Chapter 23: 1995-1996

Christmas 1995 was but a week off; I smiled. I figured it unlikely that I would be getting any presents. Hell, I wouldn’t accept them anyway even if they did offer them, so I guess that was a wash.

“No mom, he’s not willing to compromise even for something as obviously needful for me as this. I really need him to be at my wedding. Yes, my real dad, must be the one to be my dad, but my bio-dad needs to support me; he saved me; I need for him to be there. He has to be. I need him to!

“But mom, did you say something to him about me not wanting him to be my dad? He said you did.”

Valerie Cooper looked down, and she looked guilty.

“Mom?”

“He overheard your dad and I talking. I happened to mention what you said to me about not really seeing him as a daddy at all, and he overheard us, like I said.”

“Oh Jesus, no wonder he’s so angry! He saves my life, and he hears something like that! Mom, I said those things over a year ago. I don’t think that way anymore! Oh my God!”

“I’ll talk to him. He’ll be there. If there is a God, he will be there,” said Valerie. Her daughter was nodding and crying and shaking her head and being so desperately, well, desperate.

“Mom, please don’t fail. I really need him to be there for me; I need him to be on my side! I do. No, he’s not my only dad, but he is my dad too and very important to me.”

“I know,” said Valerie.

It was Friday, the 22nd, three more days till Christmas. I was scheduled to work days this month. Lindsey and I had made a deal to switch hours for the quarter because she’d been taking an afternoon class at the junior college: Cooking of all things. Well to each his own. It was 5:30 p.m. I was just now getting home. She was leaning against the door to my place. Who? Well, my ex-wife. I didn’t have to guess what she was there for.

I came up to her. She gave me a look and stepped aside so I could key the lock and enter. I keyed the lock and she followed me in.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, “come in.”

“Thanks. Kinda odd that you are living here; I mean our old place, different apartment, but the same place so to speak.”

“Hmm. Yeah well it’s close to work and I still like the place. Anyway, you’re here, so, as if I didn’t know?”

“Yes, she said she came by to tell you about her engagement.”

“Yes, some guy named Evan Carlton or something,” I said.

“Carton.”

“Oh, okay, Carton then. So again, so?”

“So, no wedding?”

“Of course not,” I said. “She not my kin anymore. I know it. And I know that because I heard you and your husband talking about how she really sees me, and how you really see me. I’m not going to pretend differently.”

“She most certainly is your kin. She’s your daughter. And you pretending otherwise is nonsense,” she said.

“No, she’s got my blood, but she doesn’t care about me, and I know it, again, because you and your husband said so; and I’ll say it again; I’m not going to pretend otherwise.” I said.

“Damn you’re a stubborn son-of-something,” she said.

“I think ‘a bitch’ are the words you’re looking for.”

“Chase, really, I’m not here to call you names. But I am here to ask a favor.”

“And that would be?” I said. I waited for her next words.

“She needs to have you in her wedding. That’s need,” said Valerie.

“No,” I said, “and that’s final. I don’t want her around anymore, or you. I’m done.”

We argued for some time, but in the end, she left and that kind of abruptly.

But, the Coopers weren’t done, nor had I been living with the illusion that they would have been. At any rate, I expected one or another of them to yet again harass me. It turned out to be him. And that, two months later and just a few days before the wedding.

“I opened the door to admit him just as he got to it. It was 8:00 p.m. I’d eaten and peed; I was ready for battle.

“Greetings, Mister Cooper, and what is your mission?” I said. I was smiling broadly. I knew his mission of course. And he knew I knew it.”

“To not offend you too much and to get you to give some ground for the love you bear your daughter,” he said.

“Give some ground? What does that mean? And I don’t have a daughter according to you and your wife.”

“You need to read more Shakespeare. It means to let your daughter have what she needs for at least one day: equality between you and me. Walk her down the aisle with me; you and me together. You can tell her you were only kidding when she gets back from her honeymoon. Whaddya say?” said Herbert.

“Funny man. You are definitely a funny man. But I do not laugh much anymore, actually not at all, not really. And of course, my answer is go to hell,” I said.

“Look, Chase, she cries her frustration often, and that’s on you.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s on you and Valerie. After I heard what the lot of you, especially my kid, thought of me; well, that ended it for me.”

“Look I am more than willing to be just a legal father, or stepfather as I’ve said before. But she just refuses to have any of that. But, because of the debt we all owe you, she must, that’s must, have you onboard with her thinking before she can be happy. Me pressuring her or Valerie, will not cut it.

“You’ve sacrificed so much. Would it kill you to sacrifice a trifle more?” he said.

“Mister, hear me and understand me. It was my decision to take the wrap for my wife. I had to do it. But then you came a long and convinced her that I wasn’t worth waiting for. Valerie dumping me, I guess I could rationalize that because of the long sentence I was facing. But there was still one thing left, that I figured, I could realistically claim as mine, my daddyhood.

“But then I heard what you said that day at the Lone Star. She doesn’t even see me as a daddy on any level, but was willing to lie about it. I guess I understand her reasoning, but even so, it killed my heart. So that’s the end of it, all of it. And, I’m good with that so long as the rest of you stop pressuring me.

“And a trifle more, you say. That trifle is everything to me. But like I say, I’ve resigned myself to the truth that I will never be able to recover that which is mine, my fatherhood, let alone my wife. But I will not voluntarily give either away, or sell them to you, not even for my daughter, not even for my ex-wife, not even for one day, not for all the tea in China as the old saying goes. Get that, internalize it, because that is the bottom line for me. Like I said, the two of you stole everything from me. Now I get to decide where I draw the line, and it’s drawn. Get that.”

“Chase...”

“You tried to force me to do your bidding once before. Tried to force me to knuckle under to your political power and accept your oh so generously offered ‘favor’ of an early release. Your idea of trying to make things right, I suppose.

“You are doing it again, trying to force me to knuckle under to you, or her. I absolutely refuse to do so. Again, like I said, you tried to force me to knuckle under once before and it cost me another five years of my stinking nothing excuse of a life. Trying to shame me into doing your bidding now, to knuckle under to you, to water down my resolve to hold out that for which I admittedly have no say in, is a very bad gambit on your part. I will not knuckle under now, nor will I ever!” I said, “period, I mean it!”