in a wheel chair. He took a real bad fall off a pole when his safety belt broke about eight years ago. I figured that you'd heard about it. He lost the use of both his legs. He'll be so tickled to see you again. Maybe the two of you can go out and really tie one on like you used to do in the old days." Just as she finally wound down from her non stop talking, Janet got back with her sister, Cindy in tow. I can't say that Cindy was pretty or even that she was well built. She radiated sexual energy though. She could literally cause a guy to get an erection just by being in the same room with him. At least, that's the effect she had on me. That night, when we were finally driving back home, after visiting with my father's friend, Frank Kennedy, my father told me that Lois had had that ability too in her younger days. "The minute I laid my eyes on her Yutch, I knew I was going to do whatever it took to get her into bed with me. I didn't even care about what it might take to get her. Frankie was a damn good friend of mine, and I was a married man with four kids myself. None of that mattered, and believe me when I tell you that it caused me a ton of problems with your mother. In fact, you make damn sure you never mention that woman's name in front of your mother. I'm not sure that she's gotten over any of that yet. Jesus, that woman could make a man forget himself. I'm pretty damn happy to see that she's lost whatever ability she once had to drive a man to rash behavior. I'd like to get my hands on her little girl though, that Cindy. I wonder what happened to that Janet, she sure doesn't have it like her sister does." "You're dead wrong about that pop. Janet is as sexy as they come. I'm surprised that an old coon dog like you wasn't sniffing after her. That other girl, Cindy, I didn't see anything special about her." Ray added to the conversation with that choice observation. My father and I just looked at him and wondered whether he'd been switched at birth with someone who might be my real brother. That wasn't the first time we'd thought that either. He didn't look like any of us, not from either side of our family. Later, his son Timmy, looked so much like my father, it was eerie to all of us. I went about my business pretty much like normal after that day. The only difference being that I started taking all the wood deliveries that went to Norwich or passed through there. I started making it a habit to stop by the diner and have my lunch or supper there before heading back home. About half the time I stopped off to eat there, Cindy would be on duty as the waitress. She and Janet had worked out some kind of schedule together where they each took lots of time off when the diner wasn't too crowded. The only time that they both were working at the same time was for the breakfast and early lunch rushes that happened on week days. I didn't flirt with Cindy like my brother would have. It just wasn't my style. After about the tenth time I'd stopped in there, Lois came out from the kitchen and started talking to me... "Jackie, we all know that you aren't coming by here all the time just because you're in love with my cooking. Which one is it that you're after?" "Excuse me? What makes you think I'm after anybody? In the first place, I'm married. In the second place, you're a friend of my father's and he always asks us to help his friends out whenever possible. I figured you could use my business, that's all." "Your father was the same twenty some years ago as you are now. Married and so pathetically obvious and needy. I finally gave him a tumble just out of pity, so he could get over it and go back to being halfway normal again. So which one is it? Maybe it's the both of them?" I couldn't really see any benefit to trying to fool her since she seemed to know exactly what the situation was. "No, just Cindy, but I'm not even sure what it is about her." She smiled and nodded her head at me. "You're just like your daddy was. I knew that's who you'd have picked. I'll bet you a dollar against a donut that your brother picked Janet. Am I right?" I admitted she was right about Ray. "That boy's a real hound for the ladies I'll bet. Usually they're the ones who get all excited about Janet. Your daddy was a bit of a hound too if I remember. How about you?" "No, and that's the funny part about this. I'm pretty much adverse to fooling around. Never done it in fact. The thing I can't understand is, why the attraction? My wife, and a hundred other women I'd pass right by on the streets, are better looking to me than Cindy is. Still, I'll admit, there's something there about her that gets my motor running. "That's the $64.00 question all right. I was the same as Cindy from the age of fifteen, up until I got to my mid thirties. Then, one morning, I woke up and it was gone. I never did understand what it was, and still don't. It was like I was a magnet for certain men. I was probably a little better looking than Cindy, but it wasn't about looks. My sister Hazel is as homely as the south end of a north bound mule, but she had it in spades, a lot stronger than I ever did. Even today, she still has a little bit of it." "Well, I'll tell you honestly, I wish I'd never come in here and saw her. I'm happily married. My wife will kill me if she even thinks I'm going around sniffing at another woman." "Why don't you bring her over here sometime? I'm serious, a lot of women feel the same thing. If she feels it, she might understand it better, and not be that mad at you. Cindy's a lot more comfortable around women anyway. Men who get this thing for her, they are kind of scary to her. With women having it, she doesn't have to worry about being raped or anything like that. You bring your wife over for lunch and let's just see what happens." I almost said something hasty, but then I just kept quiet and allowed the idea to sink in and take hold. Ellen was damned perceptive about things like that. She'd be able to pick up on it if anyone could. If she saw what it was, maybe she'd be able to explain it to me or maybe make it just go away. One thing was for damn sure, I couldn't keep coming back here and continue eating this terrible food. On the drive back home I decided to tell Ellen about my strange and curious little fixation. I'd just admit to having it, and then ask her for help in getting rid of it. I figured she couldn't be mad at me for bringing it to her before I went ahead and did something foolish that we'd both regret. I decided that I'd leave out the part about me having made so many trips over to Norwich lately just to get more looks at this girl. I hadn't done anything yet, not even talked to her except to say hello, and to give her my food and drink orders. By the time I pulled up into my own front yard, I was feeling positively virtuous about what I'd been up to. Of course, Ellen didn't see it that way at all. ------- Chapter 3 "Jackie, I want you to think for a minute before you answer this question. Okay?" "Sure hon, what's your question?" "What is it exactly that you think might happen if I went to this diner with you to see this girlfriend of yours?" This wasn't turning out very well. Here I was trying to avert a catastrophe in my marriage, and Ellen could only focus on the negative aspects of the situation. I had explained it to her as clearly as I could. I'd even told her about my father having the same reaction, and about Ray not being affected by her. I'd started out by telling her that she was many times more attractive than Cindy was or could ever hope to be. I told her I was just interested in the mystery aspects of an unexplained phenomena. I'd had a physical reaction that had taken me by surprise. That didn't mean that I was hoping to jump into bed with this girl. "Her mother suggested that I bring you over there. She said that it's the type of thing a woman might understand easier than a man would. According to her mother, this kind of thing happens routinely with both of her daughters. She told me the same thing happened to her when she was younger, and that her sister had whatever it was, even stronger than she did. Please stop calling her my