These Truths

by R.M. Haig

FIFTY-SIX

  Revelations

  October 10th, 1996. 5:15PM

  Burlwood, Indiana

  Jacob was strolling down Oakwood towards Maplewood when he caught a glimpse of Tracy Swete out on her porch. Even from a distance, he could tell that she was upset about something. Her head was down, and every few seconds she was wiping at her face and her eyes, which broke his heart as he moved.

  Tracy still held the keys to his heart, even though he hadn't seen as much of her lately as he would've liked. Having recently turned fifteen, his life should've been built around things like learning to drive or hanging with friends and chasing after crushes, but there was little time for such things in his day to day existence anymore.

  His mother, Janet, had descended to even deeper depths than she'd existed in during the days after his father's suicide. She was head over heels in love with Deputy Ron, who was like a leach feeding off of her on the increasingly rare occasions when he decided to give her the time of day. Perfection to her would've been making a home for the man, catering to his every whim and sucking up his poison meth in between duties to suit his fancy. He seemed to have no such desire for that scenario anymore, though, so she was left to smoke his drugs alone and wallow in her depressive misery. Sure, he would stop by most nights... but only for what suited him, only for sex and an exchange of her welfare and social security cash for his wares, which he provided at not so much as a fuck buddy discount, nonetheless.

  She was lucid less often now than she had ever been, and that was a weight on her maturing son's chest. When he wasn't at school, he was babysitting her to be sure she didn't OD again or try to take his father's way out until the gallant Ron Boudreaux showed up for his nightly deposit. As a result, he hadn't seen much of anyone that wasn't his mother. Not Tracy, not Chucky, and certainly not Launchpad and Louie, who had bailed on him when he last hoped to tighten the noose around Boudreaux's neck by breaking down the doors of his illicit operation at the Super Socket Fasteners facility.

  It was that mission that had him walking to Chucky's this evening, as there was finally an opportunity for the two of them to take up the operation on their own. An opportunity to free his mother from the shadow of this horror seemed an ample excuse to leave her on her own for awhile, so he left her sleeping off another night of smoking with a dose of Xanax to keep her under.

  Chucky was frightened of taking on this mission, and he refused to commit to going into the old SSF building. He was open to driving the two of them there so that Darkwing could do it himself, so that would have to do. That wasn't ideal; it would certainly have been better to have at least one of his friends with him to make entry, but he was full of testosterone fueled bravery and ready to see this task through, even if it meant doing it by himself.

  Seeing Tracy apparently in tears in the distance, though, wounded him just as badly as seeing his mother in her suffering, so he altered his path and decided to pay her a visit before he met with Chucky for the trip down Route 4. A few steps more was all he needed to see that his dream lover was, in fact, crying, and that was a terrible pill to swallow. Unsure of why she seemed so upset, he picked up his pace to a near jog until he was standing beside her on her porch.

  "Tracy!" he said, placing a hand on her shoulder and feeling her warmth spreading through his body again, as was usual when he touched her. "Tracy, what's going on?"

  His girl sniffled and coughed, her sobbing so severe that she was nearly powerless to quell it even long enough to speak to him. Trying to calm her, he wrapped her up in a full-on hug and rocked her back and forth, channeling the man inside of him to bring her peace. Eventually, she settled enough to talk, though her words were still choppy with sobs and sniffles.

  "It's happening again, Jacob!" She whined.

  "What is?" He wondered, rubbing on her shoulder in their embrace. "What's happening again?"

  "My dad's job!" She explained. "They're making us move again!"

  The words hit him like an uppercut from a champion prize fighter, because he knew that it was Nick Swete's job that had brought them to Burlwood from someplace in Ohio. Moving likely didn't mean to Blackmoor or Garthby, a place to which Jake could drive to visit when he finally did get his license. Moving probably meant another county, more likely another state, perhaps half way across the country. This was a blow that would threaten everything that he dreamed of. This was a shot that could kill what he hoped would be his destiny.

  "To where?" Jake asked cautiously, still hoping to hear something like Waycroft and not really sure he was prepared to hear the real answer she would give.

  "Somewhere by Detroit," she said, and now it was a TKO. It wasn't California, but it might as well be. She would be out of range, they would be out of touch.

