Inheritance Tax by InitialLuv

Chapter Eleven (In which Mark expounds on his past and Milt expresses opinions.)

McCormick pulled out the chair opposite Hardcastle, reaching for his beer and finding the bottle nearly empty. He had barely sat down before he was up again, retrieving two more bottles from the refrigerator. He placed one in front of the judge, then sat to twist the top off his own bottle and take a long drink. When he put the bottle down, he saw Hardcastle frowning at him.

"What?"

"Just wondering if you really need a second beer. If your blood pressure's up. . . "

Mark looked steadily at the older man. "You want me to talk? Then, yeah, I need this." He gestured at the bottle. "In fact, we don't have any more tequila hidden around here anywhere, do we?"

Hardcastle huffed. "One night of listening to your intoxicated jabbering was one night too many. And don't bring up the wine cellar, because we're not gonna go that route." He returned McCormick's steady gaze. "I'm not interested in the drunken version."

"It would be easier," Mark said softly. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and stared at the wood grain of the table.

"I've told you some about my uncle. How I stayed with him and my aunt for a little while after my mom died, until I got in trouble." McCormick looked up briefly, and Hardcastle nodded at him silently.

"And back when we found Nick Damion, I told you how he'd helped me when I was fourteen, that I had called him and he'd talked to me? I told you how I'd been in a pretty bad place then, close to the edge." And not four months later, you almost went over it.

Hardcastle was nodding. "You did say something about getting in trouble, not having many friends," he recalled.

Mark sighed. "Yeah, I guess I was a loose cannon. There weren't a lot of kids who wanted to hang around with me. I was angry all the time, getting into fights. But I wasn't always like that. It just got bad when my mom got sick."

Mark paused to take a drink, then rolled the bottle between his hands.

"We'd already had kind of a rough time. After my dad left, we had to move to a smaller apartment, and she sold a lot of stuff so we would have some money. The piano, the TV, some of the furniture. She had been working a lot, so I was home alone a lot. And one time when I was maybe nine or ten I tried to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich, and I started a fire in the kitchen. I was able to run to the next apartment and get someone to help me put it out – it wasn't that bad, but I was a kid and I was terrified." McCormick shook his head with a grimace. "When it was all over with, the landlord kicked us out. My mom had two weeks to find us someplace else to live. She decided maybe she should go home. That's how we ended up in Hoboken, above the laundromat. It was the cheapest thing she could find that was close to her family, her brother.

"I didn't really know my uncle, I'd never met him before that. My cousin, too – I met her for the first time. My mom and I went over to their house one day not long after we moved. My uncle was at work. My mom and my Aunt Brenda were talking in the living room and my cousin was supposed to be entertaining me." He smiled briefly. "I could tell she was pretty unhappy about having to hang out with a smart-mouthed punk kid, whether she was related to me or not.

"Well, I guess my mom and my aunt lost track of time, because all of a sudden my uncle was home. I heard him and my mom talking pretty loud, not really yelling but close enough. I went to leave my cousin's room and she pulled on my arm and held me back, and she had this weird look on her face. I just shook her hand off and went out to the living room. When I got out there I saw my mom was standing and facing my uncle, and she looked like she was ready to cry. When she saw me, she came and grabbed me, hard, and pulled me out the door. I don't know if she ever went back there.

"But I did."

Mark stopped again, looking at Hardcastle's empty bowl. "You done with that? I can stick it in the dishwasher. And is the pot empty?"

Milt was ready to wave McCormick off, to tell him the dirty dishes weren't important in the whole scheme of things, and then realized that the younger man was using the after-dinner clean up as a break, so that he could collect himself. "Yeah, the pot's empty now," he said. "I think it's going to need to soak, though. I don't want it sitting in the half-full dishwasher with the crud drying on it."

Hardcastle saw something akin to gratefulness on McCormick's face as he collected the rest of the dirty dishes, and then set about rinsing and soaking and cleaning. When the table was empty of everything except their beer bottles, Mark sat again. He was quiet for several minutes, occasionally sipping on his beer, before he again took up the story.

"Things just seemed to go from bad to worse after we moved. It didn't matter how much my mom worked, there were always bills she couldn't pay. And then I wasn't any help – I just cost her even more money, whether it was clothes or doctor bills. . . That was when I hit Kenny von Bischoffshausen to keep him from stealing my lunch money, and then his brother broke my arm. I remember how mad she got at me. Before that, when I did something wrong, she'd usually lecture me, punish me, but then she'd give me a hug and say something like she didn't like the choices I'd made, but she still loved me." Mark looked at the judge with a kind of pleading. "I tried to explain that I only hit Kenny because we needed the money, that she couldn't keep giving me money for lunch just to have some bully steal it. But she wouldn't listen to me. She wouldn't let me explain, she just yelled at me for fighting. I mean yelled. She actually told me I was more trouble than I was worth." Mark's voice shook slightly. "Right after she said it she put her hand over her mouth, like she was trying to take it back, but it was too late.

