Chapter 1

It's been a three-day drunk that I have stretched into eleven. Saying that life can't get much worse doesn't do justice to all the booze I have dedicated to this pursuit of forgetting. I was smart enough to lock the guns away before I went on my tear so it's only the building and furnishings that are in various states of rubble. I am past the cottonmouth and hangover stage this morning, since I am having the tail of the dog that bit me. That means that day eleven is going to run into day twelve.

I'm a bit ripe to the point where I can smell it. I could decide to head off for a shower; but then I'm wasting good drinking time not to mention counteracting the benefits of the serious drinking I have been doing. Which as side benefit we all know is to keep others the hell away.

I have gone past the shock and awe stage, gotten mostly over the basic pissed and how could they have stage and now have played all the ifa, woulda, coulda shit the last three days. Don't matter none, it all would have ended in the same pile of shit that it turned out to be.

I burned her letter after I read it. What the hell was I supposed to do? She told me she was running off with my brother and a few other choice words along the way. I knew that if I wanted to find them, I could. Take a pound or more of flesh from each of them for this. But what the hell would that accomplish and to tell the truth, if my brother thought that taking my cheating wife would do him any good, he damn well needed to have her. I'll just lay my head down here on the table for a minute.

What the hell, someone just grabbed me and is frog stepping me to the bathroom. That was the last I remembered until I woke up in the shower, my old man sitting on the shitter staring at me. Hell, my head hurt and it wasn't from the hangover.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well hello Son, feeling any better?"

"Who the hell put me in here and turned on the water?"

"Must have been some damn fairies, lifted you right out of your chair and dropped you in the shower," he laughed as he took a drink of what I knew was my beer and then a drag on his cigar.

"Get me the hell out of here," I spat back.

"Once you figure a way to use that soap, we can talk about it."

"I'm in my clothes, what the hell good will soap do?"

"Given that you haven't changed them since you started out on this bender, they need washing too," He took another drink and puffed on his cigar some more.

That is the way the old man operated. He'd stay out of your personal issues until he figured you were so screwed up you couldn't see up any longer, and then he would use the direct approach to helping you back on the right course. It didn't matter if you didn't want his help. Once he decided your time to work through this was done, there he was Johnny on the spot.

If he needed to kick your ass into an umbrella to help you with the sun stroke you were now experiencing, he was more than happy to make that happen too. Of course he would always point to another who was the reason for his concern and intervention. That was usually my mother, although he was known to use my grandparents in a pinch.

I decided the washing machine was a much better way to wash the clothes and stripped them off, leaving them in the bottom of the shower. Nature called and I didn't feel like getting out so I took a piss in the shower. What the hell, I was the one who would be cleaning it up. Of course that didn't sit well with him, and he let me know.

"You're a damn pig."

"Well I would have used the toilet but there was a turd sitting on it."

He didn't say anything and I had turned away when he reached in and turned off the hot water, holding his hand on the control.

I decided that I wasn't going to stay there when the hot water was gone, but he decided otherwise and knocked my ass right down so I sprawled there on the tub floor. That was the last I remembered until I came to with my head throbbing and me freezing, since he hadn't turned the cold water off. I had blood in my eye now, was naked, still hung over, and pissed off as I headed on my search and destroy mission. A bit wobbly as I did make my way but what the hell.

I made it downstairs and he was watching the tube, beer in his hand and smoking that cigar again. I stomped over to lay him out. He just stood up and I woke up laid out on the floor. Damn, he hit like a ton of bricks.

"Welcome back sweetie. Looking for another trip to lala land anytime soon?" He blew me a kiss.

I remember that I made it up off the floor before he hit me again. I was still lying naked on the floor when I came around again.

"Why the hell do you keep hitting me?"

"You're dumb enough to get up and I ain't stupid enough to let you."

"You gonna hit me again if I get up?"

"Try it and see," damn asshole just smiled at me.

This time I didn't go near him but went to find something to wear instead. "You won't find anything in that room to equalize the situation we have going here."

He knew damn well I would have, and so he took and cleared it of most anything I could use while I was taking his induced naps. So I got dressed and went to get something to drink. The damn bastard had emptied every bottle and can in the sink and left them there for me to see. I opened the fridge and I saw a bag of groceries that Mom had no doubt made him bring along. But there was not one damn can of beer in there.

"I put all the others in my trunk from the other fridge, so don't bother to go looking in the garage. Have something to eat; it will make your mother happy." He was standing at the door looking in from the living room.

"You're a damn bastard for doing that."

He laughed and then asked. "What does that make you?"

"A son of a bitch," I replied, opening the bag and taking out a sandwich.

