by Prince, DD
Married? Sheesh. I knew how Pop’s brain worked and to him, it was necessary and I’d need to do it to get what I wanted. Full control. I wanted control, control in all areas of my life. Pop was slipping just left of his prime; it was time. Pop was missing the boat on some great opportunities that could make us a lot of money and get us out of the small time game in a few areas. I could take the company to greater heights, areas that made more money and lowered our risk. If I had to get married to get him to give me the keys to the kingdom and for me to not have to run business decisions by him, maybe that’s what I’d have to do.
He and I butted heads a lot; I guess what everyone says is true; we’re a lot alike. And if I was head of the business I’d want to think about an heir to take over for me some day, rather than promoting one of my nephews.
My buddy and business associate John was married and had kids and he also had power. He and I got hammered one night at the sex club I belonged to and a conversation came up about my lack of desire to hook up with one girl night after night. He’d talked about how fucking amazing it was to have a submissive, a woman who would bow down and do anything he wanted to please him. I had that whenever I wanted. It wasn’t the same girl each time but there was no shortage of women in the club who’d pant in heat when I approached them. Johnny said I didn’t get it, didn’t understand what I was missing, how amazing it was to have her submission, her trust, her commitment. He played at the club. His wife was cool with it. His wife liked threesomes, even. And his wife didn’t tell him what to do; she yielded to him in everything. He told me there were relationship parameters and he knew what her limits were and said he had loads of room to play.
I’d laughed and slapped him on the shoulder and said, “See Johnny, that’s where you and I are different. The only way in the world that’d go down for me is if there were no limits, no safe words.”
Control. Full control. I looked at the picture sitting in front of me again and the way she looked… I thought about control. I thought about controlling the business, being in full control of my own destiny, and I couldn’t help but think about controlling her.
Pop was watching me mull things over. Fuck. I looked at him, conceding, “I’ll meet her. We’ll see.”
My father got that look on his face that he gets when everything is falling into place. That look was one of the very few things that could chill me to the bone.
Tia
Graduation day. How exciting! Two other girls from Rose and Cal’s were also graduating so today was a big day at the house. We were all “all dolled” up. My hair was up in a sleek updo that everyone said makes me look a little bit Katy Perry pin-upish. Bright red lips, smoky eyes. Rose told me I looked 25 instead of 19. I feel like I’m older, anyway. Always have. It was probably because of losing my Mom so young.
It was probably, in part, due to being almost on my own for the better part of a year at almost 9. After Mom died, Dad would leave me alone for hours at a time, sometimes overnight, while he nipped out to run “errands”. I learned how to make simple meals at that age, to cook and clean up after myself. At 9 I even paid the electric bill once when I noticed that there was a disconnection notice taped to our door. It was a rare occasion that my Dad’s wallet had been full of cash so while he slept off a bender I took the bill and took the money and walked the 3 blocks to the bank and paid it.
Social services hadn’t looked too kindly on it, though, when I told them about it in my interview when they’d come over to check on me after my aunt had called. I’d been proud of myself when I told them I could get myself off to school, make my own breakfast and pack my own lunch, and that I’d even paid bills at the bank with money from Daddy’s card games.
Yeah, that had gone over so well that they hauled me into care. They’d come with Aunt Carol and found me at home alone with almost no food in the fridge other than some dried out old Chinese take-out but case of 24 beer in the fridge and nothing but some saltines and beer nuts in the cupboard. The green mat had still been on the dining room table from a poker game Dad had hosted two nights before and it was filled with crushed beer cans and overflowing ashtrays. He’d always told me to stay in my locked room during those games.
Dad turned up drunk in the middle of the meeting and blubbered like a baby in front of the social worker. He was ruined after Mom died. I felt like I had to take care of him back then. Lord knew he couldn’t take care of me. I guessed that was what made me an old soul, the fact that I had to be.
Anyway, here I was all ready to graduate high school, wishing my parents were there to see me get handed my diploma, graduating on the honor roll. I didn’t know if Dad would make it. I doubted he would. I knew that Rose, Cal, and Susie, my social worker would all be there for me and that was okay.
