Page 1 of Mother Parker
ONE
PARKER
There it was, like the Promised Land. Yet, did it hold much promise for a man that had lost everything and was looking for a new start? I didn’t know. Somehow I doubted it after everything I’d been through.
I didn’t know if there was any place left in the world for a guy like me. Yet one could only hope. Hope and pray and try not to admit defeat and fool everyone in the process.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Asher Ford, my ride to the island and ex-teammate, said, draping an arm around my shoulders and looking ahead.
I squinted at the bright-yellow lights in the distance and took a deep breath of the salty sea breeze.
“Yes, yeah, the darkness is beautiful.” I snorted.
Ford flicked my head.
“Shut up, Officer Grumpypants. You know what I mean,” he said.
“Erm, no, I don’t. I can’t see a fucking thing. How am I supposed to know it’s beautiful?”
I got another flick.
“Wait till you see it in broad daylight. It’s a thing of beauty.”
“It’s an island.”
“God. Aren’t you Mr. Cynical!”
“Only if you want to call me cynical for speaking the truth.”
Asher sighed and removed his arm from me, leaning on the taffrail and inhaling deeply with closed eyes.
“Mayberry Holm will win you over. You’ll see. Even a grump like you.”
I pressed my lips together and tightened my hands around the railing.
“I wish everyone would stop calling me that,” I muttered in a single breath.
“Stop calling you what?”
“A grump!” I shouted as if it wasn’t obvious.
A few people on the ferry turned and stared at me before again admiring the darkness ahead as if it were a work of art.
“Yeah, I’d probably start by not having those kind of outbursts. And it’d probably help if you smiled once in a while. Just once every few hours, you know, just to stretch those laugh lines before they turn into a permanent scowl?” Ford said with a grimace.
“If I start randomly smiling, I’ll look like a psycho.”
“As opposed to the fuzzy teddy bear you are now?”
A growl erupted out of me without my consent, and I turned my back on the lights getting brighter ahead of us.
“I’m going to the restroom,” I grumbled and walked off before I said something I’d regret.
Why was everyone so dead set on getting me mad? Why was everyone so convinced I was Officer Grumpypants after everything I’d been through?
Then again, no one knew the extent of the shitstorm of my personal life. Maybe if they did, they’d take pity. But to do that, I’d have to open my mouth and tell them everything, and that would require effort and a whole lotta booze, and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed.
How could I talk about my life without completely breaking down? How could I do that without making everyone think I was a stupid, useless piece of shit that deserved everything he got?
