The Juke (Changes Book 2)

by Ted Persinger

  “You’re lucky to have them both.”

  “Yeah, I am. Oh, before I forget,” he said and reached into his shirt pocket to pull out a USB drive. “Ruth gave me this to give to you. It’s some of her wedding pictures. She wanted you to have them.” Frank opened his hand and accepted it. “She said she isn’t quite ready to talk yet, but she wanted you to see them.”

  “Thank you, Tony,” he said, and he felt genuine gratitude. “I appreciate that.”

  “It’s the least I can do, Frank.” He again tried to elicit a smile with one of his own, but it wasn’t returned. “Her daughter is the flower girl in these pictures. Joy is five now.”

  “Five?” How the years do fly by. “Hope I have a chance to see these pics.”

  “Yeah…” he agreed and then thought about what Frank said. “Why wouldn’t you have a chance to see them?”

  “Well, things are always interesting in my life, Tony. They really are.”

  “Sure. I mean, do you not have access to a computer? I can print some off if you want…”

  “No, it’s not that.” Tony saw the seriousness in his old friend’s eyes. “I just probably won’t have the chance. You never know, though.”

  The hair on the back of Tony’s neck rose. He felt chills roll through him. He knew in that moment. Beyond all doubt. His eyes began to dart, and he looked for a way out. Frank sat between him and the door.

  “Don’t try it, Tony. You won’t make it.” And Frank’s steely eyes told him everything he needed to know.

  “Don’t do it, Frank. It’s not worth it.” He felt his hands trembling, knees weakening.

  “Oh, it’s worth it, Tony. I’ve thought long and hard about this day.”

  He knew Frank was palming something, but he couldn’t see it. “Please, Frank…” he started, and his voice was trembling like his hands.

  “Please? You don’t know how long I’ve planned this, Tony. I’ve waited years for this moment.” His hand was in his lap now. “I lacked the courage in the Raley’s parking lot all those years ago. I should have done it then, but I wasn’t man enough. Wasn’t hard enough. Do you know what it was like for me in prison? Do you know the horrors I’ve seen?” Stitches in my anus.

  “You’ll go back inside, Frank.”

  “Probably not, but if I do that would be okay. Kinda looking forward to it. Once you adjust to life inside, you can never really quite adjust to life outside. I know that now. I can’t pretend anymore. The charade is over. I was surprised by my own delusion, thinking that I’d make it on the outside. I know better now.”

  Tony’s eyes were searching the room for a solution, but Frank continued talking.

  “Everything in my life changed that night at the bar. Just a few miles from here. I Street. I-Ball Bar and Grille. There’s a symmetry in that name, which I will enjoy immensely. You see, Tony,” and now his hand came up, and it was holding a six-inch ice pick. “I’m going to jam this pick into your eye. Right into your eyeball.”

  “Jesus, Frank!” And now his voice was loud. Heads turned.

  “The last thing you’ll see in this life is this metal blade jamming into your brain.”

  “Frank, fuck!”

  Now people were moving around him. Chairs were sliding. Plates rattling. Silverware falling. Someone called out, “Call 9-1-1!”

  Tony shifted to try to bolt for the door, but Frank was up, standing over him. He grabbed Tony by the collar of his shirt and pulled it up. A woman shrieked. Several people ran out the door, setting off the deedoo from the door sensor over and over. Frank aimed the blade’s point at Tony’s right eye.

  He spoke calmly, though his teeth were grinding. “You took everything from me, Tony. You stole my whole life. Do you wonder that this is going to happen to you? You don’t think you deserve this? How can you not?”

  Tony shrieked. “PLEASE, FRANK! PLEASE, NO!” He tried pulling away, tried to put his legs between them, but the narrow booth didn’t allow him to move much. He was too fat now. His hands were flashing, trying to block the impending stab.

  “I’m glad your parents are alive. I wish I could be there when they get the news.”

  And then Frank drove the blade in with all his force. It sunk in about four inches and stopped. Blood and clear fluid squirted all over them. Tony’s body jerked and spasmed, throwing him backward onto the bench, and then he rolled onto the floor. The ice pick was still lodged in his face as he lay there kicking and bleeding under the table.

  “See you in Hell, Tony,” he shouted, then spat blood from his mouth and lips. He looked to his arms and saw the grisly evidence. He shook off some, then wiped his hands on his jeans. From the tabletop he grabbed the USB drive. Just in case. He shoved it in his pocket.

  He looked around the restaurant and didn’t see a single face. He knew some would be hiding in the kitchen, but that didn’t concern him. He turned to the door and walked toward it. He grabbed the only jacket that was hanging on the rack. He pushed the door open, and was wiping his hands on the jacket as he walked out.

  He turned toward Fruitridge Boulevard and moved with pace. People were running, some into the market next door, some toward their cars. He looked down and saw that his shirt was drenched in blood, and he was leaving a dripping trail. He knew he must look gruesome. Guess I’m not going to get very far like this, he thought. He had forgotten how much people bled and how sticky blood is.

  As he moved past the Holiday Market, he saw the first of several police cars flying down Stockton Boulevard, headed his way. He looked the other direction and saw another speeding into the parking lot, lights flashing.

