It was a very wide-eyed Angie.
‘Ray, I dunno why, but I had the feelin’ I would never ever see yuh again!’
They both hugged each other without realising what they were doing. Joey and Stash seemed mystified; Rico wasn’t…
‘It looks like there’s something to this female intuition after all…’
‘Don’t ever leave me…’
‘I can’t leave any of you, even you, Rico!’
Rico didn’t answer, he suddenly remembered something he had to do in the kitchen.
Angie snapped out of her frame of mind and the gang carried on as they always did. Rico returned in a great mood; there were no insults in any of their usual banter and it seemed that there were more laughs all around...
It was over a week later that there was a telephone call at work from Ray’s parents that invited him home to dinner that evening.
Though they didn’t live together, they remained on the best of terms as their son had independence, but he still was nearby. However, their relationship was still strained over his divorce that was the first in the family and the neighbourhood; Ray’s mother took it hard.
His Dad sat him down in the living room to tell him that Jackson’s parents had informed them that their son had committed suicide in California. Everything he had done since school was a tragic and depressing failure, a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force, scrapes with the law, a string of debts...He had returned home and used every emotional trick in the book to get money out of them. They warned him that the money they gave him would be the very last, there would never be any more again.
Ray’s Dad was a blunt no-nonsense type of guy, as those who went through the Depression then fought in World War II were. His motto was,
‘I’m never your friend, but I’m always your father.’
‘Don’t ever blame yourself for not going to California with him. People like that drag you down with them. You’d always be looking over your shoulder keeping an eye on him. He’d blame you for everything that went wrong with his life and then stab you in the back when you least expected it.’
‘I guess people like the Jackson I talked to on the phone were like that…I just never would’ve believed that the Jackson I palled around with in school was that way.’
‘You’re a winner in your own sort of way. He was a loser in every way.’
‘I don’t know if I’m a winner…I barely keep my head above water.’
‘Son, every man, no matter how much money he has, is just keeping his head above water…and another thing…you’re always truthful, your pal wasn’t. Remember when that sales manager you once had said you’d never make it as a salesman because you were too honest, and you talked to people rather than at them? Though you lost that job, I was proud of you. We really knew that we brought you up right.’
‘Dinner’s ready’, Ray’s mother said from the kitchen.
‘He had a great time with you in school, but lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.’
‘No, it never does. Let’s eat, Dad.’
------ THE END------