Chapter 74
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The adrenaline letdown hit Jack and Lee as they walked through the door. They lay in bed to wait. The memorial piece on Donald O’Hare filled local news. One of the interviews talked about Donald’s drive and ambition.
“What drove you?” Lee asked.
It was a question Jack would have never asked himself not all that long ago, until therapy before the divorce.
“I never had any heroes. A shrink once said that was why I was always dissatisfied, never content, driven. Mom and Pop were drunks and beat me bad. It took me years to see they did about the best they could with the training they had, simply passing on the beatings they took regular when they grew up.”
He lay stroking Lee, not having to wonder how big an asshole he was to have fucked Dvora.
Jack said, “My parents took me to the library once when I was in the third grade. It saved my life. I didn’t like to read. I’d rather be out fighting or stealing, so I wandered. I found this little room upstairs. I pulled down a book. It was on the Special Forces. Six hours later I was still reading. Mom and Pop looked all over thinking I had run away again. I’d discovered the heroes that had been missing in my life. I tried to be like them. I’d always hated bullies like Pop. The Special Forces motto was ‘De oppresso liber’: To liberate the oppressed.”
Jack moved his numbing arm from under Lee’s head, shook it out and put it back.
“I knew that I had to get super-fit and educated to join. I didn’t have to join to kick bullies’ asses, though. I started working out in the fourth grade. I tried to get Mom and Pop to buy more protein. As soon as I was old enough I got a job under the table at a local dairy part-time so I could get whey protein. I got big and strong and lost a lot of fights. I studied martial arts and fought even more. Pretty soon I was winning. I was thirteen when I first fought my father to a draw. He’d put me in the hospital ‘cause I’d tried too soon, when I was twelve. I was fourteen when I kicked his ass.”
“What about you?” he asked.
Lee played with the hair on his chest for a few seconds before she answered, “I was given anything I wanted, as long as I earned it. It could be a simple thing, new underwear, a toy, or a trip. I would have to hit some kind of goal. When I was young the goals were easy. My father and mother knew, part of Chinese culture, that many rich people ruin their children. Although my father was usually not…affectionate, I knew that he loved me.”
She rolled over on top of him and bit his ear.
“What did you do that for?” He asked after he’d pried her jaws apart.
“To make sure you were listening. My mother tried to interest me in the more traditional Chinese role, but I wanted to work with my father. He always traveled so much. I was in boarding school in Switzerland when he died. My parents did so many wonderful things for me.”
She was silent for so long Jack thought she had fallen asleep. She lay on her back under the filthy ceiling, and said. “I have so many stories to tell you. Once, when I was eight, I tired of a doll and left it in the park. The next time my father was in town I was awakened very early. He and my mother dressed in peasant clothes. They dressed me the same way. We went down to the docks and I watched my father ask for work loading and unloading small ships.”
She lifted his arm so she could lie in the crook of his arm again. She said, “I did not understand why I missed my piano lesson. We ate peasant food and sat on our heels the whole day. My mother sat next to me on a mat and put beads on strings making cheap jewelry. I was told to watch and be still and then help my mother. It was very hard to put the little beads on the string. Eventually the day ended. My father could barely walk because of fatigue. My mother had to go to the, what is your word…chiropractor… the next day.”
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Lee shifted to make herself more comfortable. “We sat down at the dinner table that night. My mother and father asked if I knew that I was lucky and that we were rich. I was confused. Then my father put the money on the table he had earned that day and my mother added a smaller amount. They asked me to count the money. I did. They had both worked twelve hours that day at jobs to earn a third of the money the doll cost that I had left in the park. This is only one of the lessons they taught me.”
Jack lay holding Lee, thinking about how happy he was… and how sad. He thought about how happy he was for her. He thought about how sad he was for himself and all the other little Jacks of the world who had learned to be too vigilant and hyper-observant. For all the little boys and girls who learned to defend themselves at too early an age. And, he was most sad for all those who didn’t learn.
You learned to be vigilant so if you fell asleep and the blows came you could defend yourself from the worst of it. You couldn’t defend yourself completely. That wouldn’t give them any satisfaction. If you were too efficient in your defense you might hurt them. Then their anger would make them hurt you and somehow it would be your fault. If it was real bad, you’d have to go to the emergency room and they’d ask questions.
That was your fault too. It was better to be hyper-observant and not fall asleep if the drinking made their mouths narrow and cold. They looked for a target, someone they could take their frustrations out on. You were small and they were cowards, so they would take it out on you, because they couldn’t take it out on anyone else.
He knew he had to tell some of it to Lee. Maybe he’d tell her all of it one day. If it pushed her away, so be it. The hour and a half passed quickly as they told each other things they sometimes hadn’t told themselves.
LEE AND JACK DROPPED their old selves into three separate dumpsters. He wanted to burn the stuff, but there was a chance the smoke alarm in the hotel room might work. The green, rip-stop nylon gym bag had been replaced with a leather satchel, more in keeping with his new persona. Lee’s white canvas shopping bag held most of the money.
The gangster was twenty minutes late. There was a new suck mark near the base of his neck on the left side and he’d missed the second to the top button of his tight, black, silk shirt. He languidly reached out a hand for the rest of the cash and, not bothering to count it, handed them the envelope. As they stood checking the papers he pointedly snubbed the leggy hooker as she walked past, hunched over, trying to hide the new mouse under her left eye.