Chapter 1: Rainy Days and Mondays

The weather was spectacular on the afternoon of Monday, June 11^th, 1990. But the warm Northwest Summer air did little to calm the storm clouds that were brewing in Peter Shipley’s eyes, as he followed his father dejectedly out of the Courthouse.

“Come on boy,” Roger had stated after the hearing. “You’re riding home with me.”

“The hell I am!” the sixteen-year-old snarled back. “I’m riding with Kathy and Ronnie. And we will come home whenever we damn well...”

“You are riding with me!” the man demanded angrily. He stepped forward with a dark expression that Peter knew only too well.

“Oh, you gonna hit me?” he challenged arrogantly. “Abandonment wasn’t enough after my accident ... so now you want to hit your crippled kid?”

Technically he wasn’t crippled — disabled perhaps, in that, after being struck by a drunk driver, as he was walking home, he lost both of his lower legs at the shins. He had recently obtained and gotten used to ambulating with prosthetics and looked like any normal teenage boy — so long as he wore pants to conceal the titanium posts that extended his legs to the Nike court shoes on his ‘feet’.

Judith Westmore, the attorney who had helped Roger successfully file for custody of Peter, quietly placed a hand on the angry man’s arm. He calmed quickly and glanced around at all the unfriendly faces who observed the hostile interaction. Besides Peter, he was accompanied by his older sister Veronica, his Native American girlfriend Kathy, and the three attorneys who were representing him — Scott Bales, his father Oscar, and grandfather Liam. Bringing up the rear was his colorful and eclectic Financial Planner and friend, Jeremiah Tobias Whitaker III, a Creole-born black man with a strong air of Southern Baptist upbringing. With just his humbled lawyer at his side, Roger found himself outnumbered, in enemy territory. He sighed, “Pete, listen son — we have a great deal to talk about and you can’t run away from your problems for the rest of your life. Just come with me so we can talk. Please.”

Peter never relaxed his defiant air as he turned to glance at Kathy. The pretty dark-skinned girl gazed back at him with anguish and fear in her eyes. She was clinging to his sister’s arm as they followed him out of the Courthouse.

“Fine! Dad, let’s talk!” he decided, looking back at his biological sire with a humorless smile. He took a moment to shake hands with the three attorneys and Jeremiah, then hugged his sister and kissed his sad girlfriend. He smiled brightly at her to bolster her spirits, then turned to follow his father.

Roger’s truck was a beat-up ‘84 Dodge Ram that had seen plenty of miles and showed every one of them. It smelled like stale beer and old jerky in the cab as he climbed in and buckled his seat belt. Roger climbed in after saying a few words with the woman who represented him. The truck rumbled to life and he absently pulled the stick into reverse as he pulled out of the parking spot before navigating into the traffic. They rode in silence for several minutes.

“How’s your mother?” the man finally asked.

“Dying,” Peter replied irritably. That part was very true. His mother Janet had contracted HIV by sharing needles with her (late) ex-boyfriend, Paul — who had gotten her hooked on heroin and PCP while they briefly dated. Now she lay in a hospital bed in complete isolation while her body battled with the hideous byproducts of AIDS — Kaposi’s Sarcoma. It was a sinister cancer that attacked virtually every organ and system in her body. Her prognosis was bleak and the doctor caring for her gave her slim odds of survival past the next three months.

His father sighed as they merged onto the 18, headed west, only to take the very next exit. “I still care for her you know,” he said solemnly. “She’s a good woman and a great mother.”

“Cared enough to visit her in the hospital?” Peter replied bitterly.

“Look dammit!” Roger slapped his hand on the wheel angrily. “I didn’t want things to work out this way! But I can’t, in good conscience, have you living alone with nobody to look after you.”

“Uh-huh, I’m sure that’s what it’s all about, Dad,” he chided.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” his father growled.

“Cut the crap, dude!” Peter retorted, “You unsealed the records of the settlement and now you’re after the money.”

That caught the older man off guard and he fumed to himself as he turned onto their street. Peter could feel the tension in the cab as they pulled into the driveway and parked. Neither made any move to get out.

“So where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“Cut the crap yourself, boy! The settlement money!” Roger yelled. “I took a serious hit in the wallet after that bullshit demotion...”

