Pink Slip Prophet (10 page)

“But you need to re-invest every dime back into research and production! We gotta keep those dollars flowing to keep employment opportunities up. And the taxes. Every time the money changes hands, taxes,” Larry said with a flourish. “And taxes, well they keep the whole show going!” His mouth inflated on that last word and a small burp sounded in his esophagus.

“Larry,” Ian said, “you better go get your stuff before you lose it.”

“I don’t care about it, nothing important there.”

“What about your lucky silver dollar?” Jack asked. “I put it in one of the boxes.”

Larry shot the boy a piercing look and Jack took a step back. “Naw, screw it. I’ll just stay right here.” He crossed his arms. “You can’t make me go!” He rolled over onto his side and curled up into the fetal position. “My couch, my rules!” he yelled, then laughed and muttered to himself.

Jack turned to his father. “Maybe we should let him stay - just until he’s not drunk anymore.”

Ian stared down at the boy, his thoughts seesawing between a desperate urging for patience and an urgent desperation to be done with Larry, once and for all.

“He’s not that bad of a guy, is he, Dad?” Jack asked.

I’ve had about enough of this.
“Yes, Jack, he is. He’s just good at hiding it.” Ian walked over to the couch and studied his nemesis’s bulk. Larry was heavier now, wider. He snored lightly, his back to Ian. A creeping doubt entered his mind.
I may need some plain, physical help here.

Ian grabbed the man, a parasite really, under the armpits and pulled.
Damn, that’s right. Drunks are heavier for some reason
. He rubbed his hand across his chin.
I’ll have to be smart about this.

Ian grabbed the legs and rolled Larry over onto his back. He rotated him around so he was perpendicular to the couch, braced himself and pulled hard.
Thank God for smooth leather!
Larry’s legs came off the couch but his butt sunk too deep into the padding. The bulk of the cushioning was pushed up to the edge. Larry’s own weight created the barrier to getting his fat ass off the couch and onto the floor. Ian rolled his eyes.

“Dad, just leave him. We’ll get him out later,” Jack said.

Another key zipped into the front door. Candy and Stacy walked in.

Ian stopped and watched them.

Jack raised his shoulders and tiptoed into Michael’s old room, a look of fear on his face that was only half-jocular.

“Don’t worry, Stacy,” Candy said. She closed the door and stopped in the short hallway that connected the kitchen and the living-dining room. “After the dance, you just return the dress. They have to refund the money. And we don’t have to tell Larry about that!” A sneaky and superior giggle escaped her but when she turned and saw Ian holding Larry’s legs, it was replaced with shocked silence.

“But Mom, I get to keep the mon—” Stacy laid eyes on her father and Larry and stopped short. “Oh…!”

“Your little robot doesn’t give you the right to come back to this house, Ian Blake!” Candy said.

Ian smiled, a look of derisive superiority on his face.

Candy looked down at Larry. “Don’t pull him any further, Ian! He’ll just—”

Ian pulled Larry hard and his oversized buttocks slammed into the concrete floor. Ian misjudged the force required. He flew back into the wall and hit his head. “Ow!” Ian rubbed his crown.

Larry smacked his lips, swallowed and sighed deeply before returning to just snoring.

Candy put her hands on her hips. “I forbid you from removing Larry from my house!”

“That’s fine,” said Ian, “because it’s not your house. It’s mine. And this is my family. And if you want to continue being a part of it, you are going to change your attitude.”

“How dare you! You abandoned this—” Candy started.

“Dad,” Stacy interrupted, “did you really make Maria?”

Ian leaned against the wall opposite the couch and caught his breath. He nodded. “I had some help though. A lot of it. It took a big team to design, program, build and debug her.”

Candy watched the exchange, her eyes growing bigger with indignation.

“But you were the leader, right? It was your idea, and you organized the whole thing?”

Ian nodded and looked at the floor.

Stacy paused and swallowed, her face receptive and admiring. “Did you really,” she asked, her voice lower this time, “sell one of your kidneys to pay for it?”

Ian clenched his lips together and nodded again.

“Now what if one of your children needs a kidney?” Candy asked. “What if Stacy, here,” she put her arm around her daughter, “gets sick and needs a kidney? You can’t give her one, can you?”