girlfriend, I hardly know the girl. I thought you might be interested in finding out more about it. I guess I overestimated your natural curiosity about strange things like this." "I'm awful sorry Jackie. I guess I overreacted when you told me that there is this girl that makes your big old dick get stiff every time she walks into a room you're in. I've been looking closely at your pants for the past half hour, and I haven't seen any sign that I'm making you hard just by being in the same room with you. If I'm going to go investigating something, it won't be all the way over in Norwich. I'd suggest that you confine yourself to almost anywhere else on earth but that damn diner. You hearing me? And another thing, what kind of a mother invites the wife of the man who is looking to screw her daughter to come over for lunch? She sounds a little loopy if you ask me. You sure they aren't all from the state hospital over there?" "You know Ellen, now I'm sorry I ever brought it up with you in the first place. I should have known you'd just find some way to turn this all around and make it look like I'm being a bad guy with this thing. If I had any interest in pursuing this thing with that girl, would I have come to you and asked you to look into it for me?" I left the kitchen and went into my living room and tried to get a handle on a deal that Ray had been pitching to me. I'd read everything he'd given me at least twice and I still couldn't see where the land was going to be worth so much more in a little while. After a frustrating hour of spinning my wheels looking at the same things, I got Ray on the phone and started asking him about the deal. "Jackie, how many times do I have to tell you? This little piece of land controls that whole area of future development. Anybody wants to do some building west of there, has to deal with us first. It might take two or three years, but the potential is really good for us to make a real killing here. We should buy it and just sit on it and see who comes after it first. Besides, it's only fifteen thousand dollars. Right now it's got to be worth $20,000.00 at the very least. You make your money in land by buying it right. This is priced under the current value and has a lot of potential to increase from here." "All right, let's do it. Can you meet me over in Trumbull tomorrow morning, and we'll sign the papers and open escrow. Maybe about ten o'clock?" As with most of Ray's real estate deals, I was coming to just rely on his judgment. He was on a good run and I'd stick with it until he faltered on something. Having come to a decision, I stopped worrying about the deal. Now it was Ray's turn to worry for both of us. A week later Ellen startled me at supper when she told me that she'd gone over to Norwich with Theresa and her kids and had some lunch and gotten a look at her competition. "Jackie, it was truly weird about both those girls. Just from them walking around in that diner you could feel that energy rolling off of them. It was like watching two big tigers at the zoo, only a different kind of raw power. Theresa felt it too. We both got tingles from watching them. I'm really sorry honey. I should have listened with a more open mind when you spoke to me. I guess I was pretty jealous from what you had told me. Threatened by it too." "Well, what do you think it is? It sure isn't their looks." "It's some kind of sex signal they give off. Maybe like when a dog or a cat comes into heat? You don't know exactly what it is you're reacting to, but it's there and it affects different people differently. Theresa told me that she got wet just from sitting there and eating her burger. Believe me, it wasn't because that burger was that good either. I didn't get wet, but my nipples popped out and I could feel myself starting to get in the mood just a little bit. I wish I did know what it was, I'd make a bunch of it and put it in tiny bottles and become rich selling it to women. Jackie, I want you to just stay the hell away from there. I don't want you deliberately going somewhere and being tempted." Two days later I'm sitting in that diner and having my first real conversation with Cindy. I told her about being married, and then I told her that I wasn't going to be able to let it go until I'd taken her somewhere and made love to her. Her reaction was fatalistic about the whole thing. She told me that she didn't want any trouble from me or from my family. She said I had to take her someplace nice and treat her to a good time before and then treat her nice after too. I told her that I'd set something up and let her know when. I was afraid a hundred times that I'd give the whole thing away to Ellen before it even happened. I had this one delivery, every two months that was real close to New York City. I always spent the night up there and drove back the next day. I made reservations at a nice uptown hotel and got two tickets to a Broadway play. I did this through Mr. Bennett, not explaining to him why, and he didn't ask me any questions. When everything was all set, I drove over to Norwich and told Cindy what I'd arranged for us. She had never been to New York, never stayed in a nice hotel, and never been to any play that wasn't performed in a school auditorium. She was excited about my arrangements. I set it up so that she would drive her car over to a place that was on the Old Post Road, and I'd pick her up there in my delivery truck and we'd leave her car until I brought her back. I was as excited as a young school boy on his first date. When I was at home, I tried to act as calm as if everything was normal. I had packed a bag with my good suit and a nice shirt and left it in my truck cab the night before. When I left that morning, I kissed Ellen like I normally would and took my little overnight case with me. I picked Cindy up right where she was supposed to be and made my delivery a little bit early. I left the truck over at the delivery site and Cindy and I took a cab to the hotel. Once we got to our room, we made love right away. It wasn't anything. I don't remember ever being that disappointed, not even the Christmas that my father got drunk on Christmas Eve and fired three shot from our front porch straight up in the air, and then came in and told all of us kids that he'd just shot Santa Claus. Cindy had tried to warn me that it probably wouldn't be what I was expecting or hoping for. We went to the play and it was pretty funny. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd been with Ellen though. After the play we went to a nice restaurant and had a full seven course dinner with an expensive bottle of wine. We got back to the hotel room and tried it again. Mostly just so I could be sure that the first time wasn't just a bad beginning or something. It was the same as the first time and Cindy cried when she saw the disappointment written in my face. The next morning we got up and took separate showers and got ready to leave. We went to breakfast in the hotel dining room and then caught a cab back to my truck. We talked a little on the way back to her car. I told her that I wasn't mad at her and that it wasn't her fault. I told her that I was happy to have had the chance to show her New York City, even if it was only the hotel and the playhouse. When she got out of the cab I walked her over to her car and thanked her for putting up with my strange request. I told her that I thought I'd probably gotten my fixation out of my system, but that I'd come over to see her soon and we'd know for sure. I gave her a little goodbye kiss and waved to her as she drove away. When I got home I found Ellen sitting on our couch crying her eyes out. Of course my first thought was that I'd been discovered in my cheating. I wish that I'd been right, and that had been it. Instead, I learned that my sister, Joan, had died from a brain hemorrhage out in California. I got on the phone and booked flights for the whole family to go to Santa Barbara for the funeral. Ellen decided to go over to her parents house just to see and be with all her sisters. While she was gone, I went out to the truck and brought in my other bag and unpacked