  There’s no turning back now, he thought. This is it.

  He rolled up the jacket around his right hand. As the car came flying toward him, he ran a few steps into the parking lot, in the path of the cruiser. The car screeched to a stop, and the driver’s door flew open. He looked into the eyes of the officer in black. He looked so young. Or maybe Frank was just old now. He knew their lives were interlocked forever.

  “Freeze!” the officer shouted. “Don’t move, man!” He could see the revolver shaking in his hands.

  Frank smiled at him. He knew he was about to ruin this officer’s life. He would be telling this story for decades.

  Fuck it.

  He raised his hand, still covered in the jacket and pointed it at the officer.

  The pop-pop-pop-pop was so fast and the first two shots whizzed by him. The third and fourth felt like punches from a heavy-handed boxer, and his legs folded under him. He was on his back, looking up at the clear spring Sacramento sky. Already blood was filling his lungs, and he could feel it moving up his throat and running down his sides from the two wounds. His vision narrowed, then his sight went black.

  His life left him, and he smiled as it did.

  THE END

  AFTERWORD: A NOTE TO FRIENDS

  A new point of learning. In my first two novels, I included my thoughts in Forewords and Introductions. When I would go online and view my books, I would see mostly those, as previews usually included only the first twenty pages or so. It occurred to me that doing so puts the reader, who is reviewing my book for purchase, in the position where they’re making a buying decision based on those introductions…more so than my writing. That is, when you go to the Look Inside on Amazon, you end up seeing mostly the Foreword and Introduction, and not the book that I’m trying to sell you.

  Therefore, I’m moving my comments and updates to the back from now on. That way, those who are interested (and I hope you are) can read about my musings and life updates, but it’s not part of your buying decision. As well, I hope to…aspire to…make these comments meaningful notes to my friends…and by friends I mean those of you who have graciously read this book. You don’t know how much I value those of you who have taken the time to read the words I’ve written.

  …And here’s why: the writing industry has changed so much, and it’s such a challenge to build an audience. Therefore, each one of you who
reads this gives me the drive to write more. Without readers, a writer has no purpose…if a tree falls in the woods and all that. So thank you for reading…you mean more to me than you could ever know. That’s why I’m giving this Afterword a title: A Note to Friends. And you are my friends, if you’re reading this. If you take the time to read my words, you are the best of friends to me.

  So a lot has happened, and I want to catch you up.

  After I bought back my book The One Way from my previous publisher, I edited it and re-released it. I’m much happier with the finished product, and Monark Design Services did a great job of punching up the cover, while Mayhem did some wonderful formatting. I also love having full control of my work. I have learned so much since then; it feels weird (for lack of a better word) to be putting the book back out. Yet I thought it was important for continuity of the series, and, well, I have a real soft spot for Danny. He is, after all, my first protagonist…and so wonderfully flawed!

  In the meantime, I started working on this novel. This one was a bit more challenging to write than my previous two. My first novel, I just started writing without an outline and only a vague idea of what I hoped to do. I knew I wanted Danny to go overseas, but I didn’t have any clear idea of how he would get there or why. As Danny was partially autobiographical and partially an amalgam of people I knew, that novel wrote itself. My second novel began as a writing exercise, and having set a specific mindset of I need to do the opposite of what comes naturally by itself gave me a target, and that kept my focus as I wrote. So, then, both novels were easy(ish) to write and were done reasonably quickly, all things considered.

  With this one, I knew very clearly how and why I wanted to write it. I had outlined this novel very carefully, which I now think was a mistake. Doing so took away the freedom to let my characters roam about, as they had in the other two novels. I ended up pitching the outline about halfway, and I know that I will never keep my characters so restricted again. You certainly need a structure, but a loose one you’re free to ditch if your characters guide you in another direction. Put another way, when I write my next novel I will eschew the outline, and instead just develop (what I think are) interesting characters and just let them do what they do. I realized this was what I had enjoyed about writing my previous novels, and that is how I will approach future writing. I’ll let you know how it goes after my next one.

  So while this book was a bit laborious at first, it became much more fun after I dumped the stodgy outline and just let Frank and Mariah do their thing. They, after all, are people, and people are unpredictable. The more unpredictable, the more they show their humanity. And everybody in this book was so flawed…that’s the aspect of humanity I enjoy exploring the most.

  Now, one friend asked me what my motivation was for this novel, what made me want to write The Juke? Well, it’s actually a rather convoluted story. It started with an argument with an old friend about, of all things, football. It became heated, and I felt rather dumb about the whole thing later. I also realized we were “fair weather friends” to each other…friends when things were easy, but not so much when things got rocky. So, then, it meant we weren’t really true friends at all. My true friends and I excuse each other’s madness from time to time. And aren’t we all a little mad?

  I started to think about the arrogance of mankind, and men specifically. I started to think about how we build a pretentious existence, and we use that façade, that mask, to project out to the world. No, I’m not the insecure teenager everybody knew back in the day…I’m a confident man who has his shit together, and nobody can take that away from me. But, and here’s the sad part, we are so very frail. We are so vulnerable. Any of us can lose all we have in the blink of an eye. And, in our deepest heart of hearts, we are still that nervous, insecure teenager, and that person makes us make mistakes throughout our lives.