After the ceremony we had a family celebration planned at Rose & Cal’s and tonight there was a big dance and after party planned, too. My ex-boyfriend Nick had been sniffing around me all week and I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him tonight.
I’d dumped him a month ago because I found out he was selling pot on the side from his gas station job. Some people would buy gas and when they came in to pay, He’d slip them dope. I wanted no part of that. Yeah, sure, I smoked up once in a while but I had no desire to build my future with a guy who would put his future in jeopardy. He was a loser. I didn’t like to think of my Dad as a loser but in reality, that’s what he was. I wasn’t about to get tied down with a loser of a boyfriend, too.
Nick was trying to win me back. I wanted no part of it. Nick was 22, he was gorgeous, long hair and leather jacket, tattoos, and he was a bad boy. I was attracted to the look and the swagger of bad boys, for some reason, but when it all came down to it they’d get dumped as soon as they showed me their true bad boy colors. It sounded dumb, of course, because while I was attracted to them, I didn’t want to waste my time on someone going nowhere but downhill.
I thought about the guy that had come into the ice cream parlor I worked at the other day. He’d come in while I was working my last day and he was well-dressed, as sexy as a movie star, and carried himself with confidence. He was so tall and strong and 100% grown-up male. He was very different from Nick. Older. Somewhere near 30, I figured, and he gave me tummy flutters like I’d never had before. What would it be to date a guy like that? A guy that oozed sex appeal and power? He seemed so together. A man.
As me and my foster sisters got ready for our big day they were giggly but I was deep in thought about the guy, the ice cream parlor hottie. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him the past 2 days and the past 2 nights. But that had been my last day at that job so the chances of seeing him again were small. He’d flirted with me but I’d been like a deer in the headlights. I wished I was older, more confident, and that I’d given him my phone number. I was so over Nick, so over guys that were like Nick.
I had a sneaking suspicion Nick was trying to get my attention because he knew that tomorrow I’d be moving into my own apartment. He wanted alone time with me. He and I had done the alone thing plenty of times and I didn’t need to go down that road again.
Nick texted that he wanted to attend the graduation ceremony but I had only a limited number of tickets to give out for family members and friends and since I had no one but Dad I’d given my extra tickets to the other girls who had other guests. I’d only sent one to my father at his last known address along with the Facebook inbox message and a note to pick his ticket up at the school office if he did get a chance to come.
I was ready for new things. A new place, college in the fall, and new opportunities. Maybe a new guy, too. One who was ready to be a man, not a boy living in 1 bedroom apartment shared with 2 other guys who rotated using the bedroom when they had girls over with the never-innovative sock on the doorknob as the clue that the room was “in use.” Gross. I told Nick I wasn’t using that room for sex. We’d done it in there once and never again. We’d done it a few times in his car but it was certainly not very fulfilling! The car and t
he bedroom both hadn’t been cleaned in months. He undoubtedly saw my upcoming apartment as an ‘in’. No thanks! He’d already texted me three times today, trying to get me to agree to ‘talk’ later on tonight.
As I walked up on the podium to receive my diploma I had the surprise of my life. My Dad, in the audience. Sitting there smiling at me. He sat beside Rose, who was chatting softly to him while snapping pictures of me. Nick was sitting behind my Dad, dressed up and smiling at me. I avoided his gaze, tried not to think about how handsome he looked. Looks weren’t everything! Why was he even here? I bet Ruby gave him a ticket; she’d been trying to get us back together.
After the ceremony was over we were all in the school’s courtyard for photos. Dad rushed to me. He looked good. I’d only ever seen him in a suit once, at my Mom’s funeral. This was the same suit. He had his dirty blonde hair gelled back and he smelled like expensive cologne. He looked together-looking. Seeing him like this reminded me of how he was before Mom died. His green eyes sparkled. Everyone said I had his eyes. He’d never been perfect but we did things together. He taught me to cook, I’d hang out with him while he tinkered with his car, he’d hold me high in the air with an airplane ride to bed every night that he was home at bedtime, read me bedtime stories with such effort and emotion, doing different voices for every character. He wasn’t the perfect father or husband before she died but after she died, he was like a shell of a man who tried to drink and gamble away his pain.