everything and put things back where they belonged. I then drove over to be with my parents and to see if they needed anything. I got back home at around ten o'clock that night. The house was dark and empty. When I got to our bedroom there were two half packed suitcases on our bed and my good suit was laying on top of the big suitcase with the two ticket stubs to that damn play laying on top of the suit. Ellen was nowhere to be found. I felt so low that I'd have had to climb a ladder in order to kiss a snake's ass. I knew that I deserved whatever she was going to dish out to me, but that didn't make the waiting for it in any way enjoyable. Two days later the whole family, minus Ellen, flew out to Santa Barbara for Joan's funeral. Ellen's family was worried about her as much as I was, because she hadn't gone over there when she left our house the second time. I'd been back home for about a week after the funeral, and the long sad flight back to Connecticut. There had been no word about Ellen until I finally got a call from a religious retreat run by some Catholic nuns out by Waterbury. Ellen had stayed there for a week before leaving there suddenly at night. She had left behind her purse, car and her wallet containing her credit cards and money. The sisters were as worried about her as we were. I got their phone numbers and promised I'd call them when I heard from Ellen. Ray and I drove up there the next day and retrieved her things and brought her car home. I told Billy what I'd done to drive Ellen away. He decided to tell Theresa because she was feeling like maybe she'd had something to do with it. Theresa called my parents about something and she and my mother got into a long conversation. I went over to my parents a couple days later and got punched in the face by my own mother. Not slapped, punched. It caught me off guard and I tripped and went down. At least she didn't kick me. Instead, she went to her bedroom and locked the door behind her. She'd always told me that she'd never forgive me if I grew up and treated my wife like my father had treated her. I went back home and went to bed. I stayed in bed for three days, only getting up to go to the bathroom or to get some coffee or cigarettes. I didn't do a thing about business or anything else. No one called or came over to see me either. It was like I'd disappeared along with Ellen. ------- Chapter 4 Billy let slip that Theresa was in contact with Ellen, and that she was okay. I had started back to work, needing to unsnarl the mess that had resulted from me staying home and doing absolutely nothing. I had gone over to Norwich to see whether I was over my strange attraction to Cindy, and it seemed like I was. When I told her that my wife had found out about our little trip to New York, Cindy seemed genuinely sorry about it. I was sitting at home one evening about two weeks after Ellen left when I got a phone call from her father, asking me if it would be okay for him to come over and pick up Ellen's car and purse and some of her things. I told him it would be all right and he said he'd come right over. Tom and his wife came over and Mrs. DePaul got Ellen's purse and car keys and drove off without saying a word to me. "I don't want to seem like I'm lecturing Jackie, but you sure make my life more difficult when you live down to Flo's expectations of you. My wife can be irritating enough without me having to listen all day, every day, to her reciting chapter and verse about what a big mistake I made in allowing you and Ellen to develop your relationship." "I'm sorry too Tom. I don't envy you a bit. It's a sorry mess I've gotten us all into and I'm regretting it more every day. Please tell Ellen that I'd rather she come over and shoot me just like she promised. I deserve it, and she'd be doing me a favor by putting me out of my misery. Tell her if she doesn't hurry up and do it, I might just do it myself." He looked at me, probably trying to see if I was serious about shooting myself or not. I had really thought about doing it. I felt bad about Joan, and about doing such a dumb thing, and getting caught, and about my mother's reaction to my infidelity. I had always promised myself that I'd be so different than my father, and I was as bad, if not worse than he was. One of the things that kept me from doing it was that it felt like a cowardly thing for me to do. I was still smarting about some of my father's comments in the past over my decision to not volunteer for the military service. Tom had packed up some of Ellen's things, and he stopped and gave me a pat on the shoulder on his way out with her bag. "Jackie, things often seem worse than they are. You should just hold tight and let Ellen work through her pain and anger. If she wasn't in love with you, I don't think she'd have gotten this upset. I doubt that she'll let you off easy, but I expect she'll give you some way to wiggle out of your predicament. You hang in there and leave the punishing to your wife. They're the experts at it anyway." Ellen spent over $7,000.00 from our checking account over the next month. I was getting calls from the bank and having to authorize the transfer over of funds from other accounts every couple days to keep the checking account solvent. My MasterCharge bill came in and it totaled another $3,000.00, all charged in a two week period, mostly in New York City. I paid it off and tried to figure out just how far I'd allow her to take it. The money wasn't as important to me as I'd have thought it would be. It hurt, but not so bad that I thought it was unfair punishment. I had Ray get one of his real estate lady friends to put up a for sale sign on our house, and pretend that it was on the market. I knew that Ellen loved the house, but I was starting to think that I didn't want to live there anymore. I wanted to see if she'd react to the sign going up. After another week without hearing from her, I packed some of my things and rented a room over by Billy's farm. I called Tom and told him I was moving out of the house and that Ellen could either move back in until it sold, or else let it stay empty. I told him I was leaving it unlocked and my keys would be on the living room coffee table. I purposely didn't tell him where I'd be staying, or give him any way to get in touch with me. I had put in a change of address at the post office that would forward all my mail to Mr. Bennett's office. I let Ray and Billy know where I was staying, but only after they promised they wouldn't give out the information. It was easier for me just living in one room. It was an impersonal and neutral territory for me, with nothing there to remind me of how I'd screwed everything up. I'd get up every morning and take care of the things that needed tending to. I ate out every day and had my laundry done at a little Chinese laundry less than a mile from my rooming house. Billy was keeping me filled in with some of the family stuff. I didn't ask, but he kept me up to date on my parents, and Janos and Annie and their kids. I spoke to Ray about every other day on the telephone. Lenny was another one that I saw pretty often. He was starting to have a lot of pain with arthritis in his hands and back troubles. We were all worried about him because he was still a young man with three little children and a wife to support. The thing about Lenny was that he always stayed sweet and helpful. He would never think to take sides against someone, no matter how wrong they were. He was aware of what I'd done, but he always tried to keep me cheered up and hopeful about how things would work out in the end. He asked me several times if I was all right for money. I had no doubt that he'd have loaned me whatever he had if I'd asked. I was over at Billy's one morning, getting a load for my truck, when I could have sworn I saw Ellen watching me from Theresa's big kitchen window. I wanted so much to run right into the house and see her up close, but my every instinct told me not to do it. Driving away from Billy's ten minutes later, my hands were shaking so bad I had to pull the truck over until I'd calmed down enough to be able to drive safely. In