Page 7 of Harman

“Well, that’s just too damned bad. Your mom and I have talked it over, and we’re not going to continue supporting you for the rest of our lives.” He told his dad to turn things over to him now. “You’ll be broke by the end of the year and wonder what happened to it all. No. We’ve rewritten our will and have put our house on the market. Katie is making arrangements for us to dissolve the ownership of the houses that we have here and abroad. It’s the best decision that I think your mother and I have ever made. That and falling in love.”

“What about when I was born?” Dad just stared at him. “Christ, that’s harsh of you. Didn’t I ever mean anything to you two?”

“Not since you were in high school and hurt that young man because he wouldn’t have sex with you.” His dad’s voice had turned hard when he said that, and there was a little bit of fear rolling over himself. “I didn’t care, and still don’t, if you’re green and purple, Jimmy. Your coming out was fine with us so long as you were happy. But you continued and continued to do things to other people simply because you wanted something and they weren’t giving it to you.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is with that. You’ve always told me to get what I wanted no matter how.” His dad rephrased what he’d said. “Whatever. I don’t like that you’re going to be giving me stipulations now that you think that I never worked for the things that I wanted. I did work. Do you think it was easy for me to make people do things for me? Not even Katie would do anything unless I knocked her around a bit beforehand. Now, all of a sudden, she’s better than I am? No. I don’t want that. You change things back to what they were before, or I’ll not speak to you for the rest of your life.”

Dad started laughing. At first, it was just a spurt or two of laughter. Then he stood up, buttoned his coat, and laughed harder. Every time he sounded like he had some control over his mirth, he would look at him and start anew laughing. Jimmy thought he was deranged by the way he had to keep stopping to lean over and laugh. It was almost like he didn’t care if he spoke to him again or not.

But that couldn’t be right. He was his son. The one that would carry on—well, he’d not carry on his name for him. The thought of having children running around him was just too much to think about. Shivering, he was taken back to his cell to think.

If his father actually did what he said he was going to do, Jimmy didn’t know what he’d do. He couldn’t see his father just simply disowning him. Because that was what it sounded like to him, he was going to do. But that couldn’t be right. Who would he leave things, especially all his money, to if it were not for him? The longer he sat there, thinking about what his dad had said, the more he realized that his dad had been just been lecturing him and making him nervous. But it wouldn’t work. Not at all. He was onto him now.

By the time he had his dinner brought to him, he was thinking about the things that he was going to do when he moved into the house with his parents. First and foremost, there weren’t going to be rules on him about having parties at the house. Nor was he going to be left out in the cold because they only had one limo service. As his son, he should have his own limo when he went out and came home. That would also take care of the fact that he’d lost his driver’s license three months ago and wasn’t to drive anymore. Not that it stopped him, but he was going to use that to make his dad give him his own service.

He wished that he’d asked his dad about food service here, too. Opening his dinner up that had only just then arrived, he was dismayed to find that all he had was a slab of meat, some green beans that looked to be overcooked, as well as a large flop of mashed potatoes that had some kind of greasy looking stuff in the small bowl that had been mashed into them. He looked at the list on his tray and read it over.

“Reg food. No allergies.” He asked himself what reg food was and surmised that it had to be reggae food. “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen in the islands. What the hell is this crap? A bottle of water? Who drinks water nowadays? No one, that’s who.”

After tasting the mashed potatoes, he decided that they weren’t horrendous. But the gravy, what he’d read on the sheet with his meal said it was, wasn’t his cup of beer, seeing the line of grease that was on its middle part. No way was he eating that. And meatloaf? What the fuck kind of concoction were they trying to poison him with?

In the end, he ate everything on his plate, including using his bun to get more gravy in his mouth. After he taste-tested the green beans, he decided that if all vegetables tasted like them, he’d gladly just eat them. But the best was the meatloaf.

He knew there was no way he’d ever eaten such a weird and strange food. Then he, purely by accident, he’d mixed some of the gravy with the potatoes. It had to all be eaten together to make the awful potatoes rise up, and it would be wonderful if you ate it with gravy on it.

The meatloaf was meaty and moist. Loving the crispy tomatoey edges that he’d discovered when a bit of them had gotten into his mouth. It nearly had him begging for more of just that. As he finished off his plate of food, he discovered that there was some sort of pie, too.

Even after getting the meatloaf eaten, he was still leery of the pie. Scrapping off the top layer of the fluffiest stuff off it, he nibbled around it on his fork. Finding that it wasn’t so bad, he took a bite of the creamy filling. The banana flavor took his breath away and nearly had him picking up the whole pie, creamy stuff on top and all right into his mouth so that he could enjoy it.

