Page 15 of Aaron
“I’ve been looking into the mystery of the missing women.You’re related to one of them.Is anybody you know able to call you up and get you into something that is on my time?”He said she had come up missing.“I also read her file.Did you?”
“I did.And according to my brother, she’s a lazy woman and only whines all the time about herlot in life.”He asked why he’d want her back if she was lazy.“I don’t know, sir, but he asked me, and after going over the reports of other missing women, I decided to send one of my agents down there to have a look.I knew I should have sent a man to do it.Women all stick together, and she’s lying in the hospital with a supposed broken ankle that has her not working her job.”
“She does have a broken ankle.Had you looked into that, you might well have found out that it was a secondary break from the one she had here in DC several months ago.The doctor then told her that it was only a sprained ankle and didn’t give her what was due to her to heal.”He said that he’d read that as well.“So now you’re a physician, are you?You know when someone has only a sprain rather than a broken ankle?I don’t want to talk about that right now.I want to talk about these women who got away from abusive situations.All of them had been beaten more over one month than I had been my entire childhood, and not nearly as bad.Did you investigate that too?”
“Men have to have the right to knock around their wives when they get out of hand.I’d not do it to my own wife, she knows better than to act out, but in my opinion, women have a soft head when it comes to following their husbands’ lead, and that’s all I want to say about that, too.”He waited for the President to tell him he beat his own wife or something along those lines.Agreeing with him about how his own wife was soft-headed, too.After a time, he thought that they’d lost connection.“Hello, sir.Are you there?”
“I’m here.”Silence again.And it was longer this time before he spoke.“I can’t believe you still think that way, Peter.Spousal abuse is against the law.No one should be beaten to be kept in line.Not ever.I don’t even want to ask you how you feel about child abuse.I’m afraid of what your answer will be.”
“I’ll tell you how I feel.If parents beat their children more, we’d not have so many school shootings in the world.Or, for that matter, as much crime at all.I wholly believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.People with children should be held accountable, too, if they have unruly children.Why my wife and I went out to dinner the other night, and there were two children with their parents, making everyone in the place uncomfortable.And don’t get me started on nursing mothers.My God, man, they just whip out their breasts and show them off to anyone that is there, like they have the god given right to do so.”He thought of something else that pissed him off when he went out to dinner nowadays, but was cut off when the President started speaking.
“You’re going to retire and soon, Peter.Had I known your views on things like women and children, I would have done so sooner.How can you live in this world and not be on board with the changes in it?You need to be retired because of the beliefs that you have that are so antiquated that I shudder to think what sort of impression you’re making on the men and women—especially the women who work for you.”The President told him to hold on for a moment.When he came back on the line after about five minutes, he tried to tell the man that all his men thought as he did.That’s why he handpicked them all to work for him.But he wasn’t having it.“In half an hour, there will be a detail in your office to help you pack up.You’re to go home and stay there until you hear differently from me.As of this moment, you’re retired from the FBI agency.If you want your pension, you’d better not give them any trouble either.Call your wife and tell her that you’re coming home, that you no longer have a job and—lord help her if she’s not just the way you described will be around the house for a while.I don’t have any idea what you’re going to be doing with your free time, but you no longer work for the government.Do you understand what it is that I’m telling you, Peter?You no longer have a job working for the government, and you’re to stay out of the offices that used to be yours.”
“I don’t know why you’re so upset with me.All men think the same way.”He said that they didn’t.“I know for a fact that my brother knocks around his wife and children.He’s never been in trouble with the law before.I don’t understand why you’re retiring me when I have a lot of good years left in myself to run this agency with a firm hand and a good head on my shoulders.”He said that no one should be subject to his way of life.Not as long as he could do something about it.“You’re just upsetting me, and that’s not good.I’ve given my life to this job and the people around here.You can’t just decide that I’m to be let go because you don’t agree with my way of life.”
