Chapter Five
The last thing I felt like dealing with was my old man. The son of a bitch wasn’t there for most of my life, but now, any time there was an issue with his old ass, I was his emergency contact.
The one time the school nurse had called him, he’d been too drunk to drive, and, after belching in the nurse’s ear, he hung up on her. I’d spent the day curled up in the nurse’s office, willing myself not to puke until I got home.
I was tempted to leave his ass at Espresso Yourself, but Michael said he was causing a scene. That wasn’t fair to Michael or Kenneth, the owners of the beloved coffee shop. Nor was it fair to any of the customers trying to get their caffeine fix to jumpstart their day.
There was a spot a few doors down, and I parallel parked my truck, barely fitting in the small space. “Stay here,” I said to Jack, giving him a scratch behind his ears before I hopped out.
“Oh my…” Odette, the town’s very own gossip mill, hurried through the door. She was in a matching purple outfit with flowers embroidered on both the top and the ankles of the pants. Her makeup reminded me of Mimi from the Drew Carey Show, but she thought it looked good, so who was I to tell her differently?
“Morning,” I said as she almost ran right into my chest.
“Oh Brady, thank heavens. Your father is”—her eyes darted back to the café—“upset.”
“I’ve heard,” I mumbled.
“You should get in there.” I don’t know what anyone thought I could do. The old bastard hadn’t listened to me a single day in my entire life.
“Thanks.”
I bypassed her and flung the door open, stepping inside. The scent of freshly brewed coffee smacked me in the face, but before I could enjoy it, Ron’s voice cut through the air.
“I want a scrapple special!”
“Ron, I have told you repeatedly that we don’t serve a scrapple special here. I can offer you a chive scone or a blueberry muffin.”
“I don’t want a fucking muffin! I want a scrapple special.”
“Hey!” I bellowed, letting the deep tone of my voice burst like a bark. Everyone froze, eyes turning toward me, except for Ron.
“Thank God,” Michael said, resting a hand against his chest.
“Ron, what the hell are you doing?” I stopped calling him Dad the day he kicked me out of his house. He didn’t want me in his life, then he lost his title. Not that he ever lived up to it in any way.
My old man turned, his lip curled, a blank stare in his green eyes that—I hated to admit—were just like mine. “Brady.” He all but sighed my name. “I just want my special. I get it every Monday. You know that.”
I glanced at Michael, who shrugged, a look of pure sympathy in his eyes. Kenneth tried to keep the line moving, but everyone had stopped to stare.
“No, I don’t know that.”
“Of course you do.” He moved toward me. “Remember that time we went fishing on the lake, and I stopped here and got us the scrapple special, and we took it to go? We ate it down at the docks.”
The last time the old man and I had done any kind of fishing, I was eleven. It was one of the last times I’d ever seen him sober.
Realization dawned on me. Memories of a simpler time, flashing in my mind. A time when Dad was sober for about a year. A time when he was my dad in more than title.
“A scrapple special from Tony’s,” I said.
“Exactly. Remember how good it was? You can get one, too, if these buffoons would do their job.”
Tony’s closed down twenty years ago. Multiple businesses had come and gone at this location until Michael and Kenneth had opened Espresso Yourself.
Nero had told me he’d been forgetting things lately. Names of people and places, where he put his keys, how to get home… I didn’t think it was of any concern. Forgetfulness happened to the best of us. Also, as awful as it was, I didn’t fucking care. Why should I? The man never cared about me. He made my life hell. But right now he was making other people’s lives hell, and I needed to get him away from here.
“Ron, this isn’t Tony’s.”
“Yes, it is.” His adamant tone could have convinced someone who didn’t know better, but I did. Everyone in here did.
“It’s not. Tony’s closed twenty years ago. This place is a coffee shop now. Michael and Kenneth are the owners, and they are good people, but they do not make a scrapple special.”
Ron’s gaze darted back and forth, confusion tugging at the deep lines around his eyes. “I don’t understand.”
In that moment, he didn’t look like the man who threw punches at me as often as other dads threw balls and high fives. He looked old, feeble, and utterly lost.
I tapped his shoulder. “Come sit down.” I motioned toward an open table by the window and pulled out a chair. Ron sat down, mumbling to himself and shaking his head.
“Michael?” I said.
The co-owner nodded. “Large black coffee?”
“Please, and a medium with two sugars and milk.” Ron had been drinking his coffee the same way my entire life. I used to make it for him in the morning, in hopes of sobering him up.
“You got it.” Michael turned toward the cups.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.
Ron’s confused gaze met mine. “I was hungry. I wanted a scrapple special. I forgot Tony’s closed.”