“For fucking some married secretary?” Peter replied gloating.

“Watch...,” he bit off his response and squeezed the hard steering wheel angrily. “That bitch told me she was legally separated and getting a divorce! Otherwise, I would’ve never touched her,” he replied evenly. “Fucking cunt’s dad is some high falootin mucky-muck with Boeing...”

“And how should I know, Dad?” Peter replied disgustedly. “I’m just a kid remember? It’s probably all gone for all I know ... the way mom and her boyfriend partied and carried on with the drugs and cars and trips everywhere,” he lied smoothly. He wasn’t about to reveal the truth of the matter. He had secretly arranged for his lawyer to distribute most of the settlement — $500,000 into a separate account that he could access and funnel into his E-Trade brokerage account. He then used the capital to buy up stocks in companies that he knew — with absolute certainty, were going to make him rich soon. He also dabbled into the options market and managed to nearly triple his holdings, allowing him to dabble in venture capitalism with a small Orthopedic Prosthetics company with an eye on the future of robotics technology. Currently, he was sitting on a cash, stock, and capital portfolio worth nearly $1.5 million. He did all of his trading from his home computer which he built from scratch. The ‘Beast’ was currently sitting in the trunk of Kathy’s yellow and black Datsun B210 that was parked right next to them.

“Well, how much of it did they fucking spend?” Roger demanded.

“How the hell should I know?” Peter replied throwing his hands up. “I’m just a kid, remember? Go ask Mom! Oh wait, she’s too sick to even recognize her own children anymore! You’d probably have better luck asking Paul ... but he’s FUCKING DEAD!” he ended his rant with a shout and collapsed back into the worn bench seat. He was still haunted by the recent experience when the drug-crazed man broke into their house and attacked him in his bed — demanding to know where ‘his money’ was. Apparently, he owed some dealers for a large amount of heroin that he bought from an undercover federal agent. Jeremiah guessed that the faux score was over a kilogram of uncut China white, with a street value of over $300,000. Paul was so strung out and focused on getting ‘his money’ from Peter or his mom, that the police had to shoot him dead right in Peter’s bedroom.

“There’s no way they blew through three-quarters of a million bucks!” Roger replied adamantly. “And I’m gonna need some of that to pay off that Westmore woman.”

“Then you’ll have to go talk to the bank, I guess,” Peter replied innocently. “I can’t tell you how much they spent in Vegas, or on drugs and dates — but I know the Trans Am cost over $40,000 and he had to use a lot of it to buy that kilo of smack off the feds.” He pretended to think really hard as he scrunched his face and chewed his lip. “And we bought the BMW for something like $35K.”

Roger nodded suddenly and started the truck again. “Fine, we will go to the bank then.” He pulled out suddenly and turned back down the street, passing Ronnie and Kathy who gazed back at them astonished, from his sister’s red Beetle. Peter held up his hands and gave them both a bewildered expression as they drove on.

“I’m terribly sorry sir,” the young brunette woman told them from her side of the Teller window. “But I’m not showing you as a primary or alternate member on this account so I cannot release any information to you.” She appeared genuinely apologetic.

“Look Goddammit!” Roger replied angrily. “I just came from the courthouse where I got full custody of my boy here,” he waved his hand erratically in Peter’s face. She turned to glance at him and the boy subtly shook his head from side to side.

“I am truly sorry Mr. Shipley,” she replied again. “Perhaps you would like to speak with the Branch manager?”

“Yeah!” he grunted. “You bet your ass I would.”

The answer he got from the surly man in the corner office was even more firm. Unless he could provide a copy of the court order that gave him explicit privileges to the account in question — he would not be allowed access to any of the information, or the account in question.

“What a bunch of bullshit!” Roger griped as they drove back towards the house. “Now I have to call that Westmore bitch again and she’s gonna charge me even more to fix this.” He rummaged around in his glove box. “God, I hope I still have her card.”

“Don’t know what to tell you Pops,” Peter replied neutrally while laughing on the inside. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up about what you will find when you finally get the bank account straightened out.” He knew exactly how much was there — to the penny, but kept his thoughts to himself as he smiled inwardly during the trip home.

