Living in Quiet Rage

by Michael English Bierwiler

  “No, I forgot. Are you going to write me a ticket?”

  “Strangely enough, I’m not. It’s the only part of your story that I believe. Now let me get this straight, Mrs. Garner.”

  “Dolly.”

  “Dolly then. You and Aaron were fighting while the car’s trucking down the highway. He reaches over, pulls the door handle and boots you out, and then drives off into the sunset as you roll to the curb.”

  “No, Officer Buck, Aaron was watching TV at the motel and I hitched a ride to the store.”

  Officer James “the Younger” Buchanan straightened up with a flip of his notebook and replied, “Okay, if that’s what you want to run with tonight. Pleasure doing business with you.” Even though James the Younger had only been on the force for a couple years, he knew a lost cause when he saw one.

  “Thank you, Officer Buck,” she called after him.

  “You take care of yourself now, Mrs. Garner, and call me when you’re ready to put an end to this,” he answered gently as he stepped backward out of the treatment room. On his way out to the car James the Younger was wondering at what point a victim of circumstances becomes the cause of her own dilemma. When was the decision point in her life when she willingly surrendered herself emotionally to Aaron instead of walking away?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Doc noticed a young man enter the front door and walk over to the desk officer. He was a white male, about twenty and every inch the everyday local college student ride-in. His suspicion seemed to be confirmed when the desk officer handed over the familiar clipboard with a ride-in form to fill out. Doc went into the supervisors’ office and wrote a post-in note to assign the young man to one of the newer midnight officers.

  When roll call time arrived, Doc made the routine performance followed by the trademark, ‘any questions, any answers, any jokes that won’t get us all fired?” Since there were none of the above, roll call was dismissed. Doc noted that the ride-in spoke with his assigned officer, but did not follow him out the door.

  “Change your mind?”

  “Actually, I was hoping to interview you for my school project. It’s a paper for psychology class entitled Professionals and Personalities. Each of us in the class chose a profession and has to interview five people who work at that job to compare personality traits.”

  Doc looked askance, “Sounds like some pretty in-depth interviews. How did you choose me?”

  Will unzipped his jacket to reveal his Gonzaga sweatshirt. “When I asked at the downtown desk this afternoon, I was wearing this shirt, so the man at the desk recommended that I start with you.”

  “Hey, that’s my hometown. I’m Sergeant Bill Harrison, but everyone calls me Doc,” he said offering his right hand to the young man. What’s your connection to Spokane?”

  Will seemed apprehensive, then grabbed the hand offered to him. Doc quickly released the young man’s grip when he felt the clammy palm.

  “I’m Will Jefferson. I was raised in Spokane. Now I’m a junior at the University of Washington majoring in psychology.”

  “Hey, I was raised in Spokane myself. Went to Meriwether Lewis Elementary, George Clark High School. Maybe you’ve heard of my stepdad, John Scott of Scott Realty on Quebec Street?”

  “Yeah, I know those schools. Mom went to Clark.”

  “Those were the days. What’s your mom and dad’s name? It’s a small world, you know.”

  “Mom’s name is Elizabeth Jefferson. It was Jackson before she was married. Dad’s from Seattle.”

  “Your mom’s probably about my age. I knew a Beth Jackson at Clark. Couldn’t be more than one Beth Jackson attending Clark about that time. I wonder if she remembers me? She was a terrific kid. We actually grew up together. She was going to Gonzaga, but went to the University of Washington at the last minute on a scholarship opportunity.”

  “I never heard her mention your name, but it’s probably the same Elizabeth Jackson.”

  “Let’s head into my office where the chairs are a little more comfortable and the coffee is hot, not especially drinkable in this day of specialty European brews with Italian sizes, but tolerable at this hour.”

  Will took in the supervisors’ office with its beige walls, suspended ceiling with florescent lights and scuffed tile. A pair of windows looked longingly out on the parking lot during the couple hours that supervisors do their paperwork. Metal files and metal desks with well-used office chairs lent a prison feel to the cramped room.

