Chapter 6 - New Chances - Jack Junior

Jack Monk, Jr., looked across the road, desperately refusing to look back at Bayside Correctional Facility. The place that he'd finally escaped legally. But Jack couldn't help himself because it was almost magnetic. Something drew his eyes to the place he'd had to call home for twelve years. He was determined, however, to get his act together. No more cons, long or short. No more grifts, no matter how rich the mark. He wanted a normal life. The kind you saw on television. He wanted to know his family. His brothers, his sister-in-law, his nieces, and his nephew. His great niece and nephew. Natalie had been kind enough to send him pictures and letters.

Jack devoured the pictures when they came and hung them with care in his cell, but he yearned for the real thing. When they'd first met in person, Jack had felt sorry for Adrian. Over the years, Adrian visited him at Bayside Correctional, and as his older brother's life evolved, Jack stopped feeling sorry and began feeling jealous. Beautiful, loyal, loving wife, gorgeous, healthy children… a successful career that made loads of legal money and made him famous. Jack had received counseling while incarcerated the last few years of this stretch inside and really felt he was up to the challenge of starting over. Ambrose suggested that he continue the counseling with a therapist recommended by Adrian's therapist.

He smiled when he thought of his other brother. He and Ambrose had quite the correspondence and phone relationship going, so Ambrose had agreed to take Jack in until he could get his shit, language, he self-corrected, himself, together. He was going to have to watch himself around Adrian and Ambrose. Manners, language, habits. That should keep him on the straight and narrow. Being accountable. To his family. To himself. At least he wouldn't be jealous of Ambrose, who is primarily agoraphobic. And maybe once he got some work and some direction, he wouldn't need to feel anything but admiration for Adrian. A bus pulled up in front of him at the appointed time at the bus stop, and he boarded. He was on the way to Tewkesbury and his new life.

𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ

Two hours later, Jack Junior was being welcomed into Ambrose's home. As Ambrose ushered his baby brother into his home, Jack looked around. So this was it. The house Ambrose and Adrian had grown up in with the three men's mutual father for a little more than an entire decade for Ambrose and eight years for Adrian. He was curious about what Jack, Sr., had been like when his two much older brothers were kids. Ambrose was 64, Adrian was 63, and Jack was still just 43. His father had been a much younger man as their father, yet he'd run out on all of them, just the same. He'd have to see him in the coming weeks and try to repair that relationship, too. Adrian and Ambrose felt that their father had done his best, and he, too, had made positive changes in his later years, so maybe there was hope for this branch of the Monk family tree yet. Jack, Sr., was living in San Fransisco, having long since retired from his last career, and was around much more now than he had been for the "boys" when they were children. The family's wounds were healing a little at a time.

Jack took his first good look at his eldest brother and smiled at the rangy man. Tall, slim, and dressed in a white shirt with a sweater vest, although it had to be at least seventy-five degrees outside. Naturally shy but always polite, Ambrose led him inside and offered him lunch.

"That would be great. I'm always hungry, Ambrose!" Jack joked and tried to bring his brother out of his shell. "What's happening here?" He pointed to several round robot-looking things in various states of disassembly, plus a rectangle thing attached to the wall, several pads of paper, pencils, and a digital camera.

"Well, I just started a complicated new instruction manual for this thing called an AutoVac Self-Cleaning Vacuum. It's the company's newest iteration of their product. Adrian is going to be in ecstasy when he sees it."

"Yeah, I'm sure he will," Jack replied with a grin, remembering the far-off time he'd stayed with Adrian and watched with fascination how his brother was always in motion. Cleaning, straightening, vacuuming. It was frenetic and kinetic and a little pathetic. But to hear Natalie tell it now, he hardly ever went into a cleaning frenzy any longer; his phobias and compulsions had significantly relaxed. It took a heavy-duty amount of stress or a really knotty case to agitate him into a frenzy like that these days. Yet, young Charlie was supposedly also a neat and clean freak. It should be interesting to meet and check him out, too.

While they ate, Ambrose and he got to know one another in a new way. Letters and photos were acceptable, but being in person was entirely different.

"So, Jack, what do you think you'll do with the rest of your life?" Ambrose inquired politely. This topic hadn't come up in their emails and letters.

"Well, I have to check in with my parole officer regularly. I have to find a job. A legal, 100% on-the-books job, and I'd like to finish school. Although maybe that last one is a waste of time."

"Those are good goals. I especially like the last one. Education, no matter how old you are, is never a waste! What are you thinking of studying?"

"I considered art history before my life took that turn for the worse. Before I allowed my life to take that turn. I might want to go back to that. I always enjoyed museums and art galleries."

"I think Adrian would like that so much. His youngest child is a wonderful artist already, and he spends a lot of time taking her to the deYoung, the McMillan, and several other museums in the area. I'll bet they both would have fun accompanying you when you have assignments and talking art with you."

"Um, isn't Emery only, like, eight-and-a-half years old?"

"Yes. But she's not like any eight-and-a-half-year-old you've ever met before. She's quite intelligent. She's quite talented. She's also exuberant and funny, which she gets entirely from Natalie. Charlie is more like Adrian and me. Intellectual, quiet, and book smart."

That Monk flare of heated jealousy reared again. Not only did Adrian have children, but of course, they were talented geniuses. Natalie hadn't really gone into detail about any gifts the kids possessed. Jack squashed the envy mercilessly. This was his family. No wasting his second chance on emotions that were stupid. "Hey, I did pretty well in school too."

"I'm not surprised," Ambrose smiled one of his rare genuine smiles, "you're a Monk too." Jack gave him an ironic half-smile and a laugh that echoed Adrian's and his own. It was so good to have another brother to share his life with. Who knew where things would go from here?

"Ambrose, thanks for taking me in, feeding me, and giving me a chance."

"Well, you're my brother; you belong here for as long as you need or want. Also, I love to cook, so feeding you is no problem. And Jack? Everyone deserves a chance."