Chapter 14 #3
Confused, Jack nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Rodger didn’t give him a second look. “I can get you a bottle from the back, John, but I need to know you’re not driving.”
“Boy’s driving,” John said, slurring his words. Jack also pulled out his keys to show that he was the driver.
Rodger nodded once. “Wait here.”
Jack prayed there was a phone in the back that he was going to go use. If Rodger called the police, then he might be able to put all this behind him and just be late for his shift at the grocery store.
Except Rodger came back out with a large glass bottle of something bronze. Though it was full, the cap was already off. Fuck, Jack thought. The man wasn’t going to help him after all.
Rodger came around the bar and handed the opened bottle to John. “That’ll be eight dollars. Should I put it on your tab?”
John snatched the bottle from Rodger’s hand quickly, as if fearful that Rodger would try to take it away and took a long pull. When he paused to take a breath, he pointed from Jack to Rodger. “Pay the man.” And then took another long drink.
Grudgingly, Jack reached into his back pocket for his wallet. His checkbook was in his backpack and he only had enough cash on him for a tank of gas. Most of his money was in his bank account. But he pulled out a ten dollar bill from the fold.
Rodger pulled out cash from his pocket and handed Jack his change. “You two have a great day. John, don’t be a stranger,” he instructed.
As he passed Jack to return to the bar, Jack felt a small tug on his jacket pocket.
He didn’t pause to look. His dad was already heading towards the door.
Jack followed. Glancing over his shoulder as he reached for the door, he caught Rodger’s eye.
The older man gave him a slight nod of the head. It was almost…reassuring in a way.
John Duncan had left the passenger door open in his haste to get into the bar. Still gulping down the whiskey bottle, he stumbled up into the cab.
Jack walked around to the other side. Regardless of anything else, he knew his dad was still armed with a knife.
And now he was getting even drunker. Recalling all the beatings his dad had given his mom in his stupors, Jack hurried around to the driver’s side.
He’d failed to get help inside the bar. He was going to have to figure out some other way to notify Chief Cunningham and the Zarins to what was going on.
Whatever his dad had planned at the Scanlon house, it wasn’t going to be good.
Clearly, his dad didn’t know that Jack wasn’t allowed on the property.
Maybe that was how he could get help. If he went to the Scanlon house, one of Jenna’s parents would call the cops on him, surely.
Chief Cunningham hopefully would believe Jack that he was innocent in whatever it was his dad had planned.
Rodger, at least, was a witness to how drunk his dad was and John Duncan still had his knife on him.
Would that be enough to prove Jack was coerced?
Jack reached into his pocket for his keys as he got to the driver’s side. Something smooth met his fingertips. Then Jack recalled the slight tug he’d felt when Rodger had passed him. A glance up through his open window showed his father was nearly halfway done with the bottle of booze.
Looking down, Jack pulled the object from his pocket. The cylindrical orange bottle with an orange cap had the label peeled off of it. In dark marker, a man’s handwriting scribbled sleeping pills across the plastic.
The bottle was empty.
Jack knocked on the storm door, the action reminding him of when he’d been trying to get money from Mr. Barlow for mowing the man’s grass. Only this time, he wasn’t half-starved and desperate. A glance behind him showed that his dad was still where he’d left him.
Chief Cunningham’s wife opened the door, leaving the storm door closed. “Jack? Are you okay?”
“I’m doing good, Mrs. Cunningham. Is the Chief home?” he inquired.
“One moment.” She closed the front door and left to get her husband.
A few minutes later, Chief Cunningham appeared. He was in jeans and a sweater and was still trying to buckle his badge to his belt as he shouldered the door open. “Jack. You okay, son?”
Jack threw a thumb over his shoulder at his father passed out against the passenger window. “How old do you have to be to make a citizen’s arrest? Because I’d like to make one.”
An ambulance had to be called for John Duncan. Chief Cunningham had been unable to wake the man and his breathing was so shallow that they feared alcohol poisoning.
Mr. Zarin came running down the street as soon as Mrs. Cunningham called him.
Thankfully, Mrs. Zarin was still at the house with Lilly.
Jack did not want Lilly to ever see John Duncan again.
Mr. Zarin stood with Jack as they watched his father get loaded into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.
He had an oxygen mask over his face. The knife he’d used to threaten Jack with was now safely in Chief Cunningham’s custody.