  “Okay, shoot,” Doc answered pulling up his office chair and leaning back with his hands interlaced behind his head. “What’s your first question?” The young man hesitated. He seemed extremely disorganized for a collegian prepped for an interview.

  Will opened his pocket notebook and clicked open his pen. Doc could see a page of scrawling that seemed to be the outline for the interview questions. First off, how long have you been a police officer?” Doc returned a short answer.

  “Was law enforcement your first career choice?” Doc volleyed back another short answer.

  Will rattled off a few more general questions before settling in to ask the questions he came to ask. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

  Doc paused as he didn’t have a real answer. “I was going to study law at Gonzaga.”

  “Why did you change your mind about going to Gonzaga?”

  “I don’t remember telling you that I changed my mind.”

  Will was flustered. “I just assumed that you didn’t go since you’re not a lawyer.”

  “How do you know that I don’t have a law degree? Nowdays it’s common for police officers to have a college education and even graduate degrees.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Harrison. I didn’t mean to make assumptions.”

  Doc relaxed again, “No offense taken. Actually, I’m working on my undergraduate degree on off-duty hours. Get your education while you can because it takes forever going part time and working.” Doc stepped off of his soapbox after entertaining himself by playing word games with the young man.

  “Are you married? Do you have kids?” Doc answered Will’s questions cautiously since Will’s questions seemed to be wandering into personal territory.

  “Did you ever wonder what your life would be like if you had stayed in Spokane?”

  Doc noted the measured words and launched another verbal attack.

  “Your professor wouldn’t give you an assignment expecting you to draw conclusions based on five representative samples. You didn’t come eighteen-hundred miles and search me out to complete your haphazard questionnaire. What gives, Mr. Jefferson?”

  Will was slightly older than Ben, but had similar features of red hair, blue eyes, thin and athletic. Doc glanced down at the name and date of birth on the ride-in form and subtracted nine months to the spring of his senior year at high school.

  “I go by Will Jefferson because it’s my stepdad’s last name, but my birth certificate says William Jackson. I think it should have read William Harrison III.”

  They stared at each other in disbelief. There was nothing more that Will could have done to prepare himself for that moment. Before him was the man he had wondered about for months, yet he couldn’t believe that his father would be so ordinary. He couldn’t believe that his father never even suspected his existence.

  “Did your mother tell you this?” Will’s grip on his pen failed and it bounced on the tile with a tinny clatter. Will scrambled to pick it up, wondering if there was any way to transition back to the interview mode where he thought he had a modicum of control.

  Doc persisted, “Where are you getting this information from?”

  “Last fall I heard my grandparents talking one afternoon. I was out raking leaves, got thirsty and came in for a drink of water, but they didn’t hear me come in. I listened for a while as they talked about how Mom had to give up starting Gonzaga after her senior year to have me. When they saw me in the back hall listening, they had no choice. I made them tell me everything.”

>   “They sent Mom to my great aunt and uncle’s house in Seattle for a year where she met my step dad. Mom wouldn’t tell anyone it was you until years later when everyone concerned, except for me, decided it would be much easier to keep it quiet. Mom and my stepdad married when I was a baby and they moved back to Spokane. I always thought he was my real dad. I never knew about you until last fall.”

  “What can I say, Will? How can you be sure? Did you ask your mother? This is hard to wrap my mind around. I mean, if this is true, where do you fit in my life? What do I tell my wife, my son, my daughters?”

  Will had not considered the effect of his sudden appearance on Doc’s other family. In fact, Will counted on scouting out Doc and his half siblings before deciding whether or not to reveal his hand. Will planned to close the book on his biological father if his preliminary research indicated the relationship was not in his best interests.

  “This was a bad idea. I really need to go,” quivered Will as he stood up to leave.

