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I feel a bit inspired tonight, and in the mood to share a bit more, so here’s chapter two:
Three Days Earlier
Jake Corgan awoke to the humming of the vessel that he had paid his entire Christmas bonus to book an interior cabin aboard with his only child. Two weeks in the Pacific with the only thing that he had left of his marriage… a marriage that had left him broken and dueling with the notion of taking his own life.
He sat up, looking first at his sleeping son beside him, then to the false window that illuminated his interior cabin. He leaned back on the headboard of the bed, wondering if there was something he could have done different that would make his ex-wife materialize between him and the boy. There was nothing that he wouldn’t give to make his family whole again, but he had fucked it all up quite thoroughly. How do you convince your wife that it was all a misunderstanding when she comes home early from a sub-prime lending conference in Bangor and finds you in bed with a man she introduced you to just three weeks earier? He was conflicted as to who he was, and wanted that family lifestyle back again. It was there, securely nestled within its structure, that he could begin to feel like a normal person again. Or so he kept telling himself.
Jake gently lifted the comforter up and placed his portion of it over Brandon. He stood up and walked around the bed to his cabin door, turning the knob ever so slowly so as not to wake his sleeping son. Opening the door, he stepped into the hallway.
It was quiet. Why would anyone be awake at 4:37AM on their vacation? He turned left and walked down the hallway toward the elevator. Upon reaching the lift, he ascended to the shop level and emerged into a much livelier scene. The bustle of gamblers, tired of pissing their money away in the casino, and a few families eager to greet the day, amounted to a few dozen people slowly trolling the tiny mall.
Jake wanted coffee. He walked eagerly to the Starbucks he had visited every morning since their boarding, effortlessly weaving through the crowd. Arriving at the counter, he was greeted with a smile.
“What can I get for you, Sir?” The Barista asked him. She was tall and thin with cherry-red hair. Perfect complexion. Perfect body. Perfect personality. He made these observations, thought they did little to entice him. To Jake Corgan she served one purpose…
“I’ll have a large, regular coffee, please,” Jake said.
“Coming right up,” she responded, sparing him the grande, venti, whatever, jargon that he had hoped to avoid. She turned around, walking to the serving station behind her, and poured his coffee. She slipped a cardboard sleeve around the paper cup she had dispensed the hot liquid into, and turned around, placing it on the counter before her. “That’s $2.80, please.”
Jake placed a five dollar bill down on the counter, “Just put the change in your little tip jar, there,” he directed, pointing at a small, glass jar next to the cash register that held less than a dollar’s worth of loose change and boasted a small, hand-made sign on college-ruled note paper reading, College Fund. As if a college student would be working aboard a cruise ship when the Spring Semester was about to begin.
Jake took his coffee and started back toward his room, stepping around an elderly man who was slowly making his way down the promenade with the assistance of a walker. He barely took notice of the man, though in the aftermath of what was to come, he would never forget that frail figure.
He was the first man Jake had ever killed.
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