  Staggered, destroyed, he felt the wind leave his lungs and his heart fall to his feet. Still, he maintained his hug. Still, his first priority was to bring her comfort. He tried to pretend that everything was okay for her, he tried to put up a front that might lead her to believe this wasn't the end for them, despite the fact that he knew it probably was.

  He couldn't go to Michigan, there was no way. Not with his mother in her condition, not with Chucky needing him to lean on, not at all under any circumstances. When The Swete family set off for their new home, it would be the end of everything he had ever dreamt of.

  "When?" He asked, again hoping for an answer that would suit his ability to court her. He hoped for years, but there would be barely months.

  "At the end of December," she replied.

  "It's not so bad," he lied, feeling the sting of tears in his own eyes, "we've got some time before then! And even after, we can still visit each other!"

  "How?" She sobbed without restraint.

  Of course, he had no answer for her... there was no answer he could give that would carry the ring of truth, because there was no feasible way for them to visit each other once she was gone. In the absence of anything to say, he just held her tighter. Together they rocked back and forth, together they cried, together they felt the death of what could be.

  Nick Swete, knowing the damage his message had done to his daughter, was watching her receive comfort from her young would-be suitor through the living room window. Feeling her pain, feeling Jacob's pain in more than just this affair, he moved to his front door and opened it slowly to the two of them.

  "Tracy, honey," he said softly, "come on in the house, it's a little chilly out here."

  A dutiful daughter, Tracy pulled away from Jake and moved toward her father. Jake didn't let her get away without planting a kiss on her moistened cheek, and she appreciated the gesture. Her father ruffled her hair when she passed him, entering their trailer and leaving the two of them behind.

  Seeing Jake's tears, Nick jumped at an opportunity he'd hoped to have. The circumstances weren't ideal, but it was a chance for what he wanted nonetheless.

  "You know, Champ," he began, sorting the information in his mind, "there are ways that you could come with us."

  This peaked Jake's interest, and he looked up to the man with curiosity.

  "What?" He asked, confused. "How?"

  Nick sighed, already knowing how the boy would feel about his suggestion. "We have time, Champ, in which we could still have your mother declared unfit. I've talked to Sheriff Rambo about it, he says it would work. We could adopt you, and you could come live with us as a family."

  Another set of tears falling, Jake shook his head. He couldn't do that... he couldn't leave his mother to fend for herself, she would never survive.

  "Come on, Champ!" Nick urged him. "You know this place isn't good for you... you know that your mother is not good for you. You could start over, Jacob," he said. "With us."

  "No," Jake replied unconditionally. "I can't."

  "You can!" Nick insisted.

  "No," Jake repeated, standing up. "Stop trying to save me from her, Nick, it's too late."

  "But
Champ!" Nick called after him as he hopped off of the porch and hurried toward Chucky's place. "Even Rambo says it's the best thing that could happen to you!"

  Not listening any longer, Jake let the man who had been more of a father to him than his father had fall behind him in the distance. Eventually, the man stopped calling after him and retreated into his trailer to deal with his daughter.

  While it had been him who leapt from the porch and walked away, it hurt Jake somehow to know that Nick gave up on him so easily. He didn't give chase, he didn't snatch him up, he just retreated into his trailer. The pain was sharp and biting, and it doubled the hurt of knowing that he and Tracy would likely be forever parted by this move.

  Trying to silence that pain, trying to shut it up and swallow it as he did so often, he approached Chucky's trailer and knocked faintly on the door. This incident had taken all of the of the fight out of him, it had silenced the screaming in his head that said get that motherfucker Boudreaux and make him pay! He would have to rally that strength, that boldness back up if he was to accomplish his task this evening. Fighting to get his courage back and getting no answer to his taps, he sucked up his weakness and pounded on the door with everything he could muster. This time, Chucky would answer.

  "Hey DW!" He said in greeting.

  "Hi, Chucky," Jake returned in a muted tone. "Are you still ready to do this?"

  Chucky nodded as tentatively as Jake had spoken, uncertainty and apprehension in his eyes. The nod was all that Jake needed, so he accepted it eagerly and spun to face his Momma's Buick. Before he fully registered what was happening, he was in the passenger seat and they were rolling towards the exit of the park.