  “Hold on, hold on. This is all new to me,” implored Doc. “Stick around and let’s talk for a while. We need to sort out what comes next. We need to get to know one another if we’re father and son.”

  “No, we don’t. Let’s just pretend this never happened. I’ll go back to Spokane and we’ll just forget about this.”

  “But there’s so much to talk about. You just walk in on me and want to walk back out?” Doc barked.

  Will began to cringe. He envisioned a scenario where he could remain anonymous, evaluate his new parent and make an informed decision on whether to reveal himself. He didn’t want his parents to know that he was in Fort Worth, and he definitely didn’t want Doc calling his mother out of the blue. Will had asked his grandparents to refrain from telling his mother that he knew about his father until he figured out what he wanted to do with the information.

  “You didn’t even know I existed. Maybe that was best. Mom doesn’t know I’m here. She thinks I’m on school break camping in Ranier National Forest with friends.”

  “This is kind of a big shock for me. I’m sorry, but I never knew. You can’t hold that against me.”

  “It was better when I had to imagine what you looked like, what you sounded like, where you lived. Now that I’ve found you, we have nothing in common, really. It’s too late to be father and son. I already have a man in my life who has been my father. This was a terrible mistake. Forget I ever showed up.”

  Will charged to the door with tears of disappointment running down his cheeks. Most likely, Will would have been disappointed in whomever he found behind the name William Harrison Jr. At least for the moment Will thought the covers of the book about his paternity were permanently closed and replaced on the shelf. Doc rushed to the door after him, but held back on the front breezeway. He could have caught up with Will, but there seemed to be no point in chasing him down if Will had nothing left to talk about.

  Doc leaned back against the cool brick wall by the door. Incredible as it seemed, he had chalked up another failed relationship in less than the space of an hour. Will arrived a stranger and left a stranger, although a bit worse for wear.

  Doc unconsciously let out a long breath as he watched Will fumble with car keys in the lock of his beat-up compact with Washington plates. Eventually the worn lock gave in, the driver’s door opened, and the battered vehicle skulked away down the dark street toward the freeway.

  Doc knew Will wouldn’t be hard to find, but what was the wisdom of rocking everyone’s world for the sake of his own curiosity? Will’s departure had not set into place any overpowering urge to create a parent-child relationship. Being a father was never Doc’s strong suit.

  Doc debated when to approach Amelia with the possibility of a first born son. At the moment all Doc had was the word of a young man he never met before, although he had a Gonzaga sweatshirt, Washington license plates and a cursory knowledge of Spokane and Beth Jackson. Whether true or not, Will seemed to believe his claim. Doc couldn’t let it go with Will until the next day. The sooner he could get a handle on the size of his predicament, the better his chances would be of smoothing over Amelia’s shock.

  Doc sauntered back to his office and ran his finger down the ride-in form to Will’s home address. Will had written his motel room information as his home address. Doc made a call to a fellow supervisor and took the rest of the night off. It was late, so Doc didn’t call Amelia before heading over to the inexpensive motel along the North Freeway where he found the ten year old faded red four door with Washington plates below room 212. He loped upstairs and knocked sharply three times.

  “Will, I need to talk to you.” There was no response from inside.

  “Open up, Will. We need to talk.” The curtains in room 213 parted slightly in a dark sliver and reclaimed privacy as the sleeper returned to his task. The door knob on 212 turned tentatively and returned to its original position a couple times before Will opened the door and retreated to where he was slouching on the bedspread mindlessly watching television.

  “I guess it didn’t go well tonight, Will.” Doc gently shut the door behind him, flipped around a wooden chair from the desk, and sat down resting his chin on his forearms on the back of the chair.

  “You could say that,” Will agreed.

  “You said your Mom doesn’t know you’re here. Maybe we should call her and get her side of the story.”

  “It’s not a story, it’s a fact. We don’t need to call Mom,” Will stated firmly. Doc knew that the dates and arithmetic added up leaving no doubt.

  “What do you want to know, Will?”

