Chapter 15

“What’s up, Rich?” Jack asked turning to look at the man who had just tapped him on the shoulder.

“I need to talk to you for a minute,” Rich answered feeling very uncomfortable with the errand his wife had assigned him. He had waited until after Jack had finished eating since the news he had to give him would have made him lose his appetite.

“Sure,” Jack said gesturing to the chair across from him.

“Why don’t you come down to my house for a little bit? I’ve got some scotch there and we can have a little drink while we’re talking,” Rich said.

Surprised by the invitation, Jack said, “Sure. A little scotch in moderation won’t kill me.”

Rich waved to his wife and headed out of the garage followed by Jack. Rich asked, “How is the job search going?”

“One of the contractors I know mentioned that he bid on a job yesterday. We’ll know in a day or two if he got it,” Jack answered. It appeared that a young couple decided that it would be easier to fix up their old house than try to sell it and buy a larger one. They weren’t doing that much, but the work could last as long as a week.

“That’s good,” Rich said wondering how Jack managed to keep his cool living his life from job to job. Of course, Jack wasn’t trying to support a family and that made a world of difference.

“Well, it will be a week of work,” Jack said. It would be six hundred dollars before taxes and that would really help his finances. He still had enough to cover the mortgage even after paying his electricity bill. That money would go to the next month’s rent.

“That is good,” Rich said.

Nodding his head, Jack said, “That will give me about three weeks worth of work out of the month. I used to make close to twenty dollars an hour and worked six days a week, but those days are over. Now I’m doing good to get two weeks of work a month and ten dollars an hour.”

“I don’t know how you can manage on that,” Rich said shaking his head.

“I get by; barely, but I get by,” Jack said. He was doing better than Abby since she was now working thirty-two hours a week at seven dollars an hour.

Reaching the house, Rich led Jack inside and left him in the living room. Jack looked around the house while Rich went into the kitchen to prepare the drinks. The living room was very tidy and filled with high quality furniture. The entertainment center was filled with electronics that rivaled his stuff which was collecting dust at the pawn shop. Jack figured they were probably still making payments on the stuff in the living room.

Returning to the living room, Rich handed him a drink while saying, “I’m not really a Scotch drinker, but this was a gift and I couldn’t throw it away.”

“Neither am I,” Jack said. He had scotch maybe twice in his life and wouldn’t know a good one if it bit him on the ass. He wasn’t sure what the difference between scotch and the other kinds of whiskeys was. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if there was a difference.

“I’m glad I kept it. Some news should be buffered a little with a drink,” Rich said while taking a seat across from Jack.

Wondering what Rich could possibly have to say to him that required buffering with a drink, Jack asked, “What news?”

“Cheryl told me what was bothering Abby,” Rich said. Just thinking about it made him angry. He took a sip of his drink and made a face. He said, “That’s horrible. I prefer beer.”

“Same here,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to laugh at the expression Rich made until after he tried his drink. He took a little sip and grimaced. He said, “I’m definitely not a scotch man.”

Raising his glass, Rich said, “Misery loves company.”

Jack raised his glass and then took another sip of his drink. It tasted just as bad as the first sip. He asked, “So what is the matter with Abby?”

“Before I tell you, you have to promise not to let Abby know that you know,” Rich said.

“Okay,” Jack said deciding that it would be better to know and not be able to talk about it than to not know and not be able to talk about it.

“You also have to promise that you won’t do anything about it,” Rich said. On learning what was bothering Abby, he had wanted to go down to that nursing home and throttle someone. If Jack’s reaction was at all like his had been, then Jack would explode.

“What?” Jack asked wondering if he had understood Rich correctly.

“You can’t do anything about it,” Rich said. He didn’t think it would help anyone if he had to bail Jack out of jail.

“If something is bothering Abby that much, then you better believe that I’ll do something about it,” Jack said offended by the suggestion that he just stand by and do nothing.

“I’m also going to ask you to lie to Abby,” Rich said. Cheryl had been quite insistent on this point, but he wasn’t sure he understood why.

Jack sat forward and said, “Tell me what is going on right now. I’m serious.”

Shaking his head, Rich said, “You’ll understand when I’ve told you the whole story. For now, promise me that you won’t do anything about it and that you’ll lie to Abby.”

“I can’t do that,” Jack said. This sounded pretty serious and he wasn’t going to promise not to react.

Rich recognized that he wasn’t going to be successful in extracting the promise from Jack. He decided that telling the story starting with the rape wasn’t going to work. He said, “Abby is angry at you because you’re too perfect.”

Jack burst out in laughter. If there was anyone who was perfect, Jack was pretty sure that it wasn’t him. Slapping his thigh, he said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m dead serious,” Rich said watching Jack.

Jack stared at Rich upon realizing that Rich was not joking. He said, “You’re serious.”

“That’s right. The fact of the matter is that you seem to hold yourself to a standard of behavior that most of us fail to meet. You’re always considerate, kind, and attentive to everyone around you. You have an innate sense of right and wrong that all of us have come to trust. Abby feels like she can’t measure up to you,” Rich said.

“That’s crazy,” Jack said. He took a sip of his drink thinking about it. He wondered if Abby had spent some time at that massage parlor she was always talking about.