the time that Ellen and I had been apart, I'd probably lost twenty pounds or more. My face was getting gaunt, and my pallor was turning gray. I knew I looked sick or something. I talked to Billy the next day and he confirmed that Ellen had been at his house the day before. He said that Theresa had called her to come over and see how bad I was looking. It seemed, after talking with Billy, that people were starting to worry that I wasn't taking care of myself. They thought I wasn't eating enough, or getting as much rest as I needed. They were right, but it was mostly because I wasn't hungry and because I had too much on my mind to just fall asleep like I used to do. I was up in New Haven, finishing up a delivery, when I stopped off to get a milkshake. Before leaving the restaurant, I went in to use their restroom. As I was taking a leak, I happened to look down and noticed that I was pissing something that looked a lot like blood. I'm no doctor, but I knew that wasn't very good. I drove myself over to a hospital and went into the emergency room to talk to someone about it. While I was waiting to be seen, I started getting these sharp pains in my lower back, on my left side. They were intense, and started coming in waves until I must have feinted or something. The next thing I remember, I'm waking up and a nurse is telling me that they had removed my left kidney. She said it was something like hydro-nephritis, or nephrosis, and said it looked like it had been congenital. Apparently, my kidney had just burst at some point while I was sitting in the waiting room. She told me that I was lucky to be alive. When I got the medical bill, I wasn't sure about how lucky I'd really been. It came to almost $63,000.00, and I was self insured. In one fell swoop, almost half my savings were wiped out. I wound up spending a total of ten days in the hospital, with them running tests to make sure that my other kidney was functioning smoothly. My doctor told me that my other kidney was enlarged to twice the normal size. He told me that this was normal and probably meant it had been doing all or most of the kidney functioning since I was a baby. He said I had a normal life expectancy, if I took reasonable care of myself, and didn't over stress the remaining kidney. With the operation, I'd lost another forty five pounds, and weighed one hundred and forty three pounds. I was still about six feet four, so you can imagine how thin I'd become. I had gotten a chance to phone Billy after my third day in the hospital. He called my parents and they drove up to see me with Annie and Ray the next day. My mother took one look at me laying in my hospital bed and broke out crying. She was a nurse, and used to seeing people in bad shape. Her crying like that wasn't cheering me up at all. I'd been in the hospital for a week, and was anxious to get released and to get back to work. I was in a kind of mini shock from the costs of my stay there. A nurse brought me one of those portable phones on a cart that they plug into the wall near your bed. She plugged it in and talked to the operator and had my call transferred to that phone. It was Ellen. "Jackie?" "Hello." I recognized her voice right off. Usually with long distance calls that wasn't so easy to do. "Ellen?" "Your mother told me to call you. She said you were in pretty bad shape. Is that true? Are you going to die?" "Shit, I hope not. For the kind of money they're charging me, I'd be really pissed if I died after paying so much. They took out a kidney and now they're just running some tests on the other one. As far as they told me, it seems to be working pretty good. I'm supposed to be getting released in a few more days." "Your mother told me you really look terrible. She says you weigh like a hundred pounds now. She says that I'm to blame." "That's not true. I'm to blame. It was congenital, so maybe her and my dad are to blame too. Bad genes or something. Besides, I weigh like one fifty now and the doctor says I'll gain the weight right back in the next couple of months. Mom is just trying to meddle in our problems is all. She is upset about what I did. Did she tell you she punched me and knocked me down?" "No, she didn't tell me, but Theresa did. You deserved it too. And a lot worse. I saw you right before you got sick, and I knew something was the matter with you. You looked so skinny and pathetic. I almost started feeling sorry for you." "There's no need. I feel sorry enough for me all by myself. I can't even start to tell you how sorry I feel Ellen. For what I did. I wish I hadn't, but I did. Look, I have to go. Thanks for calling me. You take care of yourself, goodbye." I put down the phone and wished that she'd never called me. Just hearing her voice was painful to me. Somewhere in there was the pain of Joan's death while I was out cheating on Ellen. Mostly though it was hearing Ellen's voice and realizing what I had lost by my own stupidity and selfishness. I didn't tell her that I loved her because she always told me that our actions speak louder than our words. My actions spoke volumes about my self centeredness, not about any love. I was released from the hospital the following Monday morning, and drove back to my rooming house. I was tired from even that little bit of work, and went right to bed. They had taken a drain out of me a few days before I left the hospital, and somehow during the night I'd opened up that wound and bled some on my sheets, so I drove to another doctor's office and had it checked and the bandage changed. I drove to Billy's and picked up a load for delivery later that day. He seemed surprised to see me back working, and looking so skinny, but didn't say much, or try to talk me out of the delivery. The next day I got to Billy's early and saw Ellen's car parked over by the house. I nearly decided to leave without getting out of my truck or getting my load, but, in the end, I decided to get out and let her see that I wasn't as bad off as my mother had said I was. I spoke with Billy for a couple minutes after he finished putting my load on and then I climbed back into the cab and started backing out. Nobody came out of the house and so I just left. I guess I half expected that Ellen might come out and talk with me a little. Part of me was relieved that she didn't, but it was a small part. Over the next few weeks I regained some of my weight and more of my strength. I was feeling pretty normal physically. I was still keeping pretty much to myself other than work and talking with Ray and Billy at times. I was getting into a routine. I had dropped out of all family activities and the near constant visiting back and forth. I had gotten myself to a place mentally, where I was confident that I could continue to live that way permanently. Ray phoned me and told me that Ellen really did want to sell our house and asked me if I'd sign the listing papers that she had already signed. I told him I would and arranged to meet him at the real estate office later that afternoon. I signed all the papers without really looking at what I was agreeing to. It didn't matter anyway. It was just a house to me now. Mr. Bennett accepted service on my behalf, for notice of an application for a formal marital separation. Ellen was asking for $700.00 per month for separate maintenance. I again signed the papers agreeing to what she was asking for and had Mr. Bennett take care of returning everything to where it was supposed to go. He advised me to retain counsel for myself, but I told him I really didn't care anymore and Ellen could have whatever I had that she wanted. He wasn't too pleased with my actions and answers, and I knew my father would be getting a phone call right after I left his office. That evening, a very sheepish looking Ray, accompanied by my father, made a visit to my room. I let them both in and waited for my father to begin. I didn't have to wait very long. "So Yutch, did they remove your balls with that kidney?" "Hi pop, hi Ray. I'm feeling better thanks. What brings you out all the way over here?" My father wasn't a big fan of what he referred to as 'pussyfooting around'. He usually liked to