"I was thirteen the first time my mom got sick. I didn't notice right away that she wasn't feeling well. I don't know if she was trying to hide it from me, or if I just wasn't paying attention. But then she started missing some work, and the bills really piled up. She was tired a lot, and stressed out and tense. She would blow up at me for the littlest thing. It was just . . . bad. I didn't realize until later what she'd been going through, how upset and scared she must've been.

"It was almost August when she went into the hospital. The doctors didn't know how long she'd need to be in there, and she was worried about me being alone in the apartment, since it was summer and I wasn't in school. So she convinced her brother and his wife to watch me. I was only there two weeks, but two days was too long."

McCormick took another drink, emptying the bottle. He studied the brown bottle for a moment, then lifted his eyes to look at the judge. Hardcastle sighed quietly, then pushed his unopened bottle toward McCormick.

"That's it, though. No more after that one. At least you've got something in your stomach now, to soak it up."

Mark nodded his thanks, taking the bottle but not twisting off the cap. He was feeling a little bleary, and he wasn't sure it was the beer, the aspirin, a combination of the two, or just the effects of reliving his past. Either way, he thought maybe he'd wait to start the third bottle until he was further into the story.

"I didn't really know what to think when I got to my aunt and uncle's. We'd only been there that one time, and I'd just seen my uncle for a few seconds before we left. That was about three years before. My aunt was fine, she got me set up in a spare room, showed me where everything was, told me we'd eat when my uncle got home. I remember sitting at the table, just amazed at how much food there was. My mom and I weren't exactly starving, but we kinda lived hand-to-mouth, and I was always hungry. So I got a little over-eager, and reached for something, and that was the first time he hit me.

"It was just so unexpected. He socked me in the head, so hard I actually saw stars. He said something like I needed to ask before I took food. It didn't matter – I wasn't hungry anymore. I remember just being shocked as hell. I was trying not to cry, and looking at my aunt and cousin, and neither of them would look at me. Neither of them tried to defend me. I could understand it with my cousin, she was only about a year older than me, but my aunt. . . That I just didn't get. At least, not then. When I got older it made more sense. I mean, I was only there temporarily. She had to live with the guy. "

Hardcastle broke in. "That was her choice. She was an adult."

McCormick shook his head earnestly. "No, Judge, it's not always that easy. You've seen that, you know what it's like to be stuck in an abusive relationship. She had a kid, and –"

"Yeah, that's right, she should have thought about her kid, and gotten her away from him!"

"Judge! Come on! She saw what my mother went through, raising a kid by herself. And he wasn't just physically abusive, he could make you feel about two feet tall. She didn't have any self-esteem, any confidence that she could make it on her own. She didn't think she had any choice!"

"She had a lot more choice than you, kid."

Mark's silence signified his agreement as much as if he'd spoken. He opened the beer, sooner than he had expected. There was still so much more.

"The next thing I got hit for was not making my bed up to his standards. Then my aunt had me take out the garbage, and the bag had a hole in the bottom, and some juice or something tracked across the floor. I came back in the house and my uncle grabbed me by the hair and slammed me down on the floor, so I could see the trail the bag had left. He had his knee in my back, so I couldn't move, and I couldn't breathe. And the whole time he's got me down there he's talking about how stupid I am, and how I'm just like my idiot of a father, and how I was such a screw-up no one else would take me in and I should be grateful for their 'hospitality.'" McCormick spoke the last word with such vehemence that Hardcastle looked at him with guarded apprehension. The open hatred he saw on his friend's face was not a common sight.

"After that he stopped giving reasons for why he hit me, and I lost track. It didn't take me long to figure out a pattern, though. If he was sober he hit harder, but if he was drunk he'd add in the verbal abuse. Sometimes I could get away and hide from him when he was drunk – I was small, and I was fast. But I couldn't get away from his words."

McCormick paused again, taking another drink. He shifted in his chair restlessly, again studying the table top.

"I decided the only way I'd survive was if I stayed out of his way. If he was home, I'd hang out on the streets. I couldn't go to the hospital, because they wouldn't even let me visit my mom unless there was an adult with me. I knew if I went back to our apartment that it would be the first place they'd look for me, so I just wandered the neighborhood. I'd sneak back in late at night, hoping my uncle was already passed out drunk. It worked for a couple of days. Then one night, my aunt had to go pick up my cousin from some slumber party – she'd called, wanting to come home. So my uncle had still been awake when I tried to sneak in. And he blindsided me. He'd already tied on a few so I was eventually able to get free, and I hid in a corner where he couldn't reach me. So he started in with the words. Told me how I was a worthless piece of crap and that I was probably the reason why my mother got sick."