"I don't care to hear you call your mother and my wife that."

"Sorry Dad."

"You finished wanting to drink your troubles away?"

"If you're going to keep hitting me, I damn well am," I rubbed my jaw before I took another bite from my sandwich. I had liberated for the bag Mom sent.

"Your brother is a fucking idiot."

"I see we agree on something."

"That bitch ain't much better."

"I won't argue with you there."

"Your mother won't tell me where they are." he was angry but when Mom set her mind up on something she was every bit the match for him.

"She's thinking you would kill them I bet," I said before I took another bite and chewed on it.

"They are higher up on my list than you are," he shot back.

"Why the hell am I on the list?"

"Cause you have shit for brains and figured crawling into a bottle was going to solve this."

"Started off as the right idea at the time," I took another bite.

"You're going to have to apologize to your mother."

"What did I do?"

"You had a few choice words that she won't repeat for your sake when she called."

"I don't remember talking to her."

"Oh, that is not going to get you out of apologizing to her."

"I know, sorry."

"You would be sorry if she told me, but I figure we're about even, even if she won't tell me."

"So what do I do now?"

"Don't have that all figured out after the eleven days of drinking?" He took the last drink from his beer and tossed the can in the sink with the others.

"I need to clean up this place."

"Ya think?"

"You know that you're a pain in the ass when you want to be."

"All part of the parenting responsibilities," he laughed for a bit. "You mother thinks I should bring you back with me," He gave me the look that was not the look I got from mom but the look all the same.

"I think that I need to clean this place first. You're not going anywhere soon, are you?"

"You're crimping my style as I wanted to head off in the RV next week but that ain't happening until this shit is worked out. She is convinced once you're not drinking, you're going to work on being an only child."

"The thought has crossed my mind. But there would be hell to pay if she ended up having to see me only on visiting days."

"Not only for you."

"So when did the two of them skip out?"

"They didn't call and tell me, but it's likely your mother knows."

"You have any idea what else she knows?"

He didn't say a word, but he looked down at the floor. Mom had told him something, and he was the one to bear the news. Ain't it great being married, yeah right?

"So you're obviously here to tell me something, just spit it right out. I probably know what it is already anyways."

"What do you think it is?"

"Well, she's knocked up right?"

"How do you know that?"

"Them not showing up at the airport to meet me when I got off the plane was a good indicator that they didn't want me to see her condition. How far along is she?"

"Six or seven months"

"That son of a bitch."

"I told you I didn't hold with you calling your mother..."

"What would you call your brother if he knocked up your wife?"

"One dead son of a bitch," He looked at me, and I thought I could see a curl on his lips towards a smile.

"And I am not to follow in your footsteps because?"

"That is our grandchild she is carrying, and we would like him or her to have a daddy."

"You're playing favorites here and I can tell you, I don't like it one damn bit."

"I didn't say you had to like it, just do nothing about it is all."

"That doing nothing is what I was doing until you showed up today."

"No, you were wallowing in poor me and now both these damn violins are playing in stereo, 'My heart bleeds for you'," he held up his hands and rubbed his fore fingers and his thumbs together and sang that song I had heard all my life, whenever I thought life had kicked my ass.

"You're an asshole."

"Got one, same as you," he chuckled.

"All right, let me clean up, and I will be over to see the two of you in a while."

"Don't need to ask but your mother will want to know. You finished drinking your problems away?"

"I'll be over later. Tell her I won't drink anymore today."

He came over and hugged me before he left out the door. The damn place was a wreck; hard drinking and a 'couldn't care less' attitude will do that. I cleaned up for a few hours, ate some more of the food mom sent over, and took another shower before I headed over for dinner.

It smelled damn good when I opened the door and Mom came over and hugged me. "I was worried about you."

"I know Mom, sorry for what I said."

"Do you even remember what you said?"

She had me there and I smiled at her. She winked and gave me a nod and headed back to the stove to work on the gravy I knew she was making to go with the pot roast I smelled. It was my favorite meal, and she knew it.

Dad came into the kitchen then. No cigar going as Mom ruled with an iron fist in her domain, and it was a no smoking domain. I saw Dad head over to the fridge to get a beer and the eye sought him out. I had had enough in her opinion and Dad was not going to be allowed to drink in front of me.

We started dinner and it was quiet, mostly confined to the sound of silverware hitting the plate. Mom finally had enough of it and asked. "Don't you have any questions?"

"Nope, damn near drank them all away."

Dad just sat back, knowing that this was Mom's place to ask, and she would be doing it as she pleased.