He swung me around in a giant hug, making me squeal. “Athena, sweet pea! I’m so proud. You look all grown up. Look at you. Someone take our picture!” He called out to the rest of our group and Rose hurried over with her camera. Susie, my social worker, eyed my dad warily.
I knew she’d lost patience with him over the years. Getting me to agree to be a crown ward made her life so much easier because she didn’t have to continually try to reach him to find out what was what with him, to get him involved in decisions that needed to be made, and so forth. When it’d finally happened and he lost his parental rights it had been 11 months since he’d made contact. He always managed to miss birthdays.
It hurt that he could go that length of time without checking on me, leaving others to raise me. It hurt but I wasn’t the sort to start laying blame aloud. I always just thought of him as broken.
He’d found her dead in the bathtub with slit wrists one day. It was a day when I was supposed to have been picked up from school late after a field trip that required parents to pick up the kids because it got us back after 7:00 at night. That night was a long one and I’d sat in the principal’s office for hours and hours while they tried to find someone to pick me up. The principal had been huffy and snippy, too, clearly with plans for the evening that had to be cancelled due to this poor little neglected girl who hadn’t been picked up from school.
Finally my Aunt Carol had come along and brought me to her home. She hadn’t told me about my Mom. She let me overhear her on the phone telling someone else that she was stuck watching me for the evening because my father was a wreck, mourning his dead wife who’d killed herself. What a way for me to find out. She was a witch, my Dad’s sister.
She hadn’t bothered with me for all these years, just wrote me off. Mom hadn’t had any family step up either. I heard she had an older brother but it seemed she was a bit of a black sheep with her family or something, too. I really had no idea. No one sought me out after she died.
I may not have had siblings by blood but there were many foster kids I’d shared homes and rooms with that I thought of as family and would’ve gladly been a great auntie to their kids if I was needed.
So, here Dad was, all smiles for the camera, looking well-fed, well-groomed, and yet there was a weird aura about him, something in his eyes, a nervousness in his laugh. He seemed off, like there was something shifty going on. He kept checking his phone and looking around suspiciously. When everyone had gotten their fill of camera flashes in their eyes, Rose tried to corral everyone so we could go back to her house where a big buffet and gifts were waiting.
“Please join us, Gregory,” she said to my Dad.
“I’d love to!” he beamed, “Tia, ride with me. We can catch up on the way back.”
I nodded, feeling like something was way off. Did he have something to tell me? I was happy to see him; it’d been ages since I’d seen him, but something was off, I could just feel it.
He had a decent enough car, surprisingly. We drove through a coffee shop drive-thru for Dad to get a coffee and me to get an iced cappuccino on our way and then we parked so Dad could get out and have a cigarette first, knowing I wouldn’t want him smoking in the car with me.
“Thanks so much for coming, Dad.”
“Like I’d miss it!” He gave me an ‘Are you kidding’ look. As if he hadn’t missed other milestones, like my first communion, my confirmation, school plays, every single birthday since my 10th, and so forth.
“What’s new, then? You working?” I asked.
He nodded, “Yeah, I’ve been working at an auto parts place over on Dufferin for about 7 months. I do parts counter, a few minor repairs. Got a nice apartment. Got myself a nice girlfriend, too. You’ll like her. Sadie. She’s a schoolteacher. Teaches kindergarten. This is her car.”
“Really? That’s awesome!” It’d been the longest he’d held down a job for ages and this was the first relationship he’d ever told me about. He knew what was going on with me already; I’d filled him in with my Facebook message where I’d invited him to come to the grad ceremony.
“Something off, though, Dad? You seem stressed.”
He nodded quickly and lifted the lid off his coffee and took a sip, “Yeah, we need to talk.”
