Action This Day

Never Enough

***Present day***

I stood outside of the Honorable James Spencer's office waiting to be allowed in to see him. It was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

He'd been an asshole my whole life and was constantly exerting his endless power in our County over me and everyone else that got in his way.

Thompson County was a small fish in the grand scheme of the State ocean, but we had one thing that made us important: Bennett Batteries Inc.

Bennett was a small town of less than a thousand people, but it was the County seat. James Spencer was one of two judges for the entire County along with brother Davis, and no one messed with the Spencer brothers.

James, never Jim, was the man in charge though. Davis was merely his puppet, just like every policeman and sheriff in the county. James was almost untouchable. He had one weakness--women--and he finally picked the wrong one to screw.

"You can go in, Jimmy," said the pretty secretary.

I nodded and walked through the door.

My stomach felt as if a hundred bees were stinging everything in sight. My forehead was dripping sweat, and my knees could hardly support me. It was the most difficult and possibly the stupidest thing I could be doing.

Everyone says "don't poke the sleeping bear". Judge James Spencer not only poked one but hit it with a bat and he would have to pay. The only question was, would I succeed?

The fallout if I failed was likely my disappearance. I know he has made his enemies go away and that's what drives everyone's fear of him. He has absolute control over law enforcement. I knew for a fact which sheriffs he used to bury the last man that crossed him.

You see, knowledge was the power I had. Information was the bullet in my gun.

When you have a large web of criminal power, it can't be managed by memory. He needed to know how much he paid to his cronies and who was on his payroll. He needed to know how much his operations were making. It wasn't enough to have money coming in. One wouldn't know if they were being skimmed or not.

I had found a way to get access to those records. The question was, how far was I willing to go with that information?

"Jimmy!" He said, putting on a front that he was happy to see me. He was never happy to see me. "What brings you by today?"

"Hello, sir. Could I have a minute or two of your time? I have a problem that needs to be worked out."

He nodded and pointed to a chair in front of his desk.

"Want some coffee? Water?"

"No thank you." I took a deep breath. "What I'd like is for you to stop fucking my wife."

He frowned. I wasn't sure if it was my vulgarity or my knowledge that he was having sex with my wife that upset him.

"What makes you..."

"Don't bother denying it, sir. I've got proof."

"And just what kind of proof do you think you have?" He snarled.

His smirk was unnerving, but my proof was irrefutable.

"DNA testing of my little Jimmy."

I had more, but the DNA test I had done showed I wasn't his father. Now, that might not prove the judge is, but I had witnesses too.

"Son, you've gone off your rocker. Let's say hypothetically I was intimate with your wife, none of your proof matters. I'll see to it that the proof is destroyed and you're ruined and discredited. Your little business will be bankrupted and shuttered. Hell, if you piss me off enough, no one will ever see you again. You understand me, boy."

I stood and said, "I'm not laying down on this. I know you drugged her the first time and blackmailed her to continue. Don't make me bring your world down. You know I have that power."

"You don't have shit. Does your punk ass think you have something on me? You have nothing. Now, for your momma's sake, I'll pretend we didn't have this conversation. You'll go back to being the father to that boy, husband to your wife, and fully loyal to me. Do you understand me, boy?"

I looked him straight in the eyes, mustering all of the courage I could find in my soul. I would not back down. I would not be one of his puppets.

"Fuck you, old man!"

I turned and walked out of his office as he shouting a final warning. Fuck his warning. It was game on, and I had already started putting my pieces in place.

****

What started the whole snowball, was my wife acting strangely on Thursdays. She had a pretty normal routine as the stay-at-home-mom of a two-year-old, but every other Thursday she was sullen and would leave Jimmy with me for a few hours so she could go to her hair salon appointment. She had a standing appointment at ten a.m. every other Thursday as she liked her hair cut short and had it colored blonde.

I owned a business that mostly sold batteries for solar panels and electric cars. I didn't need any employees and I ran it from my home office. Everything was done online and by phone. All of my wholesale product was bought from Bennett Batteries and I didn't warehouse anything. They drop shipped from their factory directly to my retail customers.