It took him less time to figure out what the pie was than it did his meatloaf. He’d been sure that it was the brown liquidity stuff on his potatoes and not the loaf. It was banana cream with meringue. Jimmy wanted it on everything that he ate from now on. When they came to get his tray, against his better judgment, he asked if he could have a second helping. The man, this time, told him that his wife had made it for them tonight, and he’d get right on that for him.

After twenty minutes, time enough for him to think that he wasn’t coming back, he was brought not just another tray of food, but the cop had also thrown in some cornbread, another thing that he’d never eaten before that had been left over from lunch today.

“There’s honey and butter if you want to smother it all over your bread. The best way to have it is dripping in it.” When he was alone, Jimmy ate his dinner almost too quickly and looked at the cornbread. He was just trying to figure out how one went about smothering something onto a thick slice of bread when he was told that it would be an hour when it would be lights out.

Jimmy was full, too much so, but he was going to try the cornbread. It was like he’d been asleep for years, and this was his first meal that he’d been given. He’d never had such wonderful food and hoped that tomorrow’s menu was just as good. While he did like the cornbread, he didn’t love it like he had the meatloaf. He could really get used to this if he had to stick around much longer.

~*~

“Mistress, he seems to be in a much better mood than he was when he was first arrested. It’s because of the food.” Katie, still getting used to having the little faerie named Ice Cream around her all the time, asked him what was so special about the food. “He is tasting things that he’d never had before. When the jail tender came back for the second tray, he went on and on about how delicious the meatloaf was. I’ve no idea what that is, but he seemed to think that it was the best thing with honey and butter all over it. I would dearly love the honey myself, but I’ve never eaten the other.”

“I’ll have someone make it for you next time we’re at home. I think he’d put the honey and butter on his cornbread and—never mind.” He thanked her but told her to not to go to so much trouble for just him. “I love cornbread. My mom used to make it when ends were hard to meet. It would fill you up with some soup beans, and I’d be full all day.”

“I would like that, I think.” She asked him why they had been asked to come to this building. “Oh, yes, your question. There is a vampire that lives deep into the building. He’s very old and in need of a more secure place to rest. By resting, I mean during the hottest part of the day for him. He is a good friend of the elder Griffin and his wife, Queen Luna. They’re the magical world’s favorite magical couple for all they’ve done for our kind and so many others.”

“All right. He won’t bite me, will he? I mean, should I have garlic around me or something?” A voice deep in the darkness told her that garlic no longer affected him. “Oh, you can hear me. I’m sorry. This is my first assignment for the family.”

“You are doing well. Come into the building so that I might have a look at you, my dear. You’ve nothing to fear from me. My name is Alexander Smith. I am but a humbled vampire that is down on my luck.” She told him that she doubted that he was very humble and smiled. “Ah, a woman trying to win my favor. It’s been so long. But to be visited by the mate of Harman Griffin makes me feel like a new man. Thank you for coming.”

For the next hour they sat at a table that Ice Cream made for the two of them to use. She had paperwork for him to look over and some things to sign. As an acting attorney for the Griffins, she was able to show him the things that were a benefit for him. As well as point out some of the things that he should be made aware of so that his estate would be safe.

“I gave this information to Edwin just yesterday. For you to have found all my property is a wonder. Some of the items that are on this list are ones that I’d forgotten about over the years. Thank you for that.” She told him that she was glad to be able to help him. After getting his affairs in order, she showed him the things that Harman and herself were doing for him. Mostly, it was to give him the house that he’d been living in and making it clear that he was able to stay with them in their finished basement if he needed a safer place. “I cannot thank you enough for that. I find, however, that I grow weary of people and would like to end my life on my own terms.”

“You feel like you have nothing more to live for? That’s sad. But I don’t blame you.” She smiled at him. “Did Harman tell you that he could taste and smell now? He’d never been able to do that before. He takes his time, smelling the roses, so to speak. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have no sense of smell or taste. And now, a whole new world of things had opened up for him. Simply because he met me. Wouldn’t that be grand if I could give you the same motivation? I know that I have stopped what I was doing a great deal more to smell the flowers around me.” She looked at her paperwork, slightly embarrassed about her going on and on. “You must think that I’m a silly romantic.”

“I don’t think you silly at all. However, I would classify you as a romantic. Are you, by chance, telling me in your own way that I need to stop and smell the things around me?” She felt her cheeks heat up, and she looked at him. “Oh, my dear. Does Harman yet know what a treasure he has in you? How you are the best thing that has ever happened?”

“He doesn’t often enough, I don’t think. But I have no trouble reminding him to remember that.” The large vampire threw back his head in mirth. It made her giggle when she realized that he was surprised by the humor and that he now had a small glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

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