Chapter 9

2003-2007

I didn’t mind the man, and it was the man not the woman, getting me a job. I wouldn’t be taking anything else from him or them, the job was enough, and as far as I was concerned it squared things with them. Whether they saw things that way or not was immaterial to me. All I really cared about was going to work and being able to count on them, her really, keeping the promise to not harass me. It’s all I needed to be content.

“Yes, Mister Steele, we have heard good things about you. But you say you’ve been out of the loop for a while,” said Mildred McMurtry.

“Yes, I have, but I can pick it up. I know that the newer models are to a large extent computerized,” I said.

“Hmm, yes, they do have a lot of computer—I’m going to say attachments—in them. But, an engine is still an engine whether gas or diesel. At any rate we are glad to have you onboard. Welcome,” she said.

I was a little concerned that the woman, the owner of the store, was apparently not aware of my reason for being out of the loop. And, I was almost equally concerned about the truth that she didn’t ask me about the reason that I’d been out of the loop. She just noted that she knew I had been. I saw what had to have been the hand of the man in that part of things.

“Well good. Can’t wait to get started,” I said.

I sure as hell wasn’t being overpaid. I was only getting $12.50 hourly, but basic fringe benefits were also included, so it could have been worse. At any rate, it was a lot better than minimum which in Arizona was $8.05 hourly; I wouldn’t be getting me no Cadillac anytime soon for damn sure. Still, the good news was that I was be able to get a place and start my life over.

And I did get a place, and it was $500 monthly, and I did have to pay for the utilities myself, maybe another hundred a month total. Something that was new to me along those lines was the cell phone thing. I paid $50 for the phone and then bought minutes of talk time on it for another $20. The neat thing about that was that the phone was with me wherever I went.

I was set to go and get me a life!

And then it was three and a half years gone since I’d last seen any of them. They’d finally gotten the message and left me alone. I had to appreciate that much at the least.

The man was pacing purposefully back and forth in his office; he was alone with his thoughts. The more he thought about the man whose wife and child he’d stolen, the more he felt obligated to make things right by the man. He couldn’t give him back his family of course. Things could never go back to how they’d been before that fateful day in Winslow when he’d met the woman. But there had to be a way to make things right by the guy, and right in a way that would satisfy him and allow him to have a chance at happiness once again.

The obvious path to such a goal was a conscious effort to give the man back his daughter, well, sort of. He’d finally realized that the way he’d essentially told the man, on his one visit to see him, that he was going to be cut out of any serious relationship with his daughter Selena had been a bad move. He also knew, realized, that the man would see through any half measures and which half measures would be certain to get his A-list ass unceremoniously kicked to the curb. So, what to do? Nathan Grimes sighed. He wasn’t sure where it would lead, but he had no doubt what the first step had to be.

They were sitting at a table, a reserved table, near the back of The Elegance. It was later in the afternoon, but they were having lunch; Nathan Grimes and Selena Grimes were having lunch.

“Dad?” she said, “what’s going on?” They were just finishing up; the food had been good. Her dad looked at her, wiped the detritus from his lips, and sagged back in his seat.

“Selena, your mom and I love you more than anything,” he said. “And, we would do anything to ensure your happiness. I know you know that.”

“Of course, Dad, I’ve always known that,” she said. The man stopped talking for a moment and just looked almost sympathetically toward the nineteen-year-old girl.

“Dad?”

“Selena, I’m your dad, but as you know I am not your biological dad,” he said. “That said there are some things that you do not know anything about; but, you will now.”

“Huh?” she said.

“Selena, I met your mom, as you know, when you were but a year old, maybe a year and a half, And, as you also know, I met her in Winslow of all darn places. I was there looking at properties that a friend had turned me onto. I decided against the property buy for reasons that are at base irrelevant. At any rate, that fateful day I happened to be in a restaurant, The Horseshoe, having a late lunch, like today,” he said.

“Okay, but... , “ she said.

“Well, just as I was about to order, I saw the most beautiful woman in the world, your mom. I had to meet her; hell, I had to marry her. But, as I soon discovered, she was already married, married to a good man. But, that good man was in prison which is something that you don’t know. He’d been sentenced to fifteen years for killing a policeman.

“He killed the policeman, Selena, because the policeman was threatening your mother, and, blackmailing her,” he said. “Selena, that man, John Michael Steele, is your biological father.”

“Dad, what... !” she started.

“Selena, it’s time you met the man. When you were younger, I was against it. I was afraid of confusing you at best, and at worst affecting you psychologically,” he said.

The young woman across from him was staring. “What the... ?”

“Like I said, John Michael Steele is a good man. He’s out of prison now. He’s been out for nigh on four years. But, because your mom divorced him to marry me; well, he doesn’t want to be around us. Not at all,” he said. “We hurt him; I hurt him; the divorce destroyed his soul.”

“Dad, if he doesn’t want to see us, why are you telling me this?” she said.

“Because I am about to introduce you to that good man, and you need to know the whole story, at least the most salient parts of it. He may try to shine us on at first, but I do not intend to allow him to shine you on. Me, Okay. Your mom, okay. But you, no way.

“He is a very unhappy man, Selena. There is more to the story, but none of that is salient to what we need to do. I need, and it is selfish of me, to make things right by the man. I should tell you that while he was in prison, I did visit the man, once. I told him that I was your dad and your only dad, but that I did recognize that he had some rights too, and that we, he and I, would work something out for him to know you after he got out of that awful place. Honey, now is that time,” he said.

“But Dad, I don’t know if...” she started.

“Selena, you are a technical adult. You’ll be twenty-years-old in a few weeks. So, you are the decision maker for yourself. That said, you haven’t seen the man since you were one-year-old; but, now is the time. I know what I’m asking. I know you must be confused and maybe have questions you’d like to ask me. But, Selena, I have to ask you, will you help me out here?” he said.

“You mean by me meeting the man? Dad, okay, I’m willing to meet him; I mean if you want. But...” she said.

“Yes, it could end up being a disappointment. But, I think it’s worth taking the chance. So, whaddya say?” he said. She nodded.

“After all you’ve said here, I can’t say I’m not curious as heck!” said Selena. The man nodded.

“Okay then, I’ll set things in motion,” he said.

I’d have to say that I was working hard toward being actually contented. I still didn’t have a woman, though I had been able to get a woman to dance with me now and again here at The Drover. Still, since my one-night stand with “I forgot my real name” Lily, I’d not scored; but, hope springs eternal, and so I kept myself in a constant state of social readiness just in case. And then I saw him, and he was walking right toward me. It was clearly not just an accidental meet up, and I was appropriately pissed. The pair of them clearly just didn’t seem to get it: I wanted to be left alone!