One month before my confrontation, she came home and looked like hell. She claimed to have gotten sick on the way to her appointment but brushed me off when I asked why her hair hadn't been done. If she had gotten sick, I assumed she would've come straight home if she didn't go to the beauty shop. She shouted at me to leave it alone and slammed the door to our bedroom.

It was at that moment I knew she wasn't sick. Something happened.

I set out to find out what happened and visited the hair salon. My high school friend, Sally, owned it. She inherited it from her mom and they were both the biggest gossipers in town. They were also the only beauty shop in town. The men used Frank the barber and the ladies used Sally. Otherwise, they had to go out of the city.

"Hey, Sally!"

"Hey, Jimmy. What brings you by today? You want some blonde highlights?"

We laughed and I said, "No. I wanted to see if I could buy my wife a gift certificate for your services."

She smiled, "Of course, Jimmy. It'll be good to have her back. I never understood why she stopped coming in. I didn't think we did anything to upset her."

"Oh?" That took me by surprise. Michelle mentioned that she was going to Sally's for her appointments. Why would she lie about that, I wondered.

"Yeah. Been awhile. I don't think she's been here since your baby was born for sure."

I was lost in thought as I paid for the gift certificate.

"You know we cut men's hair too," she said, breaking me out of my reverie.

"Come on, Sally. Ten bucks at Frank's versus forty bucks here? Besides, I'd have to give back my man card being seen in here."

We laughed and she waved as I walked out the door. I couldn't get past the timing of Michelle not going to Sally's since before Jimmy was born, even though she'd been telling me she was.

I knew how I could easily find out, I'd have to follow her.

****

I arranged for my mom to stop by for a visit the next Thursday Michelle was to get her hair done. I didn't tell my mom what was going on. I faked an emergency work thing and tried to catch up to my wife.

It wasn't that hard since we only had one County road into town from our house. I caught up to her just as she turned into the courthouse parking lot. I watched as she parked in an employee spot and walked in through the employee entrance.

I waited and watched for two hours before she finally came out. God damned if her hair hadn't been cut. It looked like she got her color done also. She surprisingly looked to be on the verge of tears.

I couldn't figure out how or why she got her hair done at the courthouse. There were no shops in there.

I continued to watch as she pulled out and drove away. A young lady came out as I was trying to figure out what was going on. She was carrying a couple of bags and what appeared to be art smocks. Then I realized they were the slips you get covered with at the barber.

I quickly made my way over to her as she packed her stuff into the trunk of her car.

"Excuse me," I asked. "Do you do traveling hair styling?"

She smiled and said, "No, I'm sorry. I only leave the shop to do the Judge and his daughter-in-law. Normally, I would only work from my salon in Bakersfield, but the judge pays extra."

"Okay. Sorry to have bothered you." As she shut her trunk, I turned, "How long have you been doing the judge and his daughter?"

"Almost three years now."

I faked a smile and walked back to my car. I couldn't believe that my wife was having her hair done with him. Something else had to be going on. I didn't want to believe she was having an affair with him.

I wasn't going to waste any time. I would confront Michelle as soon as I got home. Hopefully, Mom would be gone by then. I didn't want her to know what was going on just yet.

****

Michelle was home when I pulled in. My mom was walking out as I walked up.

"I'll see you, Jimmy."

"Bye, Mom. Thanks for looking after little Jimmy."

"It's always a pleasure to see my grandson."

I nodded and walked into the house as if I were walking death row.

"There you are," my darling wife said. "Where'd you run off to?"

I looked at her dead in the eye and said, "The courthouse."

The look of panic that swept over her face was indescribable. I should've taken a picture.

"What were you doing there?"

"Following you."

I didn't think people actually turned green when they were sick, but she did before spinning around and vomiting into the sink.

"Is Jimmy my son?" I asked quietly, hoping to God that he was. I knew that if she were having an affair he may not be and when that thought hit me, I wanted to kill her and the judge.

She wiped her mouth and whispered, "With every bone in my body, I hope to God he is."

"So, you've been fucking my father for at least three years and Jimmy might not be mine?"

