Page 33 of Property of Baffle
“Gianna - my mom - bragged about it.When she told me while she was drunk, I would have chalked it up to her lying and trying to be mean and get under my skin because she hated that I was curious about my father.But I overheard her talking to one of her friends and she told them basically the same story, only she was bragging about her part in it.”
“Don’t stop now.I want to hear the whole thing.”
“Gianna was tired of your dad always going back home to you and your mom.She knew about you.She knew he was married to Stace and had a son.It was never a secret.Like I said, my mother felt entitled to her time spent with him.Eventually, after she was kicked out of her family and shunned by their wealthy friends when her fiancé dumped her, she started to resent the fact that Dad never increased the time he came around.He took care of us financially.His time spent in town was less with her because he was helping to take care of me and paying attention to her less and less.I think the shine wore off, finally.Or maybe me being there mad him see that he was doing something wrong.”
That must have been hard for her to admit because she got up and pulled a box of tissues out of an overhead cabinet and then sat back down, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose before she continued.
“I guess the guilt was eating him up because he started to drink and do drugs, which was something he never did before.Not the drugs at all and he never drank to excess.At least that was what my mom claimed.”
“That tracks for Sticky.He wasn’t big on drinking and didn’t do drugs.That shit all started about a year or two before…” I let the words hang there because it was still difficult to talk about my mom sometimes.“Anyway, it got worse over time until that day.”
Angel nodded.“That was what I gathered from the things she’s said.It bothered her that he turned to drinking and drugs because she could see our life going downhill and how his guilt was going to spiral for all of us.She must have known he wouldn’t choose us.So, the last time he visited, she told him that she came to Violence to try to find him.From what she said to her friend, because she left this out of the shit she told me, he went ballistic on her for even stepping foot in New Mexico let alone in his small town.He told her she crossed the one line he always warned her about.”Angel sniffed and wiped her nose again.
“I guess she decided to burn everyone’s potential happy ending since he was going to walk away from her - maybe from me, too.She told him that when she was there she saw his wife with another man.My mother told him that his wife was pregnant with another man’s child and that Stace was going to leave him.She fed him some convoluted story about seeing my mom and this man coming out of the OB/GYN’s office.”Angel rolled her eyes at that.“Either dad was drunk, high, or really stupid to believe that.The closest office in New Mexico is almost a two hour drive away from Violence.Otherwise, Springerville in Arizona would have to do.That’s still in a whole different state about an hour away from where mom supposedly saw this go down.”
Angel shook her head.“That’s the thing about Gianna, though.It’s not hard to tell when she’s lying because nothing ever adds up.I guess when you’re riddled with guilt and abusing substances to forget that, you don’t really think rationally about what you’re being told.”
Our father hadn’t been a dumb man, so she was probably pretty on the nose with that assumption.
“This is one of the blurry parts of her story because she told me one thing and her friend another but I think she told our dad that she was seeing another club brother and maybe that’s why it got so bad when he left to go find out who it was.I don’t know anything else, or how that situation played out, other than the obvious result.I do know Gianna set it in motion with her lies.She never went to Violence, never saw your mom, and if your mom was having an affair, Gianna had no way to know about it.”
“I know how it all played out,” I admitted.“I was thirteen at the time.I came home to find my mother shot.She bled out on our kitchen floor while my father was passed out in a puddle of his own vomit.”
“Oh my God!Patrick, I’m so sorry.”
“Baffle.”
“What?”
“My name.You can call me Baffle.The only time people call me Patrick is when they’re mad at me.”I tried to lighten the heaviness with a little levity, but it missed by a mile.
“What about Rick?Isn’t that what Nell called you?”
“She’s the only one.”
“I see.”
“She’s the only one because that’s a name she chose to use.Since she picked it, it’s hers.Never went by Pat because my - our - grandfather was Patrick Mendoza.The man was mean as a snake and named after a saint.Go figure, right?”Angelica chuckled but I could tell she was still uncomfortable from our far-too heavy conversation.“Our dad admitted to everything.I never read the transcript of his admission because back then I wasn’t given an option and when I was old enough, it didn’t really matter.Mom was dead and he was in prison, what more did I need to know about that?I can get a copy of it and we can go over it, if that’s something you need.Or we can go see the fucker in person.”
“He would let us visit him?”she asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Have you ever gone before?”
“Not one single fucking time but I’ll go with you because I really want him to understand that if he killed her in a fit of rage based on your mom’s lies, then that needs to sit nice and heavy on his shoulders.”
“I’m sorry to come here and open old wounds,” my sister whispered.
“Nope.It sucks to think about that time in my life and what happened, but I won’t wish it away.I’ll take hearing about what caused my mother’s death in exchange for knowing that I have a sister and hopefully getting to know you.”She agreed with a nod of her head as she blew her nose again.“I’m pissed off all over again, but that’s with my father for not telling me about you.I’m not sure what kind of life you had after he went down because I have to imagine the money stopped rolling in.If he had told me, I could have looked out for you.”
“I bet he wanted to spare you from being wrapped up in Gianna’s shit.”
“Not a good enough excuse to sacrifice his daughter.He could have at least told the club and they would have looked after you.”
“I don’t know.It is what it is, I guess.I’m glad I finally got to meet you, though.You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“Let me guess, you thought I’d be some thug with only half a brain?”