get the main purpose of his visit out in the open right away. "Good people offer you intelligent advice and you shoot it down without bothering to even give it some polite consideration? You think Mr. Bennett has so much free time on his hands that he can afford to give you the benefit of his experience and wisdom only to see you throw his advice away and tell him it's not important?" "Pop, before you get yourself all wound up about something that is essentially none of your concern, I'll explain to you my position in all of this. I fucked up. Ellen is entitled to whatever I have to offer her. I have no intention of fighting her on anything she requests of me. I'm taking full responsibility for my actions, and I've decided that this way is the best way to let Ellen know that I'm truly sorry. I don't plan to beg her for forgiveness or anything else. She has a perfect right to make whatever decision she chooses. I've thrown myself on her mercy, totally capitulated as it were. Given that, I think you will find that my actions now make a certain kind of sense. If they still don't make sense or meet with your approval, well that's too bad. If you or Mr. Bennett have a problem with my decision, then you can just withdraw as my advisers." "You're making a huge mistake here Jackie. You can't afford to blow off the people who have always been in your corner. Who will look after you if you do that?" When my father called me Jackie, I knew he was really upset with me. He didn't even think of me with that name except under stress or duress. "Pop, I'm not trying to blow you off. I'm just trying to salvage something here. I'm not sure what anymore. I do know that I'm hoping for something more than just money or property. If I get real lucky, luckier than I deserve, I might be able to salvage some part of my marriage. If I can do that, I'll be satisfied, even if I'm left with absolutely nothing else of any value. Don't confuse my desperation with just blowing you and Mr. Bennett off. I couldn't follow his advice and stay true to my game plan. That's all." "You telling me that you don't care if you take Billy and your brother here down with you?" "I'm telling you that I don't think that's going to happen. But, if that is what it takes, if they won't make it without my participation and support, yes, I guess that's what I'm telling you. I have more confidence in the both of them than that though. And I'm confident that Ellen wouldn't want Theresa or Sandy injured because of my screw up. That goes for Ray and Billy too." "What if you're wrong Yutch, what then?" "If I'm wrong, it won't be the first time, will it?" "I'm really getting pissed with this god damned attitude of yours. This family isn't only about you. You didn't get to where you are just by yourself you know. You had plenty of help all along the way. I'm not saying you didn't deserve your success, Yutch, only that is wasn't solely due to you. You have some debts and obligations here. I came here to make you aware of them and to tell you we all expect you to do the right thing by everyone." "What's the right thing for me? I've done the right thing for all of you, the best I could figure it, all of my life, pop. Now I need to try to do the best thing for me. It sounds selfish, even to me, but I can't do anything to help anybody else unless I do this first, for me. Not to get all melodramatic about it, but if I lose Ellen, I really don't give a fuck about any of the rest of it. I know the rest of you have something riding on the outcome, but I don't think you realize that it's all or nothing for me." "Jackie, no matter what pop says, as far as I'm concerned, you just do what you think is best. I'll get by no matter what. Billy feels the same way, because we talked about it before, when you were up in New Haven. I brought pop over here tonight because he told me he had to see you. He made it sound like it was for your own good, not ours. So he's not speaking for Billy and I or even for Lenny here." That took some balls for Ray. That was the first time I ever heard him stand up and contradict what my father had said. I really appreciated him picking that particular time to come out in support of me. "Thanks, Ray, I appreciate that, a lot. I'm pretty confident that all of us are going to be okay from a business standpoint after this all plays out. Pop, why don't you tell me what you're afraid is going to happen. Are you afraid that the money that goes to ma is going to stop? Billy handles 90% of that, not me. You worried about Lenny's job? Don't be. Billy or I can always take care of Lenny, as long as he can drive a truck. What other debts or obligations do I owe that you're afraid I'll forget or renege on?" "You've worked hard to get where you are Yutch, I can't sit back and watch you throw it all away over some girl who can't or won't live up to her vows and sacred promises." "Pop, you keep talking that way, you can just get the fuck out of my room! That's my wife, and she or I decide about what she should or shouldn't have to live up to, not you, and not Mr. Bennett. You seem to think that being my father gives you the right to make my decisions. Well, it doesn't, not since I've been old enough to think for myself. Whatever I might decide to throw away, it will be my choice to throw or not to throw. I do you favors and you do me favors. That's good, and we both profit from it. Don't force me to choose between the family and Ellen. Ellen is my primary family now. She comes first with me, by a long ways." "So you're determined to throw it all away then?" "If that's what it takes, then yes, I am. I don't make a habit of throwing stuff away though, so I'm wondering why all the concern now?" "I'll tell you why Yutch. Ellen as much as told Theresa that she's going to bleed you dry, take you for everything you've got. That's why." "Good. She deserves it. I've been a shit and I deserve whatever she thinks I have coming. Don't you ever feel that way when you fuck up like I did?" "Hell no, never. People fuck up, that's the human condition. Your mother has always understood that. She knows that to err is human, to forgive, that's divine. I allow her to be divine once in awhile, that's all it is." "Pop it's times like this that I treasure our differences. Almost the worst thing about this whole mess is that it made me think I was becoming just like you. That's something I've tried hard not to do. You've just restored my hope that, at least in some things, I've succeeded." "That's what I'm here for Yutch, to set the bar so low that anyone can hop right over it. It's just too damn bad that none of my boys ever appreciated me for that." "If that's what you're really here for pop, then let me be the first to congratulate you. You've succeeded beyond anyone's reasonable expectations." I could see he was pleased with what I'd just told him. At that moment I looked over at my brother and wished, with all my heart, that it was me that was switched at birth, and that my real parents were out there somewhere, raising my mom and pop's real son. ------- Chapter 5 Ellen and I had been apart for almost four months when I finally decided that I should start moving on with my life again. It wasn't any one thing that decided me, but rather a combination of several things. First, I had gotten tired of living by myself and having no life other than work and worry. Second, Ellen had made absolutely no effort to open any kind of communication with me. I knew she was in touch with Theresa and Sandy, but our only communication was me sending a check to her parent's house on the first of every month. Third, when our house had sold, Ellen moved all of my stuff into a garage in Poquonnock that she had rented for one month. She never told me about doing that, and I only found out by accident, from the guy who she'd hired to move all the furniture and her things. Luckily, I was able to get my stuff and bring it to the apartment I'd just rented in Groton. Fourth, I found out through Ray, that Ellen had raised quite a stink when the escrow company refused to give her the check in her name only, for the entire proceeds from the house