American Dream
Book One
Z.M. Kage
PUBLISHED BY:
Blank Page LLC
Copyright © 2014
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are either a product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
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ONE
Grand Rapids, Michigan.
June 12, 1989.
On his twelfth birthday, Jon Cole became fatherless.
Twelve years old. Too young to fully comprehend that his dad was gone, that he wasn’t coming back. Too young to grieve, to cry along with everybody else in attendance.
And, apparently, too young to be trusted with the truth about what happened.
The details.
That had to be what everyone was whispering about, but whenever he got close enough to listen, the whispers went away.
That had to be why, when he wanted to open that shiny black box, because that’s where his dad was, he was in there... eyes got wide and the only thing anyone could think of to say was NO.
Yeah... had to be because he was too young.
He focused on what he could remember. Tried to make sense of it.
His father died at work. That much he was sure of.
He’d left for work three mornings ago, the morning of Jon’s special day, well before Jon had to wake up and get ready for school, but he took the time to do something before he took off, something he knew would bring a smile to his son’s face.
Jon found it in his favorite box of cereal:
A birthday card with his dad’s handwriting on it.
“Sorry I couldn’t wish you Happy Birthday in person before you left for school this morning,” the message inside read... “I would have loved to take the day off and let you stay home so we could spend the whole day together, doing whatever you want to do, but I couldn’t make it happen. See you when I get home. Love You. Dad.”
He never came home. Jon wondered if it was his fault.
He’d been to church with his family just about every Sunday for as long as his young mind could remember, but never before had Jon seen so many uniformed men in one place.
They approached him, one at a time, saying things like “your father was a great man, we’re going to miss him” and “served with your old man, he was like a brother to me.”
Jon recognized one of the uniforms. The brown one, the same one his dad wore to work every day. The other one, though, he’d never laid eyes on before. He liked it, liked it a lot... and he wondered why – on a day when he was supposed to feel sad – all he could think of was how he wanted to wear one of those snazzy uniforms someday.
The one with the big gold buttons down the jacket, the rectangles of color that stack together to form a brick on the left side of the chest (they’re called ‘ribbons,’ he was told), and right beneath it, the two silver rifles that cross each other to make an “X” shape.
It was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
The day Jon said goodbye to his father, the day he watched them lower that shiny black box into the earth… that was the day he made his mind up about what he’d do, just as soon as he was old enough.
TWO
July 18, 2004.
Fifteen years later.
Just a routine traffic stop, that’s all it was.
Well. As ‘routine’ as a brand new officer’s first traffic stop can be.
Jon had been driving along, focusing on his own lane, oblivious to the oncoming traffic in the lane to his left when his radar detector roars to life with a high-pitched chirp.
Finally, some action, he thinks to himself as he hits the brakes and veers off the pavement and onto the shoulder so he can make as tight of a U-turn as possible to pursue the speeding motorist.
He catches up to the car, a 1980-something Buick Electra. He radios in the vehicle’s license plate details, flicks on his overhead lights and waits for the vehicle in front of him to respond.
Two seconds. Nothing.
Five seconds. Nothing.
Just as Jon’s about to turn on his siren and advance to the left side of the car he’s pursuing – a more aggressive approach – the driver of the Buick notices him, slows down, and pulls over to the side of the road.
Relieved that the driver in front him isn’t in the mood to play games and doesn’t feel like running, Jon can’t help but feel his heart rate increase. As he exits his vehicle, adjusts his brown uniform and begins walking up to the Buick, his mind wanders, vividly remembering the way his father had left this world.
It had been a traffic stop – probably a lot like this one.
Jon’s dad had pulled over some random vehicle that was driving too fast, like he’d done hundreds of times before... and he’d approached that driver’s vehicle on foot, like he’d done hundreds of times before.
There was no way his father could’ve known that the driver had a loaded revolver drawn and waiting for him long before he’d even exited his vehicle. And there wasn’t a reason for his father to assume that the guy he pulled over that day was operating a vehicle with a suspended driver’s license; that he was afraid of going to jail.
How afraid?
Afraid enough to not think twice about shooting Jon’s father in the face and fleeing the scene just to keep himself from winding up behind bars.
His plan worked, initially... he got away from Jon’s dad... but he was found, he was charged, and he was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for pulling that trigger.
Four years after his dad’s last traffic stop, when he was sixteen years old, Jon learned these things – he finally discovered the truth about how his dad had died, but by then it was already too late.
He couldn’t avenge his father’s death.
The coward that took so much from Jon, robbing him of the person he looked up to more than anyone else in the world... his hero... the worthless excuse of a man didn’t even have the balls to face his sentence – his punishment for doing what he did.
Digging through old newspaper articles after he’d learned the truth, planning his revenge, searching for the exact whereabouts of his father’s killer, Jon learned that he’d hung himself in his cell. Taken his own life.
Friends and family speculated that the shooter had realized what he’d done, had felt bad about it and wanted to punish himself for doing something so despicable.
Jon didn’t buy it.
He was convinced that the man who murdered his father was afraid of what might happen to him if he decided to continue living his life. He believed he knew somebody would come for him... make him pay for what he’d done.
Fuming at the realization that he couldn’t take an eye for an eye, he vowed to pick up the torch his dad dropped the day he made his last traffic stop. He promised himself that he’d follow in his dad’s footsteps; do the work he died doing.
But if asked about it he’d likely admit that he’d had his mind made up long before he’d learned the truth – way before he wanted revenge, or even knew what it was.
Jon knew he’d earn the right to wear the uniforms his father had worn – both of them – the day of his funeral... it just hadn’t made sense to him yet.