  It wasn't a long drive to the old SSF building, where Jake was certain that shady things were happening on a daily basis according to the words he'd heard Deputy Ron speak through his thin trailer walls. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to find, but he knew that it was something that Boudreaux did not want anyone operating on the proper side of the law to see. It was what kept him away from Janet Gigu?re until the late hours of the night. It was his second career.

  With that in mind, Jake was ready to see it... he was ready to show it to the world, to cry it out from the mountain tops, to declare it to anybody who would listen -- most certainly including Sheriff Rambo and Special Agent Gomez. If everything went as he planned, before the night was over he was going to shut Burlwood's meth supply off, once and for all.

  It was getting dark when they arrived at the target, Chucky pulling in to the main entrance and vocalizing his objection to what was about to happen when he saw that there were other cars parked by the building. By all account, this place should've been a ghost-town. There had been no legitimate business carried out there in many years, these vehicles should not have been there.

  "Right there, Chucky!" Jake directed with a finger pointed at the main entrance to the factory. "Park right there!"

  "I don't know about this Darkwing!" Chucky doubled down. "I think we're gonna get it big big trouble!"

  "Just stop there, then, and let me out! You can go wherever you want after, just let me out there!"

  Chucky did as ordered, and the car had barely stopped rolling when Jake jumped out and prepared to witness whatever it was he was going to witness. He'd pressed record in his mind so that he could absorb everything he would see, so he could repeat every detail to the proper authorities to have this place shut down.

  Strolling confidently to the entrance, he yanked on the door in the event that it was locked. Had he found that to be the case, he would've broken the damned thing down like he'd been forced to on the evening that his mother tried to snort Deputy Ron's magic potion and nearly lost her life in the process. As it happened, he would need to make no such effort. There was no lock in place, there was no deadbolt, bar or electric key-card system keeping this place buttoned up. There was nothing, and the door of the former Super Socket Fasteners Company swung freely open for him to enter.

  The first thing to hit him was the smell, which was ripe with chemical odors and a general industrial funk that stung his nose while some vapor in the air did the same to his eyes. Immediately and reflexively he coughed and put the crook of his elbow over the lower half of his face. Breathing through the fabric of his shirt shielded him from the fumes, but there was nothing in place to hide what was happening from his video-camera eyes.

  Just inside the building was a series of tables on which were beakers, flasks and other chemistry related implements that Jake recognized from Science class in school. In them, things were bubbling, vaporizing and evaporating as several large kettle looking machines rumbled and steamed in the background. Around the tables were a total of eight men, each clad from head to toe in hazmat gear. Wearing gas masks or respirators or something along those lines to protect themselves from the noxious fumes, they were anonymous in their disguises..

  As soon as Jake stepped inside, every one of the men froze where he stood and looked up to see the surprise guest. It was as though time stood still for them in their surprise and shock at seeing a young man they didn't recognize, standing uninvited in the doorway.

  Suddenly, one of the men reached underneath a table and came away with a pistol that he pointed directly at the intruder. He pulled his hammer back and Jake prepared himself to be shot. Prepared himself to be killed. Prepared himself to finally die. What irony, he thought, that the man might do something to protect his turf that gave such an incredible gift to the victim he sought to injure.

  "NO!" another one of the masked figures shouted, throwing one hand in the air to signal stop while he ripped his protective hood off with the other. It was Deputy Ron Boudreaux who called off the gunman, and the only surprise to Jake in his revelation was that it was some other man holding the gun.. "You can't shoot him! Do you have any idea how much attention that would draw?"

  "None!" The mystery man with the gun shouted in a muffled reply. "Kids die around here all the time, they'll just chalk it up to The Butcher!"

  Though his greater being almost desired to be shot and killed, a small voice inside of Jacob spoke out at the repugnance of the idea. There were people who needed him... there was his mother, there was Chucky, there was Tracy. His mysterious disappearance and death would cause them great harm, perhaps irreparable harm that would shape the rest of their lives. With that in mind, Jake acted to see that he would leave this place alive.

  "Oh, but there's more than just me!" he barked assuredly. "There are other people with me, so go ahead and shoot! They'll just tell the police what you did, what you're doing here! Then you'll go down for murder as well as the drugs!"

