It's My Life • Shawn Hunter

127| Getting Hitched

Shawn was getting by as best as he could with his father's death by stacking empty soda cans into a pyramid in the corner of his room. Cory had tried to get in touch several times, all of which had gone ignored.

Jack walked into the room. "Hey, what's going on? I left, like ten messages. Why didn't you call me back?"

"Cause I don't want to." Shawn replied simply.

"Look, Shawn, we need to go down to Dad's trailer." Jack insisted.

Shawn turned away from the pyramid to face his brother. "What's the rush?"

Jack sighed. "Look, I know how hard this is, man, I really do, but we need to go through his stuff."

"You do it. Throw everything out." Shawn said, walking over to his brother and took the can out of his hands. "You done?"

"Yeah." Jack answered. "But Shawn, you grew up there, alright? You know what everything means. I wish I did, but I don't."

"You want to know what everything means?" Shawn questioned, facing Jack again.

Jack nodded his head. "Yeah, I want you to come down and tell me."

"No, I can tell you right here. I had a lousy relationship with my father that I don't want to relive so I ain't going." Shawn replied as he sat down on his bed.

"Shawn, we need to go down, okay? We owe it to Chet." Jack insisted.

"We don't need to do anything." Shawn said.

"What does that mean?" Jack questioned.

"It means that Chet was the only real link between us so now that he's gone, I don't think you owe anybody anything." Shawn explained bluntly as he pushed himself off the mattress to sit at the end of it.

Jack sighed. "I'll do it myself."

A knock on the door was heard to reveal a guy who lived down the hall from them, poking his head into the room. "Hey, Shawn. Your brother called a half hour ago."

Jack scoffed. "Yeah, he got the message."

••••

Later that night, Shawn found himself at the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park. He'd tried his best to push the idea out of his head because what he'd said was true; he didn't want to relive the memories.

When Shawn entered the trailer, Jack was already inside starting to clean up.

"Hey, change your mind?" Jack asked.

"I didn't mean we're not brothers.." Shawn began.

"Oh, her, forget about it." Jack said, waving him off.

"I just meant that with, you know, all this stuff that's going on between me and Zoey, Cory and Topanga together all the time, and now dad dying, I don't really feel connected to anything." Shawn explained.

"Hey, I'm here for you, man." Jack assured him.

The two brothers gave each other a quick hug.

"Okay, so, let's do this." Shawn insisted as he walked over to the fridge to take down a tin that sat on top of it. "Oh, hey, his financial portfolio." He pulled out a piece of paper. "Oh, my god! Do you know what this is?"

Jack walked over to his brother. "What?"

"His unemployment stub number one. Dad always considered this his first honest money." Shawn answered.

Shawn then tipped the rest of the papers out of the tin and onto the table for him and Jack to go through them.

"'Past due'. 'Final notice'. 'Pay up, we're not kidding this time'. Why would he want to save these?" Jack wondered.