Kathy and Peter lay quietly on his bed, holding each other as they listened to the commotion through the walls of his house. His dad could be heard clomping up and down the stairs and setting the floorboards creaking in his parents’ bedroom. Occasionally they would hear him arguing with his sister over something and the bitter exchanges always set the man off.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered worriedly in his ear as she pressed her warm body against his. They were fully clothed; the notion of making love absent for a change.

“I don’t intend to give him a single inch voluntarily,” Peter replied grimly. He kept his voice low to avoid calling attention to them.

A moment later there was a gentle knock on his door and Ronnie entered, using her butt to press the bidirectional handicap-friendly paddle latch. She backed into the dimly lit room and turned holding a small platter with three mugs of steaming coffee. The rich aroma perked the lovers up and they slowly untangled their bodies and sat up on the edge of the bed. His sister set the plate on the table and handed each of them a cup — prepared exactly how they preferred it. Kat enjoyed a splash of coffee with her cream and sugar while Peter preferred just enough creamer to lighten the color. After a sip each they felt their minds relaxing and the oppressive disappointment of the day seemed to fade a little.

“Thanks, babes,” Kathy said warmly as she held her cup close with both of her hands. She loved Veronica like the sister she never had.

Ronnie sat in a chair by the table facing them. “I take it things didn’t go as planned at the bank,” she murmured as she sipped her cup.

Peter chuckled and his levity served to brighten the atmosphere even more. “Oh, it went perfectly!” he grinned. “He has no idea I have access to Mom’s account and I’m hoping to keep it that way for a couple more days until we can come up with a plan.”

Despite his previous rise to upper-level management with one of the largest forestry corporations in the world — Roger Shipley was not that bright of an individual. He was a ‘Yes Man’ who rubbed his nose in the right places and rose to power on the coattails of others. Peter intended to capitalize on his ignorance at every opportunity.

“What ‘plan’?” his sister asked pointedly. She had never seen the calculated cunning in her brother before. She knew he had changed after the accident, but couldn’t quite place it. He was just older now — mature and wise. She couldn’t explain it in rational terms but she found herself looking up to him for a change.

“To get rid of him, of course,” Peter replied calmly. “He has to go. He is nothing but a parasite and he can ruin everything over the next year that I have to put up with him.”

The original plan was for Peter’s attorneys to petition for his emancipation. There had been other precedents where such autonomy was granted to teenagers as young as 16. But none of them suffered from the tragic debilitation that plagued him after his accident. Nor were any of them as smart or independently minded as he was. Nevertheless, that plan had fallen apart once Roger Shipley caught wind of the small fortune that was awarded to his ex-family after abandoning them while his son lay crippled in a hospital bed. So long as Peter shone with athletic promise and basked in glory as a Letterman starting quarterback for his high school football team — Roger had something to be proud of, to boast about, and lord over his peers. But he never signed up to stand by and spend all his free time caring for a cripple. Peter was still in a medically induced coma when his father packed his things and left his mother high and dry.

“You have a plan for this?” Ronnie asked intently, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Not yet,” Peter admitted. “But given enough time I will think of something.”

They sat together in silence for a while, quietly listening as the man spoke angrily into the phone upstairs. He was in a heated discussion with his lawyer apparently and didn’t appreciate the answers he was getting. Eventually, he slammed the phone down and stomped down the stairs. They could almost envision his presence as he approached Peter’s door. Kathy silently slipped over the far side of his bed and crouched out of sight.

Bang! Bang! Bang! “Pete!” he yelled from the other side.

“I’m handicapped, not deaf!” Peter shot back irritably.

The door swung open and Roger stood in the doorway, he was taken aback to find Ronnie sitting at his table. “I’m heading out for a bit.” He stepped inside and looked around the sparsely furnished room. Glancing at the desk he asked, “So where is all your schoolwork?”

“I’m done with school,” the boy replied calmly.

“Maybe for the year — but there’s no reason you can’t start getting ahead during the Summer,” his father retorted. “It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

“He means that he is ‘done’ with school, Dad. He graduated this Spring,” Ronnie interjected. “He is enrolled at Green River College which doesn’t commence for three more weeks.” Her tone suggested he would know this if he gave half a shit about his family.