Yes, Judge James Spencer was my father.

She fell to her knees and I thought she was hyperventilating. I helped her up as I seethed with the anger only a wronged husband could have. But my anger was even deeper. Her betrayal of me cut deeper when added to the betrayal my father bestowed on me.

"Jimmy, he's forcing me to do it," she cried.

"Explain!" I shouted. I was beyond pissed. I felt almost numb after talking to the stylist and having my world shattered, but since I had her admission, everything went red.

"Almost three years ago, he asked me to come to his office. He gave me a bottle of water and the next thing I knew was waking up on his couch naked. I had his...his ejaculate on my face and running out of my vagina."

She sobbed and threw her head into her hands.

I stood and punched the wall, making a large hole in the drywall. Thankfully I missed hitting a stud.

She jerked back, but didn't run.

"He drugged me and took pictures. You can't see my eyes in any of them, but I'm sure they would've been closed. I don't remember a thing from that time, I knew I was drugged right away. After that, he threatened you and told me he would use the pictures to ruin me if I didn't continue to see him. My birthmark was visible in some of the pictures."

I shook my head. She had a half-dollar-sized birthmark on her hip.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked quieter than my anger should've dictated.

"I wanted to so badly. You have to understand that. He said he would do to you what he did to Bill Harvard."

Bill Harvard was the original owner of the battery plant. My father bought into the business twenty years ago and several years later, Bill committed suicide. At least that's what the coroner called it. Bill's wife told anyone who would listen that he was murdered. She left town after selling Bill's shares to my father. It didn't give him complete ownership, but it gave him the controlling interest. He hired someone to run it for him, his way.

"And you believed him?" I scoffed.

"Jimmy, what could I do? If he was willing to drug me, rape me, then blackmail me, I knew he would do anything. He hates you, don't you see?"

I knew my father hated me. He made it clear as I was growing up that I was a disappointment to him. I never studied hard enough. I never got good enough grades. I never excelled in sports, and on and on.

He wanted me to follow in his footsteps by becoming a lawyer and eventually take his or my uncle's place as a judge when they retired. I shot that down by not going to college.

I found out when I was a teenager, all about the power my father had. I started to hear the rumors and saw the fear in people's eyes when they saw me. No one wanted to upset my father, so they walked on eggshells around me hoping to not upset me either. The last thing a small shop owner wanted was me running home to daddy and telling them I was wronged in some way. No one knew my father couldn't have cared less about my issues.

My Uncle Davis had two girls and they were treated the same shitty way by him. They became a doctor and a police officer on the west coast. They left town as soon as they could, but I was the stupid one that stayed. I guess Davis never could handle not having a boy. The girls have had no contact with any of us to this day.

When I started up my business, my father gave me a sweetheart deal to exclusively buy from Bennett Batteries. I didn't know any better at the time and didn't fully understand my father's level of evil, but I quickly found out.

The contract he wanted me to sign with Bennett Batteries gave control of my company to them if I achieved a certain level of sales. In effect, if I became successful, my father would take over my business. When I refused to sign such an outrageous contract, he threatened to cut me off from the family money and only relented when my mom got involved.

It was then, I decided to find out all I could about my father's business dealings. I never wanted to be caught flat-footed again. I spent ten years building a network of his enemies, gathering all of the information I could find.

"I'm going to get a test done on little Jimmy's DNA. I'll decide what I'm going to do after I get the results back," I said as she cried.

"No!" She shrieked. "Please don't get that test. I won't be able to take it if he's your father's son."

She was on her knees groveling at my feet. She had my legs wrapped so tightly, I couldn't move. I felt sorry for her. I don't know why, but I believed he drugged and blackmailed her. I didn't know his motivation, but I just knew it was true.

"Please don't throw me out, Jimmy. I love you so much, I don't know if I could take it."

"I don't know how I can ever get past it, Michelle. I just don't know."

Ultimately, I didn't kick her out. As I said, believed her story about being drugged and blackmailed. I think the deciding factor was the look on her face leaving his office. It wasn't happiness or joy. It was despair. She wasn't doing it because she wanted to.

