Chapter 7

Nobody at Linda apartment got much sleep that night. I wore the upside down shoulder with the .357 Taurus five shot two inch barrel stainless steel revolver inside. I did that just in case Barry got out of the hospital and came back for round two. I also recharged the stun gun. Funny I wasn’t one bit tempted to cat nap in the early hours of Thursday morning.

When the cop came to drive Linda and Megan to work and school, Megan wouldn’t even look at me. I didn’t try to explain to her why I zapped her dad. She wouldn’t care. I hoped that somebody would explain it, but it couldn’t be me, no matter how bad I wanted to try.

I spent Thursday passed out at my house. I got up just in time for a shower before my wild drive to the county jail. There I picked up Linda, then drove to the community center. Megan had all day to work past her anger at me. I walked to a short concrete wall around some shrubs in the parking lot. There I sat down with Megan.

“Honey I know you might not understand what happened last night but sometime people get so angry they do things without thinking. Your dad isn’t supposed to come near your mom without a court approved third party there. Last night he was so angry he wouldn’t listen when I warned him to leave. He tried to force his way past me, and frankly I’m too old to fight a man who is obviously going to hurt me or your mom. So I did what I had to do. I’m not sorry I did it, I am sorry I had to do it. I hope you can understand and we can stay friends,” I said to her as an explanation.

She just nodded her head and ran to her mother. I stood and walked to the car behind them. On the way home I stopped at a taco truck in the down town. From the taco truck I picked up three stuffed tacos and three stuffed burritos. It seemed to be a well balanced meal to me. Hell they had lettuce on the tacos, I thought.

Thursday night and Friday mornings were uneventful. Before the two of them left for the day, they both gave me a hug.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” I said to them as they walked out the door headed for the police car.

I went home and slept. I had a weekend filled with new experiences. I was going to spend the weekend making deliveries to the clubs along my route. It was Memphis and Nashville Friday night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning. Then sleep a few hours and set up some more drops along the gulf coast for Saturday night and into Sunday morning.

The way I did the deliveries to a club outside of my home area was to drop the liquor within two blocks in a black plastic trash bag. Then show up at the door with one water bottle filled with hooch. The buyer got a taste and handed me the cash for it all. I left him a detailed map to the pickup. The map was drawn on a laptop and then transferred to his computer or smart phone.

I didn’t tell the club owner that I videoed the pickup, but I did. I tried to keep it just high tech enough so that some deputy would likely fuck up the evidence.

I was at the point of making three deliveries a week almost every week. Each deliver netted me at least half a grand. Even in the winter months I was clearing between five and seven thousand a month. It was more than I needed, and with more risk than I wanted to take. I knew I had to rethink it.