For his part their father simply grunted noncommittally and trudged out of the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. A moment later his truck rumbled to life and he pulled out of the driveway.

Kathy reappeared and climbed back onto the bed. “Do you think he will kick me out?” she asked worriedly.

“If he tries, I will just invite you back to stay in my room with me,” Ronnie grumbled.

Kathy rolled over her boyfriend and jumped down, setting her empty cup on the table. “That is sweet of you Ronnie-kins ... but what happens when you have to return to Pullman?”

“If he is still here three weeks from now ... then we are seriously screwed,” Peter replied grimly.

They were all asleep later that evening when they were awakened by the return of a very drunk and loud Roger. He nearly broke the front door trying to gain entry and dropped a half-consumed case of Rainier beer onto the kitchen table before stumbling up the stairs to pass out.

The following morning, Peter was standing by the kitchen counter, drinking his coffee and scowling at the table when Ronnie came quietly down the stairs to join him. She poured herself a cup and fixed it to her liking, before joining him to gaze at the beer cans spilling out of the case.

“Fucking great,” she muttered, setting her cup down and collecting all the cans to set beside the fridge. “We’ve gone from one addiction to another.”

“Mmhmm,” her brother agreed as he sipped his cup.

“Kittykat still sleeping?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You guys were quiet for a change last night,” she smirked.

He turned and regarded her with narrowed eyes, “What do you mean?”

She giggled. “I mean you are usually going at it like a pair of feral wildebeests.”

He blushed brightly. “We do not!”

She nodded her head decisively. “Oh yessiree. I felt the foundation moving the other night.”

He snorted and turned to the front door when he heard the papers thudding on the porch. She beat him to the door and fetched them, smiling brightly as she separated the Times from the Business Daily, handing him the latter.

“Whatever,” he griped as he sat down at the table across from her. “You are probably just as bad at your dorm, with ... whatever her name is.” He shook the paper open and laid it down in front of him. He didn’t notice the startled expression on his sister’s face until her awkward silence made him look back up. “What?”

“How...,” she stammered quietly. “How did you know?”

“What? That you are gay?” he asked. “Hell, I’ve always known that.”

Ronnie looked down at the paper in front of her and slowly opened it to the comics. “And ... you’re okay with it?”

“Pfft, why wouldn’t I be?” he answered as he scanned through the columns, checking his holdings. He subconsciously updated his portfolio in his mind, picturing his spreadsheets and adjusting them mentally. He was still holding onto his Hewlett-Packard Calls and Puts and with HP’s recent drop, he suspected he was closed out of the 40 Calls, costing him a small loss. But the 35 Puts should have easily offset the difference. He was also holding onto his Costco JUN 40 Calls and the stock was maintaining a steady upward trajectory, closing yesterday at 41.30 placing his contracts well in the money. He would need to raise his Stop Loss at the earliest convenience.

Veronica remained quiet and restlessly began spinning her cup on the tabletop. “So ... um, you haven’t told anyone, have...”

He quelled her stammering by placing his hand over hers. “Sis,” he said softly. “First of all, it’s nothing for you to be remotely ashamed of, and second of all it’s not my secret to share with anyone.”

“Thank you,” she replied gratefully, turning her attention back to the funnies.

“I still bet you scream like a howler monkey when you’re fucking,” he added with a grin.

“Fuck you!” she laughed as she slugged him in the arm.

“Ow!” he groaned, rubbing his arm. “Don’t be such a cunt!”

“Don’t be such a dick!”

They both started giggling together.

“What’s so funny?” Kathy mumbled as she padded out of the bedroom yawning. She came over to Peter and bent down to hug his head and kiss it.

“Cunt-face here says we sound like wailing wildebeests when we have sex,” he replied.

“And dickweed called me a howler monkey.”

Kathy laughed quietly and went to make herself a cup of coffee. “So, are you still bumping uglies with Delaney?” she asked as she came back to the table.

His sister blushed deep red as she gaped back at the beautiful Indian girl. “Wha ... How?”

“Oh please,” Kat snorted. “Laney and I have been besties forever. We’ve even made out a few times. I probably knew about you two before you did. Or at least I knew how badly she wanted to jump your bones.”

