Chapter 6: Reunion

Josiah Creel seemed to have forgotten about Jack.

Jack and Zelda breathed collective sighs of relief and went about day-to-day living. For the next six months, every day, five days a week, Jack worked with his assigned physical therapist at the VA, a well-meaning young woman who Jack felt hindered, rather than helped. She felt positive thoughts and the right attitude would work miracles. She also suggested he attend meetings at her church. Months passed.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years all came and went unnoticed. Zelda put up a small Christmas tree and Jack never seemed to be aware of it. She felt hurt and sad he didn't want to share the holidays, but rather ignored them as if they didn't exist. Jack was driven to regain all he had lost and nothing else mattered more than full recovery. Jack was on a crusade.

Every day after the mandated therapy was over, he began what he called his "serious stuff." That was when he went into the pool to use water resistance to work against all his muscles. For six months the employee who oversaw the pool activities helped Jack in and out of the pool.

At last the day came when he said, "Let me try it on my own."

"Be careful," was the only warning he received as he took a shaky step out of the motorized wheelchair and fell forward into the water.

He began his "walking laps" in the shallow end of the pool while the water displaced almost all of his weight. Back and forth he walked against the drag of the water. "Yes," he whispered to himself, "I am improving. I'll by god make it. I must!"

His mind wandered continuously as he exercised his way to exhaustion day after day. He could feel only a small amount strength begin to return. It began slowly as his damaged body healed just a little. Jack wanted more and right now, as his body came at least partially back to life. It was a start, so far as Jack Daniels was concerned, only a start. He continued to make slow progress until two weeks before his thirty-sixth birthday...

After his daily workout was over, Jack rolled out the front entrance of the Veterans' Administration Medical Center in his motorized wheelchair. A young sounding woman's voice demanded harshly in his ear, "Are you Jack Daniels?"

"What?" he exclaimed. Startled, he jerked his head around to see who addressed him. He looked up into the face of an attractive young woman about eighteen years of age. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a hanging to the waist ponytail. Her blazing blue eyes stared in anger down at him. Cautious, he answered, "Yes, I'm Jack Daniels. Do I know you?"

"No, there's no reason why you should," she answered in an angry voice. "I'm your daughter Melissa whom you never wanted to see."

"M- M- Melissa?" his voice cracked, "What in hell are you talking about? I tried for ten years to find out where you were. It was like your mother and you disappeared down a rabbit hole. I got a letter from your mother that said you didn't ever want to see me again that you were afraid of me. But I kept looking. Whenever I was stateside I looked everywhere I could. I even hired a private detective and he couldn't find you."

"Is that why you never paid any child support even, not one single solitary dollar?" she asked in her bitter angry voice.

Jack's voice rose to a yell, "What the hell are you talking about? I made out a three hundred and fifty dollar a month allotment that didn't stop until after you reached your eighteenth birthday. After my discharge, they took it out of my pension. It stopped three months ago. Hell, I didn't care if it kept going forever."

He started his wheelchair again. "Unless you have some more shit to drop on me, go to hell and goodbye. I have enough on my plate without this bullshit."

"Wait," she begged, suddenly unsure of herself. "Can you prove what you just said? About my support payments, I mean?"

"I don't know why I should have to, but yes, I sure as hell can. The paperwork and records are at the house. I'll give you my address and you can come over and see for yourself."

"I think I'd like that," she answered, the hostility faded from her voice.

Suddenly Jack felt the twinges of suspicion in his own mind. "Tell me, why is it we just ran into each other here by accident? Or did we? Something doesn't seem quite right about all this.

"Oh, I work here in the VA offices. Senator Creel got me my job. In fact he sent word to me by Jimmy Lytle you would be here today and about what time."

Alarms began to go off in his head. "Girl, you are being used to get at me in a very clumsy way. My address is thirty-three forty-four Linden Street. If you want, come see me at the house. I think we had better get out of here separately. You have a car?"

"Of course," she answered. "But aren't you being just a little paranoid?"

"No, I'm being a whole lot paranoid and I'm afraid I may not be paranoid enough. Just go. You remember the address?'

"Of course I remember it. I remember everything." She gave him a weak smile and walked away. Jack's eyes followed her as she left the building.