“No one should be agreeing with your way of life.Do you have any idea what ticket I came into the office with?The exact opposite of your own feelings about women and children.And you probably don’t believe this, but there are men who are abused by their wives, too, who need a hand up once in a while.”He called them pussies.“To you.To me, they’re as helpless as the women that we help out of terrible situations.Not to mention the children who are caught in the bad relationships, too.Good lord, man, hasn’t anyone taken you to task about your attitude?”
“Just that young girl.Telling me not to talk to her that way.Doesn’t she know who I am and what I represent?No, I won’t allow you to retire me as if I’m some sort of neanderthal.I’m a modern man with good ways of thinking about the people in this world.”He told him that it was coming to him, that the men would be there soon to make sure that he got home.“I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me.”
Two men and a woman showed up in his office without so much as a knock from any of them.If he thought that sending a woman to do this to him was going to make him any less pissed off, he was wrong.The President didn’t know him all that well if he thought that he was going to go easily, either.There was no way he was going out of the office and being dragged out like some sort of criminal.
“Mr.Gravestone, it’s time for you to leave.We’re not going to ask you twice.Now come along, or the president said we were to call him and tell him that you’re not cooperating.”He told him he didn’t give a good goddamn what he was supposed to do.He wasn’t going to leave under anyone’s power other than his own.“We’ll have to arrest you if you don’t do as we’re asking you to do.”
It took the president coming down to his office to make him get out of his domain.He threatened to take away his pension and his good standing if he didn’t go home.He was already going to lose his car and his weekly paycheck.He’d have his retirement, but that wasn’t going to last him that long.He had things that needed to be paid for.
He and his wife had started out late in life.Time had come up on him hard when he realized that he was in his late forties and hadn’t started a family to carry on his name.Even marrying a younger woman, the way that he had, hadn’t gotten him a single child—a son is what he wanted to carry on the name.Peter didn’t even own a dog; he’d been so caught up in making a name for himself that he’d forgotten to even purchase a house that he’d have for his golden years.Now he was halfway into his mortgage and still didn’t have enough money saved up to even help with his retirement.In a word, he’d been stupid with his money.
And now he had nothing to show for even being on this earth but a mortgage to the top run-down house that he’d meant to make repairs on, a wife that didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain.No money saved up, very little in a 401K that he could depend on, and a job that he was being tossed aside for because he didn’t believe that a woman had any rights at all, and that children didn’t need to be knocked around a bit to keep them in line.What was he going to do?
He was able to use the car to go straight home.By the time he’d gotten there, he still had no idea what he was going to do with his life.His wife would be upset; there would be no more trips to Europe or any other trips to New York for the holidays.He’d have to tell his step-brother that he couldn’t help him anymore.This was all a mistake, and he wanted someone to tell him why it was happening to him.
He’d been the best boss he could be for the men in his department.Not so much the women, but what did they expect him to do when he’d been forced to hire them?Pamper to their every need?Help them with their job?His opinion had been that if they were going to work for him, he wasn’t going to cut them any slack.Nor was he going to let them do anything like the men did because he’d been forced to.No, they were there to make coffee and do research on things.If it hadn’t been for having several men off the day that Larry had called, the stupid woman, Mackenzie, wouldn’t have stepped foot out of his department unless she was headed home.Where she should have been all along.
His wife was standing in the doorway when he was let out of the car.She told him how she’d gotten a call from the president and that he no longer worked for the bureau.He told her that didn’t mean that he was going to be doing some sort of list of things to do around the house either.She didn’t much care for that and went back into the kitchen.Whatever she was doing in there, it had nothing todo with him.If she thought that he was going in there to look for her, she’d better get that notion out of her head right now.It wasn’t his domain, and he wasn’t going to step foot in there after all this time.He only went in there to eat, and that was all.Now that he was off from work, he wasn’t going to be doing any tidying up or making food for her simply because she might be tired from her job.He was off against his will, and that was how it was going to be from now on.