sale. That news alone made me start thinking that my dad had been right about Ellen's intentions. I finally decided to hire my own lawyer to get some advice on where I stood and what my options were. The house money was still sitting in the escrow company, not doing anybody any good. The lawyer filled me in on where I stood, and advised me to write Ellen a letter and propose a reasonable offer for the fair distribution of our assets. I sat down in my apartment that night and made a list of all of the assets. The money in the banks, the businesses, the house sale money and my interest in several pieces of land that Ray and I jointly owned. I tried to value the land fairly, not at our cost, but at what I thought they were each worth. I figured the furniture was Ellen's and also her car. I kept my car out of the equation also. We had $96,400.00 in cash, savings and the checking account if I included the money at the escrow company. I figured my businesses and equipment were worth another $100,000, and my share of the properties came to $45,000.00. So counting up everything it came to $241,400.00. I sent her a registered letter later that week with an itemized valuation of our assets and an offer for her to either take all the cash or to take the businesses and the investment properties. I told her that she would have to make her own arrangements with Billy and Ray if she chose to take the non cash assets. I told her that I was planning on filing for divorce on the grounds of abandonment, and thought that it was better if we resolved the financial terms ourselves rather than leave it up to our lawyers. I enclosed a business card from my lawyer in the letter. A week later, I had an answer of sorts. My father in law came over to my apartment one night and brought me Ellen's counter proposal. She would take the cash, but wanted to leave the separation as it was and wanted me to keep sending her the $700.00 per month for five more years. At the end of that time, if I still wanted to, I could get my divorce without any opposition or challenge from her. I told him to tell her that I'd give her $75,000.00 now and pay her the $700.00 per month for five more years as alimony. I told him I was tired of living alone and didn't want to just shack up with another woman while I waited to get a divorce. He asked me if I already had a particular woman in mind. I told him that I wasn't prepared to comment on that because of advice I'd received from my attorney. I gave him my new phone number and told him he could just call me and let me know what she wanted to do. "Do you really want a divorce?" Ellen sounded drunk to me. She hardly ever drank more than one or two drinks at any one time. I'd never even seen her tipsy in all the years we'd been together. "Are you drunk?" "Do you really want to divorce me Jackie? Yes or no?" She was crying, I heard it in her voice "Ellen, I'm too tired of this whole mess to even begin to tell you what I want. You've made it pretty clear that you're done with me. That isn't what I wanted, but you're in the driver's seat here, not me. I always figured you'd tell me when you thought you'd punished me enough, and that I'd just go ahead and take what you dished out until you were satisfied that I'd had enough. Now though, I've come to believe that it's never going to be enough as far as you're concerned." "So you're going to divorce me and go find somebody else whose life you can ruin?" Now she was crying and angry too. "I'm going to divorce you and give the two of us a chance to move on with our lives, and to maybe find someone else. It isn't easy being alone and not having any hope of changing things. I'm done waiting for you to call all the shots on my happiness. I messed up and brought all this down on both our heads. I'm sorry. There comes a time when you just have to accept your losses and move on. That time is now for me." "Good, if that's what you want, you go ahead and file. My mother is right, I'll be better off without you. You can talk to my lawyer about how we'll split everything though, because I'm not making any deals with you." "If that's what you want, that's what we'll do then. When they get through with everything there won't be anything left worth having. Maybe your mother is right, Ellen, but I wouldn't have wanted to not have had all the good years." We both didn't say anything else for awhile, and then I heard her hang up the phone. Not a good beginning for the dialogue I'd worked so hard to get opened. The next morning I got up and drove to Billy's. Theresa made it a special point to come out of their house and tell me exactly what she thought of me for treating Ellen so badly. Billy gave her about ten minutes to run down and then told her to get back in the house and go mind the kids and her own damn business. "Jackie, Theresa's right this time. You're the one who made this mess, not Ellen. It shouldn't be up to you to say when it's time for her to forgive you and give you another chance. Shit, she didn't even shoot you yet." "Billy, I'm doing things to get us talking again at least. Ellen called me last night and we talked. It didn't go well, but we did talk. Four months is a long time between conversations. I know it isn't a record, but it's a long time. Ellen, once she starts back to talking, isn't going to let a lot of time go by before we talk again. I know she isn't done with the punishing yet, but she's at least thinking now that I'm not going to let it go on forever. How about you load my truck now and take some of that good advice you gave your wife a few minutes ago." Billy just laughed and went to get his loader. I think he was very happy that it was me this time, and not him, that had his ass in a sling. My father and mother came over to my new apartment, uninvited, and started after me with their united front. Their basic position was that it wasn't right for me to just roll over and let Ellen dictate everything. I couldn't help thinking about how bizarre it was to be getting marital advice from the two of them at the same time. I doubted there was another couple within twenty miles of my apartment that had experienced more ups and downs than those two, and yet that didn't stop them from offering me their combined wisdom on the subject of marital happiness. It took me about a minute to say something to divide the two of them and to have them sniping back and forth at each other. I told them thanks for coming, but to get their own house in order before branching out to offering advice to others. I don't think my mother was even listening when I said it, but my father sure was and he knew exactly what I'd done. They had just let themselves out, when my telephone rang and I heard Ellen's voice. "Jackie, we need to talk. I've been thinking about what you said about me punishing you until I was satisfied. Will you come over here to pick me up in front of the house?" She seemed more focused this time, like she'd given her words a lot of thought. Not rehearsed, just prepared. "You mean now? It's almost ten o'clock. I've got to get up at four in the morning." I was just checking to make sure that she meant now. "It's important to me, Jackie." I was always going to go, but I was glad that it was important to her. That was a good sign I thought, that something concerning me was once again important to her. "Okay, give me twenty minutes." I put on a fresh shirt and combed my hair and brushed my teeth. I was out the door in under five minutes. I pulled up in front of her parent's house inside the twenty minutes that I'd told her it would take me. As soon as I had parked, I saw her come out the front door and head over to my car. I got out and went over to the passenger side and waited for her. She stopped about five feet away from me. It was dark out, but I could tell by her body language that she was uncertain about all of this and was having second thoughts. I waited for her to speak first. She just stood there. "Jackie, I don't want a divorce. You make it so hard to get this thing settled. You really hurt me and you don't even seem to care. It's almost like it isn't important to you, and then you