He would pay for every tear she cried.

****

Several years before, after my father tried to screw me, I dug into what he was doing. I built up all the evidence I'd ever need to crush him. I regretted not sharing that with Michelle. He never could've blackmailed her then, as I could end him.

I had a friend, Charlie, who worked for my father but hated him as much as anyone. He was one of his lower-level accountants at the battery plant. When my father tried to screw me over, I vented about it to him over beers one night. Charlie was the first and main source of getting me the information that I would need to hopefully bring my dear father down.

The accountant that knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, was Mark Fabian. He handled all of the books personally for the illegal activities. Charlie only knew about him because he was responsible for emailing monthly reports to him. No one knew where Fabian was based. The only connection that could tie him to my father was the monthly email Charlie sent.

Fabian made a mistake and had Charlie email one report to someone else when he was on vacation out of the country. That other person hated what they were doing for my father and agreed to join our network of spies.

I was able to get a lead from snooping around at my father's house. We just happened to have a power outage while I was visiting my mother. My father was at the courthouse, so I took the opportunity to dig around. Under the guise of looking for candles, I left my mother with her tea and cookies in the kitchen and went to his office.

I found nothing except a post-it note pad. I used a trick from an old Sherlock Holmes movie and used a pencil to shade in the imprints of the pen from the previous note. It read: "ZC 10 5:30".

Back then, my father used post-it notes for reminders. He kept them in his billfold wallet. That was before smartphones came around and he refused to use a blackberry because the buttons were too small for his fat fingers.

Something was happening at 5:30, but I had no idea what ZC 10 was. So, I decided to watch my father and see where he went after work.

I followed him using a borrowed car to the old quarry outside of town. I was able to park out of sight and ran along the path into the main yard. There was no place to take cover, but he drove down to the bottom of the pit. That allowed me to lay down at the edge and peek over without being seen.

I watched as he pulled up next to a Cadillac I recognized and immediately knew what "ZC" was--Zack Carsini. I saw my father hand what I guessed was an envelope of cash through the window to Zack and then he drove away.

Zack Carsini was my Godfather. He was my father's best friend since childhood and was always at my father's parties. I have no idea what Zack did for a living but he was very well off.

He gave me the loan I needed to start my business, interest-free, and he gave me an envelope with five grand in cash as a wedding gift. Michelle was afraid of him due to his large size and overbearing personality so she generally avoided him.

I would find out later, the day I suspected something was going on with her on Thursdays, my father made her have sex with Zack and he was rough and hurt her.

I realized that my father and Zack were doing something illegal. There would be no reason for the money exchange in a quarry if it was above board. With that piece in place, I had a new starting point.

****

***Present Day***

I walked out of the courthouse and knew my father would have Zack visit me. My father failed to intimidate me, so he'd have to go to a more extreme measure. Little did he know, I was ready for Zack.

It only took five minutes to get a call from my godfather.

"Hello, Zack."

"Hey, Jimmy. How's the family?"

The nerve of the prick to start with small talk aggravated me.

"Fine, Zack. What can I do for you?"

"Jimmy, there's something I need to talk with you about. Can we meet soon?"

"Of course, Zack. Come by the house anytime."

He paused and said, "Um, it's a delicate conversation. Could you maybe meet me out at the old quarry?"

I almost laughed. He was setting himself up and making it too easy for me. He was going to pay for hurting Michelle, and the time had come.

"Sure, Zack. Will a half-hour be okay?"

"Perfect. See you soon."

I ended the call and opened my trunk. My little bag of surprises for Zack was there and ready to use.

****

Zack was waiting for me when I arrived, so I pulled next to his driver's side window and gave him a wide smile. I was nervous, but nothing would stop me from protecting my family.

"Hey, Jimmy. Thanks for seeing me."

"Anything for you, Zack. What's up?"

He frowned and said, "Jimmy, could you come sit in my car, please. This has to be..."

I lifted my right arm and shot him with the taser I had ready. He shook and went limp.

I walked over to his passenger door and sat next to him. After rolling his window up, I took the stolen gun I bought and placed it in his hand.