Chapter 19: 1991

“He dumped you and took the bus!” screamed Valerie.

“Yes, we didn’t exactly argue but he did make a big deal out of the fatherhood thing, like you said he might,” said Jillian.

“He’s got a job. He doesn’t know it yet, but he does. And he’s shacked up in that halfway house like he told you he would, Jill. But I’ve arranged with the manager of the halfway house to get him hired at the Javelina so that the man doesn’t have to live on the street until we can figure a way to get him to come in out of the cold,” said Herbert. “And no, he doesn’t know I’ve done the arranging. If he did...”

“Yes, he’d quit in a heartbeat,” said Valerie.

“I think we need to give him some time out there on his own before we pressure him,” said Herb.

“Yes, coming at him now would not be good. I was hoping that him finally meeting up with you, Jill, might get him to rethink a few things, But I guess not, not yet at any rate,” said Val.

“Mom, he is so hard core about the fatherhood thing. And he looked awful, sick or something. I kinda remember him from all those years ago, just impressions, but he’s different looking now, way different. I have to say it; I was a little bit afraid of him. I mean not really, but kinda,” she said.

The halfway house was wonderful: twenty beds and three bathrooms. We had our own rooms too. What was kind of odd was the fact that the rooms were even smaller than our cells in super, barely slits in the wall, but we could come and go. And go we did, looking for jobs. Well, and sometimes even convicted murderers like me got lucky; the Javelina B&G was within walking distance, well a mile, of the halfway house; and they needed a janitor: eight bucks an hour, five days a week, and one free meal a day and coffee any time. Hard to beat a deal like that.

And time passed.

After I’d saved up a little, I’d gotten me some new-used clothes, and I was able to get me a place: five bills a month plus utilities, maybe another two-fifty a month depending. Subtract money for food and the occasional sixpack and I didn’t have much left over for carousing at the local whatsoevers. But I was getting by.

The odd thing, I thought it was odd, was the truth that the Coopers were not harassing me, not yet at any rate.

I’d gotten out and gotten a job in mid-August. It was now November, Thursday, November 14th. Three months since I’d arrived in the big town. And the harassment that I’d so far avoided was about to begin. I was just getting done cleaning up the ladies’ head. I was pushing the mop bucket back into the supply room; it was 11:00 p.m. I was gimpy, but I was able to get around okay, just slow.

They were standing off to my right watching me. Oh, who were they? Why my ex and her hubby-wubby.

“Get lost, I’m working,” I said, “and I don’t need the harassment.”

“Please, Chase, can you take a break and talk with us a little?” she said.

“You look real pretty tonight, Valerie,” I said. “But not pretty enough for me to humiliate myself talking to high-fallutin big shots like you two. Leave me alone. Your daughter, Mister Cooper made it plain what my status would be in the Cooper community. I didn’t like it, so I moved up in class as you can see. Get lost!”

“Look, Chase, whatever you want you got. Jillian just wasn’t up to delivering the message quite right. That’s my fault,” he said. “Please give us a break and talk to us for a few minutes. Whaddya say?” I stared at the two of them for a long moment, well, it seemed long.

I went over to the bar and talked to the night manager for a minute. I returned to the bad guys. I motioned them to follow me. We commandeered a booth.

“This could be a few minutes or half a minute,” I said. “But first one question, okay?”

“Anything,” said Herbert Cooper.

“Not you, her,” I said.

“Chase, what can I do to make this right?” said Valerie.

“Answer one question,” I said. She nodded.

“Okay,” she said.

“Who is the one and only dad, daddy, father of Jillian?” I said, I was not being nice.

“Can we talk about that; I mean just for a moment or two?” she said, dodging my question.

I rose and spit in her face. She seemed to fly backwards in her seat from the shock of my doing it. I went back to work.

“Chase! What the...” she started.

I heard them jabbering as I went to reload the beer taps at the bar. They left.

“Mom, what did you say!” said Jillian.

“You heard me. He hates me. He spit on me—literally! He needs you, Jillian, it’s that simple. You don’t know him. Yes, you know what he gave up saving me—twenty-five years of his life. But you have no real idea how much he suffered in prison with just the one hope left to him, his relationship with you. He’s lost that now, or thinks he has, and he’s got nothing but a nothing job and a nothing future. Your dad here and I need your help. Chase Benedict needs your help!” said Valerie.

“Jill, you need to go see him. Do what you can to make things right. Your mom and I are one hundred percent invested in saving him. We need you to be too,” said Herbert.

“Mom, Dad, okay. But you know what it’s going to take. Compromise, obviously, is not in his mind set, not even that. But I’ll do what I can; I want to,” she said.

“A couple of things,” said Herb. “See if you can catch him when he’s not working. That way you won’t be so pressed for time. That paper in front of you has his address, and his phone number too. But don’t call him. Only do that if the man at some point asks you to.”

“Okay, Dad, I will,” said Jillian.

She’d been in the B&G before, but it had been forever, or so it seemed. She knew the man’s schedule was graveyard: 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. She also knew it was a twenty-four-seven enterprise. She’d come a half-hour before his shift ended at 7:00 a.m. She waited in the parking lot. She wanted to catch him and take him to breakfast at the nearby pancake house. Her mom had said that he used to love pancakes.

I was tired. I was done for the day. I wanted to eat and then sleep. That was my routine: work, eat, sleep, repeat. Well hell, it was a living. A good living for a convicted murderer.

And then I saw her, the adopted daughter of my enemy. Obviously, I was the target of more fruitless harassment by the Coopers. One could not fault their stick-to-itive-ness, certainly not me!

I went up to her about to tell her to go home and bother someone else. But she beat me to it.

“Pancakes at that place up the street?” she said.

“Well, I was going to eat, and I had intended to get pancakes at the Pancake House up the street. Talk about serendipity.

“So long as I don’t have to listen to any sharing of fatherhood bullshit. You good with that?” I said.

“The subject might come up, but none of it will be bullshit, promise,” she said. I was nodding.

“You can ride with me,” she said. “I know you don’t have a car.”

“I’ll walk. But you can order, blueberry short stack,” I said. She gave me a sour look but nodded her agreement.

Fifteen minutes later we were seated, and the pancakes were already in front of us. Well, she had ordered for me.

“So, and you’re interrupting my routine for what reason?” I said, as I poured syrup on my stack of two pancakes. God how I loved the pancakes here. Nothing like ‘em in the slam.

“Dad, like I said when I came to pick you up that day at the prison, mom clued me about the real you. I’m still trying to get my head around that. That said...

“You sired me and raised me and took care of me and mom too for some five years, or almost in my case. Then mom made a huge mistake that you paid for like nobody ever paid for anything somebody else did before. Jesus! twenty-five years in prison.