“Joke’s on you,” I mumbled to myself. “Most people die alone.”
After she left, I returned to the car I had been working on as Tucker napped in his dog bed in the far-right corner of the shop. If my black lab was good at anything, it was napping in his dog bed.
He was an old man, fifteen years old, but out of the two of us, it was clear that I was the grump. Tucker just went with the flow in the same way he always had. When I was down in the darkness, he was always the happy spark of light.
My faithful companion.
As I worked on the car, my father walked into the shop, and by walked, I meant he could hardly remain standing. I hadn’t seen him since the day before when I dropped off groceries. His house had been a mess, but that didn’t shock me. His place was always a mess because he didn’t care enough to clean it up.
He looked identical to me in almost every way, except for his constantly bloodshot eyes and skinny body. He scratched his salt-and-pepper beard and grunted. “Where are my keys?”
I had taken his car keys away from him four nights earlier—crazy how he was just noticing they were missing.
“You can walk anywhere in town, Dad. You don’t need your car.”
“Don’t tell me what I need,” he mumbled, stretching his arms out. He wore a dirty T-shirt and a pair of torn and ratty sweatpants. It was his normal wardrobe even though I bought him new things every now and then.
“What do you need? I can get it for you,” I told him, knowing he had no business getting behind a steering wheel. Even though his license had been revoked long ago, he still tried to drive around.
Ever since he pissed on the damn float at the Founder’s Day parade, the townsfolk were just looking for a reason to get him locked up again, and I didn’t want to deal with that.
“Gotta get some food.”
“I just restocked your fridge. You should be good.”
“I don’t want that shit. I want a pizza.”
I glanced at my watch and cleared my throat. “I was gonna go grab a pizza, too. I’ll get you one.”
He grumbled some more before turning to walk back to his house. “And some beer.”
I always casually forg0t the beer.
“Tuck, you wanna go for a walk?” I asked my dog. He lifted his head to look at me, wagged his tail, but then plopped right back down and went back to sleep.
That was a clear no.
Going downtown was always a bit stressful. My father and I didn’t belong in a place like Chester, but still, there we were. Over the years, my dad had done a good job of getting everyone to despise us. He was the town drunk, the filth, and the OM—original monster. I was twenty-four years old, and I harbored more hate inside me than the average man. Everything I’d learned about hating people, I had learned from my father.
Nobody took the time to get to know me because they knew my father’s reputation well enough. Therefore, I never introduced myself to them and their judgments.
Plus, I was a monster all on my own, and it didn’t take anyone long to realize it.
I took right after my pops.
As I approached the pizza shop, I heard the whisperings of the people around me. I always noticed how they moved away whenever I approached. They called me a junkie because I used to use drugs. They called me a drunk because my father was one. They called me white trash because it was the only clever title they could come up with.
None of that bothered me because I didn’t give a damn what they thought.
Small-town people with small-town minds.
When I was younger, I’d get into a lot of fights with people who would talk shit about my father and me, but eventually, I learned they weren’t worth my time or my fists.
Every time I got into a fight, they savored it. Every time my fist met a jerk’s face, they used it as justification for their fabricated lies. “See? He’s wild. He ain’t nothing but a lowlife.”
I didn’t want them to have that power over me; therefore, I became silent, which seemed to scare them even more.
When they whispered, I kept quiet.
When they spat at me, I walked on, though if I was feeling wild, sometimes I’d growl at them. It scared them shitless. I was certain some of them actually thought I was a werewolf or something.
Idiots.
“He’s just like his father—a no-good piece of trash,” someone muttered.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if Mad Mike died in his own vomit,” a fellow customer remarked, his voice low but not low enough for me to miss his comment.
I paused my footsteps and took a deep breath.
Those words hit me the hardest because I wouldn’t have been shocked either.
I listened to them talk about my father dying, and flashes of my past shot through my mind. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wanted to use. I needed something to fix my current fucked-up mind. Just a little, nothing too major…just one small hit…
My heart pounded against my chest, beating me up inside, crying for numbness, crying for me to bring it back to a level of comfort it missed.
I looked down at my wrist and saw one of those stupid ass plastic bracelets that read Powerful moments. Dr. Thompson had given it to me a few years back when I entered rehab. I could almost see his aged head of hair and kind eyes staring into mine, reminding me that I was stronger than my worst moments.
“Those times you feel lost and afraid and weak—those are your moments for a breakthrough. Hidden beneath those dark moments is your power. Take those weak moments and make them powerful. Make them matter, Jackson. Make them count.”
Dr. Thompson had me snap the bracelet against my wrist whenever I felt weak had or got the urge to use.
My wrist was currently red as hell.
Even so, I kept snapping it. It was a reminder that my next move would be real, just like the pain. The next choice I made would control my other choices down the line.
My choice couldn’t be drugs.
I didn’t use those to curb my emotions anymore.
I didn’t use those to make me feel empty inside.
I’d been clean for years, and I didn’t want that to change. Especially due to the people of Chester.
Doing my best to ignore the ignorant people around me, I glanced outside then paused when I saw a car flying through the one and only stoplight in town. By stoplight, I meant the flashing yellow light. The car moved recklessly, and a knot formed in my gut as I realized it had no plans of slowing down.
I groaned. “You’re going to crash,” I muttered to myself before releasing a heavy sigh and breaking out into a run toward the unstable vehicle. “You’re gonna fucking crash!”
4
Grace
I’m going to freaking crash!
“No, no, no!” I muttered to myself as I tried to control my uncontrollable car. Seconds before I’d pulled into Chester, my car had begun to hiccup, but I’d figured it would make it safely to my sister’s house before it gave out on me completely. That wasn’t the case.
I tried to hit the brakes, but the pedal went to the floor of the car and nothing happened.
“No, no, no,” I begged, feeling the vehicle start to shake.
I flew through the flashing yellow light at the intersection of Grate Street and Michigan, and I shouted as people scurried out of the way so I wouldn’t hit them. I hit the curb a few times, trying to maneuver the car a bit, but nothing was working. Taking a deep breath, I said a small prayer, but it seemed my link to God was a bit delayed at the moment.
Panic filled my heartbeats as I headed straight toward the auto shop at the end of downtown.
How ironic would that be? Crashing into an auto shop.
I reached for my phone that sat on the charger, only to realize the car hadn’t been charging at all and was completely dead. Just my luck.
“Take your foot off the brake. It’s already flooded,” a deep voice said, making me turn around to look out the driver’s window.
“It won’t stop!” I said, my voice shaky.
He was running right beside me, keeping up with the wild runaway vehicle. “No shit, Sherlock. Unlock your door and slide over to the passenger seat,” he ordered.
“But I can’t take my foot off the brake, I—”