She ignored my swearing in the house and asked instead. "So you're not going to hurt them?"

"I didn't say that, just don't have a need to know the hows and whys."

She looked over at Dad and back at me. "I don't want you to hurt them or the baby."

There it was out on the table. Sides were taken and how I responded to it would likely dictate where I ended up in this train wreck.

"You have any idea what I just finished doing in the service for the last twenty years Mom?"

"You were in the Navy."

"I was a Navy SEAL, Mom. Sniper qualified. I can put a round into someone at a thousand yards. They die before they ever hear the sound from the bullet being fired." She gave a loud gasp then and looked over at my Dad.

"I didn't know that. You have done that?"

"Many more times than I would like to remember, especially in the last eight years."

"You're not going to do that to Buddy and..." I didn't let her finish. Buddy was her pet name for my brother.

"I could do it as easy as I am sitting here if I had a mind to do that. I don't, but if you think I am going to lay down and let them piss all over me, you're sadly mistaken." I continued to eat my dinner, knowing it was likely the last time for a long time I would be invited over for one, if ever again.

"But they only did it when you were..."She stopped and covered her mouth and looked over at Dad.

I put my fork down and looked at her and then at him. "They only did it when I was overseas? Which means they have been doing it for more than just this last time I was gone?"

She couldn't say anything but her eyes told me and then her head went down. I looked over a Dad, and he couldn't look me in the eye either.

"I think I'll skip dessert," and I got up and left.

I was damn pissed but saying anything more to them wasn't going to do anything to make the situation any better. Buddy and my slut of a wife had been hanging horns on me for years and my folks knew and hadn't said a word. They likely were worried at what I would do to Mom's precocious Buddy and kept me in the dark. This one was not going to be solved in a bottle.

I searched the house for anything that had images of Buddy or her in it. They were dead to me at this point, and I was not going to have a damn thing in my house that reminded me of them. I put it all in a few boxes and put it in the garage. I would toss it out with the trash next week.

As I did it, I fumed all the more. It was me against all of them at this point. My parents wanted their precious grandchild and would turn a blind eye to any transgression that Mom's dear Buddy had done. Dad may not like it, but he damn well knew where his bread was buttered and who did that. That I was done with the other two was a certainty.

But for now I had to plan. No mission was ever completed successfully without proper planning. Put your life in danger and you learn to plan every detail. So once everything was done, I started to look at the damage done and what my recourse was.

I was still up to greet the sun the next morning when there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Cal there looking at me, a box of doughnuts in his hand. Cal was the soon to be ex's father; her mom had died before we married. He was a nice enough guy and had kept his nose out of our lives. I figured he was the one the folks had sent after last night's little revelation.

"Morning Cal."

"Hey Son." He had called me that the day we had told him of our intentions to marry. She was an only child, and he gained a son. I liked him a lot and had done many things with him from fishing to hunting over the years.

"I take it, you're the one designated to come and smooth the waters over today?"

"After what your Dad told me, that they let it out of the bag, I doubt there is any smooth sailing any time soon."

"You're damn right about that. Want a cup of coffee?"

"Yes, and no. Before you ask, I didn't know for a fact, and I wouldn't have held it back from you if I knew for certain."

"You thought they might."

"Thinking and knowing are two very different items. I didn't know until she showed up with her belly showing. But you were overseas and what good would it have done for me to tell you then. Likely got you killed was all."

Cal had fought in Nam, but he didn't seem that old to me. He took good care of himself, and I respected the hell out of him for his service to his country. We had talked about his and my experiences over the years.

"You're right; it would have had me losing focus. I can't blame you for not telling me if you didn't know."

"You scared your mother now that she knows what you did." Cal was not one to let anything sit and fester, which was another reason for me to respect him.

"I don't plan on doing anything physical to any of them." I took a big gulp of the coffee and reached over to open the box. I have a real weakness for jelly doughnuts and Cal knew it. He was a chocolate cake, chocolate frosted guy. There were nine for me and three for him; he was concerned as it was always an even split every other time we had shared a box.

"I am not foolish enough to sit here and think you're not angry with all of them. And I make no excuses for any of their actions," he took his drink then.

"Thanks, it's apparent I wasn't being told for whatever reason."

"I think we both know the reason. Buddy is momma's baby."

"Damn right about that, but I never expected they would help him hang horns on me. Just isn't right."

"I understand. I doubt your father had much to say about it. She has him pussy whipped even if he doesn't show it when she isn't around."

"Yep," I took the last of the doughnut I had been eating, popped it into my mouth and drank again. Then I reached over and got another one then.

"So you're not going to hurt them?"