“Nero said this has been happening a lot. You forgetting shit.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I probably need more sleep.”
“What’s the doctor say?”
“I’m not going to the doctor because of an oversight.”
“Forgetting a place closed down twenty years ago is not an oversight.”
Michael came to the table and placed the two coffees in front of us. He turned around and came back with two plates. “I know it’s not a scrapple special, but it’s a bacon cheddar corn muffin, and my mother grew up on scrapple. She adores these muffins, so maybe you’ll like it. It’s on the house either way.”
“You don’t have to do that.” God only knew how much business Ron scared off this morning. Michael didn’t need to be rewarding him with free food.
Michael held his hands up. “It’s my pleasure. But remember this when you’re judging the Halloween costume contest next weekend.” He gave a wink and a wave before heading behind the counter.
I waited for Ron to make some offhanded comment about Michael or the Halloween costume contest, and when he didn’t, I wondered if the man I once knew existed anymore.
“We have one of those costume contests down at the veteran’s home.”
I took a sip of my coffee, grateful for the bold taste.
“Reminds me of you. You always liked that Halloween stuff.”
My arm froze, the coffee cup suspended in the air as I stared at my old man. “I did,” I finally said. “I still do.” I never knew that he noticed or cared. I’d take myself trick-or-treating, meeting up with Franc and Laurent and their family where Mr. and Mrs. Grasso would let me join in. Then we were teenagers, and we roamed the streets, armed with cans of shaving cream and cartons of eggs. It was my favorite time of year.
“You were…” He snapped his fingers a couple of times. “Freddy Krueger one year. Yeah. The one with the fucked up face. You did your own makeup. See? I remember shit.”
“That doesn’t erase the fact that you thought Tony’s still existed. Whether or not you want to, you need to see a doctor.” I reached into my back pocket and retrieved the information I had picked up from Laurent’s office and placed it on the table.
“Here’s a number.” I pushed the paper across the table and tapped the name of a doctor who specialized in early onset Alzheimer’s. He was the father of one of the owners of a chain of restaurants Laurent dealt with. When I had mentioned to Laurent what Nero had said, he took it upon himself to get the number. Just in case. I didn’t even want to pick the number up, but he insisted. I was starting to wonder if the bastard was psychic and had foreseen this morning’s shit show.
“What the hell is this?” Ron asked, not even attempting to look at the paper.
“A number of a very reputable doctor who deals with this kind of shit.”
“If he’s that reputable, I doubt he’ll take my insurance.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
“My insurance is shit.”
I snatched the paper back. “This is so fucking typical. I didn’t even have to get you this number.”
“Then why did you?” His eyes met mine, and I froze for a moment before I got my composure. “I didn’t. Nero was worried about you. He spoke with Laurent, who knows a guy. I’m just the fucking messenger. So if you don’t want it, it’s no skin off my back. I’m used to you not following through.”
His jaw tightened, wrinkles around his eyes that had deepened so much over the years deepened even more. He held his hand out. “Give me the number.”
I hesitated. All the reasons I should even help him in the first place raced through my mind, making me question every moment until this point. He’d treated me like shit my entire life, and now here I was, giving him a helping hand.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, the voice in my head told me to get the hell out of there and never look back, but that eleven-year-old boy who went fishing with his dad so very long ago pushed to the surface and begged me to help his dad. With a deep inhale, I slapped the paper in his hand.
“Make the damn call,” I said.
He nodded before folding the paper and sliding it into his pocket. He glanced at the muffin in front of him. “It’s not scrapple.”
“I think we’ve established that.”
He took a small piece and placed in his mouth. His eyebrows pulled tight as he chewed. “Hell, it’s not bad. It’s actually pretty damn good.” He motioned toward my plate. “You eating?”
What I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there and back to my life, but what if I left, and he caused another scene? Could he even drive home? I had no idea.
All I knew was that just like my past, I was once again taking care of a man who had never taken care of me.
Story of my fucking life.
***
I stayed. Waited for Ron to finish his coffee and muffin before I offered him a ride home. When he refused, I didn’t give him a choice. There was no way I was letting him drive after he had no idea where the hell he was. Franc met me at the coffee shop and followed in my truck with Jack.
We pulled into the driveway of the place I never thought I’d ever return to and threw the car in park.
“You didn’t have to drive me,” he said. No thank you; just an argument.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t trust you to get home.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
“Don’t get it wrong. My concern was for the other people on the road.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
“You deserve a hell of a lot more, but it’s still too fucking early, and I have to get my ass to work.”
