Chapter One
To the sound of a dial tone
Jack Mercer looked up over his guitar that he's hawked in his last year of High school, to find a tall, Leggy, brunette beaming down at him.
"Jackie!" she roared, before swooping down and engulfing the man of almost 6'2 into her 5'11 frame, her long, lithe arms encircling his muscular back.
"Beck, you slag, where the hell you been?" he laughed, ecstatic to see her.
"Hey, lil bro is that anyway to treat your older sister, hmmm?" she joked, jabbing him three times in the arm before punching a fair blow into his middle.
Doubling over, Jack smirked, "you can take the girl out of Detroit…"
"But you can't take the Detroit out of the girl" Becky finished, patting her good naturedly on the back. "C'mon you can buy me a drink, I've been pissing water for the last two weeks."
Jeremiah sat, alone in his three bedroom house centered in Detroit, the phone still resting on his damped cheek. He listened, semi comprehending of the dial tone which droned in his ear.
"Ma" he whispered to anyone but himself.
"Fuck!" Bobby Mercer bellowed, racking a shaking hand through his greased back hair.
"Fuck it all!" retracting the hand from his head he slammed it into the bar's photo smeared wall leaving a sizeable impression.
Bobby dug around in his pocket to find a spare quarter, he found only lent.
"Jesus" he moaned. Bobby turned to face the crowd, who at that moment didn't even know a Bobby Mercer existed nor did they care.
"Has any one got a spare Quarter?" he asked to an un-listening audience. Again he tried "Please does any one have a quarter I can borrow" no one even looked up.
Anger mixed with grief was a volatile mixture in anyone but in the confinements of Bobby Mercer it was like a nuclear bomb.
"Fine" he mumbled to himself, turning round to face the phone, placing two hands on it he pulled with such force that it ripped it clear from it wall. The noise provoked a stunned silence, people turned to stare, some with half empty drinks in their hands others with fags still clinging to their agape lips.
"NOW, DOES ANY ONE HAVE A FUCKEN QUARTER I CAN BORROW" he looked back at the dismembered phone "AND A FUCKEN PHONE?"
Angel Mercer, stood over the porcelain mouth of the toilet seat, doing up the fly of his Lee Jeans when the phone rang.
"Shit" he mumbled, running down the hall and into the living room,
"Angel?" a husky voice asked.
"Yeh, Bobby man, is that you, you sound like shit" Angel joked.
A dead silence settled on the other end "Angel…." Bobby's voice cracked, for the slightest moment "Angel ma's dead, man, she's gone. Get your ass back down to Detroit"
And then the dial tone became Angel's only voice in this world.
Becky's mobile rang in her pocket and she was about to let the phone answer it, when something inside of her made her pick up the sleek silver device and place it to her ear.
"Angel" she cried "what's up, I just spoke to you yesterday"
"Becky, babe, sis, Ma's dead."
Something of a scream escaped her lips. Jack turned from the Bar's television to catch Becky has her sturdy knees gave way from under her.
He clutched her as she cried and knew what answers lay for him on the other end of the phone. With one hand still cradling her head, Jack used the other to end the conversation on her phone. Pulling her close and screaming grief stricken into her hair.
"Jackie!" she whimpered "Jackie"