CHOICES MADE: Fathers and Sons
CHRISTINE MCMAHON
EXCERPTS: BOOK 2
Choices Made: Fathers and Sons
CHAPTER 1
Depression.
That’s what the
doctor at the private hospital had said, acute depression caused by
severe trauma.
Jamy drew an image of
a tiny man sitting in an oversized chair behind a desk. The placard on
the desk said, ‘Nut Doctor’. Opposite the doctor, he sketched his dad,
Paul, and their mutual friend, Syl Anderson, both with furrowed brows.
The picture made him snort in derision, “Hrumph.” Jamy could still hear
the doctor’s pencil tapping on the edge of his psychological profile.
Taptaptap.
He needed treatment more than I did.
“Obsessive Tapping Behavior.” “Hrumph.”
“Did you say
something, Jamy?” His dad asked from where he sat in the driver’s seat
of the Coppertone Dodge Charger racing south.
He didn’t answer.
“Your dad asked if
you said something,” Syl growled.
Jamy watched as Syl’s
muscular left arm straddled the front seat. The fire-breathing dragon
tattoo rippled as though alive. A ruggedly handsome face turned toward
him. Though stern, Syl’s lips twisted up in a nearly hidden smile.
“No, I didn’t,” he
answered and gazed out the window that still showed streaks from the
recent car wash.
Trauma. What
the hell did that pumped up Sigmund Freud know about trauma? Tapping
that stupid pencil of his every time I said something. Making notes on
that yellow pad he kept hidden from me as if the written language was
only for Ph. D’s.
Me? Jamy
Chance Chaumbers MacGregor? Trauma? So that’s what they call it when
you’re eighteen years old and you’ve been shot up. When a bullet is
still jammed up against your shoulder blade and you can feel it burn
every time you move. When every time you take a breath your lungs
scream. When you can’t look in the mirror anymore because your face got
blown up. And, those are the good things. Things that had meaning.
Things that got me away from the street.
What about the
bad things? What do they call the rapes and beatings I took while being
pimped? Men using me up and tossing me away with the garbage. What about
the torture from the gang — and the drugs? Heroin racing through my body
and wanting it so bad I could cry but hating it, hating it when it eased
my pain and made me feel safe. What about watching kids die with knives
stuck in them and no one caring? What about no one giving a damn — ever?
Trauma. What
the hell do they know?
Well, there goes St. Louis. No more Arch.
No more Forest Park Museum. No libraries. No more skyscrapers. No more
JamyNick. His son’s name lilted through his mind like music as he
said it in his own way, ShamyNeek. No
more, Nick. His friend’s name echoed like another note of music,
Neek. No more Professor Isaac Sands or Mr.
Gene Bradley. My son, my brother, my friends, all left behind because I
have to go into Witness Protection.
Jamy sketched from
memory the last time he saw them all months earlier. He drew his little
son, JamyNick, squealing with joy as Isaac, with his salt and pepper
hair, played on the floor with a small truck. He colored the truck red
with a pastel stick. Red Truck, translated to French, was their secret
password, Camion Rouge. It had been hard to phone them with all the
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) agents around, but a few
days ago, he managed. All he could say was, ‘Camion Rouge, Witness
Protection’. In his heart, he knew they understood he was safe and
headed away from them. Overhead in a cartoon bubble he wrote words to
exemplify the sputtering noises of a worn out engine. He added small
marks to make JamyNick’s curls appear to bounce about his cherubic face.
Taking two colors of pastel, he colored the curls auburn. He gently
touched the sketched face he dreamt of every night, the son he loved
more than life.
Another sketch
brought Gene Bradley into the scene. Gene’s right hand fingered the
lapel of his vest. Jamy thought of Gene’s old habit, which was all the
man could do with his hands when not busy writing out sales slips at his
art supplies business.
The sketch continued
with Nick, his ‘adopted’ brother from the street, standing by the entry
door of Isaac’s house. The worried look he drew on Nick’s face portrayed
a boy who didn’t know what to do next. Stringy black hair filled in the
area about the face. A pursed mouth hid his usual crooked smile
illustrating his dread at living in hiding with the kindly old
gentlemen. Nick, who had saved Jamy more than once from dying on the
street now needed saving, saving from the life he had dragged them into
by becoming the favorite dealer for the most powerful drug lord in the
Midwest. That same drug lord would kill them all, including his toddler
son, without a thought.
He swiped at a rogue
drop of moisture edging from the corner of his eye. These last memories
made his heart ache. His little son, JamyNick, had to be left behind. It
had been over two months since he’d seen him and had missed his second
birthday, May 17, on top of it all. He had been left behind with Nick in
their hiding place with the Professor and Mr. Bradley when he went to
save Syl from that same drug lord who was intent on killing him. Another
problem existed. They weren’t only hiding from the drug lords but also
from the BNDD agents who sat in the front seat of the Charger heading
south.
How many times had
Syl asked where they were? A million? Two? He didn’t answer and wouldn’t
even though Syl promised not to tell his dad, Paul, or his biological
father, James, to whom they were heading. A father he had never seen,
always wanted, and who didn’t know anything about him.
No. It was all a
secret. Witness Protection. The BNDD would hide him with his Uncle Sam
MacGregor, the sheriff of Juxton Township, who didn’t know he existed
until a few days ago. No one knew he existed, he guessed. His dad told
him that no one in Juxton knew he was James MacGregor’s son, not even
the MacGregor family, and everyone in St. Louis thought he was dead. The
BNDD had seen to that. A fake funeral. Obituary. Headlines in all the
St. Louis papers. Syl had shown him. “Street Lord of Forty-second
Neighborhood Dies in Gun Battle.”
Well, Nick, Professor
Sands, Mr. Bradley and JamyNick knew he still lived, but no one else. It
was too risky. If the drug lords, Granges or Robles, knew he breathed
air…
JOIN JAMY ON HIS CONTINUED
JOURNEY IN:
CHOICES MADE: FATHERS AND SONS |