"Nothing physical. I earned this retirement and don't plan to be spending it incarcerated."

He didn't ask anymore about it. I was certain that he knew I would find a lawyer and do what was necessary. So we shot the shit the rest of the morning. I think Cal would have liked to go back and have exchanged the box back to even.

We were well into killing the second pot of coffee when he asked if I had started looking at all of my assets. Now I knew he knew something more. In all of our years together, he never spoke about money.

"Out with it." I took another drink.

"Have you looked at all the bank accounts, stock market accounts, CDs?"

"Not yet. But something has your attention."

"I have known more than a few people who have gotten divorced. One spouse or the other usually cleans them out."

"And you're figuring that..." He held up his hand.

"I ain't figuring anything. I am just saying from experience, you need to investigate."

"Okay, you can report that I am not going to kill any of them."

"I told them that already. But I wanted to come over and see you, anyways. Would have been here before but heard you were on a bender. Understandable, but didn't want to get into anything physical with you about it when you were."

"I was pissed enough and drunk enough."

"Oh, I am sure you were. I think they loaded up the house with booze before you came home, thinking it would give them additional time to get away."

"It worked." I took another drink and then got up to hit the head.

I sat back down and Cal went and came back. I had killed all the jelly doughnuts. Cal sat back down then.

"So you need to take stock and find an attorney. Just remember, that is my grandchild, and I would appreciate it if the child had a chance at a good life, no matter the lowlifes its parents are."

"Let me look at what is what, and I will determine if I go scorched earth or not. No promises but I understand."

"I can't ask for more than that. If they were idiots in what they did, then there is nothing I would want to do to stop you." He got up and I stood also. He took a hold of me and said, "You didn't deserve this load of shit they brought for you to eat. For what it is worth, I am sorry it had to be this way. I am always here for you." There were tears in his eyes as he turned and left.

I took his advice and went over and got on the Internet and started looking at the accounts. The bank had a couple of thousand dollars and all the CDs were gone. I couldn't access the Kemper and Fidelity accounts and my calls told me that both had been closed. I was damn pissed and when I looked through the mail, I found a mortgage bill. I would have killed them if I had seen them. I owned that house free and clear and it was in my name only. Our grandparents on my Dad's side had died and left Buddy and me each a pretty fair chunk of change. I took mine and bought the house. He likely pissed his away. I had never gotten to the point of adding her to the title so there was no way a mortgage could have existed. I would have remembered signing for one.

I picked up the phone and called Cal. After he said hello I said two words. "Scorched Earth."

He replied, "God Damn Idiots," and hung up.

I knew he would tell my folks, and he wasn't likely to sugar coat one word of it. I went and took a shower and headed out to the bank. I might as well change over the account. It would be hell with them paying my retirement but there was no way I would let them get anything more than they already had.

I got on the phone then and started calling all the other institutions including the mortgagee. At least the account was current, so I had some time to work on this before the house would go into foreclosure. Given the mortgage payment was 85% of my retirement pay, there was no way I would be able to keep it now.

The only bright spots were they hadn't run up my only credit card, and I still had my truck in the garage which was paid for. Other than that, I was thoroughly FUBARed.

I ate a quiet dinner thinking about all that they had done. It wasn't pretty, anyway I turned it, and I just didn't have a plan yet to deal with it. I knew that I would need an attorney for the divorce. And I needed one to sort out the mortgage dealings, plus I was going to sue that asshole brother of mine for alienation of affection and any other damn thing I could think of. If my parents got in the way, I would add them to the suit.

There were only a few problems with all of this. I didn't know any attorneys, divorce or otherwise. I had a huge mortgage payment due in two weeks and not enough money to pay it for any extended period of time. And the two of them were gone like a fart in the wind now. But other than that, everything was fine.

I went to the county seat the next morning and got all the information I could from the public records about the house. There, clear as day, was what almost looked like my signature on the document. Of course it wasn't mine, but I had the first piece. I decided that I might want to ask the District Attorney about the possibility of them prosecuting. They forged documents for $450,000 and the house was still titled in only my name. Plus having the police find them was going to be less costly than me paying for it.

I traipsed over to the DA's office and explained the issue to the woman at the counter; I was told to have a seat and the Assistant District Attorney on call for the day would be out in a few minutes. Matt Sullivan came out and shook my hand. He took me back to a conference room, and I told him my story of woe. He informed me much of it was civil, and that I would have to sue for that.

But he was interested in the fraud. He asked if I had signed a power of attorney before I had left for overseas, and I told him that I had not. She had wanted to press me for one, but we had a will and everything was paid for so there wasn't any real need. I remember now that she was pissed off about that but just let it go.

