Stable Connection

Chapter One

 

Jonathan King Jr.

 

 

            I sat on the edge of the bottom bunk in my cell reading over the letter for what felt like the millionth time; I still couldn’t wrap my head around the contents of it. I had just started building a relationship with my father over the past year but according to this letter that all came to an end; the letter announcing my fathers deaths felt like a twenty pound weight in my hands instead of the thin piece of paper that it was. Since my mother had moved me away with her when I was just two years old a relationship with my father had been basically nonexistent; we had talked on the phone a few times throughout the years but until I got locked up this last time we hardly knew anything about each other. To say that I was surprised when I got the first letter from my father would have been an understatement; why after twenty years did he want to be a part of my life now?

            I still didn’t understand my fathers sudden interest in getting to know me but from the letters that we shared over the last year I have grown to know the man that has been missing from my life since I was just a child; I was looking forward to finally being able to get to meet him face to face in a months time. Looking down at the letter in my hand once more it started to sink in that not only would I never get to meet the man face to face but I no longer would have his long thought out letters to read to help get me through the next month. Over the series of letters that we had shared within the last year I felt like I had grown to know him and connect with him more than I had with any other person in my life; even the relationship I had with my mother, the woman who had raised me from birth, I didn’t have the same connection that I was beginning to share with my father.

            We had more in common with each other than I had originally thought possible; we shared the same love for old cars, football teams, MMA fighting and countless other things. I couldn’t help but wonder how different my life would have turned out if I would have grown up on the farm with him instead of in LA with my mother; I had made more mistakes in my life than I could count on my fingers and toes growing up on the streets of LA, I have a feeling that getting in trouble on the farm would have been next to impossible. It’s not like I had a hard life in California with my mother I just chose to make bad decisions and was paying for them now; serving my third bit for distribution since I was just sixteen I almost felt more at home in prison than I did when I was actually at home. 

            Joining a gang at only fifteen my life had taken some unexpected twists and turns, I have done so many things that I regret daily and if there was a way to take them back I would do so without a second thought; after I started writing back and forth with my father I thought that maybe my life was starting to take a turn in the right direction. He had offered me a job working at Walker Stables with him once I was released but now that he was gone I could only assume that opportunity died right along with him; I didn’t know or have any relation with the Walker family, all I knew about them was what my father would tell me in the letters. My father had been working for their family for almost twenty years and bringing me in to work on the farm was something the owner had offered out of respect for my fathers loyalty to the family; I wasn’t expecting the job offer to still be available now that he passed so my only option now when I got released was to go back home to LA.

            I joined the Imperial 13 gang when I was just fifteen after being talked into how great of an idea it was by some of my friends; now six years later every one of those friends are either dead or locked up just like me. Joining a gang is relatively easy compared to trying to get out of one; to be honest the only way to get out of a gang was to disappear, if you were spotted in the area by a known member you either got yourself sucked back into the life or got yourself killed. Gangs had too much to hide to just allow members to quit and move onto other things, there was only two ways out of a gang; option number one, you served your time until you were too old to be of any use to them anymore or option number two, death; personally I was looking forward to option number three, run. I knew that the Imperial 13 gang didn’t have any connections or ties in Texas where my father worked so when he offered me the chance to move there and work with him I jumped at it; now that option was gone and I had no other choice but to go back to a life I wanted nothing more than to put behind me.