Lindsay MacLeod

2-4-08

Per.1

Worthy of my Father's Name

Lawson was a lousy town. Parts of it reeked in poverty. Houses didn't look like houses and the stench of intoxication and cigarette addiction could be smelled from yards away. This was where Jack Rider had grown up. I deserve better he thought, much better, and that's why I'm going to Vegas. He didn't care that his girlfriend was in their living room sobbing as he packed his duffle bag. Nor did it sink in that he had an eight year old son, "Where yah goin' Dad?" he asked.

Jack simply hauled his duffle bag onto his shoulder and walked right passed him, ignoring him, like he had done all the other days of his son's life.

"Dad?" Alex asked, following his dad down the hall after he'd woken up to all the commotion. It was about seven o clock in the morning. He was watching his dad look for his keys in the kitchen, when he heard his mother crying.

"Why Jack? She asked herself, "why?"

Before he had time to think, Alex witnessed his parents fight again.

By the time Callie was tugging on his shirt, Jack was ready to deck her one. She fell to the floor and Alex screamed in the short distance, "Dad!"

Not like you haven't seen it before. Jack thought, not caring at all about Alex. He never had. He brushed his hand through his son's hair, "Sorry kid," he said, "The timing's too off for me." He turned his back on his eight year old and slammed the screen door shut behind him, as if he didn't deserve partial credit for getting Callie pregnant at eighteen.

As the Tahoe roared and pulled out of the driveway to disappear, Alex began to cry. Tears of pain sealed in a sense of fault as they traveled down his cheeks. He wouldn't realize until several years in fact, that it wasn't his fault; that he should not have tired to be worthy of Jack Rider's name.

Thirteen years later, Alex awoke with a start gasping and almost hitting his girlfriend in bed beside him. "Baby, are you okay?" she asked him, cooing like he was her puppy dog.

She had shaken him awake from his nightmare, but even being together a year hadn't brought up his horrible past. He nodded like a bobble head, "I'm fine," he murmured after releasing a shaky sigh. The small clock at his bedside noted that it was three o' clock in the morning. Five more hours until work, he thought. Groaning softly he laid back down, Ali pulling on the sheets, letting them rises up to his chin.

She had fallen a sleep again easily, but Alex still tossed and turned, finding minutes at a time to stare at the blunt red digits that told him the hour, or into the silky grey darkness just bellow their ceiling. At least I made it outa' Lawson, he thought.

Getting out of Lawson had been his life long goal since his mother had kicked him out into the streets at nine. That was her idea of putting him up for adoption. The foster care system he was later put into showed hardly much more mercy. I never thought I would thank her for it. He thought.

He'd barely made it through school and he'd barely graduated high school. Now twenty one years old, Alex was tired of life's twist and turns. Little did he know, life had one more in store for him.

Finding out you had a brother changed everything. Life as Alex knew it was over, and a new one was unfolding before him, without his permission. Asking for Ali's hand, going back to school, it was all over, and he had no choice, except parenting. His weekly hours at Firehouse 21 would increase, to pay twice the amount of bills. Alex was scared, and also jealous.

Though he only knew it deep down. Jack had returned to Callie begging for forgiveness as if he were casting for soap opera television. But she took him back and bore to a second kid, Taylor. In all the right timing, Alex sneered silently. The timing that Jack had wanted all along and that inadequated Alex's attempts to be the perfect son. I was never all that Jack Rider could have wanted. Alex had to have the Alternative Child Care Facility repeat the whole story, seeing he was lost in his own jealousy.

But now Jack and Callie Rider were dead. "Could you…..um…," Alex was speechless.

"We're terribly sorry Mr. Rider, "said the gentleman, Mr. O'Connell. "And, you're brother, Taylor, has no family except for you. Now, you don't have to except this; we can put him in foster care,"

Alex almost interrupted Mr. O'Connell in his quick pause for silence, "No, its okay I,"

"Thank you, Mr. Rider. I'll bring Taylor by tomorrow in the early evening. Also, I'll be following up on you with performance reviews, since he is a minor. A failure at one of these reviews Mr. Rider, and I'm afraid Taylor Will be put into our Alternative Child Care Facility here in Lawson."

"Yes Mr. O'Connell, I can assure you that won't happen." Alex realized now Taylor's fate. We don't have the same past, but we're not about to have the same future.

Taylor was almost the spitting image of him, except that his hair was blonde, not brown. It also shot off in all directions. Their eyes were the same however, both a rich royal blue. Mr. O'Connell was the only one that didn't seem to notice the awkwardness and kept spitting out phrases like, "I'm sure you too have catching up to do?"

Like what? Alex would ask silently, the hell we've been through? Taylor felt the same way, but was overall much quieter and shy then Alex. Of course that's what Alex thought.