“Fuck me,” Ronnie muttered under her breath.

Kathy stepped over to her, grabbed her face with both hands, and looked deeply into her clear blue eyes, before kissing her passionately. She pulled away and smiled brightly at the stunned brunette. “Baby, I would,” she whispered seductively, “but I am hopelessly addicted to your brother’s amazing cock.”

Peter whistled softly from the side as his sister swallowed awkwardly. “Damn! That was fucking hot!” he grinned. “Can you do it again? With maybe a little heavy petting this time ... Ow!” he hissed as Kathy slugged him in the same arm.

After half an hour of sharing the paper and waking up with their coffees, Peter got up and stretched. “Babe, can you run me by the bank before we head to your place?”

“Sure,” she replied rising to follow him. “What are we doing?”

“I need to clean out my mom’s checking account before Dad gets into it and transfer the money into mine and Ronnie’s. That way she can have more fun in Mexico next week.”

“Wait ... what?” his sister exclaimed getting up from the table. “Are you serious?”

“Hell yeah. You think I’m gonna let that asshole spend it all on booze and hookers?”

“But ... don’t you think he will get suspicious if he finds all the money gone? How much is left in there anyways?”

“$68,930. I’ll leave him a couple grand. But since he doesn’t have to pay alimony or child support anymore, I don’t see any need to help him out financially.” He rinsed all their cups and put them in the strainer to dry, before heading back to his room.

“He’s gonna freak the fuck out,” she replied as she followed them.

“I certainly hope so,” he agreed peeling off his t-shirt. “Were you planning on joining us in the shower?” he asked her as he removed his artificial feet. “There’s plenty of room.”

Kathy giggled as the other girl blushed furiously. “He can wash your back,” she added suggestively as she stripped naked. “And I’ll wash ... everything else.” She licked her lips erotically.

Ronnie nearly choked on her embarrassment as she turned and fled the room, with their giggles following her through the door.

Half an hour later they had regrouped in the living room once again with no sign of the senior Shipley.

“He must have seriously tied one on last night because he’s snoring loud enough to knock the shingles loose,” Ronnie remarked as she double-checked her duffle bag. She was heading to Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast with a couple of girlfriends. Peter handed her a thick wad of cash as she prepared to zip it up. She gaped at the stack of twenty and fifty-dollar bills. “Jesus Bro! You into drug dealing too?” she exclaimed as she took it.

He scoffed. “Way more lucrative than that,” he replied. “How long will you be gone?” It was Tuesday morning the day after the fateful Court hearing that threw his life into turmoil.

“I think we will stay Saturday night and be back on the 17^th,” she answered. “I’m flying down to Cancun on Thursday the 21^st.”

He nodded as she hugged him appreciatively. “If you call, use the landline, okay?” he asked. “I don’t want him to know I have a cell phone.”

“Good point,” she said as she shouldered her bag once more. She hugged Kathy and then waved to them as she headed out the front door.

After they heard her drive away, he returned to his room and collected several shoe boxes full of floppy disks and CD-ROMs. Kat held the door for him as he carried them out to the porch and locked up behind him. She had parked her borrowed Datsun on the grass in his front yard and had to maneuver it around to squeeze past the beat-up truck that was taking up the driveway. At the Key Bank, he used his plastic card in the ATM to move money around, removing all but $5,000 from his mom’s account and putting $9,995 into his sister’s. He deposited the remainder into his checking with the intention of wiring most of it into his E-trade Account. He finished up by withdrawing his maximum allowable amount of cash to begin rebuilding his ‘wad’.

“I think it’s really sweet how you help Ronnie out despite everything going on,” his girlfriend stated after he climbed back into the clunky black and yellow car. He was still getting used to ducking his head now that he was nearly six feet tall again.

“Ah!” he griped as he forgot this time and smacked his head against the door frame. “Yeah,” he grumbled rubbing his scalp as he buckled his seatbelt. “I’m a Helluva swell fella ... When are you gonna get the orange goblin back?”

