Page 42 of Nodus Tollens
As soon as I closed the door on our little smoker, I felt my phone vibrate in my pants pocket. Being this early and on a Saturday morning, that could only mean one thing. One person in particular who only ever wanted something to do with me when he needed somethin’. I took a long pause, preparing myself for the kind of bullshit I was about to hear, then, ever so slowly, I pulled out my phone. A phone number I didn’t recognize was displayed on the screen, and I just knew.
I fucking knew it was him.
Hitting accept, I brought it up to my ear.
“Hello, this is a collect call from Jackson County Jail for Robert Villareal. Say yes if you would like to accept.”
Fuck…
“Yes.” I grunted into the phone and stormed towards the house. Almost tripping up the stairs, I ripped the door open and ran inside.
“Malachi? Son, you there?” His gravelly and raspy voice desperately asked. I wanted to tell him it was the wrong number. I wanted to fucking hang up and pretend like he had never called, but I didn’t.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I answered.
I had made my way into the kitchen, where I threw myself onto a barstool and rested an elbow on the counter. My raised hand went straight for my hair. I yanked and nervously ran it through my overgrown hair, waiting for my dad to respond.
“How… uh, how have you been?”
My eyes slammed shut.
Was he seriously asking me that after a full year with zero contact with me? Zero fucking anything. No calls, letters, visits, absolutely nothing. Rage started to take over as my whole body went hot.
“Better than you, that’s for sure.” I threw the insult at him with no remorse. “Why are you locked up now?”
A couple years ago, the same thing happened. He called me my sophomore year with a sob story of being accused of something he didn’t do. After an eight-hour drive, a long fucking talk with the cops, and a promise that he would be around more, I left with a flat tire and zero communication from him. To say I got majorly fucked over was an understatement, but I didn’t let it get to me. He’s been doin’ the same shit since I was a little kid, so I didn’t get my hopes up when he left the jail with a shifty promise and twenty dollars richer because of me.
Now, here we were again.
This time I was smarter… Or so I thought.
“I fucked up. I’ll admit it this time, and I know you have every right to be pissed at me, but…”
“But you need my help again, right?” I interrupt with a chuckle. My head dropped for a second as I shook my head at the déjà vu I was experiencing.
“Son.” He coughed. “Please, I have no one else I can call, and I know you’ve been doin’ good with your hockey.”
“I play in college, Dad. I don’t get fuckin’ paid for that. I work. I have a job in the off-season because that’s what adults do. They get jobs to support themselves. Probably somethin’ you should start doin’ considering you can’t afford to get yourself out of jail.” I seethed. The man had no clue what hard work looked like. Hell, he didn’t know what work looked like in general. He was a swindler. Always has been and probably always will be. Constantly looking for fast, easy cash even though it put him in dangerous, compromising situations, but he didn’t care.
He never cared about anything.
“I did have a job. A short one, but it was still somethin’.” He argued as if that made everything better.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
I went through all the possibilities in my head of what his ‘job’ could have been, but nothing came to mind. He had zero skills besides being a shitty dad.
“I was house-sitting for a few weeks, made some extra cash, and had a place to stay.”
Oh, of course. The easiest fuckin’ job in the world. If you could even consider that a job.
“Then why don’t you use that money to bail yourself out.”
Through the other end of the phone, I could hear chatter. Probably from other inmates, but another raspy cough caused my attention to shift.
“I would, but I had to pay off some bills.”
“Bills.” He really meant debts.
