Jack and Angie

Chapter 3


Angie took a drag of the cigarette in her hand as she sat on the front porch of her house deep in thought. While she had never thought that her first meeting with Jack would be all romance and rainbows, it had gone worse than she thought. She had taken one look at him and, as usual, got all tongue tied and unable to say what she wanted to say.

She remembered the day she met the Mercer’s. She had been ten and her and her mom had just moved to the neighborhood. Her mom Donna had been a raging alcoholic and a drug addict. About the only good thing she could say that was her mom, while being a lousy, neglectful mother most of the time, she had at least not been physically or verbally abusive. And she had never stood for any of her boyfriends to be abusive to Angie either. One guy that she had hooked up with had gotten into an argument with Angie about something or other and called Angie a bitch. Donna had thrown all his clothes and belongings onto the lawn in ten minutes flat.

Angie had spent a lot of time roaming the neighborhood as her mother was out drinking or on a drug binge and one day, she had met Evelyn Mercer walking up the sidewalk towards Angie’s house with all her boys in tow intent on welcoming them to the neighborhood. Angie had made up some excuse as to why her mom wasn’t home, but she had the feeling by the time Miss Evelyn and her brood had gone home that the older woman saw right through her.

Afterwards, Miss Evelyn was always inviting Angie to come over for dinner and to learn things like cooking and knitting. Angie, usually a tough nut to crack when it came to covering up for her mom, cracked like an egg after only two weeks of Miss Evelyn’s gentle questioning.

Angie had poured her heart out to the older woman. Telling her how her dad was a drunk that would beat her mom every time she didn’t move fast enough for his liking and how it took her mom until the first time he had hit Angie to find the strength to leave him. She knew that her mom loved her in her own way and in a way Angie felt responsible for Donna. Donna had always judged her own worth as a woman by the man that she had. It was like her mom thought she wasn’t a real woman unless there was a man in her bed, and it could be any man. She had not been that picky in her daughter’s opinion.

She was sympathetic to Angie’s feelings of not wanting to be taken away from her mom, so she had tried time and again to help Donna get into a rehab program, and it worked for a while. But before long, Donna would be back to the bar or the local dealers.

The boy’s had been a little standoffish with her for a few weeks, not knowing what to do with a girl that actually liked to wear dresses and have her hair look pretty, but when Bobby had said something to push her buttons, like he always did to people, she punched him in the face hard enough to loosen his teeth. The two of them got along like a house on fire after that, Bobby going so far as to introduce her to people as his little sister. He liked the fact that even though she was a girly-girl, she didn’t take shit from no one and never hesitated to stand up for herself.

While Angel and Bobby were her protectors all through their teenage years and Jerry was the one she always went to for fatherly advice, by the time she was fourteen, she knew that it was Jack that held her heart. By the time she was sixteen, he had asked her to be his girl and less than a year later, she had lost her virginity to him.

Jack had always been the quiet Mercer, he was more sensitive to the feelings of others than either Bobby or Angel. He had always been the one to spot within minutes when she was scared or angry or sad and he would try to cheer her up by doing or saying something stupid. Or even by just singing her a song.

Angie sighed heavily as she absentmindedly rubbed a hand over her heart. Drawing her jacket tighter around her, she threw the burnt cigarette butt into the snow and dug in her pocket for her pack. Lighting another one, she drew deeply on it and looked up at the night sky as she willed the tears not to fall as she remembered their first time together. He had been so gentle and so patient. She knew that he had had sex plenty of times before, and she had been glad on one hand that he had known what he was doing, but on the other hand, she had been jealous of all the girls that had had him before. When she had told him how she felt about it, he had grabbed her face with both hands and told her that those girls didn’t matter, that they had not been her. That he had not loved them like he did her. Seeing the truth and the love in his eyes had convinced her of that, so she had never brought the subject up again.

Their relationship had not been without fights and misunderstandings. Jack was surprisingly possessive about her. He didn’t like any guys that were not his brothers near her, a fact that more than one boy in their school had found out quickly on the receiving end of Jackie’s fists. When she had had enough and accused Jack of not trusting her, it had been Bobby that had sat her down after a big blow up where she had thrown Jack’s guitar down the stairs and explained to her while she had blushed furiously that Jack was so possessive because it was important to him that he had been her first. Bobby had went on to tell her that for guys, it was a powerful thing for them to know that the girl they loved had never been with anyone else, that the knowledge that they had done things to their girl that no other guy had, made the caveman come out in all of them. By this time, she had buried her burnning face in the couch cushion as she thought Bobby knew everything that she and Jackie had done together while Bobby just laughed and told her to go easy on his little brother.

Her musings were cut short as the sound of firecrackers split the night. One could not live in Detroit for long and not know the sound of a gunshot. She had just instinctively crouched and started to run into the house when a boxer clad Angel dragging his old girlfriend Sofie, who was in her underwear, around the corner at a run. Without thinking, she called, “Angel!” and beckoned him and the shivering girl into her house. With a quick look behind him to see is the car that was chasing them was getting closer, he dragged Sofie through the front door.

Angie closed the door after them and sat back down on the top step. A split second later, a car came peeling around the corner and the driver leaned out the window. “Yo! You seen a guy and girl around here?”

Pointing a finger in a vague direction, Angie tried to look innocent, something she was remarkably good at, and said “Yeah, they went through the backyard over there.”

The driver waved his thanks and took off. Angie waited a few minutes before she went inside. Angel and Sofie were sitting at the kitchen table trying to catch their breath. Angel got up when she came in and pulled her into his arms with a bellow of “Pipsqueak! How the hell ya been girl?”

