So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Chapter 31: The Defiant Death of Jimmy (Part Three the Last)

-3-

Jimmy couldn't believe that his mom couldn't remember Bob.

He had hung up from her in frustration telling her tersely that he had to get back to work, which really was the wrong thing to say to her since she already knew he wasn't at the diner and that was just inviting a whole other conversation that would end up giving him a bigger headache than he had right now and just wanted to make him punch her right in the face.

He loved his mother of course and would never do anything like that even though she took every opportunity to point out when he wasn't doing as good as some of the other people he had graduated with. Like fucking Bradley who had gone on to score a prime spot with Channel 7 News and as a result was the source of many, many comparisons every single time he came on the news and what was Jimmy doing but working at that stupid diner. It was relentless and she knew the effect it had on him, but it was like she just couldn't stop herself, and Jimmy would sit there and just listen, just take it because he loved his mother and she was right and he could do better, but sometimes the urge would come to make a fist and bash her fucking teeth in, once, twice, three times and maybe a fourth, fifth or even tenth time, just for good measure.

She would seem to sense how far she was pushing him of course and would invariably back off and try to make nice, point out something nice she had done for him or mention how much she appreciated him, but the damage would be done and as he slunk off to his room to listen to his Radiohead albums on the expensive bluetooth headphones his mother had been so disapproving of, he would try to calm himself down, try to kill the rage that boiled just below the surface, the rage that was fueled by his own disappointment at how fucked up his life had gotten and his own inadequacy at fixing it and doing better. Every sharp barb his mother had thrown at him was simply an echo of everything he was already thinking and that always made it so much worse.

As he sat in the car, he found himself almost shaking with rage at the screaming match he had just hung up from, the first one he had ever engaged in with his mother.

Jimmy stared at the phone and then back at the condominium building across the street. He had been waiting there since Beatrice had left him about twenty minutes ago with instructions to watch the place and wait for Bob.

"How do you know he's coming here?" he had asked.

"It's the only other place he can come to for what he needs."

Jimmy had nodded wisely. "Ahh, so it is drugs right?"

Beatrice had winked at him and stepped out into traffic to face down an oncoming car. "Call me when he shows up, okay?" The car screeched to a halt in front of Beatrice with inches to spare; unruffled, she walked quickly around to the driver's side.

The driver, a well dressed black woman with head of tight neat dreadlocks, was furious. She began to yell at Beatrice even as she got out of the car a strong Trinidadian accent in her voice.

"Who you think you is standing in the blasted road like an idiot"?"

Beatrice smiled calmly and looked her in the eye.

"You're my friend now," she said. The angry woman was suddenly grinning from ear to ear, diatribe instantly cut off.

"Of course we're friends! How are you?"

Beatrice nodded. "Let's go for a drive."

"Let's go for a drive! You just tell me where," the woman said and eagerly got back into the car. Beatrice slipped into the backseat as Jimmy watched approvingly. She winked again at Jimmy as the woman drove her away.