Billy Gibbons sat at a stool at the far end of the bar in a dingy little roadhouse on the south side of town. The bartender, who had been watching him with a quite air of recognition, looked up when the door opened. Billy watched in the smoke-filmed mirror that hung behind the bar as the new patron crossed the worn wood floor. He lifted his mug and took another sip of his beer and then returned it to the bar, watching as the straw spun in the mug after he'd set it down too hard.
The stool beside him creaked, but Billy did not acknowledge the company. He had met a lot of people in his lifetime. His line of work assured that. But the man beside him, Jack Hodgins, was the ballsy-est.
Still not turning to face the man beside him, Billy motioned for the bartender. Silently he motioned a dusty, unlabeled bottle on a shelf behind the bar and then nodded toward Hodgins. "Straight. No ice. No chaser," he added as an afterthought. The bartender's widened eyes betrayed him for a moment and Billy could sense Hodgins's new tension.
The drink was quickly placed in front of the scientist, who gingerly took a sip. Billy continued to watch him in the mirror and found amusement in the way his face contorted with the burn of the alcohol. He was surprised when Jack threw back the rest of the drink and then sat it on the bar and spoke. "Mr. Gibbons. They said you were in town looking for me. Angela actually told me to leave until things cooled off. I figure we might as well get this over with."
Undoubtedly the ballsy-est man he'd ever met. He thought back on the last time he talked with the man on the stool beside him. Cars and guitars and guns: that's what they had discussed.
Billy picked up his beer and took another sip through the straw before motioning for the bartender to refill Jack's glass. He knew from what his daughter had told him that Jack would be too polite in this sort of a situation to turn down the drink.
He remained silent as the reflection of the man that he had come to town to seek a sort of over-protective vengeance on picked up the glass and emptied it again. He returned it to the bar and stared at it a moment, before motioning to the bartender himself and having it refilled again.
There was something on this man's face that was familiar, Billy realized as Jack stared dejectedly at his third drink. The older man turned slightly to face him. The boy was in pain, he realized. There was a degree of irony to it, and for the first time that night, he spoke, "I can't do anything to you that you're not doing to yourself."
"Maybe a physical manifestation of it wouldn't be as bad," Jack replied, knocking back another drink.
The bartender didn't wait for another signal; instead he refilled the glass as soon as it hit the counter. Billy turned back to his beer and took another sip. "Is that what you want?" He wouldn't really be breaking his promise to Angela if Jack asked for the beating that he had intended to deliver.
"Maybe it's what I deserve," Jack said thoughtfully. The alcohol was catching up to his brain and the words were coming easier. "Maybe all she wants is something casual. Maybe I should be flattered that she would want it with me." The drink disappeared and he drew in a deep breath. "Is it so wrong to want more?"
The understanding hit Billy harder than he expected. It was as Angela had said; they had hurt eachother. And for a brief moment he found himself viewing Jack as a victim of his daughter instead of Angela being hurt by him. It slowly registered that Jack was still talking, his rambling speech only pausing for him to take in air or more alcohol..
"…so close to perfect that it's not even funny and everything I do causes her pain, which hurts me too. Even today, with the turkey. How was I supposed to know it would bounce? And I had to be the one to explain that it's just been moments with us. And then Lance suggests that she should try celibacy for a while, and she is, and I hope that helps her get things straightened out in her mind. Lance, the shrink, thinks you sold your soul to the devil. Says you're sinister. Lance is an idiot. Helped me see that it was normal to be angry with the world back when Zack was working for the cannibal right about the time when things fell apart with Angela and I, but he's still and idiot…"
Billy managed to not chuckle at his remark about selling his soul and listened as the now-drunk scientist rambled on. He stopped listening to the exact words, but noted that the longer the man's speech went on, the more slurred things came out. Angela's name was always handled with care. Even as Jack leaned precariously on his stool, the exact number of drinks that he had downed long since lost count of, and the entire sentence ran together, her name was spoken with reverence.
He waved the bartender over, paid the tab and purchased the remainder of the bottle. "He'll be around for his car later."
"Right."
Billy hoisted Jack to his feet and pulled his wallet from his pocket. When he opened it a small picture caught his eye. It was a wallet-sized self-portrait of Angela. The lamination was peeling apart around the edges. It was well worn, well loved. He pulled a bill from the wallet and tucked it back into Jack's pocket. "This is for not seeing us here tonight?"
"Excuse me?"
"We were never in here," he said, passing the bill to the bartender.
"Oh. Right." The bartender glanced down at the bill. It was a secret that he would have kept for a twenty. Billy realized this, but he had still handed the man a hundred.
"C'mon Jack. Let's get you home."
He guided Hodgins as he stumbled across the parking lot, passed the little red Mini Cooper, and toward an old black Ford coupe. Jack managed to stay upright while Billy opened the passenger door and helped him onto the bench seat.
He nearly laughed when the man laid down with a slight groan, stretching out across the bench seat. He walked around the car and climbed in behind the wheel, sliding into the passenger seat, pushing Jack out of the way, and putting the bottle on the passenger floorboard.
The car roared to life and Billy tore out of the parking lot. He understood the car. The '36 Ford coupe had a heart and soul and a mind of its own. The way to Hodgin's estate was simple, but not something that his car was willing to agree to. And who was he to argue with a car thirteen years his senior?