try to make everything else unimportant too. You seem willing to give everything up, but you didn't fight to try to save what we had. I want to punish you, to hurt you back. You won't even let me do that." "Ellen, I haven't tried to stop you from anything. What is it you want to do that I'm preventing? I want you to do it, whatever it is. I'm just tired of waiting while you make up your mind. Can't you just figure out what it will take and then go ahead and do it?" She started walking closer and then she hauled off and slapped my face. It stung, but I just stood there with my hands down at my side. She slapped me three more times, one after another, in quick succession. "Open your legs Jackie, I'm going to kick you in your balls." That took me a moment to decide about. I'd been kicked in the nuts before, and it hurt a lot. Finally, I spread my legs and closed my eyes. I didn't want to see it coming. I heard her breathing right in front of me, gasping really. "Jackie, you can go home now, I've changed my mind. This isn't what I need to do. I hoped it was, but it isn't. Maybe if I'd stayed there that night and we'd fought, then it might have been what I needed. It's too late for that now." I won't say I was sorry not to get kicked between my legs, but I was disappointed that it was going to involve something different from physical punishment. She turned around after I'd opened my eyes and started walking back to the house. "Ellen, I hoped it was too. I'd give almost anything, do almost anything, if it would make it be enough. I'm really not trying to make it hard to get this thing settled. I want to be punished." "You see, that's what I mean! How can it be enough if you don't even care?" I got back into my car and drove back to the apartment. I needed to find something that Ellen knew was important to me, and then let her take it away from me. The problem was that we both knew that the only thing that I cared enough about to qualify for that, was her. In truth, Ellen was the only thing I wouldn't willingly give up. Somehow, I had to get her to realize that, and then I had to give her up. It was the only way the two of us would know how sorry I was, and so we'd both understand that I'd been punished enough. I went down the next day and signed the papers to get the divorce started. I told my lawyer that I didn't want to be billed for a single minute for any financial settlement haggling. I told him to agree to anything she asked, up to and including, everything I owned. It didn't surprise me when that turned out to be exactly what she asked for. I was at Billy's a week after filing for divorce, when Ellen drove up in her new car. I'd signed papers at the escrow company authorizing them to just send her the proceeds from the house sale. "You like my new car Billy?" It was a Chrysler Imperial LeBaron, brand new. It was painted a cream color with a white landau top. Billy went over to where she'd parked and really gave the car the once over. I went and got in my truck, soon to be Ellen's truck, and waited for Billy to get back to finish up loading it. "When do I get to take over my new businesses Jackie? The very first thing I'm going to do is fire you." I just sat there and refused to answer her or look over at her any more. Finally Billy decided that he'd enjoyed himself at my expense just about enough, and got back to loading me up. I left right after I was loaded. I drove over to my in laws house and parked outside. I went and knocked on the door until my mother in law answered the door. She didn't invite me in. "I came here to talk to you. Ellen's over at Theresa and Billy's showing off her new car. Ellen needs to punish me and I need to be punished. The only thing I've ever had that I really can't stand losing is her. I don't even care about the rest of it. I want you to let her know that that's why I'm divorcing her. Losing her is the most punishment I could ever pay for what I did, and I'm going to pay it. I'm also going to hate waking up every day while I'm paying it. You tell her from me that she was the one who made settling this thing so difficult to do, not me." I left after that and drove over to New Haven for my delivery. That afternoon my grandfather and I went out and got drunk together. I don't remember how we got home to his apartment, but I woke up from sleeping and I was on his couch. He was gone when I got up. I cleaned up a little and let myself out the door. I had a terrific hangover all the way back home and was glad I had nothing scheduled that I had to get done that day. I took a shower and went in and got into my bed. I slept until late that afternoon. I felt better when I woke up. My headache was gone and I felt well rested. Whatever progress I'd made was quickly reversed when my mother phoned me and told me that Annie was sick with some kind of flu and I needed to give her a ride over to Niantic so that she could look out for Annie and take care of the kids for a few days. My father was too busy out 'ramming the roads' to be bothered with taking her she told me. Recognizing that there was simply no way out of doing what she wanted, I told her I'd be over to get her in fifteen minutes. Of course, when I got there, my father was just pulling in ahead of me. He was clearly plastered, so I didn't even consider asking him to drive her over to Annie's. When we got there, I carried my mom's things into the house and looked in on Annie. She looked about like I felt, and was happy to see my mother. Apparently Janos was like other Hungarian men, and believed everything around the house got done by magic. He wasn't too much help with taking up the slack from a sick Annie. I only stayed a few minutes, turning down an offer of a cold beer from Janos. I drove back to my place and tried to get some paperwork for the business done. My mind just refused to get any of that stuff in focus, and I wound up getting nothing done. About ten o'clock my phone rang again. I knew it was Ellen. Nobody else would call me at that hour. "Guess who came by to see me today?" "One of the Rockefeller's, looking to do a merger?" "Your grandfather. All the way from New Haven. Told me this really sad story about how much he regretted not working things out with your grandmother all those years ago. He said you were just like him and that you'd never bend either. Said it was another one of those family traditions. He told me about you crying in his ear all night about how much you loved me and missed me. After he left, my mother started in on me and told me about your little visit with her and all the things you said to her. How come I've always got to hear all this good stuff second hand Jackie? You don't think that maybe I'd understand it if you told me directly, to my face?" "Ellen, I meant exactly what I said to your mother. I wanted you to understand how I feel and why this divorce is the only way you'll ever really know and understand how sorry I am and what level of punishment I'm willing to accept. You think I don't care about the rest of it, the money and the businesses, but I do. Compared to losing you though, it isn't anything to me." "Can you come over here again Jackie? I need to slap someone and you're elected." "Are you going to kick me in the nuts too?" "I don't think so, but anything's possible. Can you get here in twenty minutes?" "I'll be there. You might want to wear a glove so your hand doesn't hurt so much this time. Theresa told me that you had a big bruise from the last time." "Good idea, thanks for being so thoughtful." "Don't mention it. I'll see you in a few minutes." I drove over there in less than fifteen minutes. I parked out on the street and got out of the car just like the last time. She came out of the house and I saw she really was wearing gloves. She walked right up to me and really let me have it in the face. "That's for fucking that girl." She hauled off and let me have it again. These were punches this time and she wasn't holding back on either of them. "That's for taking her to New York City when you never once thought to take me there." She then kneed me in the groin with all her might, and I went down, losing