I slipped from the car and slammed the door. Jack jumped through the window of the truck and came to a stop at my feet. I glanced at Franc, and he shrugged.
With a pat on Jack’s nape, I waited for Ron to exit the car. I didn’t want to give him his keys back. I didn’t want to get a call in a couple hours from someone telling me he couldn’t find his way home again.
I looked at the house. It was like a memory frozen in time. The broken shutter had been fixed, the door painted with a fresh coat of white paint, and the grass was cut recently.
“Thanks for this,” he said as he shut the door and shuffled toward the house. He walked up the few steps and went to open the door, but I was holding his keys. He patted his pockets, and I shook my head as I made my way to his door.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pushed the door open. A loud hiss greeted me, and I glanced down to see a black cat baring its teeth and swatting the air toward Jack.
“Back off, cat,” I growled. “Jack, go to the truck.”
Jack let his head fall, and he pathetically meandered to the truck.
“It’s okay, Fanny.” He picked up the black hissing beast and scratched it under the chin. The cat snuggled into him, and I stared at how gentle he was. Gentler than he ever was with his own flesh and blood.
“Here.” I dropped the keys into his palm. “Call that number and set up an appointment.”
I made my way back to my truck, and Franc met me at the front.
“Everything okay?”
“Fucking wonderful. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I opened the door, shooed Jack to the backseat, and hopped into the driver’s seat. Putting the truck in drive, I couldn’t get away from that house fast enough.
I turned off the street that held so many conflicting emotions and continued toward Franc’s house. Quinn had dropped him off at the coffee place before she headed to the school with Gio in tow.
“Want to talk about it?” Franc asked.
“No.”
“Enough said.”
“He has a cat.”
Franc glanced at me, eyebrows drawn together. “Sorry?”
“A cat. He has a damn cat. He couldn’t even take care of himself, let alone a son, and now he has a cat.”
“A lot can change in twenty years.”
“And the fucking thing hissed at me as if I was some monster. Me! When it was all up in Ron’s arms, like he was some sort of safe space.”
“He’s been sober for years. You don’t know the man he is now.”
“Does it matter? I know the worst of him.”
“I’m not saying what he did to you can be justified, but it seems he’s made changes in his life. He’s not the monster you knew.”
“It’s still in him. It always will be.”
“That’s something he has to live with.”
It was the least he deserved. I didn’t know if he even cared about the damage he caused, the destruction he’d brought into my life.
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was surprised to have gotten the call this morning. I’d have expected you to tell Michael to fuck off.”
“I’d never tell Michael to fuck off. He knows my coffee order.”
Franc laughed. “Good point, but still. Why not have him call the cops? Or call Ray or Albert or one of the other veterans?”
Ron hung out at the local VFW and had made friends with the other veterans in the area. It was a small group, but from what Nero had told me about them, they were loyal to one another.
“Any one of those guys would have shown up, so why didn’t you call them?”
His question sat in the air, poking at me, but I didn’t have an answer. I could have lied and said I got the call and it was on the way to the distillery, but that was bullshit, and Franc would have smelled it from a mile away.
“I wish I knew.”
Franc patted my shoulder. “I do.”
“Really? You’re a fucking mind reader now? Even if you were, there’s honestly nothing going on up here.”
“I don’t need to be a mind reader to know you wouldn’t leave Ron there. Just like you’d never want someone to treat you the way he treated you. Whether it kills you or not, you won’t give him the satisfaction of turning out like the example he gave you. You will always strive to be better, to do better, because you don’t want to be another statistic. You don’t want to be him.”
“You think you’re smart?”
“I know I’m smart. And it’s okay if you’re just figuring this out now. Even if I have been telling you for over thirty years. Congratulations on catching up.”
“I never said you were smart. I asked if you think you are.”
“Same thing.”
“Not even close.” I rested my arm out the window and glanced at Jack in the rearview. His tongue hung from his mouth, flopping in the breeze. I never thought I’d take on the responsibility of another creature, but Jack proved I was capable, and I would never have it any other way.
“Animals are good for people,” I said.
“Sure, they escape from every damn cage, go missing for hours on end, eat entirely too many bugs.”
“I wasn’t talking about Sally. But we both know you love that beardie.”
“She’s all right.”
“You built her a cage bigger than the bedroom I grew up in.”
“She needed space to move around.”
I shook my head and slightly laughed.
“I’m just saying… maybe that cat helped unlock something in Ron even he didn’t know was inside of him.”
“What, like compassion? Tolerance? Love?”
“Something like that.”
I hoped for the cat’s sake, she would never meet the Ron I knew.