Pulling the phone from my ear, I tried my best not to flinch. “Mel, what do you want me to do?”
“Get off your fat ass and work or so help me—I don’t care what you do. I would suggest during Colemen’s pretty speech to put two bullets in him and even the fucking playing field again—”
Before I could stop her Olivia grabbed the phone from me.
“Have you lost your fucking mind? That’s my father!”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” I heard Melody say. “Now get the fuck off the phone, you’re wasting my bloody minutes.”
“Boss,” I said, grabbing the phone before Olivia smashed it against the wall. “I’m…”
“Did Liam and I not tell you how important it was for us to secure the presidency, Neal? It could be Mrs. Colemen as President or you could aim for Colemen’s legs. All I know is, if you have a better idea, start working on it, because if I have to jump my pregnant ass across the pond to do it myself, I sure as fucking hell will. As for the drugs, make them move. Sell them at half the damn price if you have to. But the longer we sit on it, the weaker we look and the more money we lose. Junkies don’t care that the President is dead, they just want their fix and what the customer wants, they get!” And with that she was gone.
“She’s a monster!” Olivia screamed as I hung up, grabbing my tie and walking towards the door.
“Neal! What are you going to do?”
I didn’t answer her because in all honesty I wasn’t even sure. So much for having power.
EIGHTEEN
“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the gun down.”
—Malcolm X
JINX
I don’t like people. I don’t like being around them, and I don’t like walking amongst them. My place has always been in the sky. I was born in the sky, somewhere over Vermont of all places. My mother gave birth to me on a plane, and since then, that’s the place I’ve tried to stay. Being a first generation Italian to a nearly blind mother and a deadbeat alcoholic father, there wasn’t much room for me to spread my wings as child. My days were spent trying to stop my father from killing my mother, and my mother from killing herself.
It was only when I turned eighteen that I left. I kissed my mother goodbye, left my father a six-pack and joined the Air Force. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and sooner than I could blink, I was dripping in medals of honor. Time flies when you’re having fun, and it flies even faster when you live thirty-six thousand feet high. My job was second nature to me; I would have done it for free.
I got my nickname Jinx because no matter how hard someone tried to outshine me, they would fail. I would steal away their look. At bars the women would leave the other guys to be around me. In the air, no one could get near me in drills without something going wrong. To me it was luck, to them I was Jinx.
Life was good, until I found out the bambolina I was seeing was pregnant, just as I was given another assignment. The last thing I told her was to keep the baby and we would talk about it later.
Drop the package over North Korea, come home, get married, be the father mine failed to be, and live a happy middle class life like everyone else. But, that day never came, because apparently, I died…or at least the government said I did.
Moments after I dropped the package, I was shot out the sky like a duck during hunting season. They pulled me from the mangled, smoldering machine I had once called my baby, and tortured me. But I took that one for my country, thinking they would come and rescue me. They had to. Day in and day out, for four years I was beaten within an inch of my life, always asked the same questions over and over again.
“The guns! Who wants the guns?” I didn’t know it then, but the package I had dropped was filled with American weapons to arm Korean rebels. America wasn’t coming to my aid. They would deny to their dying breaths that I was even in Korean air space.
They had chosen me not because I was good, but because I looked foreign enough and stupid enough not to ask questions. So for four years I did my time in Hell, only to escape during a small riot. I ran for hours doing my best not to be seen, blending in with those trying to leave the country. In South Korea, it took me four more years and a fake passport to finally make it back to the “land of the free, home of the brave.”
I found out that not only had the world moved on, but that I no longer mattered within it. Everything once bearing my name was gone; my identity was wiped clean. Somewhere in Vermont, both my parents were dead, my father killing my mother and then himself. The woman and child I had left behind had moved on without me. They were happy…who was I to take that away from them? So I was alone.
I wandered the streets, doing odd jobs here and there all over the country. I lived under bridges, I ate from dumpsters, and on occasion, I would shower in subway bathrooms. My luck had turned and now I truly felt nothing but jinxed.
Then, one day, as I lay at my spot behind the dumpster, I watched as a white Tahoe sped into my ally. In front of it, some poor Irish mutt looked for a way out. He begged the white Tahoe as if he were speaking to a God, claiming he would get her money back. He swore on his life, but it did him no good. Instead, it drove over him as if he were nothing but a rat. I would never forget the sound of his screams, muffled by the blood in his mouth, nor would I ever forget the look in her eyes as she stepped out of the driver’s seat to look at her handy work. Realizing I was now a witness, I was pulled from my makeshift home and made to kneel before her.
She looked at me, not saying a word as she held a gun to my head; I could feel nothing but gratitude. But she didn’t pull the trigger. Instead she looked at my dog tags—the meager remnants of my past.
“Why is an Air Force Lieutenant living behind a dumpster?” she asked.
I stared at her seriously and simply said, “Budget cuts.”
A few of her men snickered, but not her. She didn’t even crack a smile. She stared at me as though she could really see me.
“Lieutenant…”
“Jinx.”
She glared. “Well Jinx, how would you like to join my army?”
“Do I have a choice?” After all, I already had a gun to my head.
“We all have a choice. Yours is simple: spend the rest of your days living in filth or join me and walk on water.”
I had nothing left to lose. She saw something in me, and because of that, I had my wings back. Flying for the first time after years of being grounded was its own personal high. She gave me what I needed, and in return she had my loyalty. I would die for her and yet there were times…
MELODY
Walking slowly through the wet grass, I came to a stop beside Jinx, staring past the cliffs into the sky, hills and lakes. I had to give it to the Irish: their country was beautiful…and green, very green.
“Thinking of jumping, Jinx?” I asked softly as the wind blew by us with a howl.
He snickered beside me, the wind blowing his dirty, blonde, shoulder length hair. “I’m sure you could find a new pilot, ma’am.”
Grabbing his arm, I forced him away from the clouds to meet my gaze. The wind picked up, but we just stared at each other. In that moment, his blue eyes looked just as broken as the day I met him.
“You’re in that dark place, Jinx,” I stated looking away from him, “Your daughter?”