Rich said, “She became aware of a crime at the old folks home and she feels like she didn’t do the right thing.”

“What kind of crime?” Jack asked concerned. He didn’t think of old folks homes as nests of criminal behavior, but he could imagine the nursing home taking money from the elderly.

“A rape,” Rich answered.

“One of the nurses was raped?” Jack asked dismayed at the idea that a young woman wasn’t safe in a nursing home. He couldn’t imagine one of the frail elderly men standing much of a chance of raping an active young woman.

“One of the patients, an old women,” Rich answered knowing that Jack was going to explode.

Angry, Jack stood up and said, “You’ve got to be shitting me. Someone raped an old woman?”

“That’s right,” Rich answered trying to maintain an air of calmness. His reaction had been almost identical to Jack’s reaction. It had taken him a day to calm down enough to break the news to Jack.

“Does Abby know who did it?” Jack asked.

Already knowing the answer, Rich asked, “Why do you want to know?”

“I’ll give that bastard a one way ticket to hell,” Jack answered furious at the idea that someone would do something like that to an old woman.

Wanting to give Jack a chance to calm down, Rich took a drink of his scotch. By this time, he barely tasted it. He said, “You can’t do that.”

“Sure I can. I bet there’s a construction site around here pouring cement. The body would disappear and not be found for a hundred years. No one would say a word if they knew what that bastard did,” Jack replied.

“Jack!”

“Jimmy Hoffa disappeared and a lot of people were looking for him. No one would look for a piece of shit that would rape an old woman,” Jack said.

“Jack!”

“Well, they wouldn’t,” Jack said frowning.

Rich said, “Calm down and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

“I’m calm,” Jack said wanting to tear someone’s head off. He took a swig out of his glass of scotch and grimaced at the taste.

“No you are not,” Rich said.

“Yes I am,” Jack said.

Rich said, “Abby doesn’t know who raped the old woman, so stop it.”

Jack sat down and said, “What kind of fucked up world are we living in? Has everyone lost their minds?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Rich answered shaking his head.

“Raping old women,” Jack said feeling sick to his stomach. He asked, “What in the hell ever happened to respecting our elders?”

“I don’t know.”

Hoping that she had done the right thing, Jack asked, “What did Abby do about it?”

“She reported it to the head nurse,” Rich answered.

“That’s good,” Jack said thinking she had done the right thing. He said, “They’ll catch the bastard and hang him.”

“The nursing home is covering it up,” Rich answered.

Jack exhaled loudly and then said, “We’ve got old folks unable to afford their medicine. They can’t afford to eat. Crooks are destroying large companies and the whole world applauds while they do it. Banks are stealing our money. The government is taxing old folks to death because they own a house. Now sick bastards are preying on old women.”

“I know,” Rich said.

“I can’t believe that we live in America anymore,” Jack said. He slumped down into the chair feeling totally disgusted by the situation.

“I know,” Rich said.

Jack asked, “What did Abby do when she learned they were covering it up?”

“She was angry and demanded that they call the police, but they threatened to say that she was a participant in it,” Rich answered.

“She believed them?” Jack asked raising an eyebrow.

“You better believe it. They would have done it, too. They went into full bore ‘cover your ass’ mode, and they would have fed her to the wolves to hide the truth in a New York minute,” Rich said.

“This world is fucked,” Jack said in disgust. He ran a hand through his hair thinking about the situation. There wasn’t a good way out of it. More than her job had been at stake. Even if she had managed to clear herself, her life would have been ruined. He sighed and said, “That explains why she quit.”

“Yeah,” Rich said.

“That’s why she hasn’t been talking to the old ladies lately,” Jack said thinking that he wasn’t going to be able to look any of them in the eye knowing that there was a rapist out there and he wasn’t doing anything to stop him.

“I couldn’t look any of them in the eye after Cheryl told me about it,” Rich said.

“Something has to be done,” Jack said although he couldn’t think of anything that he could do short of calling the police.

Rich said, “You can’t do anything about it. We can’t even push the issue because they’ll screw up her life.”

“I guess going to the police is out of the question,” Jack said. “By now all of the evidence that a rape has occurred had been destroyed, anyway.”

“I came to that conclusion myself,” Rich said. The problem was that people weren’t doing a lot of this out of meanness, but out of fear. They were afraid for their jobs. They would cover up something like this to prevent a lawsuit that would have cost them their jobs. He said, “Everyone is afraid to do the right thing anymore.”

“It just isn’t right,” Jack said. He wondered how some people were able to live with themselves.

“I’ve got a feeling that it is going to get worse before it gets better,” Rich said.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Jack said. He wondered what he could do to help Abby. He asked, “Why did you say that I need to lie to Abby?”

“You need to tell her that she did the right thing,” Rich said.

“She should have escalated it and called the police in,” Jack said. He would have done that even if it had cost him his job.

“She would be sitting in jail right now as an accomplice to the crime. She’d get a public defender and her name would be all over the news. I can see the headlines now - woman helps man rape old ladies. It would be a media circus and she’d come off looking like a real creep. She’d end up in prison with a cellmate named Bertha,” Rich said.