Free Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) by Shawn Lawrence Otto Page B

didn’t know how to work them, they worked you. He unpacked a family photo from a banker’s box and set it on the nightstand, followed by an old clock radio, which he plugged into a brown outlet protruding from the wall. Then he stood and went back into the main room to find the lawn bag that contained his bedding.

7
    That night JW dreamed of his father for the first time in years. The dream had the quality of memory, for in it a flock of blue jays was attacking a cardinal in the grass. This had really happened. But in the dream his father stomped on the birds as if putting out a fire, and they flew squawking into a nearby tree. But one was left on the ground, fluttering around with a broken wing, near the dead cardinal. His father stomped on it, crushing it, and turned to JW with rabid glee.
    He woke with a buck of panic, his father’s baleful expression stuck in his mind. He lay in the dark, hot and sweaty, and listened to the trailer’s murmurs and creaks. His heart was thumping, and a terrible lucidity came over him as he cooled and the dream faded.
    He got up, his limbs stiff and dull as wood, and stumbled in to the tiny kitchen. He made a cup of chamomile tea to settle his stomach. The pot whistled as he tried to shake off the spell. As feeling returned, he sat at the tiny table and sipped in the dark. The speckled Formica glowed in the moonlight. He needed help, he realized. He had been utterly competent most of his life, but now he was in over his head—with his gambling, with Jorgenson, with his failing relationships and his enormous debts. He was coming apart on the inside. But there was no one tohelp him, no one who could understand, or offer aid and counsel.
    He began to make a list. He would find the local Gamblers Anonymous group and he would get a Big Book. He doubted it would do any good—after all, gambling was not an addiction like alcohol—but he wrote it down. He would go to Carol and fix things with her. He would take Julie camping or shopping—whatever she wanted to do—in order to rekindle their relationship. Make more of an effort. Get over himself. He could feel a sense of normalcy and resolve returning as the list grew.
    He had never before done anything like what Jorgenson was asking of him, but he tried to make a list for that, too. He would try to become Eagle’s friend, he thought, and then he would search his house. The thought seemed ludicrous, like something out of a movie. He imagined breaking in, only to learn that it was all a big mistake. Eagle was probably planning to open a fast food restaurant, or something equally innocuous. He would tell Jorgenson that he had it all wrong. Jorgenson would be relieved, and he would give JW another chance. JW would put his nose to the grindstone and stay away from the casino, he would make his payments, he would be home every night for dinner, at church every Sunday; he would slowly work himself out of debt and earn back Carol’s trust. Slow and steady is what he needed, just like everyone else. Conservative, clean, no more crazy risks. And no more gambling, ever again.
    As JW imagined this new reality, his earlier sense of dread and anxiety began to dissipate. He had a plan in his notepad. Life was not out of control. He carried it back into the bedroom and set it on the nightstand. He lay back down, and slipped into a turgid, tentative sleep.
    He woke in the late light of mid-morning, and after showering he dressed in a crisp white shirt and a nice fall suit. The ominous, unsettled feeling still lingered from the night before, but he had a plan. He stepped out of the trailer and locked the flimsy aluminum door behind him. During the ride back to town he reviewed his list, and with the mental activity the feeling began to subside.
    He drove first to the county library, where he used the Internet to find the local Gamblers Anonymous chapters. One of them was meeting just before lunch in the basement of Christ