“You can,” Ian said. He pushed off from the wall and got his hands under Larry’s ankles.

Candy’s face turned red and she held a finger in front of her face as she tried to form words.

Ian jerked Larry hard and a little to the right. Larry’s head smacked the floor and the sound bounced off the walls.

Candy, Stacy and Jack flinched.

Ian pulled him faster now across the floor towards the front door. “Open the door!” he yelled.

Larry woke up and lifted his head. “Oh, no you don’t! Larry Kunkle doesn’t go out on his back!”

Stacy opened the door and held it. Ian pulled Larry past it but stopped suddenly.

Larry lay on his side, both hands grabbing onto the door edge. “If I’m going, I’m taking my door with me!” he yelled.

Ian pulled. Larry resisted. Ian pushed Larry back into the room a little but before he could pull him out again, Larry wrapped his upper body around the door.

Ian put his hands on his hips.
Alright, then.
He walked around to the inside of the door, pulled out his multi-tool and went to work on the hinges. He levered one out.

Larry struggled to get up onto one knee. Ian pushed him back down and his head hit the edge of the wall next to the refrigerator.

“What did I ever do to you, Ian?” Larry said. A look of hurt crossed his face. “I was a friend to you.”

The weight of the door itself pulled down on the final hinge. Ian levered the pin out of it and the door fell free, crashing into Stacy before Ian arrested its motion. He turned it so the long side faced outwards and pushed it into the hall.

Ian grabbed Larry and put him out into the hallway. “Take your precious door and see if it substitutes for a friend,” he said. “Now freak off!”

Stacy and Candy watched the end of the ordeal in silence, their faces glum but impassive. Jack smiled at him from around the kitchen corner.

“Good job, Dad,” the boy said.

Ian tousled his hair. He went into the master bedroom, popped the hinges on its door and brought it to the entryway, where he got it into the top and bottom hinges of where the front door used to be. He closed and locked it. It didn’t quite fit but it would do for now.

In the hallway outside, Larry blubbered.

“I better go out and talk to him,” Candy said.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Ian said, “if you want to continue living here.”

Candy stopped. “He’s an old family friend,” she muttered. “At the very least…” She walked over to the leather sofa, sat down and looked out the window.

Ian stood next to the breakfast bar. “Have a seat, Stacy. Jack, you too, please.”

“What about Michael,” Stacy asked. “We should—”

“I’ll talk to him separately,” Ian said. He cleared his throat. “Now, look, this family has gone through a transitional time.”

Candy laughed and muttered under her breath.

Ian wanted to engage her but held his tongue. “But we’re coming out of it now. I’m back. Things are going to change now, for real.”

Stacy clapped. “Daddy, I’ll give you my shopping list, okay? I just have it here.” She pulled out her screen and started to flip through it with her finger. “Here it is. I sent it to you, Daddy. Now a few things are a little out of date but—”

Ian silenced her with a movement of his hand and the look of disgust on his face. “This is not about a shopping spree! Each one of you will set a goal for your lives, something you are going to work on. Everyone will shape up here and pull their own weight! We’ll keep this house clean and organized. There will be no more staying out late or all night.”

“What?” Stacy asked.

“I’ll work with each of you on your goals and together we will achieve them,” Ian said.

“I have a goal, Daddy!” Stacy said with a smile and a giggle.

Ian nodded.

“I want to earn enough money as soon as possible so I can spend next summer in Europe with my friends,” the teen said.

Ian looked at her.
She’s just not getting it.
He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
How do I explain self-improvement to someone who only wants more and more stuff?
“Stacy,” he said with a patronizing smile, “this exercise is about improving yourself.”

“Yes, I want to improve myself in Europe next summer.”

“How? What will you do there?”

“I’ll hang out with my friends, of course, Daddy! And make new ones. And do fun things!”

Ian sighed and leaned against the wall. He remembered Stacy when she was six. She struggled with math then - didn’t see the point of it. Just wanted to play with dolls.
What do I do with her then? If I don’t find something productive for her to do, she’ll end up pregnant at nineteen, or younger, like her mother.

Candy turned away from the window and looked at Jack. “This family doesn’t need self-improvement, Ian. It needs something you can’t give it.”

Ian furrowed his brow at her.

“It needs acceptance,” Candy continued, “for who and what it is.”