my supper in the process. "That's for making me crazy with worry about you when you got sick and almost died." She turned around and started walking away from me. Then, almost as an after thought, she turned back and kicked me on the side of my head. "That's for you and your damned family traditions. You be here tomorrow with one of your trucks and two of Billy's crew. I'm moving into my new house and I don't want to waste any more of my money on movers. One other thing Jackie, tonight finishes it. I don't ever want to talk about any of this ever again. You be here tomorrow morning, and then you go see that lawyer of yours and you tell him that we worked it all out. If we ever do get a divorce, it'll be because I want one, not as part of some stupid sacrifice that you think needs to be made." The heel on her shoe had cut the side of my head a little, and I was laying there in blood and vomit, my balls throbbing to beat the band. I was so relieved at the discount price she had given me for my punishment that I felt like thanking her. I knew that would be inappropriate though, so I just laid there and waited for her to get back inside. Once she disappeared behind her front door I got up and got in my car and drove off. It hurt from that kick, but it was a good hurt because it meant we'd finally been able to work things out. I drove over to Billy's and he already had two of his crew waiting to go with me over to Ellen's parent's house. "You look like hell Jackie, somebody finally got around to kicking your ass again? Probably took two or three guys from the way you look." He was laughing, enjoying my signs of suffering. I let him have his fun for a couple long minutes and then I had mine. "Billy, did you know that Theresa is taking pistol lessons down at the sheriff's station with Ellen on Wednesday nights? I wonder if she knows anything about a certain Gloria Copeland that always pays her rent with cash, but doesn't have any known source of income? Ellen and I were talking over some of our personal things last night and I haven't had a chance to talk to her about it yet. I'm sure she'd find that as amusing as you seem to find my little problems." "Jesus Jackie, don't even kid about things like that. I don't know anybody named Gloria whatever, but you know that wouldn't stop Theresa if she started hearing rumors like that one. You were kidding about the pistol lessons right?" "Don't try any of that with me Billy. Starting right now, I'm going to give you one week to clean that little situation up by yourself. Ellen and Theresa both have been practicing on their shooting skills. If you haven't taken care of it in a week, I'm going to ask Ellen about what she thinks would be best for us to do to protect our business interests. Now that my business technically belongs to her, I'm honor bound not to withold that kind of information from her. I know that Ellen is one of Theresa's closest friends, so I doubt that she'd be willing to cover for you on something like this." "Jackie, I liked you a lot better before you went ahead and got religion on me. What ever happened to the family philosophy of live and let live?" "I had to give it up Billy. That's the price you have to pay if you want to stay married in these modern times. We need to establish new family traditions, because the old ones aren't working anymore." "A week, huh? How about we compromise and call it a month?" "Where is Theresa, I need to thank her for making sure Grandpa Murphy had Ellen's address?" "A week is okay, Jackie, I'll take care of it, I promise." "Give my best to your lovely wife, Billy. You tell her I really appreciate all her help." Ellen had purchased a nice house about two miles closer to her parent's house. It had four bedrooms and two complete bathrooms. There was a large fence around the whole back lot and plenty of room to put in swing sets and sand boxes for her little guests. Before our troubles had begun, Ellen was always after me to make changes in our house to accommodate more children. The guys from Billy's crew got everything loaded by themselves. My balls were too sore to do any lifting. Ellen seemed to understand, although I can't say she was too sympathetic. After things were unloaded, Ellen told me to take the guys back and to pick up something for us to eat on my way back home. This was my first indication that she wanted me to come back that afternoon. I went out to Billy's farm, but stopped off first to get the guys a huge grinder and a case of beer. I gave them an extra twenty bucks to split between them and told Billy to pay them their regular wages for the day and charge it to my share of the furniture wood business. He was happy to comply. I left to go back to the new house and stopped off for one of Pepe's $3.00 large pizzas, with pepperoni, mushrooms, black olives and anchovies. That's how Ellen liked it. When I got to the house, Ellen gave me my keys and a kiss. She grabbed the pizza box and went on into the new kitchen. I liked the kitchen a lot because it was really two rooms in one and had plenty of room for us to spread out in if we decided to have people over for a meal or something. Our old house, we had to go into the living room. I'd been brought up to do my socializing in the kitchen, and was never comfortable in the living room. We started getting back together that night, sitting in our new kitchen and discussing what we needed to do to get the house ready for family visits and for some little kids too. It didn't go all smooth the way most people would have me tell the story. It was awkward and strained at times too. You wouldn't believe how many times the two of us had to bite back angry words and to look away rather than acknowledge the other person's anger. I loved her too much to ever give up on the healing process, I've got to assume that the same held true for her. An angry, sometimes bitter, Ellen was preferable to a missing wife and a life of being all alone. Ellen's statement that it was all over and that we wouldn't speak of it ever again, just didn't turn out to be true. It will never be over, and maybe that's a good thing. I don't want to forget it, and sometimes welcome those reminders. It was a month after we started reconciling our marriage before I was able to fully make love with Ellen again. One of the side effects of that knee she gave me was that I started having chronic recurring pain in one of my balls. It would go away for awhile and then return for no known reason. We had to modify the way we made love after that, no longer able to just couple with complete abandon.To me, it marked the end of my youth. It takes years to regain what you can lose with a single, unfortunate, misstep. Even then, you often can't get all of it back. Part of the maturing process seems to involve developing the ability to accept less than perfection. I go to sleep every night comforted in the knowledge that Ellen lies beside me. Sometimes, when she's lying beside me I can feel the tension in her body and know that it's one of those times when she'd prefer that I keep myself over on my side of the bed. I wish those times had become less frequent, but wishing doesn't make it so. She has told me many times that she's had a happy marriage with me, and I've told her the same. I know I've meant it too. It would have been happier though if we'd both been a little more caring and forgiving. Billy kept his word and got away from his friend Gloria within the week. There may have been more Gloria's over the years, but, if so, I was never aware of the others. Theresa became a pretty good shot with a pistol, and even got Billy to build her a little target range in the back of their farm after the kids were grown and had moved away. Sometimes when she's upset about something or just mad at Billy she'll go out to her range and plunk away at targets for several hours. It seems to calm her down, but the same can't be said for Billy, especially if he's the reason Theresa needs calming. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2005-10-08 Last Modified: 2005-10-14 / 12:49:02 am ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------