Chapter 3

About nine that night mom's phone rang. I knew it was Cara. She must have just gotten home. I told mom to answer it and tell Cara that the boys were already in bed and I wasn't in the mood to talk. I would see her tomorrow. I could hear mom saying it was no use, that I was too bullheaded. My mom liked Cara, unlike how Cara's parents felt about me. Mom ended by telling her she would take care of things and that I would see her tomorrow.

My mother spoke to me, "John, there is something wrong here. You and Cara need to talk and get this worked out. She was crying when we hung up. I don't care what you think, Cara loves you and you need to get that head of yours on straight."

There is no use arguing with mom. She's probably where I got this bull headed gene from anyway. I went over to the couch and tried to sleep. I was getting pretty used to sleeping on couches.

I got up the next morning trying to figure out what I was going to do. So much circumstantial shit, but it adds up. I had to face Cara today. I decided to go to the Holiday Inn and find out the facts for myself. I asked mom to watch the boys for me so I could go talk to Cara. Mom was glad to see that I was at least giving Cara a chance to explain.

I headed over to the Holiday Inn. I first looked for their cars. I saw their cars in the side parking lot. I walked through the side entrance and saw a sign posted where the meeting was being held. The doors were open so I could hear what was going on. There were about ten people seated around an oval table. I glanced in but no one saw me. Cara was seated next to Ray, the bastard. I listened outside the door when the person speaking said that they would adjourn for an hour for lunch and then meet up to finish their work. They should be done early today.

I quickly went out to the van and waited for everyone to leave. They were staying there for lunch but I saw Cara and Ray come out the side door. I rolled down my window to listen to what they were saying.

"What do you want, Ray? I don't want to be out here with you. Someone might take it the wrong way and I have enough problems at home already," spoke Cara.

"Is little home daddy missing you. Does he think you have a lover?" Ray asked.

"Stop it, Ray. What you and I had or more like never had was six years ago, before I met John. When are you going to get it through your head that I want nothing to do with you? Why are you making it so hard to get along? Don't you get it, I don't want you. I want my husband, John."

"Come on, Cara, what does he have that I don't? Besides, he's a home daddy; you're the bread winner. When are you going to want a real man like me and dump his candy ass?"

"John's twice - no ten times - the man you can ever hope to be. You're lucky I don't tell him how you've been pestering me. He'd kick your ass into next week. Now leave me alone."

"You think I'm afraid of the house boy. Come here; let me feel your tit again."

He raised his hand to grab her tit when she hauled back to slap him. He reached up and grabbed her arm.

"Come on, Cara, is that all the fight you have in you?"

I jumped out of the van and was on his ass in three seconds. I saw his mouth drop open and Cara say, "John, what are you doing here?"

"Doing what I should have done months ago," I replied.

I hit him as hard as I could in the stomach, then a right that caught the left side of his face. Then, back and forth, right, left, right, left, I kept hitting the son-of-a-bitch. Somewhere along the line I must have broken his nose. I know I went back to the body shots. He never got off one swing. He kept using his arms to try and protect himself. I heard Cara behind me crying and yelling, "Stop, John, please stop, you're killing him."

As he fell to the pavement two squad cars pulled up and the officers told me to lie on the ground. I guess I didn't get down fast enough as they screamed at me again. "Lie on the ground, arms to your sides, spread your legs now."

An officer put a knee in the middle of my back and took my hands and cuffed them behind my back. Then, two officers stood me up.

I told them, "Officer, my hands hurt. I can hardly feel them."

They took me to the squad car as an ambulance pulled up and the paramedics went to Ray and were working on him. The officer told one of the paramedics to come and look at my hands. He told him they were swelling and covered in blood. I didn't know if it was mine or Ray's.

The paramedic was a black guy named Jim. He was a decent sort. He asked the officer if he would remove the cuffs but the officer refused saying he couldn't trust me uncuffed.

"Aye, Man, I'm Jim. What's your name?"

"The name's John. My hands hurt like hell, Jim. Is anything broken?"

"You think your hands look bad, you should see the number you did on that guy over there. Man, John, you beat him pretty bad. You're lucky all your fingers aren't broke. What the hell happened, man? What did the sucker do to deserve a beating like that? You don't seem like a bad sort."

"He put the moves on my wife, and when he grabbed her I snapped. I can't let that mother-fucker mess with my wife, even if he is her boss."

"John, you're in a heap of shit here man. He told the officer he wanted you to be charged with assault to commit murder."

"I didn't plan on killing him, but I might have overdone it a tad. What about my hands, Jim?

"You broke a couple of blood vessels and they're swollen pretty bad but nothing broken. You must have hit the hard part of his skull or a belt buckle or something. I'm putting a bandage on them but when they take you to the holding cell I'm telling them to give you an ice pack or let you soak them to get the swelling down."

"Thanks, Jim, you're alright in my book."

"I'm glad of that after the number you did on that guy. Good luck to you, John, and for what it's worth, if he did what you said, he deserved it."

I was put in the squad car and taken to a holding cell. I looked back and they were putting Ray in the ambulance and Cara was sitting in a squad car. They were taking her statement.

Cara tells her story:

I'm sitting here scared to death. I'm about to talk to the board of directors and tell them what happened yesterday. They want to know why my husband beat up my boss, Ray.

Let me go back to the beginning, even before I met John. I'll try not repeating everything you already know. As you already know, I met John at the New Year's party. Before that I had dated Ray, on and off for a few months. Even before that, I was a popular girl. My family had money, not the real ritzy ones but we were well off. I went to the best schools, wore the newest styles of clothes. I hung with the rich kids or what we say is the kids that came from money. Not all of them were bad kids; most were pretty normal. It's just that we got what we wanted.