  I also wanted to tackle the idea of friends and friendship. For the most part, I’ve had the same friends for thirty years. Yet along the way I’ve fallen out with a couple. How do friends end up not friends? Well, I know males have an internal competition going at all times, and that can flare up and test the bonds (and bounds) of friendship. I wanted to consider that, and consider how two friends could end up so far apart…just like my old friend and me.

  Frank himself began to take shape first as a reflection of Professional Ted. During my professional career, I had worn the suits and the expensive ties; I had the office with the plaques on the wall from professional societies and degree programs. Since I was terrible at sports growing up, my trophies came as certificates and degrees. At times, that meant a lot to me, and was part of my identity. What would happen if all that was stripped from me? How would I react? That was the exigency of this novel. And, of course, I had to have some football in there, in homage to the argument that started this whole project.

  Once again, the protagonist of my novel is really me, and I’m not sure I can ever escape that.

  I recently read an interview with John Lennon, circa 1975. In it, they asked him about the song “How Do You Sleep.” He openly wrote it about Paul McCartney at the time of the Beatles’ breakup…they were fighting at the time and saying nasty things to each other. Reflecting on it five years later, he said something to the effect that a song like that, while you think you’re writing about someone else, turns out to be about you, and when you’re poking a finger at someone, you’re really pointing at a reflection of yourself. I think that’s true about writing. When I began this novel, I thought it would be about my aforementioned ex-friend. Instead, it’s really about me. I guess any art (and yes I consider writing a form of art) really has to come from within. It has to be written from and as a reflection of the author. After all, we can only see out of our own eyes, so whatever we view we do so from that vantage point.

  And my professional life has required serious reflection all on its own this year, and this novel helped that. I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my career, and over the last year it occurred to me that I was working far too hard and feeling too stressed, and this was keeping me from doing the writing I wanted to do. Had to do. When you absolutely dread going to work every day, you have a problem, and you need to address it. Your mind and body will tell you things if you listen…and mine were screaming at me.

  I know…I know…nobody loves their job, do they? Work is, by design, difficult. Still, there’s a difference between a job that you don’t like and a job that you dread. That dread is like a cancer that will consume you from the inside. Mine was.

  Changes had to be made (and this is Book II of Changes, so the timing was serendipitous). I have decided to go back to teaching high school, which will give me the opportunity to work with literature again, as well as give me some balance in my life. So another transition is up ahead and still more changes. Life is change, isn’t it? I’ll write to you again when I’m there.

  That’s all for now, my friends. Thank you for reading another of my works. I’d love to hear from you, so please find me and share your feedback. I want to hear what you have to say.

  I appreciate you more than you know.

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  Ted Persinger, 4/24/2015

  ALSO FROM TED PERSINGER

  Literary Fiction:

  Changes Series: The One Way, Book I

  The black eye of unmerciful ruin turned on Danny Shields one day. Hot May afternoon. Carjacking gone wrong. He stares into the eyes of his dying wife. He fails to protect her...he gives way to panic and fear. On that roadside black asphalt everything he holds dear is crushed under the cruel heel of the gods. Home, career, and investments all become meaningless to him in that crack of a gun. The shame of his reaction overcomes him, and he is unable to adequately cope with the loss he feels responsible for. He has to leave. Every news report condemns him. Every murmur judges him. Every aspect of his life reminds him of his loss. He travels to Mexico to relive their brief honeymoon. After fallin
g ill, he begins a "one way" trip...only moving forward and never going back. He becomes morally ambiguous. Danny travels to Cambodia and Thailand, all in an attempt to find himself...to build a new life after his old life resets to zero. He's on a collision course with karma and fate.

  The One Way is a character-driven novel that explores Danny's travels and changing life view over a one-year period.

  Erotic Romance:

  Farfalla Series: Follow You Down, Book I

  “Rachel Walker, I’d like you to meet David Wright.” I still tremble when I remember those words. That day changed me forever.

  Rachel is a biracial woman from Queens in the late 1970s. She aspires to write poetry, and is drawn to Manhattan for the art she finds there. She meets a man who changes her life forever. David has a dark secret. His desires draw Rachel into a world of easy indulgence, a world of lust and sex, a world where anything goes. From a simple schoolteacher, Rachel is transformed into someone she would never have recognized…would never have approved of. As her career grows, so do her challenges. Is she flying or falling? Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the difference.

  To this very day, I remember the first time I saw him. It sounds corny, of course, to say “my heart skipped a beat.” But it did. Several. I do believe in love at first sight…it has happened to me a few times in my life. But this was the first, and the first is always special. He set my soul on fire instantly. I would’ve done anything he wanted…and I guess I did.

  Follow You Down is an erotic romance, which explores a woman’s personal, spiritual, and sexual evolution. Rachel faces a changing world, a changing culture, and a changing sense of self. Where will she find herself? Who will she be on the other side?