The car might as well been on autopilot. It didn't disturb him; it gave him time to think. His prior thoughts of how perhaps it was Jack who should have his sympathies returned. Angela had put her mark on him. It wasn't one that was going to fade. For many men, her pretty face would have been enough. For many men, one night would be enough. This one it was different.
Jack Hodgins loved his daughter. He respected her. Even more, he deserved his daughter. Angela wouldn't have appreciated that sentiment, but it was a father's prerogative to think it.
The next thing he knew he was pulled up in front of a little tattoo shop in Lynchburg, Virginia. He had been here before. They had inked Angela's birth name and birth date into his skin a few weeks after she was born. The picture had come later: the black and white face of a smiling toddler with dark curly pigtails.
That little girl had left her mark on Billy, despite the fact that he barely saw her. In a way that was the same thing that had happened to the man that he was currently hoisting from his passenger seat.
He half-drug Jack through the door. The place looked the same but the receptionist was new. She gasped at the sight of him, looking slightly star-struck. "Reverend Willie G?" she asked excitedly.
"I'm just Billy tonight, ma'am. Does Frank still work here?"
"He's not in tonight. His boy is."
"Little Eric?"
"Not so little anymore," came a deep voice from behind him. "Daddy taught me everything that he knows. What can I do for you tonight Mr. Gibbons?"
"This boy is going to be my son-in-law," he said, without much thought as to the idea that it might have been a lie at the time. "Years ago your daddy put my little girl's face on my arm. He needs the same."
"But he's a bit…"
"He's a good man, but from a different sort of place that I am. He wants it but he's a bit squeamish. There's a half empty bottle in my car that serves at a testament to his nerves."
The tattoo artist nodded his head knowingly. "Do you have a picture?"
"It's in his back pocket," Billy laughed. He reached for Jack's wallet and pulled out the picture.
"Beautiful girl," Eric said as he waked back through the studio.
"Thank you," Billy said as he lowered Jack into the chair. "Put a double banner below her face. 'Angela'… 'Forever'," he said without a thought. His little girl had permanently marked this one. There was no use in him carrying it around on the inside only.
Eric smiled. "Of course."
Two hours later Eric wiped Jack's arm off one last time and applied a gauze bandage over the fresh tattoo. The excessive alcohol had done its part. Jack barely acknowledged that he knew where he was or what he was doing. In retrospect, Billy realized that ether would have been a more effective form of sedation, but nothing had been planned.
Once Eric was paid and generously tipped, Billy hauled Jack back to the car. Once they were both inside, Jack came around. "My arm hurts," he said through a barely recognizable slur.
"Have a drink then," Billy advised. "It'll take the edge off."
Jack nodded and looked around the car from his slightly skewed position. Once he located the bottle he took a draught from it.
"Easy on that," Billy advised. "I don't want to have to explain your alcohol poisoning to my daughter."
"Angela," he murmured in response, before passing out.
Billy caught the bottle before it toppled onto the bench seat and recapped it. He started the car with the intent to deliver Hodgins back to Washington D.C. He planned to either leave Jack on the passenger seat of his little car or to return him to his house. However, once he was out of the studio's parking lot, the black coupe seemed to have different ideas. Billy's mind briefly flitted back to Jack telling him that the psychologist believed that he had sold his soul. He was fairly certain that his was still intact, but he was beginning to question that of his car.
Stopping only for coffee and driving well above the legal speed limit, the two men crossed into Texas sixteen hours later. At five in the afternoon local time he pulled off the road in front of a large billboard that advertised the amenities of a truck stop a mile down the road.
It wasn't sunrise, but it would do. The heat and the sun would bring him around quickly while still giving him a chance to escape without answering any difficult questions. He didn't worry about Jack dehydrating as he'd been passing him a bottle of water during his conscious moments for the last seventy miles or so.
Billy wasn't sure what drove him as he pulled Jack to his feet. The man was slowly coming around. He had slept through most of the ride and thankfully avoided puking in the car. He led him out through the short brush. About a hundred yards from the road, Jack stumbled and fell to his knees. This would do. The man rolled to his back and faced the sun, closing his eyes tightly, falling back asleep.
He chuckled as he glanced Jack sprawled out on the ground before turning and walking back to his car. He sat along the road with the motor running until Jack stood and looked around. Then he drove town the road to the truck stop.
He pulled the car around the back and went inside. He ordered a cup of coffee, which was brought to him by an older woman named Evelyn. She smiled kindly but didn't make any remarks about his identity. This is what he liked about Texas. Everyone recognized him, but no one treated him as any more than a neighbor.
When she brought the pot around to refill his cup, he declined. "Evelyn, in a few minuets a man named Jack is going to come through that door with a picture of my daughter, Angela, tattooed on his arm," he said, pulling a recent photograph of the young woman from his wallet.
"Oh?" she asked, trying to not look intrigued, least she be perceived as nosy.
"Yes. He's a scruffy little fellow and he'll smell of alcohol. I'm afraid he's not very happy with me. You see, among other things, I got him drunk and I have his phone. I need you to dial this number for him and return his cell while it's ringing," he said scribbling Angela's cell phone number on a napkin. "He'll need a ride home and I have to be out west at a show."
"Not a problem, Mr. Gibbons," she said with a smile.
"Very good. Now I've got to get on the road. If he's not in within the hour send one of the boys after him. I left him out about a mile or so to the east."
She nodded.
"Thank you much, ma'am," he said standing, and passing her the phone before tossing a bill on the table and heading toward the back door.