Epilogue

To Alex, the next few weeks were tough, as tough as the days just after Lisa had died. But, true to his word, his Dad did talk to the HR Representative when he went back into the office after the 4th of July holiday. Unfortunately, they did not have counseling as part of their benefits package, but the representative did provide a number for a counselor in the area.

As his Dad progressed through his counseling, he slowly came out of his depression. The one sticky point for him was his unwillingness to use prescription drugs to help with his depression, the use of drugs other than for a physical ailment was not in his Dad's sense of things.

Apart from his Dad's recovery, the rest of Alex's life started to come together. He continued with his workout ritual, without the company of Henry, and by the week before school started he was up to a five-mile run, done mostly through the woods. He avoided going anywhere near Steve, Frank, and Keith as a matter of course. But when he did run into them, each gave the other a wide berth, not wanting to antagonize or goad the other into a confrontation. Alex often laughed at this, his own personal Cold War.

The highlight of the summer, other than the get together with his old and new friends, was the Pearl Jam concert. As agreed upon earlier, his parents drove Slick, Jennifer, and Alex downtown to Soldiers Field. And while they went to the concert his parents stayed downtown, going to dinner and window shopping on the Gold Coast afterwards.

As they entered Soldiers Field Alex was in awe. He had seen it on television while watching the Bears play but it was not the same as being there in person. But a misstep from Alex almost caused the three of them and Slick's brother, Kevin, to be kicked out by security.

The three got to the concert an hour before hand and headed to their seats. They sat there for a few minutes before Slick said he was bored and was going for a walk, which Jennifer and Alex gladly joined; it seems boredom comes in three's.

As they walked around taking in the sights, Alex thought to himself that there were a lot of babes at this concert. As they came to the point where they started they ran into Kevin, and that's when the trouble started. After introductions, Alex, ever the prankster, thanked Kevin for the tickets and commented that they were worth every penny of the hundred dollars a piece he paid for them. That's when it got interesting.

As Alex looked between the two brothers he wondered how it was possible for the blood to drain from Slick's face and show up in Kevin's. Slick looked to his brother and swore to him that Alex was kidding, that he hadn't pulled a fast one on him, this time.

Kevin, who must have been on the receiving side of many of Slick's shell games, took immediate offense and grabbed Slick. Jennifer jumped in and grabbed Kevin's free arm before he took a shot at Slick and began trying to convince him that Slick was right, that Alex was only playing.

It was about this time that two Yellow Jackets came over, Yellow Jackets are what they called Security because they wore Yellow Jackets. Kevin, seeing them walking towards them let Slick go but continued to glare at him. Alex was about to jump in and confess when the first Yellow Jacket began pushing Kevin towards the wall telling him to shut up and put his hands against the wall. The second pushed past Jennifer as he began pushing Slick towards the wall.

Jennifer, off balance from the passage of the second Yellow Jacket, tripped over her feet and stumbled into three guys walking by. One of the guys tried catching her and accidentally caught his friend's arm that was holding a full cup of beer, which was tossed onto a girl and large guy walking towards them. The guy who tried to catch Jennifer missed her as she landed at his feet. Being the gentleman that he was, he stopped and reached down to help her to her feet, but he stopped too quickly and was knocked over from the people walking behind who were not paying attention to what had happened in front of them. Fortunately, the crowd of people stopped before more people ended up on the ground.

If it wasn't for the girl screaming from being covered in beer, and her boyfriend punching the guy who's hand had been holding said beer, all would have been ok. But the second Yellow Jacket, seeing the guy get clocked let Slick go and pulled out his pepper spray and squirted the guy in the eyes to stop him.

The effect on the puncher did not have the impact that the Yellow Jacket had hoped for, as the guy began swinging wildly, hitting one of the passer-byes with one swing while missing his girlfriend with another. And then things began to get worse as the crowd that had slowed because of the people that had fallen became easy targets to the wildly swinging pepper-sprayed guy, who managed to connect with a couple more guys who weren't able to stay out of his way.

The Yellow Jacket who had used the pepper spray, yelled for help to his partner holding Kevin against the wall. His partner turned and seeing the melee behind him got on his radio and called for backup while pulling out his handcuffs and locking Kevin's hands together.

What ensued was a wild riot as people getting hit by the wildly swinging pepper-sprayed individual took action and tackled him. This didn't go over well with the Yellow Jackets as one of them handcuffed Mr. Pepper-spray while the other tried, with little success, to disperse the crowd.

Jennifer, who had managed to escape the melee unscathed, made her way over to Alex and Slick. The three moved over to Kevin, who was screaming at the top of his lungs, calling Alex and Slick every name in the book. Slick tried to pacify his older brother when additional Yellow Jackets arrived and began threatening people with arrest if they didn't move along.

As the Yellow Jackets got Mr. Pepper-spray and his drenched girlfriend out of the way, the flow of the crowd proceeded and the melee was abetted. Fortunately, two things occurred that saved the four from incarceration. The first was that the two original Yellow Jackets led Pepper-spray and his girlfriend away. The second was the arrival of a certain EMT known to Alex, Stanley Kuzinski.

Alex told Stanley that Jennifer had tripped and accidentally caused the ruckus, though he did leave out a couple of things that were a bit self incriminating, adding that they were innocent of any wrong doing. Stanley eyed Alex with some skepticism, but in the end had helped them out of the jam by talking to one of the policeman, telling him that Alex was his cousin who was a good kid inadvertently pulled into the ruckus by extenuating circumstances.

The officer, who seemed to know Stanley, asked how his family was as he took the cuffs off Kevin, never looking at Alex, Jennifer, Slick, or Kevin. The attention was clearly focused on Stanley, who behind his back waved the four to move along as he continued talking to the officer. Alex, taking the hint, quickly guided his friends out of harms way and back to their seats, apologizing along the way. Whenever he ran into Kevin over the years, though, they would come to laugh about it as a treasured memory.

The excitement of the past encounter left behind them, they were free to enjoy the rest of the night. The concert was all Alex expected and more, with Pearl Jam playing most of his favorites. At the end Alex again apologized, for something like the 90th time of the night as Alex and Jennifer said so long to Kevin and Slick, with Slick deciding to catch a ride home with Kevin.

Alex and Jennifer met up with his parents at the designated place, Buckingham fountain, after the concert. Alex and Jennifer, still up from the concert, were a stark contrast to his parents, who were contentedly walking arm in arm back to their car for the late night ride home. It was towards the end of their trip home that Alex came to realize that neither had said a word other than to ask how they enjoyed the concert. It seemed that his parents were back together, communicating to each other not in words but on some other level that he was not aware of, like they used to be a long time ago.

But this lasted a few weeks as the month of July ended and August came about. Alex dreaded August, August 14th to be exact. It was the day Lisa was born. And as the day came closer, the tension in the family was noticeable as each tried to deal with reliving the past months all over again; his Mom went into nesting mode, his Dad retreated from the world, and Alex ran.