Chapter 28

The lawyer at the door groaned as he wondered for the thousandth time how he had ended up with Melissa and her mother as clients. Shaking his head, he said, “You got the better client in this mess.”

Smiling, Jerry could understand what the man meant. He nodded his head and said, “I’m here to pick her up.”

“Come in,” replied the lawyer as he opened the door.

Jerry stepped into the house and looked around. Horrible memories of coming here on holidays returned to him. This place had been the scene of lots of abuse with him the subject of most of it. He wondered how many that times he had been called a loser inside the walls of this house.

His mother-in-law had been a hard-hearted woman. He remembered the funeral after his father-in-law had committed suicide, leaving behind a note that he preferred death to spending his retirement at home. He had a glimpse into the true character of his mother-in-law when she had not been the least bit upset, saying only that her husband had always been a weak man and was better off dead.

He could hear his daughter moving around in the living room. It was clear that she was not happy about the situation. He walked into the living room and said, “Hello, Melissa. I’m sorry about your grandmother. I know that you cared about her a lot.”

“Oh, shut up. You hated her, just like you hate all women,” retorted Melissa.

It would have been very hard to say that he liked his mother-in- law, but he didn’t hate her. The woman was evil and he had avoided her as much as possible. He wasn’t going to make an issue out of it even though he was sorry to hear that she had died. He said, “I’m here to take you home.”

“You’re here to take me home? The greedy bastard lawyer told me that I was supposed to live with you instead of going home to mother where I belong,” challenged Melissa.

“I guess I should have said that I was here to take you to my home,” corrected Jerry. He wondered if the rage would return, but there wasn’t any hint of it in the pit of his stomach.

Melissa had no idea where Jerry lived. For all she knew, he lived in a palace while making her and her mother live in that horrible little suburban home. She snarled, “Your home. Right.”

Sighing, Jerry said, “Let’s get your stuff into the car and I’ll take you home.”

Standing in the center of the room, Melissa pointed to four suitcases and said, “There’s my stuff. We’ll have to get a mover in here to get the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“Of course, I have a whole closet full of clothes and a couple of boxes of stuff that I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“Oh,” replied Jerry as he looked at her. She had no idea what her life was going to be like when she moved in with him. He doubted the closet would hold all of the clothes that were in the suitcases.

She looked at him tapping her foot for a minute and then said, “Well.”

“Well, what?”

“Load my suitcases in your car,” ordered Melissa.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been injured and can’t lift things until cleared by a doctor,” replied Jerry irritated by her imperial attitude. He added, “If you want to take them with you, you had better get them out to the car.”

“What?” she screeched. How dare he suggest that she try to carry those heavy suitcases? Her mother was right. He was an unfeeling brute that abused women by making them do all kinds of things that ladies shouldn’t ever have to do.

“You’re young and healthy. A couple of suitcases shouldn’t be too difficult for you,” replied Jerry.

“Mother was right. You are an abusive ape. How dare you even suggest that I lower myself to do this when you are perfectly capable of doing it? I know that you can carry them without a problem.”

His ex-wife’s lawyer shook his head at her words. He stared at the sixteen-year-old girl unable to believe that she wouldn’t even carry her own clothes out to the car. If she had been his daughter, he would have grounded her for a week. Looking over at the big man, he realized that Jerry was willing to stay there all day until she took the suitcases to the car.

He wanted out of there and said, “I’ll put them in the car.”

Jerry looked at the lawyer thinking that this was how his ex-wife and his daughter got men to do things for them. They both possessed an abusive sense of offense that forced people to do their will, rather than suffer the constant stream of abuse that would follow a refusal. She was going to have a rude awakening in his neighborhood.

The two lawyers carried the bags out to his Camaro. She froze at the sight of his Camaro and the fancy paint job. She screamed, “There’s no way I’m getting in that piece of trash! I want to go in my car.”

Jerry following along behind the lawyer wondered what kind of car his daughter had. He asked, “What kind of car do you have?”