  "Shut up, Jacob!" Boudreaux ordered, a vague hint of fear on his face. He looked as though he wasn't sure he could control his minion, as though he was worried about Jake being killed. This could've been due more to the protection of his interests than actual concern for Jake, but it was surprising to see nonetheless.

  The man with the gun flinched at hearing Boudreaux address the intruder by name, turning his head to the deputy with evident surprise. "Wait, you know this kid?" He asked,

  "Yes, I know him!" Boudreaux answered. "He's Janet's boy!"

  "Well that's just too bad," the armed one said after a pause to think, "because this little fuck knows way too much for us to just let him walk out of here!"

  "Yeah, he does know too much," the deputy replied, formulating a case to spare the boy. "But he's not gonna say a goddamned thing to anybody! Are you, Jake?" He asked, looking at the boy for the thousandth time but seeing him for perhaps the first.

  "What, we're just supposed to take his word for it?" The potential shooter asked incredulously. "Have you lost your fucking mind? We kill him, we get rid of him, we carry on! Otherwise we all go up the river for life!"

  "No!" Boudreaux barked again, looking terrified now. "No, we don't just take his word for it!" Now, the officer looked back at Jake and offered advice that
wasn't requested or desired. "It would be in your best interest to shut up about this, Jake! Do you know what will happen if you tell anybody about this?" He asked.

  "Yeah," Jake replied, pointing to the gunman. "Like that fucker said, you all go up the river for life!"

  "Oh, but that's not all!" Boudreaux warned. "Other people go away as well, Jake, people that you care about! People like your mother! She's knee-deep in this too, Jake, you know that! Do you want to see her back in prison? Do you want to see her back at the looney bin?"

  "She might as well be," Jake responded defiantly. "Either one would be better than what you've got her tied up in!"

  "See?" the armed enforcer declared. "There's no way we can trust him! He has to die!"

  "I didn't say there was just a person you cared about who would go away, Jake, I said there were people!" Boudreaux continued as he walked to another of the masked and outfitted men. "People like this!"

  Without warning, the deputy reached up and snatched the hood off of the figure as he had ripped his own hood off earlier. Beneath the white plastic of the suit was the black flesh of an old friend. The flesh of Launchpad, the flesh of Donnell. There was shame in his eyes as he looked upon Jacob, and an equal part of fear for what might come of this situation. If things went one way, he might see an old pal shot dead and discarded before his eyes. If they went the other, he might end up in prison for a period longer than that which he'd been alive to date. Either scenario was terrible to consider, and either meant incredible personal suffering for him.

  "Do you want him to go to prison, Jacob?" Boudreaux asked. "Do you want your friend to spend his life behind bars because of you?"

  Rocked with this revelation, Jake was at a loss for words. He'd never imagined that Donnell had pulled away from him because of something like this. He'd never imagined that a person who had been so close to him in the past could end up in a place so far from everything they'd ever hoped for. Donnell Hughes, Launchpad, was a criminal.

  Boudreaux saw Jake's face when it dropped, and he knew immediately that no one would be dying on this night. That was a relief to him, because murder had never been a part of his operation; had never been a part of his plan for the empire he was building. He knew that Jake's shock would seal the deal, would seal his lips, would seal his need for secrecy.

  "Is that enough to keep you quiet, Jake?" He asked.

  Jake turned his eyes to the ground and nodded, unable to look upon what had become of a founding member of The Burlwood Boys. He was ashamed for Donnell, and he knew that Donnell was ashamed for himself.

  "Good enough?" Boudreaux asked the man with the gun, and eventually the man apprehensively returned the gun to its holster under the table.

  "If it's not good enough," he said, locking it in place, "then it's on your ass, sir!"

  Pulling back his courage, pulling back his strength, Jake looked back to the deputy and spoke once more with forced insistence.

  "There's a condition!" He shouted, regaining the attention of everyone gathered.

  "What is it?" Boudreaux asked, willing to make any compromise that was necessary to keep everyone involved whole. Willing to do anything to avoid bloodshed or the threat of prison.

  "You stay the fuck away from my mother!" Jake said.

  Without hesitation, without a second passing between the demand and the response, the deputy answered, telling everything about his priorities, spelling out in detail the importance of Janet Gigu?re and his relationship with her to him.

  "Deal."

  FIFTY-SEVEN