Milt made an involuntary noise, a half-cough, half-sigh, and McCormick looked up. Hardcastle scowled slightly, then rose to grab a beer out of the fridge. Mark raised his eyebrows at his friend.

"Think I gave up on that one too early," the older man said, pointing to the bottle he'd passed to McCormick earlier.

"You ready to hear more?"

Hardcastle took a swig, then nodded silently.

"He did finally pass out. When my aunt and my cousin got home, I was still hiding there in the corner, and I'd fallen asleep. I think that really did something to my aunt, to see me like that. She sent my cousin to bed and then she got down on the floor with me and sat with me. She told me she was sorry, and that she'd try to protect me. And the second week wasn't as bad. By that time my mom was doing better, and I could go visit her. And any time my uncle started to get on my case, my aunt would try to distract him. Sometimes it worked. Not always." Mark shook his head, and the next words were barely above a whisper. "Not enough.

"After the second week my mom got out of the hospital, and we both went home. I didn't tell her what happened."

Milt had been taking a drink, and now he slammed his bottle down in agitation. "Why the hell not?!" he exploded.

McCormick looked at the judge mildly. "She had enough on her plate. She lost one of her jobs while she was in the hospital, and now there were doctor and hospital bills on top of everything else. I didn't see any point in telling her what a bastard her brother was. As far as I was concerned I was never going back there."

"Couldn't she tell what happened to you? He must've marked you up pretty good."

McCormick smiled grimly. "Yeah, but not on the face, or anywhere that would have been obvious. He was an old hand at making sure his handiwork was hidden. I was able to keep my mom from seeing the scars and bruises. Lots of jeans and long-sleeve shirts. A little uncomfortable in summer, but . . . " he trailed off, suddenly realizing he had been employing the same tactic to hide his unexplainable bruises from Hardcastle.

Mark gave his head a quick shake, as if to clear it, before going on. "You're probably right, Judge – I should have told her. Because after that happened, I went off the deep end. I was out of control, and she couldn't handle me. She still wasn't feeling well, and, oh, it was hell for both of us for a while. Things eventually got better, but they never got back to normal. She never really got better.

"I was just finishing up ninth grade when she started getting really bad again. I think we both knew what was going on, but neither of us would admit it. And when I realized what that meant, that if something happened to her that the only family I would have left was my uncle, I kind of lost it. That was when I called Nick Damion.

"We didn't have a phone, we couldn't afford it, but we'd use the one in the back of the laundromat for emergencies. It was after midnight when I snuck out of the apartment to break into the laundromat, and I used the phone to call the radio station, long distance. I was on the phone for over two hours. When I came back upstairs at about three in the morning, my mom didn't even ask me where I'd been. She'd stopped trying.

"She went back in the hospital a couple weeks later. And she never came back home."

McCormick drained the rest of his third bottle of beer, and then sat quietly. He stared unseeingly at the wall behind the judge, and Hardcastle saw that his eyes were glassy and unfocused. He could tell his friend was fading fast, although he wasn't sure if it was the stress of sharing the story, or the physical reaction of the aspirin and the alcohol.

"McCormick."

Mark blinked, seeming to come back from a far way off. He looked at Hardcastle, but didn't say anything. Milt studied him carefully.

"You with me here, kiddo?"

"I'm – I'm a little tired," Mark said slowly. "But I'm not done. I have to make you understand, tell you how Marty fits into all of this, and why seeing her today brought it all back."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Hardcastle countered with a frown. "I think that's enough for now. You don't look so hot."

McCormick leaned back in his chair, pulling his fingers through his hair. "I don't feel so hot," he admitted.

Hardcastle snorted at the honest remark, which was proof enough that the young man obviously needed some rest. "I don't want you to make yourself sick thinking you have to explain things to me," he said next. "You can tell me later. Right now you need to take a break."

McCormick looked suddenly distressed. "If I don't tell you now, I don't know if I'll be able to."

But the judge was standing, and waiting for McCormick to follow his example. Mark didn't move, so Hardcastle took hold of the back of his chair and pulled it out from the table. "Let's go," he said roughly. "You can pick the sofa or a spare room, but either way, you're gonna lie down."

It ended up being the sofa. Once the judge had gotten McCormick out of the chair and down the hall, it was apparent the man was practically asleep on his feet. If Hardcastle hadn't been beside him to grab his arm, Mark would have gone sprawling down the den steps. Hardcastle directed McCormick to the sofa, then went to retrieve a throw and a pillow. When he returned to the den a few minutes later, McCormick was already snoring softly.