Behind him, his daughter said, “Because you are divorcing mom, I had to get a used BMW. Can you believe that I had to settle for a car that is two years old instead of brand new? I’m never going to be able to show my face around my friends.”

Smiling at the fact that her car was only two years old, Jerry said, “My Camaro is older than you.”

“Oh, God. You wouldn’t dare expect me to get in that tacky looking thing.”

“It’s that or stay here,” replied Jerry, knowing how much she hated the Camaro. Her mother had hated that car when he lived at home and Melissa had adopted the same attitude towards it. Despite all of their complaints, when he suggested getting a new car his wife had a fit. He was actually glad now that he hadn’t gotten rid of the Camaro.

“You are white trash,” she exclaimed, echoing a refrain that his ex-wife had given voice more often than he wanted to remember. The comment no longer bothered him. Perhaps he was white trash. After all, he was happier living in the slums than he had ever been all the while he was living in the middle class suburbs.

Seeing the kinds of abuse that Melissa was throwing in the direction of his client, Tony gestured for Jerry to step away for a private talk. Wondering what his lawyer wanted, Jerry followed him to the garage.

Once they were out of earshot of Melissa, Tony said, “You’re going to have a tough time with that kid. She’s as bad as her mother.”

Looking back at the Camaro, Jerry watched as Melissa started lecturing the other lawyer about something. He frowned as he answered, “I know this is going to be rough. I’m afraid that she’s going to scream child abuse or sex abuse as soon as we are alone.”

“I didn’t think about that, but I wouldn’t put it beyond her,” affirmed the lawyer.

Jerry thought about the situation for a moment and said, “She can’t move back to her mother since she is up on charges of child abuse. I guess she could be told that moving into a foster home is always a possibility if she doesn’t like living with me. Of course, some disinterested person might point out the kind of things that can happen in a foster home, particularly to a young pretty girl.”

His lawyer looked at him with a smile and said, “I suppose a disinterested person could mention that to her.”

The men returned to the car to see how packing the luggage was going on. Melissa was not happy with having to move in with Jerry and she let that be known to everyone. It wasn’t until the lawyer spoke with her about the options that she faced that Melissa understood just what a precarious situation she faced. She even admitted that she had planned to charge her father with child abuse. Getting into the car with Jerry she sat as far from him as possible.

The look of horror on Melissa’s face when they drove into the neighborhood was priceless. Glancing over at her, it was clear that she didn’t believe that she would actually have to live there. Her reaction was one of mixed fear and disgust. It was clear that she had no experience around blacks. When she saw his house with the car and the motorcycle in pieces under the oak tree, she turned and stared at Jerry fully convinced that he was white trash.

He parked the car in the front yard. His daughter turned to him and asked, “This is where you live? What are you, some kind of white trash?”

“You bet,” answered Jerry with a smile.

Bill came running out of the house to find out what his father had done while he was gone. The young man froze and stared at his sister in shock at the fact that she was at the house. He didn’t know that his grandmother had died and that his sister was coming to live with them. The idea that his sister would come visit them in this neighborhood ran counter to everything he knew about her.

Jerry got out of the car and opened the trunk to remove the luggage. When Bill saw the luggage his shock turned to horror at the idea that his sister was going to be living with them. He knew that his happy life was going to go downhill with his sister living in the house. Seeing the luggage and knowing his sister, Bill realized that something must have happened to his grandmother for her to be moving in with them.

Almost afraid to learn the truth, he asked, “What happened to grandmother?”

“I’m afraid she died,” answered Jerry.

The young man turned and looked at his sister wondering how she was dealing with the news. She did not seem as upset about the death of his grandmother as he would have expected. It was easy to see that she was angry that she had been forced to move into this neighborhood with him and his father. Knowing her as well as he did, it was likely that the neighborhood bothered her more than the death of her grandmother.

His sister, looking at her brother, said, “You had better start moving my luggage into my new room.”

Looking at the luggage in the back of a car, he knew that if he did as she had demanded, she would be dictating his life for the next five years. Bill laughed and replied, “No, I think you ought to start moving your luggage into your new room.”