“Pfft. When are you gonna buy me that Camaro?” she replied coyly as she drove several more blocks to the Post Office to collect the mail for PAK Gaming Company — the collaborative partnership they established with Alan Shoemaker, another childhood friend. She returned with another large tote full of orders for games they had developed and marketed on various electronic bulletin boards. “We got our work cut out for us today,” she remarked. “Why don’t you call Al and see if he can come over to help later?”

Alan was a military brat who had spent many years overseas until his dad retired from the Air Force as a Chief Master Sergeant. Both of his parents were Korean by birth but American by nationality. His mom managed the newest Costco that had recently opened in Federal Way. Besides being a stocky Asian computer geek, he was also a gifted polymath. His brain functioned like a scientific calculator and he spoke fluent Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, and French. But the language he was most gifted in was computer programming, which he did in his sleep most of the time. Only Peter could match him in that area and between them they developed computer code for many games that were becoming popular in the emerging personal computing market.

By the time they passed through Milton, he had confirmed his suspicion. “His mom has him working at the store in the office. I guess he’s helping her with a new inventory control system. He’s bitching about how obsolete and useless it is and the company hasn’t even deployed it fully.”

“Okay ... that helps us, how exactly?” she replied, glancing over to him through her mirrored aviators.

“Yeah, he’s not gonna be able to help out today,” he replied. “Maybe tomorrow.”

She grumbled as she navigated her way onto the trailer park where most of her extended family resided. Her home was a double-wide trailer that she shared with her father who had retired from the telecom giant they called Ma Belle. Her estranged mom had abandoned them when she was very young, moving up to British Columbia.

“Well, let’s set the Beast up in your room so that we can start working on copies,” Peter said as he climbed out of the car. He waved to one of her uncles who was covered in dirt and grease, working on the familiar orange Ford Maverick that Kathy used to drive. It sat without its hood, next to the adjacent trailer. Her motley dog Shasta came charging around the mobile home excitedly as she pulled up and reacquainted herself with her ‘momma’.

The ‘Beast’ was Peter’s homemade PC that he and Alan constructed after his first system was destroyed in the fateful ‘Paul incident’. It boasted a powerful processor and motherboard as well as the latest HP CD-ROM R/W drives. By slaving two additional external drives they could copy three games at a time and prepare them for shipping. They also had two of the three, more basic systems that they used during the annual PC Game Developers Convention the previous weekend. They laid everything out on the floor of her room and set to work fulfilling the orders that had arrived in the mail with checks and cash. Kathy’s room was quite large but packed with her eclectic musical collections as well as her trophy posters from every concert she ever attended. She had several guitars (electric and acoustic) hanging on her walls or resting in stands next to amps — as well as a large Yamaha keyboard synthesizer that she used for composing the musical arrangements in their games. Her most prized possession however was her Onkyo turntable system and the massive collection of vinyl records that occupied several large cabinets about her room.

It was 3:30 pm when they took a break to order enough pizza to feed a small village. They were eating and socializing with Kathy’s dad, several uncles, cousins, and her ‘mini-me’ niece, Angelique — when Alan called Peter’s cell phone.

“Sup slacker?” he answered with his mouth full.

“Dude!” Alan replied excitedly. “Two things! Two really BIG things!”

“We’re not talking about my +5 Magical Spear of Penetra...”

“DUDE! This is serious!” the Asian geek interrupted excitedly. “First I got a call back from that Jason Abernathy guy from Orca Gaming,” he added breathlessly. “And he wants to try again. But this time he swears that there won’t be any dodgy bullshit in the contract negotiations. He was absolutely humiliated by the outcome of the first meeting we had and really seems sincere this time.”

Peter was just grumbling to himself how much he was beginning to hate sitting on the floor mindlessly copying game after game and handing them off to Kathy to be labeled and stuffed inside mailers. He made a silent ‘thank you’ to the ceiling above the dining table. “Just do it,” he answered abruptly. “Set up the meeting. If I can’t make it, you make the call.”

There was a silent pause. “Dude, are you sure about that? What about Cher?” He used her pet name which they had adopted when they first started dating. Peter was often called ‘Sonny’.

He glanced over at her as she gazed across the table at him curiously. She was holding a baby cousin who had just shown up with his mom and dad. “Trust me,” he winked at her, “she is just as ready to give up this monotony as I am. Make it happen, Spock.”