"Pretty little thing, isn't she?" Jack recognized the voice of James Lytle.

"Back off," he told the man. "You fuck with me or mine and you will be in a world of hurt." Jack took pleasure from the naked hatred he saw in Lytle's face. "I mean it. I don't need to be out of this wheel chair to do you massive harm." Lytle unconsciously massaged his throat as he turned and left without answering.

Two thoughts struck Jack simultaneously. The first was how futile it must seem for a man crippled almost to the point of total helplessness to threaten an able bodied man still in his prime.

The second thought was scary. James Lytle was a coward and a blowhard who wanted above all else to be known as a hard man. Then a third thought came to him: Lytle was a hater who would never let go of his hate. He couldn't; hate was the fuel that made him function.

Slowly he steered his wheelchair away from the front entrance of the Veteran's Medical Center and began the long ride home. This present wheelchair was a commercial model that had been modified. It now had a few special properties not usually associated with conveyances for the handicapped.

The original battery and electric motor, standard equipment with the chair, were replaced and the wiring modified to accommodate a more powerful motor and heavier batteries. This permitted Jack to travel greater distances between charges.

The present chair came about after one near miss when he was alone on the street at night. Jack swore never again to be a victim again. The near miss happened when three street punks tried to rob a cripple who was out for some fresh air.

It was almost a repeat of his adventure at the mall. The first one got run over by the wheelchair, the second one fell across Jack's lap when the pivoting wheelchair struck his ankles. Jack's right thumb and middle finger formed the claw and crushed the punk's larynx. He was brain dead in less than five minutes. The third punk ran. He decided rolling cripples was too hazardous a way to earn pocket money. Jack rode away and never looked back.

With the help of Zelda Perkins, Jack swore he would never again be a helpless victim, not ever again. The thought of Zelda brought a soft smile to Jack's lips. Now that is a real woman! Then he thought of Melissa and frowned.

As soon as Jack was away from the hospital grounds he shoved the joystick all the way forward and went as fast as he could up the hill to the trolley stop. The steep hill was a challenge the modified wheelchair met easily.

After he was let off at his stop, he smiled as he steered his way toward home. Then he thought of James Lytle and all humor left his face.

The senator wanted his, Jack's, silence about what had actually happened in Afghanistan. On the other hand, James Lytle wanted more, much more. Jack, an apparently helpless cripple had attacked him and laid hands on him. Jack, still an apparently helpless man had just threatened him and caused him to feel fear. Jack knew Lytle would retaliate. He was driven to strike out at Jack.

The usually pleasant ride home became a grim trip. "I got to up the ante," Jack told himself. "These suckers see a threat where there is none. All I want is to be left alone. Now that Melissa may be coming back into my life, I'll kill anyone who gets in the way."

A strange car was parked on the street in front of his house. As he turned off of the sidewalk and started up the ramp the front door opened and Zelda called down, "Jack, you never told me you have a daughter. What other secrets are you keeping from me?"

With great apprehension, he wheeled himself up the ramp and into the living room. A nervous looking Melissa rose from the couch and gave him a weak smile. "Hi," she said uncertainly, as if not too sure what her welcome would be.

"I'll have Zelda get those support records for you," he told her with formal neutrality.

"Don't bother. It isn't necessary. It seems I have been lied to most of my life and never knew it." She gave her father a sad look. "Mom must really hate you. Why? The person Zelda describes when she talks about you is all so different from what Mom and Ricky had to say about you. I don't understand."

"Ricky Madera is still with her? After I caught Ricky sneaking around our place when I wasn't supposed to be home, I beat the hell out of him. I put him in the hospital, just one day before I shipped out again.

"While I was in Saudi your mother divorced me and took you out of state, or so the child welfare people said. I signed an allotment for your support and started an account for your education. That money is still in the bank waiting for you to claim it." He stared at his daughter, suddenly speechless.

"I ... I don't know what to say. I believe you. There were certain inconsistencies in what Ricky and Mom said, where the money came from for booze and all the rest. I just now remembered how on the first of every month Ricky used to say something about getting the next installment on what was due him. He'd rub the side of his cheek like it hurt."

Jack snorted, "So she did go back to the nasty little punk. I guess I didn't hurt him bad enough. There's always a next time." He lapsed into silence.