"Is that a PS2?" Taylor asked after Mr. O'Connell left.

Alex nodded. Surprise, surprise ten year olds like video games.

"Wanna a challenge a single fireman?" he asked, laughing for the first in a long time.

Taylor laughed as well, "Wanna challenge a ten year old, Champion?"

To no surprise, Taylor won. "Booyah!" he shouted. But Alex tackled him on the living room floor. He shouted in comical agony at first, "Get off Alex!" Alex laughed as they wrestled. But suddenly Taylor panicked and violently broke away. Out of breathe he crashed onto the couch.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked, probably to be one of the first people concerned about Taylor.

But Taylor shook it off rather quickly, "I'm fine," he said, even though Alex wasn't so sure.

The roaring of the Tahoe was back as Alex tossed and turned that night. A cool sweat broke on his forehead and back. "Dad," he murmured under his breath the cries of his subconscious. Dad! No, don't leave me! He woke up, nearly screaming. But the screaming wasn't his, "Taylor?" he stayed in bed as his ears struggled to put together all sorts of disoriented sounds. Like the tossing of sheets, scrambling of feet and the running of water. He's probably okay, Alex assumed. But his assumption was wrong, as he found out later. Alex wasn't the only one haunted by nightmares.

His ears followed Taylor back to bed as he slowly lay back down. But as soon as he closed his eyes, he saw his father slamming the front door in his face. The freezing sensation of water didn't help. The day his father abandoned him was embedded into his memory forever. Taylor was tossing and turning again in the distance. "Dad, dad no, stop." He murmured as Alex approached his doorway.

In the blink of an eye, Alex kneeled at his bedside and shook him awake. Taylor almost hurt Alex when he sat up so abruptly, "No!" he screamed. Alex put his hand on his shoulder. Taylor made no reaction to the gesture, or his existence.

"It's okay," Alex said simply in the best brotherly tone he could come up with. "It was just a dream," he added.

Taylor nodded, but not assuredly. His was slightly pale, and a sweat traveled steadily down his face. He almost began to murmur something in response to his dreams, but he noticed Alex's existence.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked.

He nodded.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded again, but Alex wasn't satisfied. Our dad just died. He thought. "Hey," Alex said to get his attention, since he thought he saw a tear weld in the corner of his eye. "It's gonna be okay Taylor,"

But Taylor shook his head, "You wouldn't understand," he said.

Taylor pulled up his sheets and turned on his side away from Alex. "What wouldn't I understand?" he asked.

"Nothing," Taylor snapped.

"Well obviously it's something," Alex said. Concern growing and the jealousy crawling up his spine as he wondered about what life could have been like for Taylor, born with automatic identity and worthiness to their father's name.

"Leave me alone," Taylor snapped. "You wouldn't understand. Dad just got rid of you."

Anger had found and combined with his jealousy. "Fine he sighed, trying to disguise his annoyance, "I'll leave you alone." And he did.

Two hours later it was time for Alex to get up to go to work. He showered, put on his blue shirt and black pants, and went out to the kitchen for college kid brand cereal for breakfast. A few short minutes later, Taylor staggered in half awoken by another nightmare. Oddly, it was a Saturday, and Alex thought he was beginning to grow out of the cartoon stage. "Are you okay?" Alex asked.

Taylor seemed slightly more awake. "Can I have some water?" he asked. It only became more obvious that something more then the death of Jack was bothering him.

"Sure," Alex said, pouring him a glass, "You…sleep okay?"

Taylor sipped his water with blank expression, an expression that showed he was debating in his own mind. "C-…can I tell you something?" He asked, but Alex felt nervous as he notice it was hard for him to get it out. He nodded. "I, I know Dad hated you, b…"

He looked at Alex in apology, "its okay," he murmured, "hopefully you don't hate me though," he smiled.

Taylor didn't smile in reply, "And, I know, you think, he loved me, but,"

Taylor paused, Alex couldn't believe it, and how did a ten year old know all of his assumptions?

Tears suddenly fell down Taylor's cheeks, and the glass shattered on the floor, with water everywhere. "Taylor?" said Alex.

Through Taylor's tears, all of his questions were answered as to his little brother's behavior. Jack Rider had been stuck in a mental battle, a search, for the perfect son. Alex hadn't come in the right timing, and Taylor had been seven weeks early, leaving Jack and Callie in debt to the hospital. Neither of them were all he could have wanted or worthy of his name, and it wasn't their fault.

Alex put his arms around him while he cried. "It'll be okay," He said. "We would've never been good enough. But,"

"But what?" Taylor cried.

"It's not our fault," Alex smiled, realizing finally himself.

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