~*~
Aaron did kiss Mac before he left the hospital.It was much too short and sweet for his tastes, but they were in a very public setting, and he didn’t want to embarrass her by showing her how much he wanted her.And he did too.
But like he’d said to her before.It was her body and her rules when it came to the two of them making love.She didn’t believe him; he was sure of that, but he was as honest with her as he could be.Going home that night, he was going to need a cold shower or some time alone without any interruptions.People were forever coming to him about one thing or another all the time, and he wanted to just chill for a while and think about the houses that the two of them were going to be looking at tomorrow.
He’d talked to a realtor about the houses that were on the market.She said that she knew of two more that were being sold by a homeowner that she could get him an appointment to see too.Aaron didn’t care so long as things moved along quickly so that they could get into something bigger than his tiny apartment.It was that or they were going to be driving to DC daily—not even possible.
Getting home, he knew that he needed to start packing up things before too much longer.There really wasn’t that much.He rarely ate at the place, and sleep was all he’d found the place was good for.He had a single couch that he’d purchased when he’d first moved in.And there used to be an entire set of dishware that he’d been breaking pieces enough over the years that he had a couple of plates, one bowl, and a cup that he wasn’t even sure went with the set.Also, he’d had a silverware set that he’d ground a couple of pieces of it in the garbage disposal a few times, as well as simply lost some of it when he’d been using them.Not enough to start out with having a mate.
His bed was about as old as he was.It had been new when he’d been about ten, and he’d been using it ever since.He knew that he needed a new one and could well afford it, but things were just coming up, and he’d not been anywhere to get a new one.It had been on the bottom of his list of things to do for so long that he’d forgotten about it.
There was a dresser that went with his bed that was old and showing wear.He didn’t even use it anymore, as he’d been living out of laundry baskets, and he knew some of the drawers still stuck.There was a washer and dryer hookup in his place, but it was another thing that was way down on the bottom of his list, that he’d go to laundry mats rather than do his own laundry at home.He wasn’t lazy, but too busy to mess with certain things that would more than likely make his life a good deal better than it was now.
Ordering a pizza for his dinner, he decided that he needed to eat healthier too, and needed to go to the store to get things for his place.He had a, what he knew to be a five-year-old box of cereal in his cabinet that had nothing else and no milk, even if he wanted to try the cereal.Getting himself a bottle of water to have with his dinner, he began to think of himself as generally stupid when it came to running a household.If this was any indication, he was going to be in big trouble when he got to a house that he could use.
His only saving grace was that he could cook.Not perfectly or anything more than a slightly burnt grilled cheese, but he wouldn’t starve to death if he had the ingredients to make a few meals that required a microwave, which he didn’t own, to cook what the instructions said on the side of the box.He could even do Pop-Tarts if necessary, and he had time to do it.
Getting ready for work, he was nearly dressed the next morning when he heard from his brother, Zeno.There was a car accident on Maple Avenue, and it required his presence.He didn’t much care for automobile accidents as they were usually messy and trouble.There were always two sides to every story when it came to accidents, but they were also too far opposite of one another that it wouldtake him days, if not weeks, to figure out who did what to cause it.Once he was there, he let the other officers on duty tell him what they thought happened, then talked to the injured parties.
“She just pulled out in front of me like she owned the road.”He wrote down what was being said and nodded to the man who was talking.“I just washed my car too, and now look at it.It’s going to be weeks before my insurance company gets me another car.What the hell am I supposed to do now?”Her story was a bit different.
“He changed lanes without a turning signal and crashed into my car because he was in the wrong lane when I pulled out.I didn’t see him until it was too late for me to stop.”He liked this version better, but still didn’t say much.“And as fast as he was going, there wasn’t any way for me to stop the accident from happening either.He should have stayed in his lane, and none of this would have happened.Stupid man.He probably thinks he owns the roads by the way he was gunning it to get around the car in front of him.”