I frowned, “Okay?”
He sat down on a picnic table outside the coffee shop and picked at an imaginary thread on his suit pants, “I’m in some trouble. Chickens coming home to roost, sorta thing.”
My heart lurched, “What kind of trouble?”
He let out a heavy sigh, “I have old debts from when I was gambling. I haven’t gambled in a long time, Tia. I go to a support group. The debt was sold to someone high up in organized crime, someone who hates my guts and has a vendetta from years back. He’s decided to make life --- difficult.”
I nodded, urging him to continue, feeling dread spread through my gut.
“I need to figure this out, find a way to get them paid. They’ve already given me an extension but they want a marker. I just need a few days to sort this out; I was hoping you could help me.”
“How? How could I help you?” I didn’t have any money. Well, $248 in my savings account from my job at the ice cream parlor but that was it.
“You need to be my marker.” He said, resigned.
I was gob smacked, “Your what?”
“Yeah. I know it’s not ideal but I have a plan to clear it up and then there won’t be anything else. This is the last loose end from my old life, Tia. I’m really sorry to drag you into this but I have no choice.”
“Dad…” I began.
I noticed a black SUV pull in beside us. The passenger window rolled down and a shady-looking guy in dark sunglasses was eyeing us.
“Tia, it’s just for a few days. I have a plan, I…” He glanced over his shoulder and then his shoulders slumped.
“Dad, you can’t expect me to…who are these people? What on earth have you gotten yourself into?”
Dad’s face took on a look of desperation, “Sweet pea, I’m sorry. I’ve been such a fuck up.”
He hadn’t called me that since I was little, since before Mom died. This was one messed up situation.
“You need to go with these guys. Trust me. I’ll make this better. It’ll be better.”
“It’s my high school fucking graduation!” I shrieked, looking over to the SUV. Was this them?
Dad blanched. I’ve never before sworn at him, never raised my voice at him. I’ve always treated him like he’s fragile. The front passenger and rear passen
ger doors of the black SUV opened and two big burly guys in suits looked out.
“Problem, O’Connor?” the burly guy from the back seat asked in a gravelly voice.
“Naw, no. Not at all. Not at all. We just need one minute.” Dad was like a stuttering fool,”Tia, please.” His eyes plead with me.
“Dad…” I folded my arms. I could not believe he came to my grad to set me up to be his marker. That it was the only reason he came!
Burly guy from the front seat lifted his shades off, “We need to go, O’Connor.”
I took a step back as the two of them got out, leaving their doors opened, revealing a big scary looking black dude in the back and a younger blond pissed off-kind looking but hot guy in a suit in the driver’s seat.
Dad leaned forward and took my hands in his and his face had a look of desperation that made my scalp prickle, “They’ll kill me,” he whispered.
What the ---? What would make him use me as a marker? Did he think they wouldn’t kill me? Did he think they wouldn’t hurt me? How much money did he owe these guys and how would he even pay them off?
He’d let me down countless times. In the early days of foster care he’d promise that his life was almost together enough to gain custody back. He’d promise to take me places, buy me things --- I never needed or wanted things but he always tossed promises around and he never ever kept them. Why would I believe him now? Why would he put me at risk, make this even an option?
“Just hang tight. They’ll keep you comfortably in a luxury hotel suite or something like that. You’ll be fine. Look at it like a little getaway.”
I tilted my head at my dad, dumbfounded. This couldn’t be real. Back at Rose and Cal’s, they were waiting for me. There was a big beautiful cake congratulating me, Mia, and Bethany for all graduating. Ruby, her brother Connor, the other girls, and everyone’s friends and relatives were all there. There was a table filled with everyone’s favorite foods. There were graduation gifts. Tonight there was a dance and all my friends would be there. He was ruining this, a pivotal day that I’d worked so hard for. I was a nearly straight A student. I was on the motherfucking honor roll. I’d beaten the odds despite my screwed up childhood with a loser father and a mom lost to suicide. I didn’t deserve this. Something like a combination of pain and rage rose in me.