She grinned up at him as she answered, “Just fine Angel. Still the same old Angel huh? Not even in town a day and already got people trying to kill you. Glad to see the Marines haven’t made you lose your edge. And don’t call me Pipsqueak!” she finished sternly, knowing that no matter how many times she told them, the Mercer boys would always call her Pipsqueak. Jerry had started it because she had been a tiny thing when they met and the name still stuck.

Noticing Sofie shivering, she grabbed the older girl by the hand and said, “Come on honey, let’s get some clothes on you before you die of pneumonia.” Gesturing in the direction of the cupboards, she added “Angel, there’s coffee or hot chocolate in the cupboard. Make something for her while we go upstairs will ya?” Angel nodded, thinking that something hot to drink sounded like a very good idea after being chased for blocks through a Detroit winter. Angie led her to her bedroom so Sofie could choose what she wanted to wear. Angie’s clothes would be small on her, but it was only for the walk around the block to the Mercer place.

“How have you been chica?” Sofie asked in her Spanish accent, “Have you seen Jackie yet?”

Angie sat on the bed as Sofie flicked through her clothes and sighed, “Yes. And it was even worse than I imagined it would be. He hates me.” She said forlornly. Her silvery blue gaze hardened slightly as Sofie sat down to pull on a pair of boots, “Sofie, I gotta ask you not to say anything to Jack about….”

“I know. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Sofie answered softly as she put a hand over Angie’s in a show of support, “It’s you that has to tell him.”

Angie smiled at the girl Bobby always called La Vida Loca. Yeah, she was kinda crazy, but underneath all the drama she was a good friend to have. “You know this means you can’t tell Angel either right?” she asked.

Sofie nodded. If Angel knew it would only be a matter of time till Jack found out. Angel would not be able to resist saying something about it. This was between Jack and Angie and it was Angie’s place to tell Jack what she wanted him to know. “How is Sebastian?”

Angie smiled and answered, “Just fine thanks.”

With that, the two women went down to join Angel in the kitchen. He had the hot chocolate made and had wandered around staring at the pictures of Sebastian that decorated the fridge. Noticing his tense stance, Angie asked timidly, “Uh…Angel?”

He swirled around to face her and put the cup in his hand down with a loud thud as he asked in a voice that was tight with anger, “Angie, does Jack know?”

Her eyes widened in shock as she stuttered, “Umm, know about what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me girl.” Angel practically snarled as he stared her down, “You know that I know you are not stupid. Does. Jack. Know?”

She tried to brush it off as she said offhandedly, “He knows I have a son. He met Sebastian at Jerry’s house after the funeral.”

She tried to pretend that was all there was to know as she busied herself pouring her and Sofie cups of hot chocolate. She could literally feel Angel’s eyes boring a hole in the back of her head, but he waited until she had taken a mouth full of the hot drink, the bastard, to say, “Sure, but does he know that Sebastian is his?”

Sofie clapped her on the back as she started to choke on the hot chocolate while yelling at Angel in Spanish that he was a bastard for doing that. Once Angie had recovered herself, she squeaked, “What? What are you…” noticing the seriousness on the face of Angel, she sighed in defeat and asked, “How did you know?”

“Kinda hard to miss seeing as the kid looks just like him, but with your nose.” Angel mocked. “Does he know?”

Angie took a fresh cup that Sofie had just poured for her before she answered quietly without meeting Angels eye’s this time, “No. He doesn’t know and you can’t tell him Angel.”

“What!?” Angel gasped, “He’s got a kid that he don’t know about, and you think this is something I can keep from my own brother?”

“Yes.” Angie tilted her chin up in defiance as she looked the big man in the eye.

Angel shook his head and asked almost pleadingly, “Don’t you think that a man has a right to know that he is a father Ang? I remember when you and Jack were together, he had it all planned out. He would go and make himself a rock star and then the two of you would get married and have kids and a white-picked-fucking fence. He had even daydreamed about what your kid’s names would be and what they would look like. When he caught you with that asshole, he was devastated. Devastated Angie! A family is all that boy has wanted since he was small, and you are gonna sit here and keep that from him?” He shook his head again disbelievingly and then said with his voice harder than she had ever heard it, “If you don’t tell him, I will!”

Angie slammed her cup down as she spat, “No! I’m gonna tell him Angel, but I have to be the one that does it! Not you and not Jerry!”

“Jerry knows about this shit?” Angel yelled, “And how long has he known?”

All the fight went out of her and she slumped on the table with her head in her hands as she said, “Not that long. Look Angel, I will tell Jack, but with his feeling about me the way he does, I have to wait till the right time.”

“Well why the hell didn’t you tell him from the beginning Ang?” Angel asked, trying to understand. “What was that shit with Derek? How could you do that to Jack?”

“It’s a long story.” She sniffled and ran a hand over her face then looked at him, “I swear, I’m gonna tell him.”

Angel frowned, but nodded. “Alright then. I won’t ask any more questions just yet. But you should know that he’s not gonna stay in Detroit without a reason too.” He looked at her meaningfully. Standing up, he said more like his old self, “Sofie and I gotta get home now, but I’ll be back soon to talk.” He smiled at her showing his impossibly white teeth, “And to get to know my little nephew. Man, I’m an uncle…ain’t that some shit?”

Angie laughed and said, “What about Jerry’s girls? What are they, aliens?”

“Nah, but they’re girls. A boy is a whole different ballgame honey.” He teased.

Angie put her hands on her hips in the manner of pissed off women everywhere and warned, “Don’t you go thinking you can teach him shit about women Angel. I will not have my son turned into Angel Mercer’s little minnie-me.”

Angel just laughed, “Would you rather Bobby did?”

Angie rolled her eyes as she walked with the couple to the door, “God forbid!”