  “So I’ve got brothers and sisters?”

  Doc relaxed a bit, “Yep. Your brother Ben is about three months younger than you, and his sisters are seventeen and fourteen. Maybe we could all get together for dinner tomorrow and get to know each other.” Will nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t know about me. It seems like over the last twenty years someone would have put it all together and told you.”

  “Sometimes people only see what they want to see, Will. Often we pretend not to notice the obvious to keep from embarrassing people we are close to. Maybe our friends figured it out, but thought we were keeping it quiet, so they never talked about it. They call it an elephant in the room: everyone sees it, but they pretend not to notice. I was wrapped up in my own life and my own problems and never looked back. Your mom probably figured you two were better off without me since I wasn’t especially prepared to take on a family.”

  “But you had a wife and son when it could have been me and mom. Why not us?”

  Doc didn’t have an answer. To lay the responsibility at Beth’s door would have been unfair. Doc severed the relationship with Beth without warning. It must have been a heart-wrenching rejection for her when she needed him most. He remembered her at eighteen; he couldn’t imagine her at thirty-eight. There were not enough words in the world to apologize to her.

  They talked deep into the night until Doc wore out. As he drove home, Doc rehearsed several scenarios of how to explain Will to Amelia.

  She awoke when he came through the bedroom door at daybreak.

  “You’re home early.”

  “Yeah, I ran into someone from Spokane.”

  “Oh? Anyone I know?”

  “Not yet. I invited him over for dinner tonight.”

  Amelia was fully awake, intrigued by his response. She sat up in bed and turned on the small Tiffany lamp on her nightstand. “What does ‘not yet’ mean? Who are you talking about?”

  “His name’s Will Jefferson. He’s Beth Jackson’s boy.”

  Amelia was frightened by Doc’s tone of voice. “How old is he, Bill?” She stopped calling him Doc in favor of his given name several years back when she expected him to become grown up like other husbands and fathers.

  “He’s a couple months older than Ben.”

  “I see,” said Amelia in a controlled whisper. “How long have you known?”

  “
Just a few hours.” After a few minutes of silence, Doc asked without looking in her direction, “How much trouble am I in?”

  Amelia audibly breathed in and out, wondering if tears would form or keep their distance. To her relief she felt nothing but emptiness now that Doc was aware of his eldest son. “If you had known back then, which of us would you have chosen?”

  “I chose you, Amelia.”

  “That wasn’t my question. I asked you if you had known back then…”

  “Of course I would have chosen you.”

  “I don’t believe you, Bill.” He didn’t fight back. He undressed, slipped into bed and pulled up the covers, waiting for sleep to overtake him. She walked to the bathroom and closed the door without malice. He watched the alarm clock click off the minutes. In the background behind the bathroom door the water was running in the shower. Traces of dawn slipped through the Venetian blind changing the dark gray and black shadows of furniture against dusky walls into mahogany against yellow patterned wallpaper. He was asleep by the time Amelia came back into the bedroom.

  The doorbell woke him up. He threw on his jeans and a shirt to intercede between Will and the family, but Ben was already at the door to get a first look at his new older brother. Amelia broke the news to Ben and his sisters at a family council well before Will was due to arrive.

  Ben was excited that the male balance of siblings was now equal with the addition of a virtual twin, but his sisters were unsure of their feelings for the stranger. Amelia remained polite, yet reserved through the evening. Every so often Will mentioned a place or a name Doc recognized which was eerily transposed in time. It was like watching the remake of a favorite movie without the original actors. The unfamiliar faces were disconcerting.

  By the time Will took his leave, he was well on the way to becoming a brother to Ben and a son to Doc. The boys exchanged cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses to keep in touch and made plans to get together the next time Ben visited his grandparents in Spokane. The girls remained confused as to why the young man deserved a place in their family when he had a family of his own a half continent away. There had been so little of their father to share during their childhood that they were reluctant to release another portion to yet another first born son.