"You don't want to mess with Ricky," Melissa told him. "He works for the Senator and Jimmy."

Jack gave her a mirthless smile, "Well, inasmuch as I just threatened friend Jimmy right after you left to come here and the personal history I share with Creel, I'd say the die is already cast."

"But you can't hold it against Senator Creel what happened in Afghanistan. It's not his fault you got..." She paused, searching for words. Finally she blurted, "It's not his fault you got scared and ran away. Everybody gets scared sometime."

"Say what?" Jack strained hard and lifted himself out of the wheelchair and stood, supported by his own shaky leg muscles that were enhanced by rage.

"Jack!" Zelda exclaimed, scared for him. "Oh my god, Jack. Sit back down there before you hurt yourself." She hurried over to urge him back into the chair.

"To hell with that!" He took one shaky step and then another. Slowly he staggered toward his bedroom. He made it as far as the large chest of drawers before his overworked muscles betrayed him and he fell in a heap. "Upper right hand drawer," he husked in a raspy voice. "DVD disc in a plain envelope. Pop it into the computer. Scared my dusty ass." Zelda squatted down and helped Jack to stand. He leaned on her all the way back to his wheelchair.

Melissa found the envelope and removed the disc. She placed it in the slot and waited. "Watch this. The senator's own photographer took this. He mailed me a copy of the original. The original must be hidden away somewhere." Jack stared at the monitor, "Just watch."

A heavier, stronger and healthier First Sergeant Jack Daniels looked at the major he argued with. "Sir, it is not safe to go into that town. I have a bad feeling about this. I think it's a setup."

"Sergeant, this is a direct order." The major stood straight in a vain attempt to look like a man of authority and continued, "You and your squad will march into that town where the grateful citizens will greet us. The good senator will be photographed as those grateful citizens greet him.

"Now either move out now or be prepared to spend the rest of your life in a stockade. Leavenworth is full of cowards like you." The angle of the camera caught the beginnings of mutiny in Whiskey Jack's face.

The major unsnapped his service Colt. "Move out or I'll blow you away myself." Jack turned back to his men and sighed. They formed up around the open jeep. The major sat at attention while Senator Creel stood up and leaned forward. He rested his weight on the back of the driver's seat.

They moved forward a hundred feet into the small village when all hell broke loose. Automatic gunfire broke out from four different spots ahead and to the sides. Sergeant Jack Daniels was the first to fall, followed by his men.

One shot between the eyes finished off the major. The senator stood staring straight ahead, a thin lipped smirk on his face. Suddenly there was a puff of jerking cloth as a bullet struck him in the shoulder. There was a look of surprise on his face. Then the smirk returned.

The screen went gray, then black. Nobody spoke. The look of confusion on Melissa's face was complete.

"Jack, you do realize what you have there, don't you? That disc could determine the presidency in the next election." The look of concern on Zelda's face was for more than who would be the next president.

"Jack, I told you when I saw it most of the way through that if anyone knew you had that disc your life wouldn't be worth spit."

Melissa told them, "Senator Creel told me the photographer who recorded that is dead. He was stabbed in a mugging here in the good old US of A, just a week after he got back home.

"Dad? I saw a copy of that disc before. It was not anywhere near as long as what you have. It was all different. It showed that officer accusing you of cowardice. However it did not show he drew his gun. It didn't show that mean look on Senator Creel's face. Everything was all different!" she wailed.

"Melissa, what the senator showed you was an edited version. What your father has is the real thing. I only saw this one played once before." Zelda patted the younger woman on the shoulder in sympathy. "They have been using you to get at your father. If he came forward and told his version of what happened the day he got wounded, it would cost the senator a few million votes. If Jack showed that CD it would cost Creel and his party this election and all the rest from here to eternity."

All at once Jack realized the consequences of his actions. He said, "Oh Princess, I'm sorry I got carried away and showed you that damned thing. You're in danger now. I'm sorry, honey."

"You used to call me Princess when I was real little, before Mom moved us and she said you didn't want us any more. I remember that." Tears spilling from her eyes, she looked at her father, "I am so sorry I believed them, Mom, Ricky and the rest of them." He reached out for her hand and kissed it.