Melissa turned her father and shouted, “You tell him to move my luggage into my room.”

“No, in this household everyone has to pull their own weight,” replied the father, understanding what was going on between the two siblings. This was an attempt to position herself as Queen Bee in the household, with Bill as a worker bee. No one was going to be a second class citizen in his house.

Jerry and Bill returned to the house leaving Melissa in the front yard standing beside the car. When the two had entered the house, Jerry turned to Bill and said, “Melissa is going to live in your old room.”

Although he had already moved his stuff out of his old room, the announcement struck Bill as very unfair that he should have to give up his bedroom for Melissa. For the moment, he feared that his life was going to return to being a second class citizen in his own house. He complained, “Why should I be the one to give up a room for her?”

Jerry smiled and answered, “You give up the room so that you get the one with the lock on the door. I recommend using the lock at all times.”

In the front yard, Melissa contemplated what she should do. After ten minutes, it became clear to her that neither her father nor brother would return to carry her luggage into the house. She wondered how they could dare treat her in that fashion. It was so unfair that she had to do work that the men were supposed to do.

Angry, Melissa picked up one of her pieces of luggage and carried it into the house. She made a huge production out of carrying her suitcase, complaining the entire time about how heavy it was. Bill watched his sister with a disgusted look on his face.

On entering the house, she stared in shock at her surroundings. There was almost no furniture, the walls were bare, and the only lights were the ones built into the ceiling of the rooms. She turned and stared at the mangled bumper hanging on the wall not knowing what to make of it.

This hellhole was going to be her home until she was able to escape. The she noticed Bill watching her.

She barked, “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“In my old room,” answered Bill.

The answer brought a smile to her face. It was the first that she had given since she had learned that she was going to have to move in with her father. The idea that her brother had to move for her pleased her a little since that was the way that things were supposed to be. Men were supposed to step aside for women.

Jerry went into the larger bedroom and moved the bags that held his clothes out of the room. He put the bags of clothes in the living room under the futon where they would be out of the way. Having his daughter move into the house was going to be rough. Two bedrooms were not enough for a house with a teenage girl, a teenage boy, and a middle-aged man.

The next few hours were spent getting a new bed for Bill. The three of them had gone to one of the large furniture warehouses in town and picked out a simple bed for Bill. Realizing that they didn’t have any kind of dresser drawers in which to store their clothes, Jerry bought three ‘assemble your own’ dressers. Jerry had to pay a young man with a pickup truck to deliver the bed to the house since he couldn’t wait three days for the store to deliver the furniture.

It was close to dinnertime when they finished moving furniture into Bill’s bedroom. Jerry looked over at Bill and asked, “Are you up for Mexican food?”

Bill answered, “Of course I am.”

Turning to look at his daughter, Jerry asked, “How about you?”

“Yes, I can do with some Mexican food,” answered his daughter realizing that she was hungry. It amazed her that the two men actually ate out, since that was something white trash didn’t do. After a minute, it dawned on her that he actually might be referring to a fast food place. She decided that this meant that they were going to go to Poncho’s Taco Heaven, but she was hungry enough that she didn’t care.

The three of them went outside to get into the Camaro. Melissa looked around and noticed that besides the car that was taken apart, the motorcycle, and the Camaro there were no other cars. She wondered if Jerry still owned that creepy truck that he had driven to pick her up in that one time. If he did, then where was it? She wondered if his crack whore girlfriend was driving it around.

Bill got into the back seat of the car and waited for Melissa to get into it. He didn’t want her sitting behind him where he couldn’t see what she was doing. Glancing over at the old car, she asked, “Whose old car is that?”

Bill answered, “That’s my car.”

“Sure is ugly.”

Bill laughed and replied, “It is now. When I’m done with it, it’ll be an amazing looking car. I’m thinking of painting it yellow with red flames, but dad thinks it would look better if it is painted burgundy red. He might be right. You should see the job that he did on the truck.”

Melissa scoffed, “What do you know about nice cars?”