Jack had gotten it from his father’s pocket as soon as the man had passed out in his truck.
They’d barely been a block away from the bar.
Jack supposed he could have pulled over and called for the police then, but he didn’t want to get Rodger into trouble.
Whatever sleeping pills the man had doused the whiskey with had been strong enough to knock out a man John Duncan’s size in minutes.
The only stop Jack made was to dump the empty prescription bottle into a dumpster before heading to the Chief’s house and to pour out the rest of the tainted whiskey on the ground.
Best eight bucks Jack ever spent in his opinion.
He was still riding the high of his victory over his father. As far as Mr. Zarin and the police were concerned, Jack just drove around until his father passed out drunk. He did tell them about his father’s plans to have him drive to the Scanlon house, as well as his threatening words against Lilly.
Chief Cunningham was going to keep a lid on that part until they had a chance to figure out what was going on.
However, he did mention in passing that it might be time for Jack to look into getting emancipated and taking legal custody of Lilly.
Jack didn’t know enough about the subject to know what that entailed, but if it got Lilly legally free of their father, he was all for it.
Of course, he had to have a job to become an emancipated minor and he had no idea if he was fired after missing his shift.
As the ambulance drove off, Mr. Zarin nudged Jack with his shoulder. “Proud of you, son.”
Jack looked down at his boots. He kicked a bit of snow in frustration. “I froze,” he confessed. “All my dad had to do was threaten Lilly, and I froze. I forgot everything you taught me and I didn’t even try to fight him or disarm him. I just…complied.”
Mr. Zarin turned to face Jack. The man’s big body blocked Jack’s view of the retreating ambulance. “I call bullshit.”
Jack shook his head. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see.”
“You’re right,” Mr. Zarin agreed. “I wasn’t there, but I know which one of you is standing here without a scratch on you and which one is in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. That tells me more than you know.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“You know all those moves I’ve been showing you?
All the different ways to disarm your opponent and protect yourself?
” Jack nodded but didn’t reply. “They mean nothing if you panic, Jack.” Mr. Zarin tapped Jack’s temple.
“You kept calm, you kept your head. Did I ever tell you the story of Kevin Glasgow?”
Jack shook his head, not recognizing that name. “I don’t think so.”
“Kid in my class growing up. He was big into karate. Always showing off his new moves for the ladies in our class at recess. Well, we enter high school and some seniors decide to jump him after school.” Mr. Zarin shrugged, “I don’t remember why and that’s not really important.
The point is that, even with all his lessons and being a black belt, when it came time to actually use what he knew, the kid froze.
Couldn’t think. He panicked when it came to a real fight. ”
Mr. Zarin put his hands on Jack’s shoulders and waited for Jack to lift his gaze up to meet his eyes.
“You didn’t panic, Jack. So what if you didn’t start jumping around like a ninja samurai with all these fancy moves like Jackie Chan.
You kept your head and you made it home safe.
” He shook his shoulders gently. “That’s what matters and I am so fucking proud of you. ”
Jack had to look away, not wanting Mr. Zarin to see his eyes tear up. “I hated seeing my dad today,” he confessed. “I’d almost…forgotten.”
Mr. Zarin lowered his hands, but his voice was gentler than a moment before. “Forgotten what, son?”
Jack swallowed hard. “That you’re not my dad.
I wish you were. You’ve been more of a dad to me in this past year than mine has ever been.
And I hate that you’re not my dad. I hate that I have that man’s blood running through my veins.
I hate that you have to look at me and see parts of that man in me.
I hate that seeing him again today brought back the fear I’ve lived with my entire life that I’m going to become him.
Like father, like son, and all that.” Jack quickly wiped the back of his hand against his face.
“Most of all, I hate how much of my life I have spent hating that man.”
There was a long pause after Jack finished speaking. He still couldn’t look at Mr. Zarin and instead studied the horizon that was multicolored from the setting sun.
Suddenly Mr. Zarin pulled Jack against his chest. The embrace was hard, but that pinch of pain in his ribs from being held too tightly was somehow comforting. Jack pressed his face down into Mr. Zarin’s jacket as his fists clenched into the material at the older man’s back.
“I don’t give a fuck about DNA, Jack.” Mr. Zarin’s voice broke, which made Jack not feel like such a sissy for his breakdown. “You are and always will be my son. And fuck what anyone else says.”