The walk to Jack's place took a fair deal of time, and the walk took them through the lowliest parts of town. As he walked farther in the direction that Jack told him to, he found run down buildings were the norm, and reflected on his treatment of his parents. Indeed, while his life hadn’t been great, his treatment had been at least fair and comfortable.
His train of thought was lost as he stopped at Jack’s command and looked at the buildings in the area, in particular a large, run down building made of dusty red brick. The walls were corroded and graffiti ridden.
”This is my apartment house, Ty.” Jack began, “I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it was the best John, my father could do after his construction company failed- I miss those days, because we were mostly happy and John never drank…spare anniversaries.” Jack stopped for a minute. “It is what my mother can…could afford.”
Jack stopped talking and looked away.
“Could?” Asked ty.
“Well…a few months ago, I- I had condemned my John’s treatment of my mother.. I know I shouldn’t have, but three days of screaming and beatings was too much. Too much..” Jack broke out into sobs. “He- he screamed at me. He asked me if I knew what poor treatment even was. If I had smelt the alcohol on his breath before then… maybe I could have stopped it. I wouldn’t have said a thing. I wasn’t close enough to smell it when I told him to stop. I didn’t know. I…I just didn’t know.”
Ty was looking at the street, crying. Hey paid no attention to the rowdy types taunting and laughing at him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He killed her. He took her and smashed her head with a hammer he had from his old construction business. I wish it hadn’t have gone bankrupt.” He broke out into sobs once more She sat against the wall for an hour, one agonizing hour. I couldn’t even draw close to her, for fear of him hurting me too. Then she died. John, he didn’t even realize it. He just told me to clean up the mess on the wall and he went to bed. I just stared at her for hours. He woke up the next day and blamed me for it- he told me to bury the body or he would report me.”
“What did you do?”
“What else could I have done. I brought her out in the trash, but John did not like that enough. I did though, and I, I didn’t want to go to jail, so I disobeyed him. Hence why I have, or at least had the scar on my face. He hit me with one of his used bottles, but he didn’t kill me. That was the last time I ever saw remorse in his eyes.”
Ty thus resolved to bring justice to Jack..