So, I’d stood at the end of the checkout counter on a quiet Sunday afternoon and painstakingly filled out the application, even if there’d been little to fill out since I’d had practically no work experience except for a few months of working as a janitor when I’d been seventeen years old. Ironically, I’d lied on that application because they’d wanted a high school graduate. Luckily, they hadn’t checked to confirm that I’d finished school. And once I’d been arrested for drug possession, the lie hadn’t seemed particularly important in the grand scheme of things.
Once I’d completed the application, I’d handed it to the cashier - an older, graying woman in a pink smock - with absolutely no expectation of receiving a call. But as I’d started to leave, the woman had held a pair of thick glasses up to her eyes so she could read the application and had begun asking me questions.
Blunt ones.
You still doing drugs?
You ever bagged groceries before?
You good at following directions?
You willing to pee in a cup right now?
I’d answered no to the first two questions and yes to the last two. Two minutes later, I’d been following the woman to the employee bathroom where she’d handed me the cup from a small, at-home drug testing kit she’d snagged from the shelf near the pharmacy section of the store. As we’d waited the required ten minutes for the test to process, she’d launched into a speech about how she believed in giving people second chances since she’d been given her own when she was a teenager. There’d been no hesitation as she’d toldme all about her struggles with alcohol when she’d been around my age and that it had nearly destroyed her life. Until a certain someone had forced her to sober up.
That someone had turned out to be Bill Carlisle and he’d been her boss at the time…in the very same store. I’d been shocked to discover I’d been talking to Betty Carlisle, the owner of the store, the entire time. After a stint in rehab that Bill had paid for, she’d spent the next forty years as his wife before he’d died of a heart attack. Together, they’d built a chain of Carlisle’s Markets throughout the Pacific Northwest. The stores serviced smaller communities that didn’t always have access to the bigger, well-known chain grocery stores. And while Betty wouldn’t make the Fortune 500 list anytime soon, the estate her husband had left behind was worth more than I would ever make in ten lifetimes.
After my drug test had come back negative, Betty had put me to work that very same day. In the beginning, I’d worked part-time under the watchful eye of the main nightshift worker, but he’d quit the previous month to go to graduate school in another state, so Betty had offered me full-time work plus overtime for any extra hours she needed me for rather than replacing the guy. The extra money was a godsend and starting next month, I’d be eligible for the health plan.
But if T had his way, I’d lose it all.
And worse, I’d betray Betty, the only other person besides Father O who’d given me a second chance.
T’s request the night before had been for me to help him steal prescription drugs from the pharmacy section of the store, which he would then turn around and sell on the street at a huge profit. He’d gone on to explain that he had someone who could give me bottles with fake pills to replace the ones I stole, making it an operation we could milk for a while before being discovered. I hadn’t even let him finish the thought before I’d told him no for the second time.
I had no clue how I was going to get out of this whole thing since I knew T wasn’t going to just let me say no. I could try going to the cops, but they weren’t exactly my biggest fans. Not to mention I was worried they’d somehow link me back to my crimes sevenyears ago. And I didn’t want to tell Betty because I didn’t want her to look at me with suspicion…like she was wondering if I was maybe going to do it at some point. The only option was to let T kick my ass until he realized I wasn’t changing my mind…and hope that he wouldn’t kill me in retaliation.
Thankfully, the short walk to the bus was uneventful and I’d timed it perfectly so I didn’t have to wait very long. The ride home was quick since it was still early and there wasn’t any rush hour traffic to battle. I kept my eyes peeled for T as I walked from the bus stop to my apartment building, but my luck held out and I made it into the relative safety of the six-story building. But I couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet since I had one more obstacle to get through before I could crash in my bed for a few hours of much-needed sleep.
As expected, my father was sitting at the kitchen table when I entered our small, two-bedroom apartment. It was the same apartment I’d lived in most of my life and while I’d often wondered why my father hadn’t moved throughout the years, considering how run-down the place had become, I did have my suspicions about what was keeping him there, though I never voiced them.
There were just some things that people were never prepared to accept.
That my mother was never going to return was one of them.
From all the pictures my mother had shown me when I was a little kid, my parents had seemed blissfully happy early on in their marriage. Even at my young age, I’d recognized their devotion to one another in photographs. But there were fewer and fewer pictures to document my parents’ life together after Ricky’s arrival. Sure, there were dozens upon dozens of him as a baby, but there’d been very few of my parents. And there were even fewer of me when I’d been born.
Maybe the excitement had just been gone at that point or maybe Ricky’s strain on my parents’ marriage had started to slowly drive them apart. It didn’t really matter because it had taken just one discovery to cause the whole marriage to implode. I’d been there that day when the building’s maintenance man had shown upat our door and asked our father to go down to the boiler room with him. My mother had been at work and a then fourteen-year-old Ricky had been off with friends. My father hadn’t seen me follow him and the guy downstairs after my curiosity had gotten the best of me and I’d disobeyed the order to stay in the apartment.
I hadn’t realized what I’d been seeing at first. My nine-year-old brain hadn’t been able to process that depth of depravity. There’d been bodies hanging everywhere…no, not the two-legged kind, but the 4-legged and winged variety. At least a dozen small animals and birds had been strung up from nails pounded into a rafter in one corner of the room. Not one of the victims had had a head. I’d stood there in a state of mute shock until I’d recognized our neighbor Mrs. Hurley’s cat among the bodies, the animal’s once snow white fur stained red with blood.
At that point, I’d thrown up then and there, not caring that my father would discover I’d disobeyed his order. I’d then promptly passed out.
I’d learned later when I’d heard my father telling my mother about the horrific scene that the maintenance man had found a notebook with my brother’s name in it in the boiler room. There’d been entry after entry in the journal describing each animal’s death. My father had smoothed things over with the maintenance man and poor Mrs. Hurley, and I hadn’t doubted a significant amount of money had exchanged hands, because my mother had railed at my father for keeping Ricky out of legal trouble by paying off the people involved. When Ricky had come home, he hadn’t been overly concerned about the discovery. He’d simply told my parents he’d wanted to see what kinds of sounds the animals made as they were dying and then asked what was for dinner.
My mother had begged my father to get Ricky some help, but my father had been adamant that it was something he could handle. That night, he’d threatened Ricky with everything he’d had, including putting him into a psychiatric hospital, but he never laid a hand on Ricky. Likely because he was too afraid of what Ricky would do to him if he did.
Not laying hands on Ricky might have kept my parents safe thatnight, but it hadn’t done me any favors. Because Ricky had not been happy about his torture chamber being taken away from him.
I’d begged my parents to let me sleep with them that night since I’d been terrified of Ricky after realizing what he was really capable of, but they’d assured me that everything was settled.
It hadn’t been.
I shook off the memory that was threatening to overtake me as I watched my bleary-eyed father drink his coffee. A small bottle of scotch was sitting next to his mug. I kept my mouth shut as I dug into my pocket for the money I’d withdrawn from my account. Betty electronically deposited my paycheck into my account every two weeks so it was easy enough just to use the ATM at work to grab some cash when I was leaving.
I didn’t speak to my father as I placed the money on the table.
“You’re late,” he muttered.