“I know who and what this family is,” Ian said. “It’s my family. I’m the father here. I know these things.” He held his hands out in front of him in a gesture of exasperation. “Get to the point.”

“The point?” she said with a smirk. “Okay. This is your family? Wrong. Michael and Stacy are not yours. You’re not their father.”

***

Ian stared at her. “That’s ridicu—”

“Larry is their father.”

Stacy gasped. “Larry is my dad?” Her eyes turned red, she shook her head and covered her mouth. Tears poured down her cheeks and she crossed her legs.

Candy nodded. “Jack is yours, though. He was an accident.”

Ian thought back to college, to his relationship with Candy. Larry was around then, that was true. He looked up at Candy. “Michael…?”

“Yes,” Candy said.

“But I—” Ian started.

Candy nodded faster now. “I know. Larry wouldn’t take responsibility for the baby. I was alone. You were a nice guy. I knew you would do the right thing.”

“The right thing? The right thing!” Ian yelled. “I gave up my career for you and Michael. I gave up my studies.”

She looked up at him, her eyes pink. “What can I say?”

Jack walked over to his father and hugged his leg. He looked up at the man with an expression of empathy.

“Oh yeah, sure, Jack,” Stacy said, “play it up now, you’re his only real child.” She sobbed. “Just when I get a dad who loves me and can actually show it!”

Ian felt himself wobble. He took a seat at the kitchen table facing them. He laid his head on the table and the tears leaked out as he tried to make sense of what Candy was saying.

Jack sat down next to him and looked at him. Ian felt the boy’s eyes on him.

He needs reassurance now.
But the thoughts jumbled into Ian’s head too fast for him to act on any of them.

Michael and Stacy are not mine. They’re Larry’s kids.
His mind wandered to Larry groping his daughter but he quickly pushed these images away.

It was possible. Larry hung around us from day one. He was always there. Candy. Unfaithful.
The thought struck him with overarching certainty. Candy was out of his life. He was done with her. This latest episode wasn’t some aberration due to his own weakness. This was Candy continuing a pattern of lies.

Jack was his. Jack would stay with him. What about Michael and Stacy? Should he abandon them? Could he?

***

“I want to go to a better school,” Jack said. He lay in the hammock in Michael’s old room off the kitchen. “Like Anselm Academy.”

Ian sat a few paces away at his desk, which was next to the bright window. When Ian turned a certain way, he could see beyond the identical apartment building next door and to the park beyond it. Tall, green trees swayed in the wind among toy drones and families. Indian summer was here.

Ian stopped his design work and turned his chair to look at the boy. Beyond Jack, Candy’s shadow moved around the small sliver of kitchen he was able to see. “I think that is a great idea!”

“I also want one of those new quantum micro-computers and can you teach me to program it?”

Ian nodded. “Sure, we can do that.”

“I need a budget for parts, too. I want to make a small robot, one I can talk with.”

Ian moved his chair closer to the boy. “Perfect. You know, this is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to come out of the family self-improvement thing.”

A dish crashed to the floor in the kitchen. A shard bounced off the wall that led to Ian’s office and bounded into Ian’s bare big toe. A drop of blood leaked out of the top of the toe.

“What the hell,” Ian whispered. He strode towards the kitchen.

“Dad, wait,” Jack said, “I want to talk more.”

“In a minute,” Ian said.

Candy stood in the kitchen, a glass in her hand. She threw it to the floor. Slivers flew in all directions.

Ian shielded his eyes. He picked up a foot to move to Candy, then stopped. He didn’t want to step on broken glass.

Maria stood behind Candy. “Do you require assistance, Mrs. Blake?”

“No, I do not require assistance!” Her hair was a ragged, twisted mess. Her eyes were puffy and she was crying. She looked at Ian with a barely suppressed rage, took a plate out of the cabinet and smashed it to the floor.

“Stop that!” Ian yelled.

“Make me,” she said with a childish look of defiance. She rocked her head from side to side and stuck her tongue out.

She grabbed another glass. Ian stepped forward. His foot landed on a shard of glass and he recoiled. He steadied himself with one hand on the counter, stepped again and found steady footing. He grabbed the glass from her hand, replaced it in the cabinet and closed the cabinet doors.