The ADA had seen many of these over the past years and mine was one that was clean cut as far as it went. If everything I had told him panned out, Matt said that I had a great civil case against the notary and the mortgage broker. When I told him that I didn't know any attorneys other than him, he excused himself, got up and left the room, returning with a post-it. There were the names of two attorneys on it. The top one was the nastiest divorce attorney he knew of in the county. Seems the DA had a falling-out with his wife and this attorney had cleaned his clock. She was persona non grata with the DA but a fine person anyway he assured me.

The other one was known to be a square shooter and well respected. Matt asked that I not tell them where I got their names. We were parting when he told me either an investigator or police detective would be around to seem me for more information in the next couple of days. Well, step one of the plans was started now.

I decide to head over to see Pamela C. Smith, Esq., and see if I could engage her to handle my divorce. She would want a retainer and in my current financial situation, I wasn't in very good shape to do that. But what the hell, she came highly recommended.

I walked into the address Matt had given me and found a door with her name on it. I entered the reception office, and it was small. There was a door behind the receptionist which I figured was her office.

"Hello, is Ms Smith in?" I asked.

"Yes, she is. Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I am afraid not. But I need to speak to an attorney."

"You are?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I am William Wilkerson."

"Well Mr. Wilkerson, if you will wait for one minute, I will see if she can see you."

"It's Willy, not Mr. Wilkerson," They had hung the Willy name on me at Coronado during Hell Week, and it stuck the rest of my career. So much so I just adopted it.

"Yes, Mr. Wilkerson."

"She opened the door and left it open and then came back and said "Ms Smith will see you now."

"I got up and entered the room and there was the receptionist sitting behind a desk."

"Uh, I don't understand." I looked around and there were all the sheepskins hanging on the wall with Pamela J Smith on them.

She stood up than and said. "I am Ms. Smith. Pamela to my clients and friends, and I take it, you are William Wilkerson?"

"Pamela, I'm Willy and I hope to be a client and a friend." I closed the door, got our formal handshake out of the way, and I waited for her to sit down before I did.

The next three hours were my tale of woe. She told me about some of hers since her encounter with the DA. He was making her life difficult at the moment, but it would pass once he got over it. I didn't tell her who referred me to her, but it turns out she had dated Matt Sullivan before. It was professional suicide for him to continue doing that and stay at the DA's office. They weren't going to ever be that serious, so they parted as friends. I would guess with benefits if I interpreted her body language right.

Since it was almost two when we were done, I offered to take us to lunch. She wanted to beg off, but I hoped it was my charm that got her to go. Likely, she was just hungry and with her struggling to make ends meet now, a free lunch wasn't all that bad of a deal. We spent another two hours at lunch and when I walked her back to the office, she agreed to take my case. I ran a grand on the Visa and it cleared. Then I signed all the necessary documents to establish an attorney-client relationship.

Since I was on a roll, I went looking for the next attorney and found Charles Vincent's office a few minutes later. I walked into his office after my brief encounter with his receptionist Mary Jo. Charles was eighty if he was a day in my book, and I shook his hand. For a man that age, he had a firm grip. His mind seemed to have even a firmer grip and when I finished telling him everything, he explained it all in legal terms.

He said it was an open-and-shut case. I could prove I was overseas and there was no way I could have signed any documents. There was no power of attorney and with the house as my sole and separate property before the marriage, getting the transaction reversed would happen. Now the problem was the wheels of justice ground slowly, and it could take up to a year. That would mean that I would need to pay the mortgage for all of that time and could I do that with it being so much of my retirement.

He was honest and I liked that. So I got out the Visa and added another fifteen hundred to the tally and then signed the paperwork to start another attorney-client relationship. I left promising to bring all the documents I could find to his office tomorrow so he could start.

I stopped and got some pizza on the way home. It doesn't matter where you're from but the pizza you grew up with is always the best pizza in the world. In my case, it was a double sausage pizza from Connie's pizza. I had eaten it since I was a kid, and it was the best.

I had forgotten there wasn't any beer at the house, and I hated Pepsi which was the only soda there. So I ended up just drinking a glass of water, but even that could not spoil the taste of that pizza in my mind. It was one of the things I would dream about when I was on a mission, and I had a chance to catnap for a few minutes.

I woke up and looked at the alarm. It was 8:00 and someone was pounding on the door. I got up, tossed on some pants, and headed down there. I could see that it was Cal, and he had another box of doughnuts under his arm.

"Morning," he said as he walked in through the door.

"Morning, what are you doing here?"

"Came over for your coffee; my pot is broke."